Michigan will be receiving $150 million to develop a high-speed rail corridor between Kalamazoo and Dearborn. And it will go right through Ann Arbor.
The announcement was made Monday and the funding will come through the High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Grant Program. The U.S. Dept of Transportation also announced a second grant, for $3.2 million, that will pay for planning involved in the project.
Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje has long been working on the commuter rail portion of the wider regional rail project. It was announced in May that the tracks would be upgraded to handle train traffic to speeds of 110 miles per hour, and also recently, it was announced that Dearborn would be getting funds for a new station.
"What we've needed are improvements ... that allows freight and passenger trains to pass," Hieftje says. "With this money, we're probably just a year and a half, two years away from Amtrak running full speed the whole route."
This is one of the last pieces to be put into place for a high-speed system. Hieftje points out that like Europe, we have the advantage of existing rail lines. States like California will have to spend billions on infrastructure in order accommodate high speed service. While our rails won't see the kind of trains that Europe boasts, the service will be a big improvement over what we have today.
Hieftje says the Ann Arbor stop is the busiest for Amtrak in Michigan, so this step is important because of the potential for commuter rail and what it could do for the city. An estimated 70,000 people commute to work in Ann Arbor daily, most by car.
"What we need is to bring more of these 70,000 people into town without their cars," he says. "If we can provide a new avenue, that's going to be very important."
A Fuller Street station at the base of the hospital would be important for the large hospital work force and would would be better situated to handle the potential volume of commuters. Ann Arbor's Depot Street depot is ill-suited for this kind of use, he says.
"Depot is blocked by traffic," Hieftje adds. "That whole area is inundated with people coming from US-23 trying to get into the medical complex, and people leaving on that same corridor in the afternoon."
Also part of the larger vision is an inner-city commuter that could connect with the regional commuter. These upgrades and improvements will correct problems that have been thwarting the development of a local commuter rail for years.
Hieftje feels that discussions of creating greater commuter rail service have often neglected the potential rise in Transit Oriented Development (TOD). He points to Portland, OR, which has seen $8 to $10 million in private investment made for every $1 million in public dollars dedicated to rail development.
"I have spoken with leaders in Ypsilanti who believe 1,000 people would move there to be close to a rail station that would deliver them to the UM Medical Center and beyond in 10 minutes," says Hieftje."The economic benefits of commuter rail would be felt all along the system. That’s one reason Dearborn is excited about this. I can imagine Lowertown in A2 being built as residential because people would be a 10 minute walk from anywhere if they had easy access to the Fuller Street Station."
"It's a pretty exciting announcement," Hieftje adds. "It's another step in something that we've been working on for quite some time. I think it's going to make life better for everybody in the region."
It was also announced in January that Michigan would be receiving $40 million in high-speed rail funding for train station development. The high-speed rail news comes on the heel of another funding announcement to the tune of $13.9 million for the rebuild of two Stadium Boulevard bridges over State Street and the railroad tracks.
Source: John Hieftje, mayor of Ann Arbor
Writer: Kristin Lukowski
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