PERSPECTIVE: New Amtrak train route doesn't help Charlottesville much

By: The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress | Culpeper Star-Exponent
Published: September 05, 2009

» The service, which runs through Culpeper, is a disappointment for Charlottesville-area residents wishing to do business in D.C.

Unless your business is brief, the new Amtrak route to D.C. won’t help you much. That’s a continuing disappointment to those who fought long and hard to persuade Amtrak to add the services of a second train along the Lynchburg-Washington corridor. And it will require a shift of emphasis to make the new route successful.

The new service launches next month and runs through Culpeper.

Supporters had envisioned a schedule allowing travelers to journey by train to D.C. in the early morning, take care of business and return to Charlottesville (or Lynchburg) in the early evening. The new service was supposed to get passengers to the capital before 9.

Instead, a later departure time was selected, and passengers will reach Washington at around 11:30.

That’s fine if all you need are a business lunch and an afternoon meeting or two. Anything more complicated would require an expensive overnight stay. And, that being the case, local businessmen and women might just decide that it’s better to drive to D.C. in the early morning, get in a full day of business and drive home at night.

Ease of doing business for residents of the Charlottesville area was just part of the goal. Another was getting people out of their cars and into economically and environmentally efficient mass transit.

In fact, it turns out that business travel isn’t what Amtrak is interested in at all, although in originally announcing the earlier train business travel it is exactly what was targeted. The rail line is first concerned about serving tourists who want more reliable access to Philadelphia, New York and other northern cities. Such a service will be taking money away from the Charlottesville community by taking tourists to other locales.

Instead, improved business travel would have served the local economy. But since the decision is made, many rail hopefuls say, the thing to do is make the best of it and support Amtrak’s tourist strategy. Any additional rail service is an improvement, they say.

They’re right about that, of course. But we’re still disappointed.