Carolina rail group lobbies SC to invest in passenger rail | Columbia News | postandcourier.com

Local Government Reporter

Josh Archote covers the city of Columbia and Richland County forthe Post and Courier. He graduated from Louisiana State Universityand has written for the Tampa Bay Times.

COLUMBIA — In 1999, South Carolina was all in on passenger rail.

The state was involved in a regional plan to build a passenger rail network in the Southeast that would help ease congested interstates and overburdened airports.

“We intend to create a corridor of national significance that will rival the interstate highway system in terms of benefits to our region,” Elizabeth Mabry, then the director of S.C. Department of Transportation, said in a planning document.

Two decades later — though long distance Amtrak routes connect the Southeast's biggest cities — officials' vision for the impact of intercity passenger rail in South Carolina has not been realized.

While neighboring states like North Carolina have invested heavily in passenger rail, the dream has largely been abandoned by state leaders in South Carolina, where the emphasis has been on improving the highway system for the quickly growing state.

South Carolina officials' expectations for passenger rail in the late '90s were immense.

Leaders envisioned a network of routes whose impact would rival the economic boom created by the mid-20th century construction of interstates 95 and 85.

“The Southeast increasingly lives in a world framed by congested interstate highways and an overburdened airport and airway infrastructure," a 1999 four-state regional planning document reads. "Improvements and alternate travel choices are clearly needed."

The planning document, titled “Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor: A time to act,” laments the high costs and unsustainable attitude of simply adding more lanes to highways, as well as the environmental benefits associated with passenger rail.

The same year, North Carolina, South Carolina and Amtrak collaborated to run a test train from Columbia to Charlotte to gauge interest in a passenger rail line between the two cities.

In 1999, South Carolina officials envisioned a passenger rail network that would rival its interstate highways. The state has largely given up on that dream.

Former Columbia Mayor Howard Coble and longtime Richland County Councilman Paul Livingston were enthusiastic about the project, saying that mass transit was key to future success in the Midlands, according to a passenger rail newsletter from that time.

The project faltered.

The idea of a Columbia-Charlotte line was brought up again in 2011, when the Central Midlands Council of Governments met with North Carolina transportation and Amtrak officials to discuss a passenger rail line between the cities. The idea was to establish a passenger rail line on an existing 113-mile freight line.

Ultimately, South Carolina doubled down on roads and planes instead of investing in alternatives.

The state’s transportation department has, in recent years, devoted much of its funding to interstate widening projects. SCDOT is also responsible for maintaining the fourth largest state-maintained road system in the U.S.

South Carolina residents’ only access to passenger rail is through the federally-funded Amtrak train routes. Four lines pass through the state:

The state has seen a steady decrease in ridership on those lines since 2013, though it does seem to be rebounding after the Covid-19 pandemic, data from SCDOT shows. Amtrak recently announced a new temporary line that offers SC residents a straight shot to Chicago.

In 1999, South Carolina officials envisioned a passenger rail network that would rival its interstate highways. The state has largely given up on that dream.

Amtrak’s passenger rail service, and its opportunities in South Carolina, face significant challenges. Amtrak has long noted that because it operates much of its system on existing freight lines and has to yield to freight trains, its arrival times are often delayed and trips take much longer.

A 3.5 hour flight from Columbia to Miami, for example, would take roughly 17 hours via Amtrak.

Those federal lines are the only passenger rail options in SC. The state’s transportation department doesn’t spend any money on passenger rail, only its extensive freight network.

In 1999, South Carolina officials envisioned a passenger rail network that would rival its interstate highways. The state has largely given up on that dream.

There aren’t any plans on the horizon for SCDOT, according to their multimodal planning manager, David Gray. He said the state’s lack of investment is because there hasn’t been enough signals from the public that such a service is wanted.

“With passenger rail … there was a die off, or a lack of demand for passenger rail with the advent of the National Highway System and air travel,” Gray said. “It just became easier for people to drive and fly. And our response has been, this is what the general public has wanted. And so, as a result, our actions really have been dictated by what the general public has wanted.”

The story is quite different for North Carolina.

The North Carolina transportation department’s rail division co-operates and helps fund two Amtrak routes in the state, including a daily route between Charlotte and Raleigh. The state reported climbing ridership numbers in 2024.

“They've had a very progressive and proactive rail department for 40 years now,” said Martin Wheeler, president of the Carolina Association for Passenger Trains, which advocates for more service in the Carolinas. The organization was born in the ‘80s specifically to advocate for more passenger rail service between Charlotte and Raleigh.

“States like North Carolina and Virginia, they're very proactive in trying to get all the possibilities they can because they see a value in Rail Passenger Service,” Wheeler said, “because of the environmental aspects of being cleaner and better for the environment, and also the fact that it’s a more efficient movement of people.”

North Carolina applied for and received seven federal grants for the study of new passenger rail corridors in the state, one of which would run from Charlotte to Atlanta. South Carolina, meanwhile, did not submit any requests. Wheeler said that his organization's goal is to push SC officials to apply for some in the next go-around, including for lines between Columbia and Charleston, Columbia and Charlotte, and Greenville and Columbia.

“A lot of the locals would love to see it,” Wheeler said. “We can't get any support from the state, which is really a road centric-state, for the most part.”

The Georgia Department of Transportation has also taken small steps toward building a high-speed passenger rail line between Atlanta and Charlotte, which would make two stops in the Upstate.

In April, state lawmakers Robert Williams and Marvin Pendarvis introduced legislation that would have authorized the study of the use of freeway right of way for future passenger rail. The idea was that South Carolina could receive direct payment from a private rail company for use of its right of ways to build a passenger rail line in the state.

That would have included possible light-rail lines between Columbia and Charleston or Columbia and Charlotte, built adjacent to existing highways.

The study would have explored the cost of the state’s continued reliance on widening highways, and how much money and carbon emissions could be saved by including passenger rail as a more balanced approach to transportation in the state.

But the legislation died.

According to Yu Qian, a University of South Carolina engineering professor who leads the school's railway engineering program, any kind of major passenger rail project in SC will likely come from a private high-speed rail company such as Brightline, which currently operates high-speed rail lines in Florida.

The company operates a high-speed line between Orlando and Miami. They are working on building another route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

According to Qian, the biggest challenge for passenger rail in the U.S. is that it typically doesn't pay for itself and relies heavily on government subsidies. According to Wheeler and Qian, the political willpower in South Carolina simply isn't there.

Still, Qian thinks that over time, the tide will shift.

"If we have regular train service that is punctual, from Atlanta to Charlotte, I'm not going to drive myself," Qian said. "If you ask me whether it will take off or not, I think it will. It just will take more time, because railway transportation is way more efficient."

Local Government Reporter

Josh Archote covers the city of Columbia and Richland County forthe Post and Courier. He graduated from Louisiana State Universityand has written for the Tampa Bay Times.

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