Study will examine rail service through Delaware to Ocean City

Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on their way to the Delaware beaches, many are the drivers who imagine being whisked to their vacations on board a spacious and comfortable high-speed train.

Transportation agencies in Maryland and Delaware are preparing to study the feasibility of passenger rail service from New Castle County to Ocean City, Md., but officials say beachgoers shouldn’t plan on traveling by train anytime soon.

The $900,000 Downstate Intercity Rail Connection Study is just a preliminary look at how many people might use the train to travel between the region and major cities in the Northeast.

Those who drive between Dover and Wilmington for work each day should also cool their heels, since the study won’t focus on commuter rail.

“This is not the big exciting news about passenger rail service coming to Dover, that’s not what it’s about,” said Mike Williams, a spokesman for the Delaware Department of Transportation.

Williams said the study relates to how this area could be connected to the high-speed Amtrak lines serving the Washington, D.C.-to-Boston corridor.

“Locations across the country were eligible to apply for localized grants that would help them review the demand and need for services that are not currently on the high-speed network,” he said.

Half of the money for the study will come from the federal stimulus package, DelDOT will cover $405,000 of the costs and Maryland will pick up the remaining $45,000.

Williams said the study will take two years to complete. After that, it would take years and millions to move forward with any effort to actually construct a passenger rail system serving lower Delaware, he said.

Any passenger rail service would have to have its own tracks, since sharing lines with the freight trains that run from north to south wouldn’t be workable.

“If there is sufficient demand, it would have to continue in further steps — engineering, environmental. Those things are just a nightmare,” he said. “We can’t predict what today what the study will show us or what the results will mean.”

Public input on the possibility of downstate rail service has been supportive.

“The comments that we’re getting are positive; they’re basically saying it’s about time,” said Jim Galvin, principal planner with the Dover/Kent Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The MPO is charged with vetting the study in the community, a process DelDOT must go through before spending money on the endeavor.

But even though the public likes the idea of train service, Galvin said studies in recent years have shown the numbers don’t justify new tracks and trains.

“In the past decade there have been a couple of rail studies looking at commuter rail, daily passenger rail between here and the northern part of the state,” he said. “The conclusion of all these studies we’ve seen to date has been there isn’t sufficient interest or readership down here.”

In spite of those calculations, officials know that if rail came to the Delmarva it would help the traffic situation.

“Maryland decided to piggyback on Delaware’s study so the study would extend its scope the few miles further south to Ocean City,” said Erin Henson, spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Transportation. “If the study shows that the service is feasible and competitive, the potential is that this alternate rail option could reduce tourist traffic on the Bay Bridge and Maryland’s Eastern Shore highways.”

Galvin said demand for rail service could be growing, on the passenger and commuter sides.
“Look at the ridership of the inter-county bus services,” he said. “It’s got several buses a day and several buses are jammed packed. There’s a lot of people making that trip.”

Email Doug Denison at doug.denison@doverpost.com.