Nevada State Rail Plan NEVADA Nevada Department of Transportation STATE RAIL PLAN March 2012 Policy Statement Nevada hereby sets forth its 2012 State Rail Plan as the state’s rail policy, consistent with the intentions of Congress as expressed in the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA). This Plan reflects Nevada's leadership, with public and private transport providers at the state, regional, and local levels, to expand and enhance passenger and freight rail and better integrate rail into the larger transportation system. The 2012 Nevada State Rail Plan: Provides a plan for freight and passenger rail transportation in the state; Prioritizes projects and describes intended strategies to enhance rail service in the state to benefit the public; Establishes the five-year period covered by the Plan; and Serves as the basis for federal and state investments in Nevada. The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) prepared this Plan and is the state rail transportation authority that will also maintain, coordinate, and administer it. This plan was presented to the Nevada Statewide Technical Advisory Committee (STTAC) on April 2, 2012. The Nevada State Transportation Board, comprised of the Governor, the Lt. Governor, the Attorney General, the Controller, and three public members, adopted the Nevada State Rail Plan on September 10, 2012. The Director of the Nevada Department of Transportation attests to the adoption of this 2012 Nevada State Rail Plan Nevada State Rail Plan as the state’s official policy document for rail: 1 ______________________________ Rudy Malfabon, P.E., Director ___________, 2012 Summary Summary This document is written to provide the state of Nevada with a plan for implementing passenger and freight rail service improvements in the state, as well as guide multi-state initiatives, and to fulfill the requirements of the 2008 federal Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act (PRIIA). The plan has a multimodal passenger and intermodal freight focus designed to be compatible with highway, air, and transit modes operating in and through the state. A. Coordination and Outreach A comprehensive public information and outreach program was used to engage project stakeholders in the planning process to develop the Nevada state rail plan. The program included identifying the stakeholders, creating north and south technical advisory committees with industry experts, hosting multiple committee and public information meetings, soliciting stakeholder input through surveys and interviews, and developing a series of electronic and hard copy information materials. Project information was disseminated through correspondence, technical advisory committee and public meetings, including WebEx conferencing, printed collateral materials, and an interactive website to inform stakeholders and the public about project status and outcomes. B. Mission, Vision, Goals & Objectives The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) strongly supports transportation opportunities whether they involve highways, runways, or railroads and will work with all partners on opportunities within the state. NDOT does not specifically endorse the development of any one project over another. NDOT created the following mission statement to guide its efforts in developing the state rail plan: NDOT will work with passenger and freight rail transportation stakeholders to develop and provide enhanced rail transportation infrastructure and services that address the transportation needs of the state and that improve the overall quality of Nevada State Rail Plan life, safety, security, and environmental/economic sustainability for the citizens of Nevada. This mission statement reflects the fact that Amtrak and private operators, notably Union Pacific i Railroad, rather than NDOT, provide and fund passenger and freight rail services available in Nevada. Thus, Nevada’s role is one of supporting, coordinating, and enhancing the services these third-party owner/operators provide, rather than taking on the role of owning and operating its own rail facilities and services. The following separate passenger and freight rail vision statements, tailored to the distinctive needs of each, were developed to describe the additional potential for future rail development and growth in the state and to inspire stakeholders to take the actions necessary to implement the state rail plan. The vision for passenger rail transportation in Nevada is to develop a passenger rail system that provides the traveling public with a safe, secure, attractive, energy- efficient, cost-effective, and reliable alternative choice to auto, bus, and air transportation, with intermodal connectivity that enhances economic and environmentally sustainable travel within, to, and through the state. The vision for freight rail transportation in Nevada is to have an economically- competitive freight rail system that moves goods efficiently and expeditiously across the state and is fully integrated with interstate and intrastate shipping modes, thereby relieving highway congestion and improving the overall safety and quality of life for the traveling public and the citizens of Nevada. In addition, a series of goals and objectives were developed to provide big-picture strategic guidance for developing rail in the state, as follows: Goal 1 – Enhance the safe operating efficiency of the state’s rail transportation system. o Objective a: Work with adjacent states to achieve a regional transportation solution. o Objective b: Provide enhanced rail system connectivity to other modes of transportation, especially in the state’s major transportation hubs of Las Vegas, Reno, and Elko. o Objective c: Promote congestion relief on the state’s rail lines and on its interstate highway network o Objective d: Enhance rail safety and security, including accommodating Positive Train Control (PTC) measures Goal 2 – Optimize Nevada’s rail potential to effectively address social, economic, environmental, and energy effects. o Objective a: Plan for high-speed passenger rail services o Objective b: Address the potential for trade and economic development o Objective c: Realize positive air quality gains and reduce energy consumption with effective passenger and freight rail operations o Objective d: Maximize sustainability Goal 3 – Develop an organizational structure and strategies yielding a streamlined ii process for implementing Nevada’s rail transportation improvements. o Objective a: Identify and prioritize rail infrastructure improvements. o Objective b: Identify funding strategies for rail improvements o Objective c: Prepare an organizational chart and legislative procedures to accomplish rail improvements C. Existing Rail in Nevada Nevada’s geography and historic development patterns have resulted in two primary rail corridors, which generally run east-west across the state, along with a few supplemental branch and excursion lines. The Union Pacific Railroad operates both the northern and the southern east-west corridors, as a result of mergers; BNSF Railway has trackage rights on nearly three- quarters of the Union Pacific Railroad trackage in Nevada as a condition of the mergers. The two-route northern corridor serves Reno, as well as other northern Nevada communities, and connects with Salt Lake City and Denver to the east and with Sacramento and the San Francisco area to the west. Amtrak operates once-a-day passenger rail service in each direction across this northern Nevada corridor; I-80 generally parallels the rail lines in this corridor. The southern corridor serves Las Vegas and connects it with Salt Lake City to the northeast and with Los Angeles to the southwest. Amtrak discontinued providing service in this corridor some 15 years ago; I-15 generally parallels the single-track rail line in this corridor. The state lacks north-south through rail or interstate highway linkages, thus, Las Vegas is not connected to Reno or with nearby Phoenix to the southeast. A total of 191 million net tons of freight moved across Nevada by rail in 2009, of which 96 percent was through-traffic with origins and destination outside the state. Three percent of the rail traffic flow originated outside Nevada with an in-state destination, and less than one percent originated in Nevada with a destination outside the state. D. Proposed Rail Improvements Nu merous suggestions w ere ma de for rail service to be cons idered in this plan. These suggestions a nd projects can generally be grouped into one of four categories: 1. Suggestions requiring further study and development to define and evaluate them before they can be included for implementation in the state rail plan. 2. Possible projects, which have been studied, but which have current implementation issues precluding them from advancing at this time. Nevada State Rail Plan 3. Requests for freight rail service changes, which may best be addressed directly with the railroad service providers. 4. Potential projects, recommended for inclusion in the state rail plan. iii The recommended projects included in the Nevada state rail plan involve a combination of private and public-sector conventional and high speed passenger rail, freight rail, excursion rail, and rail-highway grade crossing improvements to be made in the short-, mid-, and long-term. The following are the key projects included in the Nevada state rail plan for the next five years: the X-Train conventional passenger rail service between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, a private company venture