Columbia gets $204M federal windfall to reroute trains that often gnarl downtown roads
Columbia just got a windfall of federal dollars that should finally cover most, if not all, of the costs to reroute trains away from vehicle traffic around downtown.
The long-wished-for project will get $204 million from the Federal Railroad Administration, Congressman James Clyburn announced Friday while joined by members of Columbia City Council and South Carolina Department of Transportation Secretary Justin Powell.
Columbia officials have dreamed of separating the railroads from the roadways for more than a century. They’ve been raising money for the work since the early 1990s.
“What is going to happen when all of this is done, we will have cured that problem that has been there forever,” Clyburn said. “Getting trains to move as they should.”
There are more than a dozen railroad crossings in around downtown Columbia, mostly focused down Assembly Street where seemingly unending freight trains roll through with little warning, causing major traffic backups in one of the city’s busiest areas.
Previously, officials estimated the project would cost upwards of $200 million. Now, that estimate ranges from $265 to $305 million, depending on exactly how the trains are rerouted.
In total, the transportation department has $279 million for the work, including some other federal dollars, $35 million from South Carolina, $25 million from the next iteration of the Richland County penny tax fund and $5 million from the city of Columbia’s general fund.
The news of the federal money comes as the state Department of Transportation is about to finalize its choice for the best way to reroute that train traffic away from vehicles.
In early December, the department showed residents the final three options for rerouting that traffic would look like. All of the plans call for a dramatic reshaping of a portion of downtown, including building new bridges and relocating homes and bridges.
The department has been collecting public input on those plans for the last month. In March, it will host a public hearing to unveil the final plan. Whatever plan they pick will mean major construction once work begins.
“We are talking about a monumental project,” Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann said at the Friday press conference, adding that the construction will certainly have some impact on residents but that it will ultimately transform Columbia.
“This is a game changer for Columbia,” Rickenmann said. “It opens up the gateway, it opens up the whole realm of our downtown city, It makes us an urban center.”
But just because the money to cover at least most of the work is now on the table doesn’t mean residents will see construction any time soon.
Rickenmann said he and other city officials will be having conversations with the transportation department and project leaders to find ways to minimize the impacts the project construction is sure to have. For example, one of the rerouting plans involves building a bridge either for vehicles or for railroad tracks. Rickenmann said there’s a potential that bridge would be built off-site and then transported to its final site.
But residents have a few years before they need to worry about that, he added.
The Department of Transportation will still need to get some federal approvals, including complying with the National Environmental Policy Act, and then it will begin designing the work in earnest.
