{"id":1524,"date":"2011-09-10T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-10T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/georgia-and-florida-railway-gfrr-valdosta-to-willacoochee-rehabilitation-625-million-t-splost.html"},"modified":"2011-09-10T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-10T17:00:00","slug":"georgia-and-florida-railway-gfrr-valdosta-to-willacoochee-rehabilitation-625-million-t-splost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/georgia-and-florida-railway-gfrr-valdosta-to-willacoochee-rehabilitation-625-million-t-splost.html","title":{"rendered":"Georgia and Florida Railway (GFRR) – Valdosta to Willacoochee Rehabilitation $6.25 million T-SPLOST"},"content":{"rendered":"Now here’s a T-SPLOST project I like:\nupgrading the railroad that runs\n\n<\/a>\nfrom Valdosta to Moody AFB\nand on to Ray City and Nashville in Berrien County,\nand Willacoochee in Atkinson County.\nThis proposal is to aid freight, but with this upgrade to the track,\nthe same track would be even more readily usable for passenger rail.\nThat same track was used for passenger travel up into the 1950s.\nMy mother used to catch the train at Barretts (just north of Moody) to go visit her relatives in Pearson (a bit east of Willacoochee).

\nIt’s true the project sheet talks about “potential customers in the region”:\n

\nThis project will provide for more efficient train operations along\nthe rail corridor to accommodate the increase rail traffic serving the\nexisting and potential customers in the region.\n<\/blockquote>\nHowever, rail promotes development in existing population\ncenters and at stations, unlike all along automobile roadways.\n

\nThis project is also another example of how\nthe economic area of Moody AFB includes\n\n\n\n<\/a>\nall of Lowndes County plus\nBerrien County and beyond, so Jack Kingston’s attempt to\n\ngerrymander just a green tongue lapping up Moody and part of\nthe Pine Grove precinct and the Naylor precinct but nothing else\nout of Lowndes and none of Lanier or Berrien Counties<\/a>\nis inappropriate and counter-productive to the local economy\nand communities.\n

\nHere is the entire project sheet from the\n83 page Draft Constrained T-SPLOST project report for\nthe southern region.<\/a>\n
\n

Project Sheet

<\/center>\n
\n\n
\nProject Number:<\/b><\/i>\n
\n<\/td>		\nRC11-000077\n
\n<\/td><\/tr>\n
\nProject Name:<\/b><\/i>\n
\n<\/td>		\nGeorgia and Florida Railway (GFRR) – Valdosta to Willacoochee Rehabilitation\n
\n<\/td><\/tr>\n
\nGDOT ID:<\/b><\/i>\n
\n<\/td>		\n \n
\n<\/td><\/tr>\n
\nProject Description:<\/b><\/i>\n
\n<\/td>		\nThe project is to upgrade mainline track consisting of the replacement and repair of rails, ties, ballast and bridge repairs within the mainline to bring property to a state of good repair. This project would provide for the rehabilitation of the track mainline to be brought up to Federal Railroad Administration Class 2 conditions.\n
\n<\/td><\/tr>\n
\nRegional Commission:<\/b><\/i>\n
\n<\/td>		\nSouthern Georgia\n
\n<\/td><\/tr>\n
\nCounty:<\/b><\/i>\n
\n<\/td>		\nLowndes County\n
\n<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\n\n
\nPhase<\/b><\/td>\nTotal Project Cost<\/b><\/td>\nTotal TIA Amount<\/b><\/td><\/tr>\n
\nPE<\/td>\n$250,000<\/td>\n$250,000<\/td>\n
\nCST<\/td>\n$6,000,000<\/td>\n$6,000,000<\/td>\n
\nTotal<\/b><\/td>\n$6,250,000<\/b><\/td>\n$6,250,000<\/b><\/td>\n<\/td><\/tr>\n
\nComments:<\/b><\/i>\n<\/td><\/tr>\n
\n<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\n\n
\nPublic Benefit<\/b>\n<\/td>\nNotes<\/b>\n<\/td><\/tr>\n
\nSupporting Economic\nGrowth\/Competitiveness\n<\/td>\nThis project could assist in having a positive impact on the economic vitality for this region, and in some cases possibly\nfor the entire state. Its impact could also be observed along the roadway segment, corridor, and\/or intersection. Example benefits could be: improved access to jobs; improved travel times for drivers; increased lane capacity; improved efficiency and reliability for freight cargo\/goods movement; providing border to border and inter-regional connectivity; and improve local connectivity to statewide transportation network.\n
\nMaximizing the value of\nGeorgia’s Assets\n<\/td>\nThis project could potentially maximize the full utility of an existing\ntransportation facility(s). In some cases, bypasses will be necessary.\nExample benefits could be: mitigating congestion (e.g. operational\nimprovements) and optimizing capital asset management (e.g. resurfacing,\nrehabilitation). The impacts would apply to this roadway segment,\ncorridor, and\/or intersection.\n
\nAdditional Benefits\n<\/td>\nThis project will provide for more efficient train operations along\nthe rail corridor to accommodate the increase rail traffic serving the\nexisting and potential customers in the region.\n<\/td><\/tr>\n<\/table>\n
\nProject Location<\/b><\/i>
\n\n<\/a>\n<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now here’s a T-SPLOST project I like: upgrading the railroad that runs from Valdosta to Moody AFB and on to Ray City and Nashville in Berrien County, and Willacoochee in Atkinson County. This proposal is to aid freight, but with this upgrade to the track, the same track would be even more readily usable for […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[40,14,49,203,2,19,88,570,571,21,22,1177,3,449,780],"tags":[2620,3821,889,3822,549,8717,3824,8704,1484,3825,2612,8701,3823,2702,1547,8709,1566,7,8783,3175,8784,3276,1546,3820,1147,8822,60,6,985],"class_list":["post-1524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-economy","category-elections","category-florida","category-government","category-history","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-military","category-moody-afb","category-planning","category-politics","category-t-splost","category-transparency","category-transportation","category-travel","tag-air-force","tag-atkinson-county","tag-austin-scott","tag-barretts","tag-berrien-county","tag-community","tag-community-of-interest","tag-economy","tag-election","tag-ga-01","tag-ga-08","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-and-florida-railway","tag-gerrymander","tag-gfrr","tag-history","tag-jack-kingston","tag-lowndes-county","tag-military","tag-moody","tag-moody-afb","tag-nashville","tag-railroad","tag-ray-city","tag-sales-tax","tag-t-splost","tag-tax","tag-valdosta","tag-willacoochee"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-oA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}