ROANOKE, VA – Millions of tractor-trailers travel Virginia’s highways every year.
Drivers we spoke with say they make commutes crowded and sometimes dangerous. But now, the state says freight rail is helping take trucks off the road.
“They’re just everywhere. And they’re not, they don’t pay attention to your smaller cars. That’s why I drive a bigger SUV,” driver Sarah Dogan said.
Sarah Dogan drives up and down Interstate 81 for work, spending hours each week navigating highways packed with tractor trailers.
“The trucks have to go slower just because they have so much weight that they’re pulling,” she said.
One way Virginia is cutting truck traffic: freight rail.
Last year, rail diverted 16 million tractor-trailers from the roads.
One railcar replaces about 3½ trucks, and nearly 4.8 million railcars rolled across the state.
“Safer, cleaner and cheaper,” Chief of Rail Transportation with the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation said.
Stock says freight rail is making highways safer, reducing congestion, and saving money on road maintenance.
“For every truck that’s not on the highway, it leaves more room for the drivers that are there,” Stock said.
Stock says freight rail won’t eliminate trucks.
“Rail isn’t the appropriate mode of transportation for every single type of freight, so being able to maximize that infrastructure helps with traffic flow for those trucks that need to be on the highway,” Stock said.
Truck diversion has been climbing every year since 2017.
Virginia’s targeted rail programs — like the Rail Preservation Fund, Rail Industrial Access, and the FREIGHT program — help businesses shift freight from highways to rail.
“Our goal every year is to be responsible with taxpayer funding. Obviously, that’s where the money comes from for these programs, so we want to be as responsible as possible. We see that number going up, the truck diversion number and the benefits going up from year to year, so we like to make sure that that is increasing,” Stock said.
Some drivers are skeptical.
“That can be a viable option, I guess, but I think that we would be moving backwards. I don’t think we’re going to go back to trains,” one driver said.
But drivers like Dogan are hopeful.
“It might cut down on a lot of the accidents that you see. It might make a big difference,” she said.