(rshsdepot) Railroad Preservation and ISTEA: Are You on Board?

["James Dent" <james.dent_@_itochu.com>]

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the landmark overhaul of Federal
surface transportation spending program known as ISTEA—the Intermodal
Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. ISTEA and its 1998
reauthorization, TEA-21, represent the most radical overhaul of Federal
surface transportation spending since the creation of the Interstate highway
system during the Eisenhower administration. In a sharp break with past
practices, which required states to spend every dollar they received from
the Federal highway trust fund to build new roads, ISTEA allows states to
use up to half their money for "flexible use" transit alternatives,
including commuter rail, light rail, subways, bike trails, or nearly any
other legitimate transportation purpose. The 1990s renaissance in rail-based
mass transit, particularly light rail, was fueled largely by the flexible
funding climate created by ISTEA and its successor, TEA-21.

What does all this have to do with railway preservation? While highway and
mass transit interests duke it out for the big multi-million dollar projects
funded with ISTEA and TEA-21 money, a relatively little-noticed provision of
these laws calls for 10% of the a state's total funding to be allocated to
"Transportation Enhancements," defined as scenic easements, bicycle and
pedestrian facilities, transit-related historic preservation, billboard
control, and stormwater run-off control. Trivial though the enhancements
program may be in the context of the total surface transportation
appropriation, it amounts, quietly and without fanfare, to the single
greatest program of Federal assistance to rail preservation in the history
of our movement.

Because ISTEA and TEA-21 enhancement programs are chosen competitively on a
state-by-state basis, there is no single national record of the number of
historical rail preservation projects undertaken with funding from this
source. It's doubtful that anyone in our movement has ever sought to compile
national figures on the total number of dollars or projects. Yet all
anecdotal evidence suggests that the impact is substantial, and that it
extends far beyond the organized rail preservation community of museums,
tourist railroads, and NRHS chapters.

For every high-profile grant conferred on a well-known rail preservation
group (the $300,000 grant received by the Michigan State Trust for Rail
Preservation for its 2-8-4 Berkshire Pere Marquette 1225 is a good example),
ISTEA and TEA-21 have also funded dozens if not hundreds of depot and
station restoration and adaptive reuse projects. Many of these projects have
been undertaken by local historic preservationists and planners with little
or no involvement from organized railroad preservationists per se.

It's hard to overemphasize how widespread and diverse the rail preservation
activities funded by ISTEA have become, and how far the impact of this
legislation has extended beyond our community. As a case in point, let me
offer you the former Pennsylvania Railroad depot in Snow Hill, MD. Worcester
County, MD received funding from the ISTEA enhancement program in 1995 to
renovate the old train station in Snow Hill and to establish a 10-mile
section of rail trail on a long-disused and lifted PRR branch running
between Snow Hill and Stockton (independent shortline Maryland and Delaware
still offers rail freight service as far as Snow Hill itself). The stucco
depot now serves as a general community center, with its exterior preserved
largely as it was in railroad use, and its interior reconfigured as meeting
spaces. To the best of my knowledge, this small project proceeded with out
anything except the most informal input from local rail historians and
enthusiasts. And yet, it represents a substantial contribution to saving the
physical heritage of railroading in this small Eastern Shore community.

For each project like this, I'm sure dozens of others could be located and
identified. There are perhaps three conclusions we can draw from this story
and others like it. First, ISTEA and its successor TEA-21 have had a
tremendous impact on making funding available for small to mid-sized rail
preservation projects. Second, as an organized community, rail
preservationists have not taken as much advantage of this program as we can.
Has your organization ever submitted an ISTEA or TEA-21 application, or
supplied research support or expert testimony in behalf of one? If not, get
involved! Even if your own preservation site cannot easily qualify for
transportation enhancement funding, you can lend expert advice and counsel
to other projects in your area which do, and which support the overall goal
of rail preservation in your region.

The third point is perhaps the hardest: as a community, we have had
regrettably little impact on defending these programs and securing their
future. To explain what I mean, contrast our activities with those of the
Rails to Trails Movement. Rail preservationists have had an uneasy
relationship with the trails movement, and our interests are not always
aligned. Yet this community lobbied actively and effectively to preserve the
Transportation Enhancements program when ISTEA was reauthorized as TEA-21 in
1998. I know of no corresponding national campaign on the rail preservation
side. To the extent that we as preservationists benefit from TEA-21
enhancement funds, we owe it in no small part to our friends and sometimes
competitors in the trails movement.

TEA-21 is out there. The money is ours for the earning with good
proposals-contact your state's Department of Transportation for applications
and details. And the money is ours to keep and defend, or ignore and lose,
when TEA-21 next comes up for reauthorization after Federal fiscal year
2003.

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