RAIL RENAISSANCE By Hugh L. McColl, Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Bank of America Remarks to the Southeastern Economic Alliance Charlotte, North Carolina March 19, 2001 …introduction given by Dan DuPree, president and chief operating officer, Cousins Properties - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Thank you, Dan, and good morning. It’s great to be here with you – although I have to admit I’m not in the best humor after watching my Tar Heels come up short again yesterday. I know we’ve got our share of Blue Devils, Cavaliers and Deacons here as well, so I was hoping I’d have something to crow about today. We probably have some Yellow Jackets too, but I don’t think anybody worries about them. This is the best reason I can think of to be in favor of high-speed rail in the Southeast – we can all get around to the basketball games faster. Getting around, of course, is why we’re all here. We know we’re going to need better, faster, safer, cleaner and more efficient ways of getting around our region in years to come. We also know that in about a month I’ll be hunting quail in South Texas…and I may not come back. So I’m not sure this is going to be my problem. Let’s just say I’ve got my boots on and I wish y’all the best. I’m joking, of course. But just a little… In fact, this is my problem, because I have children and grandchildren who will be living, working and raising families in this region long after I’m gone. So you should know that I care very deeply about the economic and environmental future of this place. As I said, we’re here because we know we’re going to need better ways to get around. But the first step is getting together – and that's why I’m so pleased that all of you made the effort to be here for this meeting. Creating an infrastructure project of the magnitude we’re proposing in today’s political environment is no small feat. Success will require of us extraordinary commitment, cooperation and leadership. Perhaps most important, it will require all of us working together. So thank you for being here, and thank you for your commitment to our shared vision of high-speed rail in the Southeast. The reason I’m here is simple. I may be retiring, but I’m not leaving. Charlotte is my home, and I’ve been a Southerner all my life. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve seen our region change dramatically over the past half century, and it seems pretty clear to me that the pace of change in our society will only increase in our new century. I look around at our towns and cities, which until very recently were almost all still small enough that we could pursue economic growth and development without really worrying about the effects of our actions. But today our highways and airports are filled to overflowing, energy resources are strained and our environment is beginning to show signs of wear and tear from overuse and lack of conservation. So I’m here to lend my voice to those who are calling for an alternative regional transportation system that will complement our highways and airways. I want to talk about why I think we have a very real need for high-speed rail in the Southeast – and how high-speed rail can help us build a strong, healthy and growing region for the future. * * * Now, before I really get started on why I think we should build a high-speed rail system, I want to tell a couple of stories. The first one, I hope, will give us a bit of inspiration for our cause. The second one might make us laugh – if it doesn’t make us cry. The first person to propose an electric railway connection between Dallas, Texas and the town of Denton, to the north, was J. Mercer Carter, a Dallas businessman, in 1906. Carter was never able to put together any backing for his idea, and over the next decade several groups tried and failed to build a railway that would bring people from the region together, save time for travelers and stimulate economic growth. Finally, in 1917, a combination of politicians and businesspeople (much like the gathering we have here today) put together a plan that was visionary and workable, and for which they were able to rally the public’s support. The plan was carried out by C.W. Hobson and J.F. Strickland, who founded the Texas Interurban Railway Company. When the line opened for business on October 1, 1924, the Interurban Company’s general manager, Richard Merriweather, had this to say: It is [our] hope that this line may be the means of bringing the peoples of the area traversed into more intimate contact…to the end that this incomparably rich territory may bud and bloom with renewed vitality and experience a growth and development commensurate with its virgin resources and virile citizenship. I would argue that what we need today is not much different than what Texans needed in 1924: to bring the people of our area into more intimate contact, to renew the vitality of the region and to encourage economic growth and development. There are two key differences between now and then: First, the Texas Interurban was ultimately done in by the rising popularity of the automobile. We are now urging high-speed rail in the Southeast in part because of the excessive popularity of the automobile. Second, I would no longer describe any of our resources – natural or otherwise – as virgin. I’m not sure what word I’d choose, but I know that wouldn’t be it. It’s time now for us to think not just about how to use our resources, but also how to conserve them. My other story would be funny if it weren’t so sad. A few years ago, one of our top executives had to go to São Paulo on business. Now, São Paulo is a city of about 17 million people and, to be honest, I don’t know if there’s any way to build a city for 17 million people that works well. But when he got to his hotel and called his client to let him know he had arrived, the client said – and I’m paraphrasing – "You’re about five miles away and you’ll never make it through the traffic. Just go up to the roof and I’ll send my helicopter over to pick you up." This is a true story. If you’ve ever been stuck in traffic on I-85 or I-40 in the Triangle…or on I-77 or I-85 in Charlotte…or if you’ve ever had to sit on the tarmac at one of our major airports for an hour waiting for ten other airplanes to take off or land before yours could use the runway…you understand why one would resort to a private helicopter if one had the means to do so. And if you’ve ever been to New York, Washington, D.C. or Atlanta you know that we will never build our way out of highway congestion by focusing only on roads. Those cities have been adding new lanes and new highways for decades, and I haven’t heard anyone claim that highway travel is faster, easier or less congested today than it was 30 years ago. The fact is that people have a certain tolerance for highway congestion. So when you build new highways, you don’t create more room for existing traffic. You simply invite more traffic to join the party. The same is true of air traffic – the more capacity we create, the more we use, leading to congestion in our airports and our skies. Of course, the most obvious result of all this congestion is the aggravation we feel when our transportation systems let us down. But even more serious is the effect that over-reliance on cars and airplanes has on our resources and our environment. Simply put, they burn a lot of fuel and throw off a lot of pollution. My purpose here today is not to demonize our cars and airplanes, or to argue that we should abandon our highways and airports. On the contrary, travel by road and by air will always be critical components of our transportation infrastructure. Indeed, they may always be the primary components of our transportation infrastructure. But we know that our population and its need to travel among the cities of our region will grow dramatically in the years to come. We can see that other regions have not solved transportation problems simply by building more roads. We also know that natural resources are not unlimited, and our environment – the only one we have – is not immune to our abuses. So what I’m here to say is this: High-speed rail – which is efficient, environmentally sound and a staple of mass transit in many other developed countries – is a bold solution, and an idea whose time has come for our region. Now I’d like to take just a few minutes to talk about the benefits of high-speed rail as I see them. * * * I like to think of the benefits of high-speed rail falling into three categories. First, it provides another transportation alternative for people who want choices, and it’s the one piece of our infrastructure in which we are sorely under-invested. Second, high-speed rail will offer a solid return on investment and an economic boost to the region. Third, it is an environmentally-friendly transportation solution in an age when most of our travel would be better described as environmentally-hostile. I’ll touch on each of these points briefly. Why do we need another transportation alternative? Well, we know that cars and airplanes are wildly popular. And, most of us also would agree that today our highways and airports are already overburdened. But over the next 15-20 years, as the Southeast is projected to sustain the highest growth rate in the country, traffic on our urban highways is expected to increase 400 percent. And within the next two years, east coast airports linking the Northeast to the Southeast – which already report that one out of every four flights is late – will generate about 20,000 hours of flight delays annually. There is no question we need to continue to build new roads and runways to ease these burdens. But we should not limit ourselves with narrow thinking, resorting only to the solutions we know. High-speed rail is a third option for regional, inter-city transit that will compete favorably with cars and air travel on speed, cost and convenience. Not everyone will want to use rail – and not everyone needs to. But if we do it right, enough people will use rail to ease the burden on the other two main legs of our transportation infrastructure. With more transportation options and the burden of regional transit spread over a more diverse infrastructure, all our cities and towns will become more attractive places to live and work. Rail corridors will become corridors of growth, and rail stations will be catalysts for urban renewal. In fact, studies indicate that full implementation of high-speed rail in the Southeast will result in more than $2.50 in economic benefits for every dollar invested. And the dollars invested aren’t all that daunting – the $4-to-6 billion needed to develop the Southeast high-speed rail corridor compares well with other projects that offer less far-reaching impact. For example, Atlanta’s airport expansion will cost $5.2 billion; expansion of 310 miles of I-81 in Virginia will cost $3.3 billion; and the 7.5 mile "Big Dig" urban tunnel project in Boston will cost $11 billion. By creating jobs, encouraging sustainable development and improving overall quality of life, high-speed rail will help us maintain and expand the economic growth we’ve enjoyed in the Southeast for so long. Certainly not least important – and perhaps most important – high-speed rail is good for the environment. I still have friends who insist that environmentalists are in hysterics over nothing – and yet we had a record number of "unhealthy air day warnings" in Charlotte last year. Visibility in the western North Carolina mountains is a fraction of what it used to be. And we’ve come to accept – even take for granted – a constant pall of smog and haze hanging over many of our communities. There are those who say that our ability to damage the earth’s environment is small and insignificant. But I don’t remember being warned by the government to avoid going outside or breathing the air when I was growing up. By inducing some portion of our citizens to get out of their cars on occasion and use a relatively clean mode of mass transportation, we will take an important step toward protecting our environment – the only one we have. * * * After the Texas Interurban opened for business in 1924, a young boy named John Ed Ballentine, who lived on a farm outside of Denton with his family, made an entry in his journal about his first experience on the railway. Mr. Ballentine passed away in 1996. But this is what he wrote in his childhood journal about his experience on the Interurban: One of the most thrilling events of my childhood happened in 1924. The electric railway called the Interurban had recently been installed… My dad and I took our horse and buggy to Denton, arriving before daylight. We boarded that trolley-driven car and went to the State Fair in Dallas, watching the sun come up along the way. Dad and I had a fantastic day. In the future, someone like John Ed Ballentine could be a young man from Greensboro who gets to sleep in and take his time before taking the high-speed railway down to Charlotte for a Sunday afternoon Panthers game … or a college student from College Park, Maryland, who takes the train with his fraternity brothers to watch the Terrapins lose badly in Chapel Hill … or a mom who gets on the train in Atlanta with her whole family to visit friends anywhere up and down the east coast. The point is that we can talk forever about the studies, the numbers and the evidence. It’s important to know that travel by rail is the safest way to get around in the country. It makes our case that high-speed rail is among the most environmentally-friendly form of transportation available. And it’s useful to consider that high-speed rail will spur economic development throughout our region. But the real story here is about people – people who will lead better, safer, healthier and richer lives because we had the courage to pursue a bold solution to a big problem, and do the right thing. The man who will succeed me as chairman and CEO at the bank, Ken Lewis, recently published an editorial in The Charlotte Observer arguing in favor of a package of development projects for our center city. In his column, Ken wrote that we are sometimes presented with a rare opportunity to take "bold, collective, community action" to move our society forward. The Southeastern high-speed rail corridor presents us with one such opportunity. To borrow Ken’s phrase, "We should seize it." Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak here this morning. It’s been a pleasure.