High speed rail could be in Savannah's future

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By Michelle Paynter - bio | email

SAVANNAH, GA (WTOC) - Getting from Savannah to other major cities across the Southeast may soon be a little easier.

Today Chatham County commissioners gave their go-ahead to Georgia Department of Transportation to build a high speed rail between Savannah and Macon.

Last month President Barack Obama announced he had set aside $8 billion in his stimulus package to start building rail corridors nationwide.

One of those tracks could run from Savannah to Macon, from there to Charlotte, Columbia, Jacksonville, Atlanta and beyond.

April Kattner said anything that makes the trip to Atlanta faster, she's all for. "Less traffic, especially merging from 16 to 75," she said.

Currently the only high speed rail that passes through Savannah is Amtrak and it only goes north and south from New York to Miami.

Not only would a high speed rail help Savannahians get around, but tourism leaders like Savannah Area Chamber president Bill Hubbard said it would be a boost to our economy.

"It would be a very exciting concept and it seems to be getting new legs from the stimulus package and it would certainly help businesses as well as tourism," Hubbard said.

Especially if it saves not only time but gas money. "We fortunately get a lot of visitors that come from the Atlanta area, Charlotte area," said Hubbard. "Certainly we all have to go back and forth a lot for business, high speed rail would help that a lot."

There's no timeline on how soon a high speed rail could be built or where. Savannah will now have to compete with other cities across the country for that federal funding.

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