City Council - Special Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone.

This is Mayor Cyril Jefferson convening a special meeting of the High Point City Council. If you're with me in the room, every member of council is present. This is Councilmember Johnson.

at a nice great minimum thank you mayor members of the city council so today we have the rail division here with us and they're going to give a presentation on some rail updates as well as information regarding some of the changes to service at the High Point Station. So he has a staff member here with him. This is Jason Orther, the director of the Rail Division. There's another gentleman, Jason Myers, who will be here shortly. I think, are you going to give the presentation? I'll give the presentation. And then I'll let you introduce your staff member. Yes, thank you.

She's an intern with our office, just started just recently.

So, Jason, if you like, so we can hear him, if you'll take the mic, please.

Well, good afternoon, Mayor and members of council. It's really a pleasure to be here with you all today and give you an update on what's happening in rail in our state and talk to you about some of the opportunities here to, you know, both service to High Point and where we're going with train service in North Carolina. Also provide an update to you on what we have done recently as far as a engagement survey opportunity with those that both ride the train and hope to yet to ride the train to places like High Point. So I'll begin by just giving an overview of the rail system in North Carolina. So today in North Carolina, we have NC by train in its basic service paradigm has been providing passenger rail services for about 35 years. We're actually in our 36th year right now providing train service, intercity passenger rail services to destinations in North Carolina. We started with one train 35 years ago, 36 years ago. That was the Carolinian which ran from Charlotte to New York daily, began in 1990, and it served High Point from that very date. So that was 35, 36 years ago now. And then we, in 1995, five years later, we began the Piedmont service with one round trip per day. That operated sort of in the opposite direction, providing an afternoon return back to the Charlotte region through High Point at that time. since that time we've added several more trains to that service and this passenger service has grown we've looked at making sure that we remain competitive for the different market sectors that we're trying to provide to all areas of the state the service right now is concentrated in the central part of north carolina with heavy amount of service between charlotte and raleigh we operate through nc by train 10 trains a day five in each direction that overlays on top Amtrak's national system trains, which also operate over some of the same network. Through High Point, that means that the Crescent, which is one of Amtrak's national system trains, also stops in High Point. So High Point has 10 trains a day currently when you include that service, which actually operates from New York to New Orleans every day in both directions. Other places around the state also, you've got services that Amtrak operates connecting New York to Florida. One of the things we like to make sure that folks are aware of when we talk about passenger rail in the state is that the service that is being provided is intercity passenger rail. That is a distinct, very specific product. It's different than commuter rail, and it's certainly different than light rail. So intercity passenger rail typically carries passengers over longer distances. So the distance between the stations is longer, You've got longer trip durations. And then you typically have, because of that, you've got different seating that allows people to be comfortable for a longer trip. And you have baggage and food service typical as well. Now, commuter rail, by juxtaposition, typically is just pulling folks from suburban areas, outlying areas, to an urban core and bringing them to an urban center. And it's typically doing that at peak hour travel times when you have high vehicular congestion. So that is a different service, typically shorter trip spacing, shorter trip durations, closer station spacing. And the only place in North Carolina that's currently being evaluated is from Charlotte to the northern parts of Mecklenburg County, what they call the Red Line project. And then finally, the light rail system is a system that is separate from the National Rail Network. This is a system that is basically an urban area system, very tight station spacing. And the goal of that system is to move people within a very dense urban environment. And typically, the station is basically made to be as less as a quarter mile or even a half mile. Very different than the inner city passenger rail system. The only place we have that right now in North Carolina is in Charlotte. The links, both light rail system and their streetcar system. So on the inner city passenger rail front, One of the things we've been trying to make sure that we stay ahead of is, what is the demand for the system? And so we've incrementally introduced new trains to keep up with the demand of the system. Now, we are 59% higher at the end of 2025 than we were in 2019, which was the year before the pandemic. So that's about 740,000 passengers. The passenger mix on our trains is very diverse. These are folks both looking to go very long distances, and to a lesser degree, shorter distances. But it's a range of different trip types, everything from folks visiting family to health care, business trips, students visiting colleges, lots of different trip types that are happening on the train, and usually using the train not just for transportation, but also as an opportunity to work or do things that they would otherwise be doing if they were driving. Now, our vision in the future for passenger rail is much more extensive than what we have today. We have been recognized by USDOT and federal rail administration as having one of the more robust rail programs in the country. So whereas our current system we call basically our starter kit of service, we are looking to expand services to many different areas around the state. And those include quarters that we applied to FRA for and were awarded under their quarter identification and development program. This is the new FRA program that was established under the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act to create a process-driven approach creating new intercity passenger rail corridors. The lines you see in green on this map are new lines that would be added to the existing system. So they would bolster both the core system that we have today and provide new destinations to places throughout both our state and the east coast of the United States as we deploy the system. You'll notice that one major element of this map is the S line corridor extending north out of Raleigh. That particular project allows for much more frequent, fast, reliable trains to connect North Carolina to Virginia and the points in Northeast. So one thing that's really limited in North Carolina right now is that we only have a few trains that can operate out of North Carolina North because of capacity issues on the freight network. So this new line would mean that many of the trains that currently just operate and bounce back and forth between Royal and Charlotte had to go much longer distances and provide new travel options to communities like I-Point to operate at north and south out of the state. That really is the goal of that particular project. In addition to the seven that were selected in the program, we have five other routes that we're also looking to add. Now, part of the inner-city passenger rail model is, again, trying to create connections over these longer distances. Most of these new routes will have three round trips daily when they begin service, which nationally would be considered very robust service. But, you know, places like Asheville, Wilmington, Winston-Salem would see about three round trips, in other words, three trains in each direction per day. So they'll be permanently at a, lesser place than a destination like High Point, which is operating on the core corridor and has many more trains than that today. We have been engaging with multiple entities here in High Point as part of our current service paradigm. As a result, we're seeing record ridership in High Point. In fact, ridership in High Point from fiscal year 25 versus 22 is about 54% higher. So a significant increase in ridership. We're also collaborating with PARC, Piedmont Area Regional Transit, working with that team to make sure we get more seamless service between when the trains arrive and when PARC can deliver customers to their final destination. Also collaborating with Visit High Point. Being very intentional about listening to them and the kinds of events that are important to High Point, both your entertainment events as well as things that are critical to this city, like the two instances of the furniture market. So working through those things. We're also partnering with the High Point Rockers and the Carolina Core FC. We have developed and engaged our communications group, Earn Media. on the little sally across part of the Thomas Damo Troll, which I know is seeing a lot of interest here, as well as the same sort of things that are happening in Rob. So a lot of excitement there. And then Elk Trail by Rail has become a very successful partnership with the Craft Brewers Association of North Carolina. One of your local breweries, the Round Truck Brewery here, is on that trail, and they're joining us in marketing with that as well. And as I mentioned before, High Point continues to have a stop on the Amtrak Long Distance Crescent network. That train continues to see significant ridership out of High Point. So a lot of things that are going really well here in the direction of High Point. So as I mentioned, we completed a public engagement survey recently. And really the goal of that engagement was to listen to the folks at both rider trains yet ride our trains. And understanding their customer needs and wants, understanding the stakeholder needs and wants, and improving collaboration with our partners like the City of High Point. It was our first major collaboration point that we've done like this. We've done lots of onboard surveys over the years, but this is the first time that we really did sort of comprehensive, outside-the-box determination. As part of that, we did have a timeline of activities. We did reproduce some educational videos in May of 25. We did online surveys and in-person open houses in May and June of 25, including a second week of June meeting right here. I believe it was the second week of June meeting right here in High Point to meet with the folks here. We developed a draft report, stakeholder engagement. That's what's happening right now. And the final report will be issued And so who answered the survey? So the current train rider, obviously, the current train riders represent about 54% of the respondents and 46% were non-train riders. Pretty good blend of the two, about 2,068 total respondents to our survey. These are just representative numbers here, but as I mentioned, we had a High Point meeting in June. There was a meeting in Burlington in May. Invitations for those meetings were sent in May 9th and 14th by direct email and to DOT press release and social media. How far are people riding? I mentioned this is inner city passenger rail. So you really get a lot, the longer you go, you get a lot of value out of that trip. So what we consider a short haul trip is about 13%. That's a 35 mile or shorter trip. And then a longer trip is over 35 miles. So you can see that in what we call true inner city trips, folks going much longer distances, this is the bulk of who are taking the train. In fact, our actual average trip length on the Piedmont service is about 116 miles. For the Carolinian, which goes 710 miles between Charlotte and New York, the average trip length is well over 200 miles on that particular train. So a lot of there, and these are just representative distances on the chart below. In this case, it's from Burlington, but it shows you kind of just how far some of these locations are along the route. Another important question we asked folks in performing the survey was, you know, are the folks that are responding, and these are both riders and non-riders, are you more interested in traveling quickly or stopping at more stations? There's an overwhelming interest in faster travel times. But there's still 32% of our respondents that really want to see stops at all stations. So I think this one metric here represents really what the tool that we're trying to do at DOT is, and that is to provide different products for different people as we try to expand the service. Travel time is really an important thing. Folks, when they look at making their transportation decision, look at the time it takes them to take one mode versus the other. And so, you know, having competitive travel times is something that's really important, especially for folks that are traveling for business or other things. We asked the question of when do people want to travel? As you can imagine, and this is a very interesting graphic. Look, there's a lot of interest in the sort of morning time departures and afternoon return trips. um now what our what our data actually shows right now is most folks are riding the midday trains like there's a huge uh there's a large swath of folks that are in that are operating or choosing these the midday train trips um so i think one thing we're trying to do as we look at future schedules is how do we um how do we hit the blend of both providing these morning and afternoon urgent destination trips, as well as meeting the current demand of folks that really want to get on the train at a midpoint in the day. So that is one thing that we've learned from the survey. What onboard amenities do people like? Not surprisingly, Wi-Fi is at the top of the list. know if you're going to ride a train and you're choosing not to drive you're probably doing something and so you know what we find is that the first thing folks do is look for the the wi-fi on the train works which works really well and uh and and use that for whatever you know needs that they're trying to to accomplish uh safely and on the train versus driving um the other is uh onboard food and beverages uh we currently on the carolina service service but on the piedmont right now it's bending service that's the way um that we have currently structured um the services but piedmont service will be bringing uh cafe services new equipment comes online uh and perhaps even sooner than that if we can get our um get the right funding in place but obviously food service is a big deal uh folks want to get on the train don't have to worry about bringing food with them they want to basically just buy it they're on spot I will give an anecdotal evidence here of this. We ran a couple special trains down to the US Open in 2024, the US Open Men's Championship back in 2024. We sold out the cafe car going down and back. Everything, food, beverages, everything. And so it was indicated as a very important amenity to folks riding the train. Premium class seating, folks are choosing on the caravan. We actually have business class seating as well as a coach class. We're going to be bringing that to the Piedmont service as we introduce new equipment. But that is actually important. Bicycles, luggage access, and of course, pets on board. Pets is an interesting thing, not dissimilar to other forms of travel, limited to small animals and service animals. thing there as well service preferences you know convenience of the train as I mentioned you know folks want to be want to get on the train they do not want to think about travel and they just want to do what they're doing and then be at their destinations as possible so convenience is huge comfort one of the few modes of transportation where you can actually you know stand up and get around, walk to different places on the train, and then return to your seat. The seats are large. You're not cramped into a small, confined space. And folks find that very pleasurable. The cost, we've tried to structure our ticket pricing to be very affordable and comparative, so when folks are thinking of driving or taking the train, that they can make that decision easily. To a lesser extent, sustainability, rail being an efficient form of transportation is important to folks, and then speed.

How do you define your sustainability versus cost? What are you referring to there?

Well, that is a good question. And if Jason Myers were here, he'd be able to explain it exactly. He is on his way. And I will be sure to log that question for when he joins us. That is an excellent question. So what else do people want? We had a lot of open-ended comments within the survey, more frequencies, later evening trains, earlier morning arrivals, enhanced train speed and improved on-time performance. This is something we work on literally every single day. Our trains run on a very, I mean, you all know this, the corridor runs right through your city, is a very busy freight corridor. So working with freight schedules and stuff that works with that is basically an intentional everyday on-time occurrence for us. So that's an important thing. Enhancing connectivity, local transit, important. I think that speaks to what we're trying to do with APART in our cooperation with them. We are enhancing single-ticket type of arrangements. get folks, if they buy a train ticket, they can get to their final destination. That's something that's important to us. Stopping at all stations, building the Charlotte Gateway station, and keeping prices affordable. So we have, I will speak a little bit to kind of what's coming down the pike for for the train service. You can see them in the bottom graphic. These are the trains that are literally being built today in Lexington, North Carolina at the Siemens Mobility Facility. I cannot say enough what it will be to transition from 1950s and 60s equipment to modern European-type trains that are being built, but with U.S. jobs and U.S. materials right here in our backyard. by adding that these trains have much more capacity as well. But we're also doing some other improvements that are funded right now, particularly between Greensboro and Raleigh, that will allow us to add trains and change schedules. We are limited right now on what we can do as far as train schedules are concerned because of capacity restrictions throughout the railroad. So those things include places where you're limited to where you can pass each other, you know, the time between turning trains, the ability to efficiently use crews, all those things work together to limit when we can actually run the trains. And so that is a major component we're doing. But when we have the capacity, we'll be able to change the schedules and be able to respond to some of the comments that we're hearing, you know, through our survey. We anticipate those projects being completed in about two and a half to three years. So as I mentioned, Corridor ID will bring more trains to more places. That'll give more reasons for folks to use the train to get to more locations. My colleague Jason Myers has just arrived. So about two to three more years for us to finalize those improvements and then get the service schedules improved to kind But we're also doing continuous improvement on board services. I mentioned cafe service and the equipment upgrades are going to be critically important for the services. And the new equipment will be coming to the services with the Carolinian First in 2027 and then the Piedmont service through 2032. The new trains have a lot more capacity than our current trains do. will be important is right now we do sell out trainings quite frequently um and so uh demanded we have a little bit of a cap demand based on training but this will allow us to grow much more efficiently by having more seats um this is uh really just a mock-up you know of kind of where we think uh train schedules will go um we we anticipate adding more morning service so that we have both the ability to provide express and every station service at convenient times for all passengers. A late evening southbound out of Raleigh was a big time request. Our last train out of Raleigh was 530. And a lot of folks are asking for trains to leave stations later so that they can go to an entertainment event or something like that. And then more even spacing of the trains throughout the day. concludes my presentation of jason myers there was one question already on the sustainability um metric here um and gentlemen if you don't mind asking a question i mean in your industry what's the difference where are you getting that with sustainability versus cost what what's the

I think that most people understood it to be environmental sustainability. The reason they take the train is for their personal environmental reasons. Their choice is that I take the train because it's less pollution or uses less energy. And that was less important to them as cost in general, for reference.

Any other questions from council?

I thought, well, it was funny. I had a question, but then you kind of answered it, so I was kind of super excited. I'm glad that y'all have been talking to visit High Point with little Sally, because we've been talking about Troll Train, and then I was Googling it, and I saw it in Travel and Leisure. So from the Amtrak, is there a way, or have y'all already started marketing as the Troll Train from Raleigh to Charlotte, and maybe doing some type of special ticketing price, like a troll ticketing price? Is your department... talking to Raleigh or Charlotte about that, too.

I'm going to go back to Jason Myers for that question, if that's OK, Matt.

Yeah. A specific troll train? No, that's not something we've done. We've certainly used some of that in our social media and in our promotions. And we're really happy that the Travel Leisure magazine reached out to us and made sure they had all the information. It's certainly a part of what Visit High Point is putting on their website. But then we're trying to find ways to collaborate those DMOs like this at High Point can work with us in various things.

And do you see, are you working well with Raleigh and Charlotte also or is most of the energy coming from High Point?

I'd say it's High Point on a per capita basis is probably a little bit higher energy. Okay. I mean it's not as big of a city obviously but in terms of how much the DMO is working with us I think it was probably a little bit more.

Excuse me, I had one question. Councilman Andrew, there was some talk that some citizens were concerned with Amtrak had some skip services for High Point. There's fewer stops. Have you been working with Amtrak on trying to address that issue or does your data justify that skip stop?

Well, certainly the ridership on the overall service is way up. So that is one leading metric. But to your point on one of the things that we found is a blend of some express service with localized service is, well, it's consistent with the way other services operate around the country and around the world. But we do see an opportunity for us as we add more trains. to spread out the schedule and provide more, you know, the convenient times that our folks are asking for. It is requiring us to finish some critical infrastructure projects to get to that point, but that is a conversation we are having with Amtrak, with the freight railroads, to bring us to a point where we can add more service options. Excellent. Thank you.

Did you have a question, too? I did. On the capacity issue, which I'm excited to hear about the Siemens plan and Lexington, will the new trains change anything you mentioned they will address some capacity but how many cars are in a typical train running right now and where do you see that going and speed as well exactly so um we we run typically on on uh depending on day of the week about three to four car trains but so um

three coaches and what we call a food service lounge car or something like that. That's the Piedmont service. The Carolinian operates with four coaches, a business class coach, and a baggage car and a cafe car. So that's our typical arrangement, typically around 200 seats. The new trains will have between 300 and 400 seats. And of course, know it'll be a very different ride experience i mean the thing that we're the what we're going to get out of the new equipment that we don't have with the existing we pushed the limits of what we can do with the existing uh for instance the wheel structures the suspension systems and stuff like that to get the best ride quality possible but there's nothing comparable to a modern train which operate it's these are these are designed for 125 miles an hour so they're going to ride entirely different it's gonna be a completely different experience on the train. So nobody wanted TVs in the back of the headrests? I think what's funny is, you know, along with the airline industry, I think that we've seen that there's been some movement past that, because personal devices have certainly taken over. But, you know, there is a lot of, I mean, these are very, I'll say they're very accessible trains, so they have a lot of things for all kinds of mobility needs or other accessible needs.

um there is display systems maps and things like that that will show you where you're going um so it's it there are some incredible modern touches with these trains awesome jason thank you so much we appreciate you all your presentation was was there anything else that you needed to share jason sir well thank you all um we'll transition now to item 2026-189 CLOSED SESSION FOR ATTORNEY CLIENT PRIVILEGE AND PERSONNEL. IS THERE A MOTION TO GO INTO CLOSED SESSION? SO MOVED. I'LL SECOND. MOTION IS RECOGNIZED. COUNCILMAN WILLIAMS SECONDED. COUNCILMAN HENDRIX. ANY DISCUSSION ON THE MOTION TO GO INTO CLOSED SESSION? ALL THOSE IN FAVOR BE SIGNIFIED BY SAYING AYE.