An open house meeting on the Alaska State Rail Plan will be held in Haines 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 22, at the public library. A brief presentation will be made at 6:30 p.m.
The meeting is aimed at updating the state’s rail plan, a document necessary for prioritizing projects and for receiving state and federal funding, said Julie Jessen, a consultant working with the state Department of Transportation in developing the plan.
The plan aims at developing a vision for passenger and freight train service in Alaska for the next 20 years. It addresses the Alaska Railroad and White Pass and Yukon Route, but also involves discussion of potential new rail service, Jessen said.
Haines is one of seven communities statewide where meetings on the plan will be held. Haines was chosen because it’s a port community and because of interest here for connecting the port to a rail line, Jessen said.
Three Haines residents – Bill Kurz, Darsie Culbeck and Barbara Mulford – have participated in meetings of the rail plan’s technical advisory group. The advisory group also will submit input on the plan, Jessen said.
Kurz, an advocate of bringing a rail line through Haines, said that development of rail is critical to establishing Haines as a successful commercial port. “(A railroad) would change the economics of freight and trade in the region,” he said in a recent interview.
A regional rail line could help make mineral deposits in the region economic to develop, said speakers at a “mining summit” in Haines last fall. The summit was organized by the Haines Port Development Council, a private group of which Kurz is a member.
A grant request for an “Alaska Canada Rail Link Phase 2 Feasibility Study” to the Alaska Legislature last year said that “proposed railroad extensions to the mineral and energy resources of Alaska are very critical to the economy of interior Alaska in particular and the economy of Alaska in general.”
The studies have demonstrated that the 7,200 plus known mineral occurrences in Alaska and the 16,000 plus known mineral occurrences along the proposed Alaska Canada Rail Link route in Yukon Territory and northwestern British Columbia could make significant long-term contributions to the economies of the State of Alaska, the Provinces of northwestern Canada and to the economies of the United States and Canada.”
To learn more about the planning process, sign up for e-mail notifications, or send
comments, go to www. dot.alaska.gov/railplan.