Nearly six years after a Virginia governor warned that the state “cannot pave our way out of congestion” and unveiled a big-ticket rail purchase meant to tie Charlottesville to Richmond, the grandly named Commonwealth Corridor remains little more than a sketch on state planning documents.
And the supposed warm-up act, a state-backed bus line dubbed the Tidewater Breeze, is also yet to roll. Originally anticipated for summer 2025, the Tidewater Breeze has been shoved to 2026 after the Department of Rail and Public Transportation couldn’t secure a bus operator, a setback that only came to light after a Daily Progress inquiry.
”I know it’s going to take a long time to build the Commonwealth Corridor,” transit advocate Trip Pollard of the Southern Environmental Law Center told The Daily Progress. “But let’s at least get the Breeze running. It’s too important a connection.”
The center has long pointed to pent-up demand for an east-west link, noting that Virginia hasn’t had cross-state train service in nearly half a century. Advocates also tout rail’s lower emissions, reduced highway carnage and relief for weary Interstate 64 motorists.
Ironically, the rails already exist. Laid by a predecessor to the C&O Railway in the 19th century, they hosted a flurry of passenger trains, with 10 trains a day plying the line in the 1920s. By the mid-1970s, the only passenger service remaining was a leg of a long-distance Amtrak train called the James Whitcomb Riley, which made the run in two hours.
A 2021 state study envisioned reviving that connection with two daily round-trips between Christiansburg and Newport News, shaving 15 minutes off the Riley’s Charlottesville-to-Richmond run and costing $416.5 million — mostly for upgrades between Charlottesville and Doswell. Construction was optimistically penciled for 2030.
That timeline, however, already appears uncertain. Although Christiansburg’s station is being readied for a 2027 extension of Amtrak’s Northeast Regional, the larger corridor plan remains under federal review. Earlier this month, DRPT acknowledged that some of its documents had been kicked back by the Federal Railroad Administration.
”DRPT will make the requested edits to the documents and will resubmit revised versions to FRA,” spokeswoman Jayla Parker told The Daily Progress in an email.
Parker insisted the project is not delayed and predicted public outreach beginning next year and study completion in 2028.
”It sounds like things are finally beginning to move,” Pollard said optimistically.
But movement is harder to detect on the bus side, even though the Tidewater Breeze was announced with fanfare.
”As I conclude my time as DRPT Director,” outgoing Director Jennifer DeBruhl wrote in a May 2024 statement, “this route expansion is not just a project, but a legacy that I am proud to leave behind.”
DeBruhl’s legacy, however, did not start as planned in the summer of 2025. DRPT failed to hire an operator, failed to launch and failed to tell the public.
Parker explained the silence.
”We decided it would be best to make the announcement once the procurement process was complete,” she said.
Parker also pointed to the language in the original statement.
”Anytime we communicated the launch date of 2025,” Parker wrote, “it was always framed as anticipated, not a promise or guarantee.”
Parker indicated that the 2024 bankruptcy of Coach USA, the parent company of Megabus, the provider of the Virginia Breeze services, was merely a minor factor in the delay. She said that launching state-crossing transportation projects is inherently complicated.
”Large scale projects like these naturally involve multiple approvals and steps, so occasional delays are not unusual,” Parker wrote. “Please know we are fully engaged and eager to see both initiatives successfully completed.”
When it does launch, the Tidewater Breeze is slated to run one daily round-trip between Harrisonburg and Virginia Beach.
Besides Charlottesville, there would be stops in Staunton, Waynesboro, Crozet and at Richmond’s Main Street Station. The stops beyond Richmond would be Richmond International Airport, Williamsburg, Newport News and Norfolk.
The new route would become the fifth in the Virginia Breeze system, whose flagship, the Valley Flyer between Blacksburg and Washington, carries about 34,000 riders annually and recovers 82% of its costs from fares. Another Virginia Breeze bus, the Piedmont Express, serves Charlottesville from an Alderman Road bus stop with service north to Washington and as far south as Danville.
Meanwhile, unsubsidized intercity buses have withered.
Greyhound shuttered its West Main Street station in 2020 and dropped its Charlottesville-Richmond run. Today, only a single Roanoke-Washington trip remains for Charlottesville Greyhound riders.
For now, Central Virginians still wait — sometimes literally at the curb — for their rail renaissance.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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