                                 CODE OF VIRGINIA

FUND FOR CONSTRUCTION OF INDUSTRIAL ACCESS RAILROAD TRACKS (§ 33.2-1600)

A. The General Assembly declares it to be in the public interest that access
railroad tracks and facilities be constructed to certain industrial commercial
sites where rail freight service is or may be needed by new or substantially
expanded industry and that financial assistance be provided to areas seeking to
furnish rail freight trackage between the normal limits of existing or proposed
common carrier railroad tracks and facilities and the actual site of existing or
proposed commercial or industrial buildings or facilities. This section is
enacted in furtherance of these purposes and is intended to be comparable to the
fund for access roads to economic development sites established pursuant to
&#xA7; 33.2-1509.

B. The funding for this program shall be set forth in the appropriation act.

C. The Director of the Department of Rail and Public Transportation shall
administer and expend or commit, subject to the approval of the Board, such
funds for constructing, reconstructing, or improving industrial access railroad
tracks and related facilities. The Director of the Department of Rail and Public
Transportation may consult with the Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer
Services and the Chief Executive Officer of the Virginia Economic Development
Partnership, or their designated representatives, concerning applications for
funds. Funds shall be spent directly by the Director of the Department of Rail
and Public Transportation or by reimbursement of the local entities, private or
public.

D. Funds may be used to construct, reconstruct, or improve part or all of the
necessary tracks and related facilities on public or private property currently
used or being developed, existent or prospective, for single industries or
industrial subdivisions under firm contract or already constructed, including
those subdivisions owned or promoted by railroad companies and others.
Applications for funds must be approved by the local governing body.

E. In deciding whether to construct any such access track, the Board shall
consider the cost thereof in relation to prospective volume of rail traffic,
capital investment, potential employment, and other economic and public
benefits. The Board shall adopt procedures to encourage widespread use of the
funds, shall limit allocation of funds so that no locality receives more than 50
percent of the funds in any one fiscal year unless there are not sufficient
applications prior to May 1 of each year to use the available funds, and shall
consider the practices of the Department of Transportation in distributing funds
for access roads to economic development sites under &#xA7; 33.2-1509.

F. Tracks and facilities constructed with such funds shall be the property of
the Commonwealth for the useful life of the project as determined by the
Director of the Department of Rail and Public Transportation and shall be made
available for use by all common carriers using the railway system to which they
connect. The landowners or using businesses shall, prior to the commitment of
funds by the Director of the Department of Rail and Public Transportation, be
contractually committed to the perpetual maintenance of such tracks and
facilities so constructed and to the payment of any costs related to the future
relocation or removal of such tracks and facilities.

HISTORY: 1987, c. 495, § 33.1-221.1:1; 1992, c. 167; 1996, cc. 590, 598; 2010,
c. 869; 2011, c. 64; 2012, c. 19; 2014, c. 805.