MOBILE, Ala. (WPMI) — There are still two more contracts that must be approved before passenger rail service is restored on the Gulf Coast. The Mobile City Council must approve a land use agreement for the temporary platform by Cooper Riverside Park, and council members must approve an operational agreement.
"The operating agreement actually has the financial component to it. And it's $3,048,000 for a three year period," said Mayor Sandy Stimpson.
For the first time in over four years, Amtrak went before a Mobile public body requesting support for its Gulf Coast passenger rail project.
It went about as good as Amtrak officials could have hoped.
Amtrak has laid its schedule for the proposed passenger rail service from Mobile to New Orleans.
According to Amtrak, trains would depart Mobile heading to New Orleans daily at 6:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Trains would arrive after leaving New Orleans at 11:18 a.m. and 9:14 p.m.
The states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana make up the Southern Rail Commission (SRC), which has been steadfastly committed to expanding passenger rail service in the South for the past 40 years, most recently achieving success for the restoration of service on the Gulf Coast.
On March 14th, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced that the SRC, along with rail commissions in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic won an Interstate Rail Compact (IRC) grant. The SRC will match 50 percent of the $400,000 they have been awarded and use these funds to hire more people, market passenger rail, conduct impact studies, and apply for more federal grants. In short, they can spend the money on everything but running the service itself.
Amtrak’s latest filing with a federal regulatory agency promises a relatively modest, short-term obligation for taxpayers in Mobile – a little more than $3 million spread out over three years.
It is the same commitment the Mobile City Council made in 2020 to restore passenger rail service along the Gulf Coast for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.
While technically true, the filing last month to the Surface Transportation Board masks questions about operating the route over the long term. A federal grant would pay 90 percent of the operating subsidy for the first year but then taper off over the next five years, eventually going away.
The City of Mobile will be asked to support the operations of a twice-daily Amtrak service to New Orleans for three years and at a lump-sum cost of $3.048 million, according to a recent filing with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board.
The amount is on par with what the Mobile City Council approved with a 6-1 vote four years ago, in early 2020.
According to documents filed before the Surface Transportation Board, all parties involved in the ongoing Gulf Coast Passenger rail effort believe all hurdles could be removed by May.
Amtrak and Mobile city officials met in late February, according to the paperwork, at which time Amtrak explained to the City that the only financial support would be the $3.048 million for the first three years, which was already approved by the council in 2020.
As more than 30 U.S. House members from 18 states introduced legislation that would invest $205 billion into a nationwide high-speed rail network, a new survey finds that high-speed rail is very popular, with 60% of U.S. registered voters holding a favorable opinion of it.
Only 16% of voters view it unfavorably, the survey found. High-speed rail is especially popular in the West where the nation’s first high-speed rail projects — Brightline West and California High Speed Rail — are under construction. There, high-speed rail transportation has a 71% - 14% favorability rating, according to the survey conducted by Public Policy Polling for the U.S. High-Speed Rail Coalition.
Parties in the settlement intended to lead to the start of Gulf Coast passenger service said in a status report to the Surface Transportation Board that negotiations between Amtrak and the city of Mobile for a lease of downtown city land “are continuing to move forward.”
The report filed Friday by Amtrak, Norfolk Southern, CSX Transportation, and the Port of Mobile responds to a request made by the regulatory agency last month, after it failed to get answers it sought at a Valentine’s Day hearing [see “STB members question Gulf Coast delays …,” Trains News Wire, Feb. 15, 2024].
Three entities will share $900,000 in Interstate Rail Compacts (IRC) Grant Program funding from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to help improve and expand passenger rail networks in the Midwest, South and Southeast.
Created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the IRC Program provides “new opportunities to entities implementing IRCs to advance multi-state and regional passenger rail service efforts,” FRA reported March 14.