Rail Passengers Supports Fed-State Grant Applications

By Rail Passengers Staff

The Rail Passengers Association this week offered formal support to the Federal Railroad Administration for two important grant applications under the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail program – the umbrella program of physical improvements in and around Chicago Union Station, and efforts to move the Texas high-speed rail program into final design and construction.

Rail Passengers President & CEO Jim Mathews offered two support letters for the programs this week, writing to FRA Administrator Amit Bose to urge the agency to award Fed-State/National grant funds to both of these efforts.

“The Texas project will transform travel between two of the fastest-growing metropolitan regions in the U.S., contribute significantly not just to the region’s economy but to American economic well-being, dramatically improve travel times for millions of Texans and visitors, plug a serious gap in Amtrak’s national network, and demonstrate to Americans – and to the world – that the U.S. can still develop and build great things,” Mathews said in his letter to Bose.

Mathews also noted that despite delays at the hands of cynical litigation in Texas, Amtrak’s Texas High-Speed Rail project is now making good progress, and with funding through Step 3 of the Corridor Identification and Development Program (CIDP), Amtrak is currently advancing the project through the Project Development stage, which will demonstrate its readiness for the Final Design and Construction stages. The Texas program got a $64 million grant this Fall to finalize the Project Development phases.

For the Chicago proposals, Mathews noted that these projects under the Chicago Hub Improvement Program, or CHIP, umbrella – together seeking just a bit more than $500 million from the remaining Fed-State funding pool in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – are well thought-out, have made genuine progress, and will produce important and meaningful improvements not just in Chicago but for nearly any Amtrak traveler not on the Northeast Corridor.

Serving 360 trains every day, Chicago Union Station is a century old, and groans to handle the 120,000 daily passengers flowing through it. It’s the third most heavily used Amtrak station in the country, and is the single origination point for nearly all long-distance trains traveling either east or west, as well as the center of expansion plans for state-supported services throughout the Midwest.

Four projects under CHIP would get funding under this proposal. The Concourse Improvement Project addresses profound congestion during peak periods at the station which, in our view, produces crowding conditions that could be unsafe. The South Branch Viaduct is woefully out of date and creates bottlenecks and needs attention. The project to create a direct connection between the St. Charles Air Line and the 14th Street Yard is wrapping up preliminary engineering and NEPA tasks and should continue to be supported financially. And of course, we all know how desperately Amtrak’s maintenance facilities need to be modernized and expanded systemwide and given the importance of Chicago as a main hub for nearly all Amtrak trains, we strongly support plans to acquire Union Pacific’s Canal Street Yard to permit Amtrak to move forward on solving the Chicago maintenance puzzle.

Applications for the Fiscal 2024 round of Fed-State/National grants were due on December 18th.