The head of the federal agency overseeing the nation’s rail lines says Georgia has lost ground to other Southern states in efforts to expand passenger rail service by not yet fully committing state resources to the effort.
Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose made that assertion Wednesday while speaking to a meeting of the Interstate-75 Central Corridor Coalition, comprising elected officials and industrial recruiters from eight counties along the spine of I-75.
“Unquestionably, Georgia is a missing piece, or could be a more full piece of the passenger rail network that we have in this country,” Bose said.
Most of the people attending the convention center in Indian Springs State Park just south of Jackson had come from Atlanta. And so much of the small talk around doughnuts and coffee was about the traffic, particularly around the Hudson Bridge/Eagles Landing exit.
Stockbridge Mayor Anthony Ford leads the I-75 coalition and hears the traffic complaints.
“Four times already this morning I've been asked about dealing with the traffic issues that come through Henry County and Stockbridge,” Ford said. “It's hard for me to handle that. So one of the things we're doing here is to advocate for passenger rail, commuter rail, to get from the airport, to Macon to Savannah to help with the congestion on the highway.”
The Atlanta-Macon-Savannah corridor is one of 69 identified in 44 states through the Federal Railroad Administration through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Recently, Sen. Jon Ossoff helped secure an $8 million earmark to fund what are now the earliest stages of the line’s development.
But meanwhile, Bose pointed to other Southern states and rail projects farther down the project pipeline due to their committing their own state funds, too.
“Virginia and North Carolina have made the investment in rail," Bose said. "It wasn't easy. And they did it on a bipartisan basis. Republicans, Democrats working together. They are years ahead of Georgia when it comes to passenger rail."
Bose said those commitments made it easy for his administration to put in an additional $2 billion to connect, by rail, Raleigh and Charlotte in North Carolina to Richmond, Va.
“And before you know it, the Northeast Corridor, which is the pride of so many people in the Northeast that connects Boston, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia — the Northeast Corridor basically will extend into Virginia, will extend into North Carolina,” he said.
The North Carolina-to-Virginia line is projected to carry about 20 million people annually by 2040 at speeds of up to 110 mph.
Later in the presentation, Amtrak’s director for government affairs, Thomas L. Stennis III, added that both Mississippi and Louisiana have put up money to match federal rail spending.
In short, Bose and Stennis said for passenger rail to pick up steam in Georgia, it needs champions under the Gold Dome.
“I think when he's talking about the champions, he's talking about funding the next steps,” Georgia Department of Transportation Lead Engineer Meg Pirkle said. “Right now we have the funding in place to complete a study, to hopefully complete the bulk of the environmental work and to develop a service development plan. We have the funds to do just that.”
That money is the $8 million federal earmark. GDOT estimates the environmental study it is paying for will be complete by about 2028, at which time the Atlanta to Savannah rail project may move into the preliminary engineering phase.
