Pete Buttigieg shouts out Gulf Coast, New Orleans over ‘milestone’ passenger train service
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday celebrated securing funding for a project that’s of particular interest to residents of the Mississippi Coast, Alabama and Louisiana.
“The Gulf Coast Corridor Improvement Project will restore passenger train service between Mobile and New Orleans for the first time since Hurricane Katrina devastated the region in 2005,” Buttigieg wrote in an Instagram post that featured several photos from his Oct. 22 visit to Mobile.
Last year, the Federal Railroad Administration provided a $178 million grant to Amtrak for the project via the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The law provided $1.2 trillion for transportation and infrastructure spending.
Amtrak will use the money for track and signal improvements, grade crossing upgrades and the station renovations needed to safely operate twice daily roundtrips between the two Southern port cities.
Elected officials and the members of the Southern Rail Commission have been working for years to restore the service, but lengthy negotiations between the nation’s passenger railroad company and freight railroads slowed progress. The City of Mobile and Amtrak also took more than a year to hash out details related to a new train station site and funding.
Last month, officials hosted a ceremonial groundbreaking for the long-awaited restoration that will connect New Orleans and Mobile with stops in Pascagoula, Biloxi, Gulfport and Bay St. Louis in between.
“I strongly feel that Americans ought to have good passenger rail and for too long there’s been this idea that we should settle for less than people in other parts of the world have,” Buttigieg told Southern Living magazine last month. “In a lot of places that means inventing a new route. In this case, it’s about restoring service that was already there.”
Buttigieg and other officials have said the rail investment will provide construction jobs now and permanent jobs once service is active. The restored infrastructure will also raise the value of businesses in locations accessible by the train, they said.
Other potential benefits of the restored line include a tourism boost for the coastal communities, more travel options for international travelers, and a new method of evacuation for residents of cities along the rail line.
The project is due to be completed in 2025.
The Gulf Coast Corridor Improvement Project also includes funds for replacing the Mobile River Bridge and several other projects across I-10.