Transportation officials will not apply this year for a federal grant to help fund the proposed Baton Rouge-to-New Orleans passenger rail because the state could not come up with matching funds.
This gives the state more time to identify funds and apply next year, says Baton Rouge Area Foundation Vice President John Spain, who has long supported the passenger rail proposal.
But it’s uncertain whether the federal grants, through the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) program, will be available in 2019.
“The question is will CRISI applications be granted again next year? Who’s to know?” says Louisiana DOTD Multimodal Commerce Commissioner Tommy Clark.
A passenger rail between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is expected to cost some $260 million, most of which will likely have to come from federal funding, officials say.
Although the Federal Railroad Administration in July announced $318 million in grant funding through its CRISI program for 2018, Louisiana currently doesn’t have money available to meet a 50% match to make the effort worthwhile, Clark says.
Elusive funding isn’t the only thing standing in the way of passenger rail plans. There are also operational issues to be worked out. The state doesn’t own the existing railroads on which the passenger service would run, so it has to negotiate with railroad companies—mainly Kansas City Southern, which owns the majority of the line.
“Negotiations with these companies have to go on for the passenger rail to even be realized,” Clark says. “The deal is Kansas City Southern wants to be assured there’s a separation between freight and passenger rail. We’re trying to identify what that looks like. It’s a heavy freight line. To introduce a passenger rail within the same corridor, it has to be undertaken in way that has public safety in mind.”
On top of that, who will operate the passenger trains? Possibly Amtrak, Clark says. That’s just another task yet to be delivered.
Nevertheless, plans for a commuter rail are said to be moving along. Baton Rouge and Gonzales have already hired consultants to design rail stations for the proposed service. And proponents, like Spain, have said the passenger rail—which has been talked about for several years—is closer than ever to happening.
Others are more circumspect.
“We’re moving forward,” Clark says. “But sometimes we go two steps back, one step forward.”
