TACIR panel hears state and federal pathways for passenger rail; TDOT, Amtrak advise applying for FRA corridor ID seed funding

The Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations on Tuesday heard from rail officials and Amtrak about how states have built passenger-rail service and what Tennessee can do next to study corridors and compete for federal funding.

Panelists from North Carolina, Virginia, Amtrak and the Tennessee Department of Transportation outlined a sequence of planning steps — corridor identification, service-development planning, environmental review, and targeted capital investments — and described how federal programs and state funding were combined to make projects viable.

Julie White, deputy secretary for multimodal transportation at the North Carolina Department of Transportation, described decades of state-supported service growth, including the Piedmont and Carolinian, station projects and transit-oriented development work. White said North Carolina runs its state-supported services with an annual appropriation of about $9,000,000 and highlighted a major competitive grant that funded the Piedmont Improvement Program. She noted the state has expanded frequencies and “we delivered that project on time and on budget.”

Mike McLaughlin, chief operating officer of the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority, described the Commonwealth’s multi-source funding architecture — including a roughly $1,000,000,000 flow over six years into a rail fund — and negotiated agreements with freight railroads that enabled capacity projects such as Long Bridge over the Potomac. On demand, McLaughlin said, “You build it and they will come,” citing rising ridership and weekend travel as evidence that new services attract riders.

Nicole Busich, Amtrak’s vice president for network development, explained federal opportunities created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the FRA Corridor Identification program. She said the Corridor ID application provides a $500,000 seed grant with no local match and the program is designed to fund the next planning stages: a service-development plan and then preliminary engineering and NEPA if selected. “The application is not a heavy lift,” she told commissioners, encouraging Tennessee to apply.

Dan Palme, TDOT’s director of freight and logistics, framed Tennessee’s position: the state is largely debt-free and must weigh long-term operating commitments against fiscal constraints. He said TDOT has already submitted an expression of interest to FRA and is awaiting the commission’s TASSER study results to help choose corridors. On local megaprojects, Palme said freight impacts from Blue Oval City are being studied through the Memphis MPO and other analyses.

Commission members pressed presenters on ridership methodology and whether ROI estimates capture broader economic effects such as tourism. Panelists said corridor-specific forecasts require service-development planning and surveys; Virginia cited an economic study tied to Long Bridge that estimated substantial annual benefits. Amtrak offered to provide route-specific fact sheets and ridership summaries to support the commission’s next steps.

The panel’s practical takeaway for Tennessee was procedural: apply to the FRA Corridor ID program (the application window discussed in the session), use the seed funding to stand up planning capacity and then pursue service-development planning and capital grants such as FRA’s restoration-and-enhancement program or RAISE as projects mature. TDOT officials and TACIR staff said they will coordinate to identify candidate corridors; Amtrak said it can supply modeling and cost estimates on request.

The commission did not take formal votes on passenger-rail items during the meeting. The commission noted it will present a draft report at the June meeting and continue study work in coordination with TDOT and Amtrak.