2025 Annual Meeting: Strengthen the Midwestern passenger rail network, prepare for federal surface transportation reauthorization
Strengthening and growing the Midwest’s passenger rail network while preparing for the reauthorization of federal surface transportation legislation were the twin themes of MIPRC’s 2025 Annual Meeting in Kansas City.
The meeting, Sept. 10-12 at Kansas City Union Station, began with a tour of the grand terminal, which was the country’s third largest when it opened in 1914; it declined during the post-World War II and early Amtrak eras and was mostly shuttered by 1983. Amtrak moved out in 1985 but returned in 2002, after Union Station was saved from demolition in the mid-1990s when a bi-state sales tax referendum was approved in Missouri and Kansas to help fund its restoration.
Today, the station hosts restaurants and events, is the home of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and is served by the state-supported Missouri River Runner (Kansas City-St. Louis) and the long-distance Southwest Chief (Chicago-Los Angeles), and the city’s streetcar route.
Following the tour, attendees rode the Missouri River Runner to Lee’s Summit, Mo., to see how the city is developing its downtown around the train station and positioning itself as a day destination for Kansas City residents, or a place to live. While there, they saw the city’s new public event space, Green Street, and were briefed by city officials on how it will anchor redevelopment, including apartments hotels, just blocks from the station.
The next day, following general introductions at Union Station, commissioners and other attendees received presentations on and discussed:
During his presentation, Rusty Roberts said that even though the FRA’s administrator-designee, David Fink, former CEO of PanAm Railways, is waiting for a confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate, the agency is moving forward on Trump administration initiatives to update regulations “to reflect today’s environment.” He said safety won’t be compromised in that process.
Roberts said Amtrak will also undergo “necessary, long-overdue reforms” for cost containment, and that the administration will support development of high-speed rail “where it makes sense.”
Roberts also recalled when he spoke at MIPRC’s 2018 Annual Meeting. At that time he was vice president of Brightline Trains and spoke about the company’s experience building the nation’s first privately-owned intercity passenger rail line in Florida from Miami to Orlando.
Arun Rao and Rob Eaton noted during their presentation that Amtrak had systemwide FY 2025 ridership of 19.5 million trips through April – a 6 percent increase over FY24 – which suggests the system is on-track for another year of record-breaking ridership.
They said the administration’s FY26 grant request of $2.4 billion will allow Amtrak to continue its current service levels and capital projects. Among Amtrak’s capital projects is the reactivation and transformation of former mail platforms at Chicago Union Station for passenger use – one component of the Chicago Hub Improvement Program. CHIP also includes improvements to Union Station’s concourse and trainshed ventilation, new maintenance facilities, and improved approaches to and from the terminal for trains to the east and south.
Eaton and Rao noted that the IIJA’s historic investments in Amtrak’s capital program is beginning to bear fruit with the next-generation Acela equipment now in service on the Northeast Corridor and the “Airo” equipment which is scheduled to debut in 2026 on National Network routes.
They also touted the immediately successful new state-supported services like the Borealis (Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul) and the Mardi Gras restoration of service between New Orleans and Mobile, Ala.
Commissioners and attendees were also updated on the progress of MIPRC’s two federal grants (via the Interstate Rail Compacts and Consolidated Rail Infrastructure & Safety Improvements programs) and on the creation of a MIPRC scholarship for students in railroad-related degree programs at Midwestern colleges and universities. MIPRC is just completing its first year of the two-year IRC grant and is close to having its MIPRC Invest Midwest-Phase 1 regional planning grant obligated.
Discussion of MIPRC’s principles for the reauthorization of federal surface transportation legislation quickly achieved consensus to seek continuance of a separate rail title, and reauthorization of all existing competitive passenger rail-related grant programs and policy committees at no less than FY 2022-26 funding levels – especially as the IIJA united those programs into a holistic approach by the federal government to passenger rail development.As part of this process, commissioners also renewed MIPRC’s request for language to clarify that states (and their political subdivisions) who sponsor but don’t operate intercity passenger rail services are not railroads nor are they railroad carriers.
Commissioners also reviewed renewal principles issued by the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials, the State-Amtrak Passenger Rail Committee, States for Passenger Rail Coalition and Rail Passengers Association, and adopted aspects from each. Commissioners ultimately tentatively approved a set of MIPRC reauthorization principles during the meeting, pending staff’s finalization of language for some new ideas post-meeting.
The new surface transportation bill will replace the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which expires at the end of fiscal year 2026. (See MIPRC’s Federal Surface Transportation Principles, as of Sept. 18, here.)
On Sept. 12, attendees were visited by the Missouri River Runner’s mascot, Ollie the Otter, and heard from Missouri Department of Transportation officials about the year-old mascot program’s impact on ridership.
During the MIPRC Business portion of the meeting on Sept. 12, commissioners decided on MIPRC’s 2026 priorities (see them on the Current Activities page) and formally approved the amended 2026 budget.
They also chose officers for 2026, re-electing
- Jennifer Murray, director of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transit, Local Roads, Railroads & Harbors, who is Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ designee to the commission, as Chair; and
- Scott Smith, Missouri’s private sector appointee, as Vice Chair.
Commissioners elected Cory Davis, director of Kansas DOT’s Division of Multimodal Transportation & Innovation, who is Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’ designee to the commission, as Financial Officer, replacing Pete Meitzner, Kansas’ private sector appointee.
Commissioners also chose La Crosse, Wis., as host city for the 2026 Annual Meeting.
928