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 Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission (MIPRC) is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and kicked off the commemoration with an “Invest Midwest” forum on June 12 at Chicago Union Station, looking back at all the Midwestern states have achieved over the years and plans for the future.

More than 100 Midwestern transportation officials, former and current MIPRC commissioners, partners and allies gathered for the Invest Midwest event, which took its name from the $1.84 million federal CRISI regional planning grant MIPRC was recently awarded to expand on the work the Federal Railroad Administration, MIPRC and its member states undertook in the latter part of the 2010s.

With an appreciative nod to the past, the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission’s 2024 Annual Meeting set forth a busy 2025, from starting the work under the commission’s federal grants to greeting a new Congress, to working on new rolling stock planning with Amtrak and marking the Commission’s upcoming 25th anniversary. All this and more was discussed at MIPRC’s 2024 Annual Meeting, held Nov. 18-20 in St. Paul, Minnesota. A record 79 commissioners, partners and allies attended the meeting, held in St. Paul’s historic Union Depot after most attendees traveled there on Nov. 18 from Chicago or Milwaukee on the six-month-old state-supported Borealis train.

The Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission will receive a federal Consolidated Rail Infrastructure & Safety Improvements (CRISI) grant to advance planning work for the long-term development of a regional passenger rail network. In late October, the Federal Railroad Administration announced it will award up to $1.84 million from the CRISI program’s fiscal year 2023-24 funding to “Invest Midwest: The Future of Midwest Passenger Rail-Phase 1” – a MIPRC-led project that will advance and expand the regional network vision proposed by the FRA’s 2021 Midwest Regional Rail Plan (MWRRP).

The Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission (MIPRC) has been awarded a two-year, up to $300,000 Interstate Rail Compacts (IRC) grant in the inaugural round of funding for the new program, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced on March 14.

The Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission (MIPRC) has submitted two nominees to the Surface Transportation Board’s (STB) new Passenger Rail Advisory Committee (PRAC), which will advise the agency on passenger rail service issues.

As the 21st century began, so did Normal, Illinois’ successful plan to make its downtown a vibrant, walkable city center. Key to that vision was the town’s Amtrak station, now served daily by five state-supported Lincoln Service trains connecting to Chicago and St. Louis, and the long-distance Texas Eagle, connecting to Dallas and San Antonio. The opportunity to see how regular, reliable train service can boost economic growth made Normal – which boasts the second-highest ridership of any station in Illinois after Chicago and is home to both Illinois State University and Rivian’s manufacturing plant – a natural host city for MIPRC’s 2023 Annual Meeting.

The Congressionally mandated Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Long-Distance Service Study offers myriad opportunities to strengthen the Midwest’s, as well as the nation’s, passenger rail network, from expanding existing services to restoring routes Amtrak inherited but discontinued, the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission (MIPRC) said in comments to the Federal Railroad Administration.

MIPRC has filed 10 letters of support for state-supported projects with the Federal Railroad Administration to boost Midwestern states’ own submissions to the inaugural funding round of the new federal Corridor Identification & Development Program.

MIPRC on December 1 submitted an application to the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) for a $5 million Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) planning grant to further develop the Midwest Regional Rail Plan.

The Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission’s 2022 Annual Meeting capped a busy 13-month period that began with the release of the Federal Railroad Administration’s long-term Midwest Regional Rail Plan and the passage and enactment of the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

MIPRC on March 8, 2022, submitted comments on the new federal Corridor Identification and Development Program created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The program creates a new framework to facilitate the development of new, enhanced, and restored intercity passenger rail corridors throughout the country.

President Biden signed the historic Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act (IIJA) into law on Nov. 15. Now that IIJA is law, what exactly is in it for passenger rail?

The Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission’s potential expansion under a new federal long-term regional rail plan dominated discussion at the 2021 Annual Meeting held Oct. 13-15 in Detroit.

A Midwestern passenger rail network centered on Chicago, building on current state-supported services, that connects metropolises from the Twin Cities and Kansas City to Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Nashville with multiple daily round trips. That vision, known as the Midwest Regional Rail Plan, was unveiled Oct. 13 at Chicago Union Station by the the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission and the Federal Railroad Administration.

In a July 23 letter to Midwestern members of Congress, the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission (MIPRC) endorsed the planned $66 billion allocation to rail in the bipartisan infrastructure framework and reaffirmed its strong support for passenger rail policies in both the House (H.R. 3684) and Senate (S. 2016) reauthorization bills, but asked federal lawmakers to include reforming the 13-year-old law requiring states to pay for Amtrak services on routes that 750 miles or shorter.

As Congress debates and votes on the House’s and Senate’s versions of surface transportation reauthorization, and their inevitable melding in a conference committee, MIPRC has created a side-by-side comparison for reference. The chart shows funding and program authorizations in the INVEST in America Act (H.R. 3684) and the Surface Transportation Reinvestment Act of 2021 (S.2016), and their provisions compared to what MIPRC has asked of Congress in its Surface Transportation Reauthorization principles.

A transformative investment in passenger rail took the first step toward becoming law this week in Congress when the U.S. House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee's transportation re-authorization bill was considered in committee. The INVEST (Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation) in America Act, introduced on June 4 by Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chair Peter DeFazio, was marked up by the full Committee on June 9 and passed, by a 38-26  vote, in the early hours of June 10.

As Amtrak proposes to reconfigure the national network, it’s also time to reconfigure the cost-share for these new corridor services. The Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission has been working to preserve and improve our nation’s and region’s passenger rail system for 20 years. Based on our extensive knowledge of and history working with both Amtrak and our state DOTS, MIPRC is offering a proposal for a wide-ranging re-envisioning of Amtrak to ensure the development of the strong, national passenger rail system our country needs.

MIPRC is asking Midwestern members of Congress to support the $80 billion passenger rail investment in the proposed American Jobs Plan and strengthen several aspects of federal passenger rail policy and funding when re-authorizing the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, which expires in September. In a May 14 letter emailed to members and their transportation legislative aides, MIPRC also stated its support for Amtrak’s proposed $5.4 billion grant request  for federal fiscal year 2022.