MIPRC News

The Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission’s work runs the gamut, from promoting state and regional passenger rail plans and projects to influencing federal policy. See and follow the latest MIPRC news and updates here.  Click here for news from our MIPRC states.

 

MIPRC visits Congress to promote Midwest passenger rail Read more

MIPRC visits Congress to promote Midwest passenger rail

MIPRC commissioners met with 49 Midwestern Members of Congress and/or their staff during individual office visits in Washington, D.C. on May 23 to stress the importance of maintaining a strong federal/state partnership for passenger rail development. Commissioners also illuminated the growing demand for regional passenger rail in the Midwest, along with recent developments in track and equipment upgrades.

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MIPRC asks Midwest members of Congress to protect funding for long-distance trains Read more

MIPRC asks Midwest members of Congress to protect funding for long-distance trains

When the Trump Administration released its budget outline last month, it proposed eliminating funding for all of Amtrak’s long-distance trains for Fiscal Year 2018, and cutting $499 million for the popular TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant program immediately as part of the budget deal being negotiated now for the remainder of the current fiscal year.

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Midwest Amtrak ridership shows a mixed bag, but with mostly positive trends Read more

Midwest Amtrak ridership shows a mixed bag, but with mostly positive trends

Ridership on seven of nine state-supported Amtrak routes in the Midwest grew by leaps and bounds over the last 10 fiscal years, but has dropped during the last five — a situation that state officials attribute at least in part to construction projects that aim to increase ridership and improve travel times over the long term.

While total ridership on the region’s routes grew 42 percent from fiscal years 2006 to 2016 (up to a total of 2,705,848 passengers), it dropped 8 percent from FY 2011 to FY 2016. Corridor improvement projects got underway after 2011, when federal funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 began flowing to state departments of transportation.

However, ridership figures for October 2016, released just before Thanksgiving, show that shorter-term regional trend may be starting to reverse – the Midwest’s state-supported routes carried 224,043 passengers in October, an increase of more than three percent (7,115 passengers) over October 2015.

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