Middle Tennessee is one step closer to gaining a significant new passenger rail service. The city of Chattanooga was recently awarded a grant to study the feasibility of an Amtrak rail line that would connect it with Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga and Atlanta.
Nashville has not had passenger rail service for more than 40 years, and residents have long pushed to restore the line and bring intercity rail connectivity to the region. Chattanooga is taking the lead, and the $500,000 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Corridor ID Program will go towards studying the scope, schedule and cost of the rail project.
“This is a huge step forward for an idea we’ve been pushing for from City Hall since Day 1 of my administration. Passenger rail is an important piece of the multimodal mobility goals we’ve laid out, and this award shows the broad support for and momentum behind our vision of reconnecting us to other major Southern cities by bringing passenger rail back to Chattanooga,” said Mayor Tim Kelly. “There aren’t many places in America whose history is as closely tied to rail travel as Chattanooga’s, and today’s announcement is a promising sign that the railroad will continue to be an important part of our future.”
City and state officials view the potential rail service as an economic boon as well as a way to alleviate some traffic problems.
Though there is no current timeline for the study, and if deemed feasible the project would take years to complete, but the grant marks a major step towards bringing rail service to the state.