WASHINGTON — Projects in Illinois, Louisiana, and North Carolina have received a total of $900,000 in planning and development funding under the Federal Railroad Administration’s Interstate Rail Compacts grant program, the FRA announced today (Thursday, March 14).
Compacts are agreements between two or more states to support development of intercity passenger rail services that can be implemented through a commission that carries out the necessary planning, administration, and coordination for such a service. The IRC program provides funding that can be used for administration, planning, and marketing, including such needs as information technology, accounting, and obtaining technical staff or contractor support for federal grant applications.
The grants, for fiscal 2022-23, have gone to:
— Illinois: Up to $300,000 for the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission expansion project. It will be used for administration, promotion, and preparation of grant applications; the commission will provide a 50% non-federal match.
— Louisiana: Up to $400,000 for the Southern Rail Commission Rail-Ready Project. The project seeks to build capacity to expand passenger rail across the south; the grant will fund administration, promotion of rail operations, operations coordination, and preparation of grant applications. The SRC will also provide a 50% non-federal match.
— North Carolina: Up to $200,000 for the VA-NC Compact Administration/Southeast Rail Network Analysis Project. Funds go to the North Carolina Department of Transportation to complete the Southeast Rail Network Analysis, which seeks to aid efforts to improve fluidity of the Southeast rail network for both passenger and freight operations. The North Carolina DOT and Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation will provide a 50% non-federal match.
“The Interstate Rail Compacts Grant Program fills a vital need,” FRA Administrator Amit Bose said in a press release, “by providing entities implementing interstate rail compacts with the resources to build up an organizational and human infrastructure for the fluid operation of new services that will meet the needs of local communities.”
More information about the IRC program is available here.
There are nations without governments. If the idea of no government is appealing, why not look at how they work? Somalia and Sudan for example. That could give us insight.
I’m quite happy with my STATE and LOCAL governments: State of Wisconsin, Waukesha County, Town of Brookfield, and Elmbrook School District. The federal government needs to shrink to what’s required in the Tenth Amendment. Go and read it.
Our government is beyond hope. $300K’s PLUS a 50% local match —— not to run trains, not for rail infrastructure, but for paperwork. Paperwork to create the need for more paperwork.
In late 1970, SecDOT John Anthony Volpe promised us a national passenger rail network. Not $450K’s to prepare paperwork to plan the apportionment of expenses between the feds and the locals for a train that may or may not run.
I think we’d have more trains to ride, at lower cost, if we abolished the federal government. (And just think of all the other benefits if everything inside the beltway was shut down …… like for example no more requiring American taxpayers to pay Kenya to police Haiti.)
You just keep shaking that fist at the clouds Charles, and demanding they do something to right the ills you perceive with the good old U.S. of A.