Trains point to Gulf-Metro future
25th July 2022 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Columnist
Seventeen years since Hurricane Katrina put an end to Mobile-to-New Orleans train service, and decades after rail travel ended between the Crescent City and Baton Rouge, monies from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – as well as a renewed political commitment – may restore both train routes on a daily basis.
It didn’t hurt, of course, that Kansas City Southern’s acquisition by Canadian Pacific replaced one railway management without any history of allowing Amtrak passenger service with another which operates hourly passenger routes in multiple cities every day. Nor was it untimely that a confluence of political leaders enthusiastic about train service from La. Gov. John Bel Edwards to Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson have shown a willingness to spend the political capital – and the money – to make restored train service their lasting legacy.
However, the current plans to run one daily train from Mobile to New Orleans across the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and another separate rail line from New Orleans to Baton Rouge once per day, each possess a serious flaw. These train departures lack any significant frequency. Rail commuters want the option to be able to go back-and-forth at least a couple of times a day, other than just once in the morning and return in the evening.
Nevertheless, in the two separate rail proposals lies a possible joint solution. Merge them together. Simply, build up to regular train service between Baton Rouge and Mobile – at least four times a day. Join up the two separate rail routes until one massive regional rail transport system, with early morning, lunchtime, early afternoon, and evening departures from each end.
The proposal ranks as far less complex than it may appear at first glance. Direct the Baton Rouge to New Orleans trains (that now are planned for a once a day morning departure and evening return) to continue onward to Mobile, and for the trains outbound from the Alabama port city to continue onward to the Louisiana Capitol.
Obviously, more scheduled trains would make this combined route more consistent, but the point is by connecting these regional population centers, the middle Gulf Coast can create a Metropolitan vision economically competitive with metros anywhere in the United States – or throughout the world.
Linking the train system, it appears, is the first step in changing our regional perspective.
The key to making the Central Gulf Coast competitive in the 21st century rests in a vision of our small cities brought together into a single metroplex – stretching from Baton Rouge to Mobile. With New Orleans as its nexis, interlinked train service stands as the key to connecting all, just as commuter rail brings New Jersey and Connecticut into the greater New York City metropolitan area, as trains do the same for Chicagoland in southern Michigan and Minnesota. Daily commuters often travel two to three hours to get to work in those metroplexes, a workforce development option that can exist on the Gulf Coast.
Moreover, a Mobile to Baton Rouge train would also connect to a proposed rail station near Armstrong Airport. (The KSC tracks pass quite close to the runway.) That would allow commuters to travel seamlessly from Alabama to catch an airplane in Louisiana, bolstering travelers to the new terminal. It’s not much longer than the rail route which many NYC commuters take from Penn Station to Newark, N.J., to fly in and out of New York, after all.
Such a regional proposal would also attract other support from politicians in Alabama and Mississippi to lobby for federal transportation dollars to reconstruct the wooden bridge stretching out of New Orleans over the Bonnie Carey spillway.
Together this “BR-Nola/PasBile” Metro area would boast of a population of over 3.5 million people, collectively containing the largest port system in the world, the best entertainment options anywhere, and enough collective corporate activity to make international investment bankers elsewhere take notice.
Moreover, thanks to telecommuting, this train proposal makes more economic sense than ever before.
A study by the business magazine overheardonconferencecalls.com ranks New Orleans as one of the top 15 cities with the highest costs for commuting to work. People spend $3,637 a year to commute to and from work in the metro area, the report finds. That’s $624, or 20.7 percent more, than they spent in 2021.
By inaugurating a regional train service, not only do the coastal cities of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama join together their destinies, but they also render to their poorest population real options on where to live and what kind of life to affordably build. Reliable and frequent rail service would provide its own market if customers thanks inflationary automobile costs (especially if train speeds exceed 85 miles an hour, faster than a car). Constructing this Baton Rouge to Mobile four-times-per-day train service not only makes economic good sense, it fulfills a social justice imperative.
This article originally published in the July 25, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
