Buttigieg celebrates restoration of Gulf Coast rail service

MOBILE, Ala. (CN) — Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg stood at the eastern terminus of the Gulf Coast Corridor Improvement project Tuesday simultaneously basking in the bright warm Alabama sun and the unlikely affection of a state that will overwhelmingly vote to fire him in about two weeks. 

The corridor between New Orleans and Mobile may be more liberal than other areas of the region, but the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are nevertheless controlled by Republican supermajorities. Still, they are enjoying the windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of transportation improvements provided as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including more than $178 million to reopen a passenger rail route that was severed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. 

Of the six Republican senators who represent the states in Congress, just two voted for the funding when the bill came before Congress in 2021. Of the three state’s combined 14 representatives in the House, none voted for it. 

Yet in a news conference, Buttigieg noted how Republican Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker and 18 of his Senate colleagues broke rank, along with 13 House Republicans, to make the bill truly bipartisan and the funding a reality. And despite complete opposition from Alabama’s Republican delegation, the Gulf Coast would benefit from both the restoration of the rail corridor and more than $550 million recently awarded to the Mobile Bridge and Bayway Project on Interstate 10, which Buttigieg said was the largest federal transportation grant ever to come to the state. 

He said the two projects were among 63,000 nationwide that have been planned or funded because of the bill. 

“The public demand to restore this train line has mounted since Hurricane Katrina,” he said. “We’re going to upgrade tracks and signals to minimize delays, make station improvements for comfort and convenience, create safer road crossings and provide two new round trips per day between Mobile and New Orleans.”

The route will also include four stops in Mississippi — Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula — but will open the Gulf Coast to more than 500 destinations in the United States and Canada served by Amtrak. Buttigieg said the service provides a “reliable, efficient, affordable way to travel” and also carries potential for economic development. 

Amtrak President Roger Harris was also on-hand Tuesday for the groundbreaking ceremony of a new passenger terminal in Mobile. He said the service was setting “all time records in ridership and revenue” after experiencing setbacks during the pandemic.

Harris added that since Amtrak’s new Borealis service between Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul debuted in May, it has carried more than 100,000 passengers, “far exceeding all expectations.” 

“To make our goal of doubling ridership by 2040, we need more trains in more places with more frequency,” he said. 

Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose said that before the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the nation’s passenger rail system suffered from a “half century of federal underinvestment.”

“Before the Biden Administration, passenger rail funding was questionable and essential projects were left withering and services were suspended,” he said. “Today ridership numbers are increasing to pre-pandemic levels and for the first time in generations the federal government is funding significant long-term projects to meet demand and provide Americans with a world class passenger rail service, a demand they deserve.”

Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson, a Republican who first met Buttigieg in 2017 when the cabinet member was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said the effort to restore the corridor was collaborative and a collaborative spirit will be required to maintain it.

The parties involved — including freight carriers and industrial interests — initially struck a deal in November 2022. The terminal will be at the same site of a previous terminal that was demolished in 2007 and will provide a bypass track for freight trains. 

Mobile resident Henry Brewster was at the event to show support for both the rail corridor and the Biden Administration, holding a piece of cardboard with the message “THX JOE, THX PETE” scribbled in permanent marker. Before Hurricane Katrina, he said, he rode Amtrak to Montgomery and New Orleans. 

“We’ll do it again,” Brewster said. “But it’s also a good time to remind people that this administration has delivered like it said was going to do, to bring infrastructure like highways, railroads and bridges. The infrastructure story in this country is such a success story and we’re here to thank Pete and Joe for making it happen.”

The route is expected to open in 2025. 

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