The city of Fort Wayne announced it has gained another partner to try and bring a passenger rail to the community. The city is already partnered with the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC.)
The city has now retained HNTB Corporation to assist in executing the Midwest Connect Corridor ID Grant to bring the Midwest Connect Passenger Rail Project to life. The rail would provide passenger rail between Pittsburgh and Chicago, through Fort Wayne and Columbus.
HNTB is a consulting company that creates “infrastructure that best meets the unique demands of its environment. With client relationships spanning decades, we understand infrastructure life cycles and have the perspective to solve technical challenges with clarity and imagination,” according to the company’s website.
In December 2023, the city received a grant for $500,000 for the project. The Federal Railroad Association gave the city the grant to start working on the planning portion for the Midwest Connect Passenger Rail. The planning portion includes developing a scope, schedule and budget.
“It’s encouraging to see this progress as Fort Wayne continues to lead an effort that will have a lasting and meaningful impact,” said Fort Wayne Mayor Sharon Tucker. “As work continues with our partners, it’s our belief that this latest effort gives us the best chance to restore passenger rail services to Fort Wayne.”
This planning portion is just the first step for the project and is fully funded by the federal government. The second step is creating a service development plan— 90% of which is federally funded.
“That’s when we really get into the planning and understand where stations are going to go,” Paul Spoelhof, planning and policy director for the City of Fort Wayne, said. “What type of track alignments are necessary, where we can use existing track, where it makes sense to add new track alignment, what kind of speeds we’ll be able to achieve.”
The third step is 80% federally funded. Having been approved for step one, Fort Wayne is automatically approved by the federal government to conduct steps two and three if remaining local funding is secured. That money doesn’t have to only come from Fort Wayne, Spoelhof said. It can come from states and other cities along the entire proposed rout from Pittsburgh, Penn. to Chicago.
“That will involve some environmental management, environmental analysis of some of the projects that need to be built, and it will also involve preliminary engineering,” Spoelhof said.
Fort Wayne city councilman and board member for the Northern Indiana Passenger Railroad Association, Geoff Paddock, said this doesn’t only mean Fort Wayne residents can easily access places like Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, but people living in other proposed stops like Lima, Ohio and Warsaw can come to the summit city. The passenger rail station would be the old Baker Street station on the southern edge of downtown Fort Wayne.
“We’re right across the street here from Parkview field,” Paddock said. We’re two blocks south of the Grand Wayne Convention Center. We’ve got the Citilink bus station that could take someone to the Fort Wayne international airport to catch a flight.”
Spoelhof stressed that big projects like this take time. He is hopeful that because of these steps being taken now, Fort Wayne will have passenger rail service in the future.
“If we had not been spending the last 10 to 15 years studying this corridor, we would not have been in a position to get the attention of the Federal Railroad Administration and get in this program,” Spoelhof said. “Many communities applied and did not get in.”
Both Paddock and Spoelhof said this is a combined effort requiring collaboration between all communities along the proposed route. Lima, Ohio is a proposed stop between Fort Wayne and Columbus. The following is a statement from Lima’s mayor on the progress of this project:
“We are excited to learn that the City of Fort Wayne is aggressively moving forward with bringing passenger rail back to the region. The selection of a consultant is an important next step, and we are pleased to continue supporting Fort Wayne as the lead applicant.”
View the full article at wane.com.