Make your voice heard and demand Congress brings long-denied passenger rail service through South Dakota
The final round, Round 4, workshops of the FRA Amtrak Long Distance Service Study have wrapped up!
All proposed new long-distance routes are feasible and defensible, including the routes through South Dakota. Now it will be on us to make sure Congress works to enact these nationally critical, nationally essential passenger rail service routes. The routes through South Dakota are likely to perform similarly to other long-distance routes.
The concept of expanded passenger rail has continued to gain widespread attention and support. The project team received over 47,000 comments in the month after the Round 3 workshops, with 99% supportive of passenger rail.
The Minneapolis/St. Paul- Denver route was one of the most commented on routes after the workshops, generating almost 300 comments alone. As we have seen these past few months, South Dakotans are keenly interested in the possibility of Amtrak and understand how this investment could also greatly benefit freight rail and economic development opportunities across the state. This interest was matched by comments elsewhere.
Even though there would need to be significant coordination and construction, both routes through South Dakota rate in the middle of the weighted priority list developed by the project team. Support from our congressional delegation (Sen. John Thune, Sen. Mike Rounds, and Rep. Dusty Johnson) would bring these routes to fruition, after having been talked about (but unrealized) for decades.
The construction activities alone would yield billions of dollars of economic benefits in addition to the on-going direct and indirect economic benefits once the services are operating. The economic stimulus could very well rival building of the US Interstate Highways or the Missouri River Dams. Again, these routes would perform comparably to other long-distance routes.
It is important to emphasize how federal investments (or lack thereof) have long disadvantaged South Dakota’s railroad system (as seen in an early Amtrak route map above, a public domain image posted on wikimedia commons). Starting in the territorial era, generous land grants (subsidies) were given to the railroads building through what are today North Dakota and Nebraska. South Dakota, in comparison, received almost nothing.
In the 1970s Congress bailed out the Northeast Corridor and northeastern United States railroad network (after the glorious implosion that was the Penn Central Railroad) but allowed the collapse of the still-viable but horrendously mis-managed Milwaukee Road Railroad, impacting South Dakota severely (even forcing Gov. Bill Janklow to call a special session of the Legislature to Pierre in August — without air conditioning! — to react to this crisis).
More recently in 2007, the Federal Railroad Administration denied the $2 billion loan (about $3.5 billion today; a loan mind you) for the DM&E Railroad to build their powder basin coal line extension. This would have significantly enhanced much of the track the Twin Cities to Denver train would run on across South Dakota. Ironically FRA Administrator Joe Boardman, who denied the loan, would later go on to lead Amtrak.
The chronic cost escalations for projects on the Northeast Corridor and other national projects would have more than paid for the route across South Dakota multiple times. The need to complete important (but costly) projects elsewhere does not take away from the needs we have in rural America. We not only deserve service, we deserve good service. And we deserve it ASAP! Over 50 years is too long to wait for what we're already paying for. The amount of Federal funding this would mean for South Dakota would completely blow the meager STC Grants out of the water.
An attack on one route, current or proposed, is an attack on all routes. That includes the routes through South Dakota.
There has not been a better time in the 53-plus years of Amtrak to call for Federal investment in our railroads. It is upon us to make sure Congress works to enact these essential rail services.
On-going economic development projects like Schwan's in Sioux Falls and the Black Hills Industrial Center deserve public investment as their federally-subsidized highway and aviation competition enjoy. If we want to turbo-charge these economic opportunities for our state, we should call for the implementation of these passenger routes that will upgrade railroad lines while also enhancing freight and economic development opportunities.
With the eventual building of federally backed US Highway Interstate 27 over the Heartland Expressway (Highway 79/85 West River), our critical and growing importance to Washington D.C. is well recognized!
Again, send your comments of support to the FRA Project team, our congressional delegation, state legislators, and the State Railroad Board and Railroad Authority. Tell them to support these investments in our future.
The federal dollar will go much further, and be more meaningful at creating lasting sustainable opportunities, being spent on an expanded long distance passenger rail network in rural America; being spent on areas like South Dakota.
"People live here!" It's time that we demand the Federal investment long denied us!
Dan Bilka of Madison in Lake County is co-founder and president, All Aboard Northwest.
