John Robert Smith is chairman of Transportation for America. He is a former chair of Amtrak's Board of Directors and served 16 years as mayor of his hometown of Meridian, Mississippi. He first became a passenger rail champion while serving as mayor, when Amtrak proposed cutting service through Meridian, and he has since become a highly respected voice for restoring and revitalizing passenger service around the country.
In this clip, Mr. Smith begins with a discussion of the expected economic benefits of Amtrak's Gulf Coast service between New Orleans and Mobile, which is slated to begin operations this year. Amtrak discontinued service on this route in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina damaged the infrastructure. The freight railroads who own the tracks, CSX and Norfolk Southern, then resisted attempts on the part of Amtrak and the communities along the route to restore passenger service. Over the past few years, however, the parties have reached an agreement, and a resumption of service is all but certain.
One key force in securing the return of service along the Gulf Coast has been the Southern Rail Commission, a rail advisory compact between Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Independent rail planning and policy organizations like the SRC have emerged as crucial catalysts for the expansion and revitalization of state and regional rail systems across the country.
The clip closes with a discussion of the vital connections that passenger rail can provide to rural towns and small urban centers who have been left behind economically—and how restoring that service could be one way of doing justice to the crucial role that these places have in the country as a whole.
Our new Rail Bites series presents you with some of our favorite clips from our amazing guests on Reconnect America. With Rail Bites, you can look forward to more frequent, shorter-form content in between our carefully crafted longer episodes.
Reconnect America is hosted by Bill Moyer, co-author of the book Solutionary Rail: A People-powered Campaign to Electrify America’s Railroads and Open Corridors to a Clean Energy Future. Check out the essays and supplemental posts that complement this podcast HERE.
Learn more, get involved and pitch in to support the work of Solutionary Rail at SolutionaryRail.org. Keep the podcast ads-free and without paywalls by making a tax-deductible donation HERE.
(Photo credit: Transportation for America)
Share this post