The infrastructure law Congress passed in 2021 made billions of dollars available for the development of passenger rail, and Amtrak is pushing for a massive expansion nationwide. This week Chattanooga took an early step toward getting a route of its own.
In partnership with Atlanta, Nashville and Memphis, the city of Chattanooga applied through a federal program for funding to study potential routes between the cities.
In the half-century since the last commercial passenger train left downtown Chattanooga, the area’s train advocates have seen plan after plan and study after study fail to deliver.
Drawing a contrast from those past efforts, Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly’s administration points to the scale of federal investment in trains today and the relatively modest nature of its preliminary vision, which emphasizes the use of existing tracks between the cities owned and used by freight companies.