Mississippi Today
Details emerge over Gulf Coast Amtrak route from Mobile to New Orleans, as former enemies become funding partners
Details emerge over Gulf Coast Amtrak route from Mobile to New Orleans, as former enemies become funding partners
As Amtrak plans for a 2023 start date, the freight companies and Alabama port that once said passenger rail’s return to the Mississippi Gulf Coast could be detrimental to business are now pledging millions of dollars in improvements to the tracks between Mobile and New Orleans.
The freight companies and Alabama Port Authority have promised to pay a collective $15 million to improve the passenger train’s route in efforts to decrease the total time it will take Amtrak to go between New Orleans and Mobile, according to details obtained by a Mississippi Today records request.
Amtrak had been at odds with the freight companies for years — so much so it filed a complaint to a federal board that has spent the last determining if the freight-owned tracks could handle added passenger traffic.
Arguments, at times, got ugly with Amtrak once posting a live video feed and snarky tweets about how often — or not — freight trains came through the corridor.
Amtrak, the port, and freight companies CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern mediated an agreement over the once-contested route, rather than putting the dispute to a board vote. Since they announced that agreement last month, they have all been tight-lipped about its terms or specifics about the route’s future beyond saying it was moving ahead.
READ MORE: Amtrak passenger route will return to Mississippi Gulf Coast
Mississippi Today has been able to glean some details of what the parties have planned after examining a copy of a grant application by the Southern Rail Commission that requests nearly $179 million in federal money to help pay for a “Gulf Coast Corridor Improvement Project.” The application also details $44 million in non-federal matching funds from the project’s partners.
“What I can say is that once these improvements are made, it will result in a 3-hour-and-23-minute trip time,” Southern Rail Commission chairman Knox Ross told Mississippi Today. “At the beginning, you will have something longer than that.”
The Southern Rail Commission was already awarded $33 million in 2019 through the same grant program — Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements Grant Program – for the Gulf Coast route. None of that money has been spent yet.
Under the Biden Administration, there is $1.4 billion available to improve railways’ speed and safety this year through the program. That’s more than four times the amount allocated in 2021, according to the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association.
The improvement plans in this year’s application detail construction and track improvements lasting until 2026, but the route can still run while the bulk of the improvements are being made.
Knox declined to comment further on the application or agreement. Amtrak referred any comments back to the information submitted in the hefty application.
In a letter supporting the project included in the application, CSX specified it would pay nearly $9.9 million in matching funds.
“The Project will facilitate the introduction of a new twice-daily Amtrak service between New Orleans and Mobile, while simultaneously supporting freight service quality,” wrote the company’s Executive Vice President of Operations Jamie Boychuk.
In a similar letter, the Alabama State Port Authority promised to contribute $750,000 in funds to support the route. The Mississippi Legislature had already allocated just under $14 million in funding to support route improvements. The state of Louisiana has pledged roughly another $9 million. The Port of Pascagoula pledged $2 million.
Amtrak has an existing $6 million in contributions.
“Implementing a twice-daily service between New Orleans and Mobile would provide a huge economic lift to Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula, and other cities along Mississippi’s Gulf Coast,” wrote U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker in a letter also included with the application. “It would serve as a culmination of Mississippi’s efforts to recover from Hurricane Katrina. Since 2010, the population of the Mississippi Gulf Coast has grown steadily, and an additional transportation option would encourage further growth and improve quality of life for current residents.”
The application spells out 12 separate “components” within the overall project totaling about $223 million.
Among the listed improvements is a new station track in Mobile, which will not be funded by the grant but by CSX, according to the application. The improvements will allow for Amtrak trains to board and deboard passengers within the Mobile Terminal downtown.
The proposed grant-funded improvements include extending tracks, installing new switches and turnouts, additional crossovers and improving stations, yard and crossings. Specifically, it calls for “significant station improvements” along the Mississippi stops.
That includes a new station building in Biloxi and platform canopies in Bay St. Louis and Gulfport. In Pascagoula, Amtrak may attempt to acquire the historic train depot, which was built in 1904 and registered as a historic place in the 1970s, or build a new building nearby.
The plan also calls for improving railroad crossings at multiple points on the 85-miles of track that go through Mississisippi.
Should the grant be awarded, project management would be coordinated by Knox and the Southern Rail Commission.
In a note included in the application, the Southern Rail Commission explained it’s asking for more funds than it did in 2018 because the costs of construction and the available infrastructure dollars have increased, and because of the new public-private partnerships “bringing momentum.”
“This Project is the epitome of various parties joining together to commit resources to expand intercity passenger service while maintaining viable freight networks essential to the economic viability of the rural areas and ensuring the safety and efficiency of operations in the New Orleans to Mobile rail corridor,” the commission wrote.
Ultimately, the commission hopes to make Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans a hub that connects Mobile — and its Mississippi stops in between — with routes to Baton Rouge and toward Texas.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1997
Dec. 22, 1997
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.
In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.”
He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.”
The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi
About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.
The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.
Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.
During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.
“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”
White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.
Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.
White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.
Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.
People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.
White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.
They are correct.
But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.
As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.
Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.
That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.
Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?
If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.
The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.
In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1911
Dec. 21, 1911
Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia.
When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs.
He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame.
The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays.
Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
-
News from the South - Arkansas News Feed7 days ago
Faith-inspired ministry opens health clinic in Little Rock
-
News from the South - Florida News Feed6 days ago
‘Dirty Dancing,’ ‘Beverly Hills Cop,’ ‘Up in Smoke’ among movies entering the National Film Registry
-
Our Mississippi Home5 days ago
The Meaning of the Redbird During the Holiday Season
-
Mississippi Today4 days ago
Mississippi PERS Board endorses plan decreasing pension benefits for new hires
-
Local News1 day ago
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Biloxi Honors Veterans with Wreath-Laying Ceremony and Holiday Giving Initiative
-
News from the South - North Carolina News Feed2 days ago
Social Security benefits boosted for millions in bill headed to Biden’s desk • NC Newsline
-
News from the South - Missouri News Feed2 days ago
Could prime Albert Pujols fetch $1 billion in today's MLB free agency?
-
Mississippi News Video3 days ago
12/19- Friday will be breezy…but FREEZING by this weekend