At one time, passenger trains operated twice daily between Saint Paul and Kansas City. We are advocating for a new train to connect the Twin Cities Metro area with Minnesota cities along the 35W corridor.

An update to a story we covered last week. As expected, Brightline missed their payment deadline last Thursday (the second time they have done so, the first being last July) and could end up defaulting if they have to defer a third time.

IARP has declared its support for HF494 and SF38, two bills that would mandate 2-man train crews in Iowa. As mentioned before, IARP is also declared in support of HF533, the bill to rejoin the MIPRC.

With the Iowa Legislature now back in session, the Senate will have another chance to take action on HF 533, the bill to put Iowa back into the MIPRC. Last year the bill passed the House. This year it needs to pass committee and whole body votes in the Senate.

ICYMI: After House Republicans have proposed zeroing out the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail grant program, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) and a number of colleagues have jumped to its defense.

A very good November for Amtrak, with a 9% year-over-year increase in ridership. Iowa's routes both saw gains, as seat capacity also saw a slight rebound nationally.

According to a recent FRA webinar, the agency is targeting January as the time to send out a Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Corridor ID Program. This would be the first time since 2023 that new corridors could enter the program.

The Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act, which creates a new regional authority of the same name and funds a number of investments in public transit, capital projects, and tollways across the state, officially goes into effect in June 2026.

A good write up from @ridewithdata.org on transit discussions around DART (Dallas) and Plano.

The Milwaukee-Kenosha rail project is shifting away from a commuter rail proposal in favor of a 2nd Milwaukee-Chicago intercity corridor. The corridor would return rail service to Racine, while increasing CHI-MKE capacity.

Something to think about the next time a freight train derails.

Another light rail extension in Seattle opens today.

A little late to this news, but Ohio's publicly-funded GoBus network is expanding its network with 4 new routes. Once complete, GoBus will reach 47 Ohio counties with affordable intercity bus service.

Iowa will be seeing high Amtrak ridership this holiday weekend.

Not a terrible month for on-time performance, with Iowa's routes seeing improvement and Amtrak meeting it's system-wide goal of 80% on-time. As always, still work to do on the long-distance routes.

Iowa transit agencies have won $77 million in awards through a pair of FTA grant programs.

Iowa City Transit is being featured in the New York Times for its fare-free bus program.

With $425M in funding secured, part of Illinois' transformative Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act, community leaders in the Quad Cities continue to push for support of a Chicago to Moline train that has been years in the making. quadcitiesbusiness.c...

Iowa transit ridership for September. We've got gains across the board, with Sioux City surprisingly having the highest growth. Statewide ridership is now at 85% of pre-Covid levels (currently only 80% nationally).

Monthly and annual ridership numbers for Amtrak. Capping off a strong fiscal year with yet another ridership gain. Thank you to everyone who has ridden Amtrak over the past year. Here's to another good year in front of us.

The Surface Transportation Board (STB) has been handed a letter written by Senators John Hoeven (R-ND) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) - and backed up by 16 of their colleagues - to conduct a "rigorous and comprehensive" review of the proposed merger between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern. 1/2

34,471,000 Amtrak has closed out fiscal year 2025 with a new ridership record! Here’s to another one in 2026.

Illinois' SB 2111 set up a dedicated fund for intercity rail projects, which is authorized for up to $342 million annually. If Iowa had the same funding per capita, we would have $87 million annually for intercity rail. Instead we have $0. Imagine what we could do with $87 million.

TRANSIT BILL PASSES IN ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE At 4:20 AM, the Illinois Senate passed SB 2111 by a 36-21 vote, needing 30 votes to pass. With the bill having passed the Illinois House earlier this morning, the bill will head to the Governor for his signature.

SB 2111 has PASSED the Illinois House of Representatives. The vote was 72-32, 71 votes were needed to pass. On to the Senate.

As of 2 AM Friday morning, the Illinois veto session is not yet over. SB 2111 is STILL being debated in the House.

It is now 10 PM, and the amended version of SB 2111 has just been filed. Still needs to get through both houses, but there's finally movement on the bill after over 2 hours since the last news update.

A new funding proposal is being proposed in the Illinois GA for the Chicago transit package. The new funding package would revolve around revenue from fuel taxes, interest from the state road fund, and an RTA tax increase. No official amendments to SB 2111 yet, so stay tuned.

The Illinois House of Representatives will start today’s session at 2 PM. A bill to fund Chicago transit/Amtrak to Moline, SB 2111, is on the calendar.

Illinois’ veto session finishes this week, with the session running Tuesday-Thursday. Funding for Chicago transit + Amtrak to Moline still up in the air. An important week ahead for passenger rail in Illinois, and for the future of the Chicago-Omaha rail corridor.

The Kansas City Streetcar extension begins service today.

Here are some parking/travel notes for people coming to our meeting on Saturday. We will be on the 2nd floor of DART Central Station, so just take the stairs or elevator upstairs and you should be able to come out right next to our meeting room.

A strong year for Iowa's fixed-route transit systems, with Iowa City and Davenport leading the way on growth. Some more mixed results in the demand response systems. Overall, Iowa increased its transit ridership by over 2 million rides, and is at about 85% of 2019 ridership levels.

The FTA has published transit agency profiles for 2024. See how your local system performed below.

Big news for Empire Service riders today. Metro-North will begin 1 daily trip between NYC and Albany starting next year.

Phase 2 of Honolulu’s metro line opened today, bringing service into the city proper.

Coralville Transit’s Route 22 bus will be going away. This change will make North Liberty the 2nd largest city in Iowa (behind Waukee) without any fixed route transit.

The Illinois legislature's veto session, which will try to pass funding for proposed Amtrak service to the Quad Cities, begins this Tuesday. The legislature will be in session the 14th-16th & the 28th-30th.

Amtrak ridership for August. Overall gains continue, although at a slower rate than previous months.

As we learned following the MIPRC, the funding gap for the Chicago-Moline corridor (using the preferred IAIS alignment) is estimated to be about $400 million. This new budget proposal from Gov. Pritzker would allocate $390 million to the project, closing nearly the entire gap.

These projects are not political bargaining chips - they some of the largest public works projects in the country, lifelines for millions of commuters, and essential to the economic vitality of the region. http://railpax.org/vQ2l50X5Eiy

To the best of our knowledge this is the total inventory of intercity bus routes in Iowa following Trailways’ exit. As previously mentioned, Jefferson Lines and Greyhound picked up most of the pieces, but this is definitely a very sparse network.

Looks like Iowa’s intercity bus network will mostly be preserved. A mix of Greyhound and Jefferson Lines will be taking over the old Trailways routes. Initial count shows 25 cities being served across 9 routes. Will provide more details after some more review.

Another poor month for long-distance OTP. Freight train interference and slow orders are killing the California Zephyr's OTP.

NE: Grand Islanders show interest in expanding passenger rail service www.masstransitmag.com/rail/news/55...

Full build out of our rail plan, with 2 daily round trips on each route, would result in over 3.3 million annual train miles added, almost doubling the current Amtrak Midwest network.

LA Metro’s A Line extension to Pomona opens tomorrow.