The city of Chattanooga has earned a $500,000 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Corridor ID Program to fund a study to develop the scope, cost, engineering and other requirements needed to establish new passenger rail service on existing alignments along the Atlanta-Chattanooga-Nashville-Memphis corridor.
The grant, which the city applied for earlier this year, puts the project into the federal government’s development pipeline and moves Tennessee’s residents closer to enhanced intercity rail connectivity.
“There aren’t many places in America whose history is as closely tied to rail travel as Chattanooga’s, and this announcement is a promising sign that the railroad will continue to be an important part of our future,” says Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly.
The award puts Chattanooga into the Corridor ID Program’s Step 1, which initiates the grantee’s corridor development efforts under the program by preparing a scope, schedule and cost estimate for developing a Service Development Plan (SDP) for the corridor.
Step 1 also includes the grant recipient’s development of the capability and capacity (including securing initial staff, contractor support and non-federal financial resources) necessary to support preparing the SDP and conducting Step 3 activities.
The Corridor ID Program is an intercity passenger rail planning and development program that will guide intercity passenger rail development throughout the country and create a pipeline of intercity passenger rail projects ready for implementation.
Unlike previous intercity passenger rail planning efforts, the Corridor ID Program is intended to both support a sustained long-term development effort and set forth a capital project pipeline ready for federal (and other) funding.
The Corridor ID Program is intended to become the primary means for directing federal financial support and technical assistance toward the development of proposals for new or improved intercity passenger rail services throughout the United States.
In June 2023, the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations identified intercity passenger rail connectivity between Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga and Atlanta as priority opportunities for increasing connectivity, facilitating tourism and other economic development initiatives in Tennessee, and supplementing existing public and private-sector efforts to address the state’s transportation needs.
Source: Office of Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly
EPB board OKs plan to restructure company
The EPB board has approved a plan to restructure the company to give it greater flexibility in positioning the community to benefit from long-term developments. This effort will include establishing a new business unit dedicated to capitalizing on emerging opportunities.
EPB’s future operations will include a new business unit called Energy and Communications. To provide leadership for this part of the company, the EPB board has promoted Ryan Keel, currently senior vice president of technical operations.
In his new role, Keel will serve as president of Energy and Communications, with day-to-day responsibility for EPB’s existing operations, including its electric and fiber optics systems. EPB CEO David Wade will continue to head up the corporate entity, with overarching responsibility for the whole company and its strategic direction.