JEFFERSON CITY — State transportation officials are asking for $76 million in federal funding to expand passenger rail service in Missouri.
In documents submitted earlier this month to Gov. Mike Parson, the Missouri Department of Transportation wants the Republican governor to include the financial request in his January budget proposal as a way to add another daily round-trip option on Amtrak’s Missouri River Runner between ºüÀêÊÓƵ and Kansas City.
Currently, Amtrak offers two round trips on the 285-mile stretch linking Missouri’s largest metropolitan areas.
The money also would add new Amtrak service in Missouri between Kansas City and Springfield, and Kansas City and St. Joseph. The plan also calls for extending the existing Chicago-Quincy, Illinois, service to Hannibal.
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“All four of these concepts have been identified by communities across the state for years and are currently identified as unfunded needs,†said MoDOT spokeswoman Linda Horn.
The possible expansion in Missouri is part of a nationwide effort by President Joe Biden to get more people out of cars and into trains as part of a job-creating bid to rebuild infrastructure.
In addition to new routes, Amtrak would bring intercity rail service to new communities, including Nashville, Tennessee; Columbus, Ohio; and Phoenix.
Some money sought by MoDOT would be used to hire a consultant to begin preliminary studies of potential future lines.
“This is very preliminary and just a request for funds to study an unfunded need,†Horn said.
In an October 2022 letter to the Federal Railroad Administration, Paul Nissenbaum, associate administrator for MoDOT’s railroad section, said adding a third daily trip between ºüÀêÊÓƵ and Kansas City would “provide increased connectivity†to the state’s big cities.
The River Runner makes eight stops in between its two runs, including in Kirkwood, Washington, Hermann and Jefferson City.
Adding a stop in Hannibal “would provide passenger rail service to a tourism-dependent region of the state.â€
And, he wrote, bringing a line to Springfield would provide rail service to Missouri’s third-largest metro area.
“The region of (southwest) Missouri is not serviced by passenger rail,†Nissenbaum wrote. “The closest Amtrak station currently is more than 100 miles away.â€
In addition, MoDOT said it is interested in partnering with Minnesota and Iowa in a potential north-south corridor linking Kansas City with Des Moines and Minneapolis.
The push comes as state lawmakers haven’t always been supportive of passenger rail service on the River Runner line.
In 2021, Amtrak one of the daily trips between ºüÀêÊÓƵ and Kansas City was cut in response to a lack of funding from the state.
Ridership on the line was affected by the pandemic and, in 2019, by flooding on the Missouri River.
Typically, an estimated 170,000 people ride the route, but service cuts and COVID-19 restrictions reduced that number to about 86,000 in 2020 and another 77,200 in 2021.
Kurt Erickson • 573-556-6181 kerickson@post-dispatch.com