Georgia, Tennessee Pass on Rail Funds

Two dozen states lined up this month to request federal aid spurned by other states for high-speed rail, but the proposed Atlanta-to-Chattanooga line was not among the projects vying for Uncle Sam's help.
April 28, 2011
2 min read

Georgia's Department of Transportation is trying to get money for a new Amtrak station in Atlanta, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam said the Volunteer State simply wasn't ready to compete for more federal dollars for a high-speed rail leg in Tennessee.

"I would question in this current federal tax environment whether a whole lot will happen with high-speed rail," Haslam said last week. "To apply for this money, you would have to have a lot of the work in progress and we didn't have that done yet."

Twenty-four states angled for a share of $1.2 billion that became available after governors in Florida and Wisconsin rejected federal funds for previously approved high-speed rail projects.

But Chattanooga high-speed rail backers insist their plans still are moving, if slowly.

"I always thought this would be a long-term project, but I have no doubt that there will be a high-speed rail network throughout the United States and it's very important that Chattanooga be a part of that," said Mayor Ron Littlefield, a longtime supporter and former consultant for the project here.

"This country cannot go forward into the future as a leading nation with just two ways of moving people -- highway and air. We saw the weakness of that on 9/11," he said.

"And the United States can't ignore the investments that every other developed and many developing countries are making in high-speed rail."

Littlefield recalled that when interstate highways were laid out in the 1950s, Mayor Rudy Olgiati worked to make sure those highways went through Chattanooga.

Sign up for Mass Transit eNewsletters