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Gov. Landry has come out and said while he does not oppose passenger rail service connecting Baton Rouge and New Orleans, he’d rather see money go towards widening I-10 between the two cities.
John Spain, a member of the Southern Rail Commission, says, why not both?\
“We have always assumed going back many years that the Interstate would be widened,” says Spain. “It’s going to be very expensive, and it’s going to take a number of years. And I would suggest that the governor can have both.”
Spain says adding passenger rail would ease congestion on I-10.
“There’s roughly on a given day about 1,000 people in each city going to the other city,” Spain notes. “So we know that’s part of the congestion on I-10. If people that are going back and forth every day took the train, it would reduce some of that congestion.”
Spain says a passenger rail line can be up and running quickly, further aiding any construction project along I-10.
“A train can actually start within the next 18 months or so,” Spain notes. “It might be a nice way of taking some of that traffic off the future Interstate.”
Landry has questioned whether a Baton Rouge-New Orleans train corridor would get used.
Spain says polls show that it would.
“More than 70% of the poll that we took of residents in every parish in Baton Rouge and New Orleans said they would ride the train,” Spain says.
Landry’s predecessor, John Bel Edwards, had dedicated more than $20 million to the rail project.
It would be up to Governor Landry to decide whether to move forward.
Spain says there’s plenty of money available to help pay for a passenger rail line connecting Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
“There is in the railroad fund $60 billion the Biden administration has put in for inter-city rail, which that is what this is,” says Spain.
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