Among other places, this route would bring service to the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana. Students there have created a petition, and if you are in one of the states that would be served by this route, you can sign here:
The Bring Back Amtrak website has a map of the proposed route and proposed actions. As more and more people leave cars for other forms of transportation, we need to start moving those subsidies as well.
2 comments:
How different from the Empire Builder is this route? Wouldn't it take existing passengers from the Empire Builder? Or is it sufficiently far away to serve a completely different travelshed?
I wish this new route would take travelers from the Empire Builder. In the last year and a half I have attempted to take it three times. Once it was sold out (from Chicago to St. Paul) and the other two times it was crowded.
Actually, bringing service to the biggest cities in North Dakota and Montana increases the ridership for the Empire Builder and other trains in the Amtrak system.
In Montana, the Empire Builder connects small towns near the Canadian border. The North Coast Hiawatha runs to the south even in North Dakota where it would restore service to Bismarck, the capital. But it really starts to deviate in Montana where it runs along the southern edge of the state. Here again it connects the biggest cities in the state.
Although there are three different routes being proposed, so what actually happens depends on citizen involvement and whether Montana is the only state providing funding.
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