Fort Wayne retained the engineering firm HNTB this week to advise and consult the planning process to bring passenger rail services back to Fort Wayne.
The plan is to participate in the Midwest Connect Corridor, which will connect Pittsburgh to Chicago via Columbus, Ohio and Fort Wayne through a passenger rail system.
HNTB will help organizers determine what the next steps are in participating in that project. The city will pay for their services with a $500,000 federal grant it got in December.
Fort Wayne City Councilman Geoff Paddock, D-5th, has been working to get passenger rail service back to Fort Wayne for about 20 years. He said retaining HNTB means this project is no longer hyperbole.
“I don’t think the Federal Railroad Administration would have signed off on this if it wasn’t in the best interest of the project,” Paddock said.
Funding for building the rail system will be split 80/20 between the federal government and the state and local governments involved with the feds covering 80% of the cost and the state and local governments covering 20%. Paddock said he does not know how long the planning process will take, but since five state governments are involved, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, he said it’s likely to take a while.
The makeup of the 20% the state and local governments will provide has not been put together yet. Part of HNTB’s responsibility will be to help organize what that structure will look like.
