Intercity Connectivity Is a Generational Asset, Requiring Long-Term Funding
10/15/2026
Intercity rail is at a turning point in the United States, says Julie White, deputy secretary for multimodal transportation, North Carolina DOT. The industry has been making strides, with “new corridors being planned, unprecedented federal investment being put to work, and growing interest from states and communities nationwide.”
How to sustain that momentum when the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) expires was the question White asked of rail executives in the Moving Forward on High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail session at the 2026 APTA TRANSform Conference & EXPO in Chicago, IL.
Answers centered on maintaining a steady stream of funding for inherently complex rail projects, which require long-term consistency, not the “pendulum swinging” that has been rail financing historically, said Rebeca Higgins, vice president of policy, Eno Center for Transportation. “The capital projects have to be in a state of readiness to be delivered when the funding arrives. If you don’t know when that timing will be, it’s really hard to line that up,” she said.
Higgins suggested alternative approaches for creating that project revenue, such as Capital Improvement Grants, congressional earmarks, or another federal designation to keep funding secure and projects on schedule. Another possibility some agencies are succeeding with is funding from selling carbon credits.
Jim Matthews, president & CEO of the Rail Passengers Association, said that intercity rail was not, but should be “a national priority,” because “… when the country really does want to do something, they find the money and they do it.”
To gain support, both publicly and politically, there are hurdles to overcome, Matthews acknowledged. People buy trips, not systems, he said, and they don’t want to hear about projects that will take 20 years. They want to know that their train is on time and that the connections are seamless, he said, adding that the network of expanded connectivity is the real value for riders and agencies.
Bringing insight from facilities, Andy Byford, special advisor to the board at AMTRAK, described his work on the Penn Station Transformation in New York City, to solve a longstanding bottleneck in the Northeast Corridor. The finished product will be the type of world-class station that high-speed rail requires, he said. FRA is helping to expedite administrative aspects of the project because “They really want to see this done.”
Rail assets are meant to be generational, “100-year assets,” noted Lucie Anderton, director of sustainability and coordinator for the North America region, International Union of Railways, but they’re being funded in increments of single years. She suggested agencies take a bold approach to their narratives, and highlight the advantages they bring, rather than the subsidies they require.
“Very rarely do public transit agencies make profit,” she said, but “that’s not the point of public transport and rail. It’s the benefit and the value that it brings to society.”