Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations

Passenger-rail planning in Tennessee surfaced briefly this week in a Congressional hearing with Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner with a bit of recent news regarding Memphis.

In a previous story, the Flyer described efforts underway by a state group to deliver a passenger-rail plan to legislators and other state officials next month. The Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) has been working on a rail plan since 2022, when the Tennessee General Assembly passed a bill requesting one.

While TACIR works to meet the July deadline, several Tennessee cities filed an application with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) for grant money to help them begin to plan for a possible rail route for passengers.

In March, Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly announced that his city had teamed up with Atlanta, Nashville, and Memphis in the submission that could draw $500,000 in planning funds for a route that would connect those cities.

“It’s time to bring the Choo Choo back to Chattanooga!” Kelly tweeted at the time.

It’s time to bring the Choo Choo back to Chattanooga! This week, I submitted an application for federal funds in partnership with @andreforatlanta, @JohnCooper4Nash, and @MayorMemphis to begin planning for a new Amtrak route through our cities. https://t.co/KUoUkDOcWp
— Tim Kelly (@MayorTimKelly) March 29, 2023

That application surfaced in a hearing this week of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) asked Amtrak’s Gardner about passenger rail movement in the state.

“The state has submitted a corridor identification application to the [FRA] for service from Memphis east to Nashville, onto Chattanooga and to Atlanta,” Gardner said. “That’s a very interesting corridor, one that holds a lot of promise.”

Gardner said the application is a “first critical step” in the passenger-rail-planning process. If nothing else, it simply gets the state and the cities into the federal system, to stand in line and be ready for funds when they become available.

Credit: House Committee on Infrastructure and Transportation

Cohen said a rail line between Nashville and Memphis is more important now that Ford Motor Co. is building BlueOval City in Haywood County, just a few miles east of Memphis between the city and Nashville.

Also, Cohen said the “area’s not served by air transportation, commercial air.” No direct flights exist from Memphis International Airport to Nashville International Airport. Spirit Airlines will get you there with an 11-hour layover in Orlando (for $211), according to a search at Kayak. Delta Airlines will deliver Memphians to Nashville in just over three hours with a stop in Atlanta for $359, also according to Kayak.

Bus service from Memphis to Nashville has been around awhile, offered by many different companies. A one-way Greyhound ticket costs $42 (on a recent search) and takes about three hours and 45 minutes. FlixBus and Megabus run the route, too. BizBus began offering the route last month in a service that promised comfortable seating, Wi-Fi, and an onboard attendant for about $50.

“I have heard a great amount of support [for passenger rail] in Memphis and Nashville,” Cohen said during Tuesday’s hearing. “People in Memphis want to go to Nashville, the state capital, for all kinds of reasons. And people in Nashville have even more reasons to leave and come to Memphis. So, there’s this great synergy of energy there.”

One recent commenter on the Memphis subreddit spelled their desire for a Memphis-Nashville connector pretty plainly.

“As someone who recently had to drive to Nashville with a massive case of diarrhea, I would’ve LOVED a mode of travel that had its own bathroom,” u/newcv wrote in the most upvoted comment about the issue.

Tennessee takes small step toward bringing passenger rail trains to the state
by u/Tortylla in memphis

While state officials await TACIR’s report, they have signaled their support to the feds of passenger rail in Tennessee. Howard “Butch” Eley, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT), has given that support in two letters to the FRA.

“Addressing growing transportation congestion in Tennessee’s major urban areas and along major commuting and commerce routes throughout our state is of paramount importance to [TDOT] as we work to meet the state’s growth, prosperity, and mobility needs,” Eley wrote to the FRA in March. “We believe Tennessee is an important state in the national discussion of long-distance passenger rail service.

“Between 2010 and 2020, Tennessee grew by nearly 600,000 people and our state continues to be a leader in job growth and economic development. Tennessee is also a major tourist destination and visitors to our state come to all parts of our state to experience our rich culture of music and entertainment as well as our natural and scenic beauty.”

A group of Democratic lawmakers wants a study to be done on the high homicide rate among African Americans in Tennessee.

The bill (HB 1545/SB 1430) is sponsored by six members of the House, including G.A. Hardaway, Jesse Chism, Antonio Parkinson, and London Lamar from Memphis.

Tennessee was recently ranked in the top 10 states for the highest homicide rates among African American victims, based on a study done by the Violence Policy Center (VPC) in May.

The VPC is a nonprofit organization that conducts research, offers public education, and provides the public and policymakers with analysis and information on the issue of violence in America.

Analyzing data from the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ 2016 Supplemental Homicide Report (the most recent data), the VPC found that the national homicide rate for African American victims was more than four times higher than the overall national rate.

In 2016, the national rate was 5.1 homicides per 100,000 people, while the national rate among African Americans was 20.44 per 100,000.

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In Tennessee, the rate of homicide among African American victims — 28.4 per 100,000 — surpassed both the overall national rate and the national rate among African Americans.

That trend is reflected in Memphis homicide numbers. In Memphis, African Americans make up 64 percent of the total population, and in 2019, 86.3 percent of all homicide victims here were African American, according to data from the Memphis Police Department. Of the 190 homicide victims here last year, only 26 were non-black.

Black males accounted for the largest percentage of homicide victims here last year, making up a little over 75 percent of all victims.

Lawmakers say these numbers represent a “public health crisis” for the state and are calling for the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) to produce a study on the issue.

Staples

Rep. Rick Staples (D-Knoxville), the bill’s main sponsor, told the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee Tuesday that currently there are statistics available on homicide rates, but there is no data on why African Americans in Tennessee lead the nation as victims of homicide.

“There’s nothing that targets why we lead the nation in that,” Staples said. “So if we could get information on that that is specific and factual like TACIR does, it could give us a lead or a path to follow so we can work in concert to correct this issue.”

The goals of the study, Staples said, would be to gather “solid information” that points to the causes of the high homicide rate among back Tennesseans, and then to determine whether legislative action is necessary to address those causes and what the state and local governments can do to reduce the rate.

According to a draft of the bill, the study would include a historical comparison of the homicide rate among black Tennesseans, as well as possible factors contributing to changes in the rate over time.

The study would also include a comparison of homicide rates among African Americans with that of other demographics in the state, as well as with the rates in neighboring states.

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Going further, the study would also look at what state and local initiatives are in place to combat the high homicide rates among black Tennessseans.

“We’re not asking for TACIR to necessarily come up with implementation or corrections,” Staples said. “What we’re asking TACIR is to do a study so that we can look at what we could possibly do as the General Assembly. That’s basically, in a nutshell, what this piece of legislation is doing.”

The bill advanced in the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee Tuesday to be heard by the full Judicial Committee. If the bill passes, TACIR would have until January 31, 2021, to present the report and any findings to the General Assembly.

Rep. Antonio Parkinson, who represents Memphis and sits on TACIR, said, “When they [TACIR] do their research and work on these questions that we have, they will be extremely thorough in what they bring back to us.” If the legislation passes, Parkinson said the study “will answer a lot of questions for us.”