State & Regional

Report: Federal government never received Salt Lake City-Boise rail application

KPCW | By Parker Malatesta

Published February 1, 2024 at 4:48 PM MST

A worker walks near an Amtrak train engine, Sept. 26, 2021.

The Federal Rail Administration announced several grants to transportation agencies across the U.S. late last year, an effort to study possible expansion of the country’s passenger rail network as part of its Corridor Identification and Development (Corridor ID) program.

A grant application to study a connection between Salt Lake City and Boise was rejected, and according to Idaho-based local news site Boise Dev, we now know why.

The Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) was responsible for submitting the application on behalf of numerous partners, including the Utah Department of Transportation and Salt Lake City government.

The agency mistakenly applied for a separate program.

“Inadvertently, one of our staff members submitted the application for this Corridor ID to the wrong link, ” ITD spokesperson John Tomlinson told BoiseDev.

The Corridor ID program would have provided funding to study the idea of bringing back Amtrak’s Pioneer line, which ran from Portland to Salt Lake. The service ended in 1997.

A spokesperson for Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall called the news “disappointing” and reaffirmed the mayor’s support for passenger rail.

The Federal Rail Administration hopes to reopen applications in 2025.