St. Joseph County has decided not to study a new rail corridor along Capital Avenue, despite getting a federal grant for that purpose.
The project would have connected the Canadian National Railroad with the Elkhart and Western Railroad, providing another link with Elkhart County. Now, the St. Joseph County Commissioners have decided to terminate the $575,000 federal grant the county received for the study.
“So after continued conversations with local elected officials, various private stakeholders, as well as residents in the area, it’s apparent that the county does not have broad enough support to continue this study project at this time,” St. Joseph County Economic Development Executive Director Bill Schalliol said during Tuesday's commissioners meeting.
During Saturday's Coffee with Your Commissioners event, Commissioner Carl Baxmeyer said he didn’t think rail access was needed for the data center and solar farm development taking place in the area.
Schalliol said the county hadn’t spent any of the grant money. He said that terminating the grant won’t impact the South Shore Line’s efforts to get funding for a shorter route to South Bend International Airport, but it might impact the county’s ability to get grants for its own projects in the short-term.
"We’ve not been told that there’s going to be an effect, but there has been effect in other cases," Schalliol told the commissioners Tuesday. "Again, we’ve not taken any money, so we don’t believe that there’ll be a direct, long-term effect against us."
And the project may not be entirely dead. Schalliol said Elkhart and Western’s owner, Patriot Rail, could apply for grant funding in the future, although it doesn’t plan to pursue the project at this point.
Commissioner Tony Hazen worried that the county would have less control over the project, if it does come back. "That’s what worried me about turning this down, even though it was just a study," Hazen said. "If we don’t participate in that, we have no say in it, and the railroad will do what they want to do."
Work on a separate federally funded rail corridor study for the Osceola area continues. That one doesn’t aim to add more tracks, but to improve safety at road crossings.
