Could a North-South Passenger Train Be Running by 2030?

Groundwork Center talks timeline and progress for the long-awaited Michigan railway

By Anna Faller | Feb. 22, 2025

It’s no secret that Michigan transportation is largely a no-car, no-go situation.

A modern passenger rail system, though—in particular, a line between statewide hubs—could streamline local travel. That’s the hope of the North-South Passenger Rail Project, a decade-old project still working to gather steam. Helmed by Traverse City nonprofit the Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities in partnership with the Cadillac-Wexford Transportation Authority (aka WexExpress), the project is on track to make a train a reality.

“We’re seeing people and their desires changing around how they travel,” says Groundwork Transportation Project Manager Carolyn Ulstad. “If we want to bring investment to Michigan, we need to start investing in more public transportation.”

All Aboard

Per Ulstad, the concept of a north-south Michigan passenger train is far from new.

It was first posited more than a decade ago as part of a regional planning effort, known then as The Grand Vision. The Grand Vision, which was established in 2008, was a “citizen-led vision for the future of land use, transportation, economic development and environmental stewardship across six counties in northwest lower Michigan,” per their website (thegrandvision.org).

Just three years later in 2011, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) released their Michigan State Rail Plan with the aim of developing a long-term vision for a statewide passenger and freight rail system (michiganbyrail.org/mdot-state-rail-plan).

The combination of these efforts resulted in various community sessions, wherein Up North hotspots like Traverse City and Petoskey repeatedly arose as in-demand train destinations. “People really wanted a way to get up to northwest lower Michigan,” Ulstad says.

This is where Groundwork entered the equation. First established in 1995 as the Michigan Land Use Institute, the Groundwork Center’s mission focuses on strengthening Michigan communities by empowering locals through economic, environmental, and infrastructural initiatives. These efforts unfold through a trio of nonprofit programs: Food and Farming, Climate and Environment, and Transportation and Community Design.

As the name suggests, that latter branch aims to improve community safety and construction by reimagining essential systems and promoting alternative methods of transportation, like walking and cycling—and in this instance, even train travel.

High-Speed Dreams

In response to public support for a train, Groundwork partnered with the Bay Area Transportation Authority (BATA), with funding, in part, provided by MDOT, to conduct the Northern Michigan Rail Ridership Feasibility and Cost Estimate Study.

That initiative, which wrapped up in 2018, aimed to explore the logistical elements (service and operation, ridership, costs, etc.) that a state-spanning rail service might require and determine whether the scope was, well, feasible.

The results, says Ulstad, were promising. According to the study, a fully-developed passenger service had the capacity to more than cover its costs and could provide significant economic benefits for northwest Michigan. In other words: “There was enough that as an organization, we felt like this could actually work,” she notes.

According to 2018 reporting from Northern Express sister publication The Traverse Ticker, the study found “Reestablishing train service between Traverse City and Ann Arbor could attract 1.5 million riders and generate nearly $100 million in revenue annually by 2040.”

At that time, cost estimates for the train route alone ranged from $40 million in track repairs for a 60-mph train to $611 million for a 90-mph train. Per the study, the total cost (i.e., operation plus capital) of such a production—assuming train speeds below 90 mph—could run anywhere from $200 to $800 million. In 2025, totals are likely to be much higher.

The study expected train service could start as early as 2020, recommending “launching ‘excursion’ or special-event trains by 2020 that would test the market and allow riders to experience rail at the 60mph level.”

Still at the Station

Of course, the train has not yet come to fruition, in part because efforts were derailed (pun intended) by the pandemic. This brings us to the present day and the North-South Passenger Rail Project…and about a zillion moving parts.

For starters, there’s a new study, which aims to follow up on Groundwork’s 2018 findings by delving deeper into the workings of a potential rail system. It suggests a route spanning 240 miles along a state-owned railroad line, which is actively used to transport freight, to connect communities throughout Lower Michigan.

Then there was the issue of funding, says Ulstad, for which facilitators applied and received about $2.3 million dollars in state and federal grants, an especially time-consuming endeavor due to both pandemic delays at the project’s outset and lengthy processing times.

“We’ve been ready to get to work for so long, that waiting was really hard for us,” Ulstad says. “But now we’re here and we get to move, so we’re feeling good about that.”

The nonprofit has also helped facilitate the creation of a rail advisory board, which meets quarterly and connects local transit operations with stakeholders in interested communities (Chambers of Commerce members, Downtown Development Authorities, etc.), to get a feel for what local usage and individual stop requirements might dictate.

Perhaps the biggest leap so far has been Groundwork’s collaboration with local consultant group WSP. Per Ulstad, the firm signed on for a 12-month engineering contract in late 2024. Though they’re still deep in the data-collection phase, their task is to generate an informational model that captures what a ridership system might look like.

Per WSP team Technical Lead Ryan Hoensheid, the model is a proprietary system of sub-consultant, Cambridge Systematics, whose goal is to help transpose roadway use onto the proposed rail corridor. Though finalized stops are still TBD, recent renderings propose stops in the Lower Peninsula’s southeast and northwest corners (Ann Arbor, Traverse City, Detroit, and Petoskey are all on the docket), as well as a handful of interim locations from Owosso to Kingsley.

“What this model will help us do is identify geographic areas and proposed station locations that will allow us to, based off of user inputs and assumptions, identify demand,” Hoensheid explains.

These projections, he continues, will then provide major input for WSP’s train modeling to help the team determine what infrastructural and technological work the route requires. This includes outlining where “meets” might occur (that’s when two trains pass each other) and resultant siding for engines to veer off, as well identifying travel speeds, signaling components, and subpar sections of rail.

These efforts not only support creating a reliable passenger train, but also help avoid negatively impacting freight traffic, which already exists on the line. “This would be a mutually beneficial project if it were to move beyond the study stage,” Hoensheid says.

Then there’s the issue of governance, or who controls operation and management of a railway network. Per WSP Project Manager Todd Davis, that’s typically a transit authority, though the proposed rail line has dozens of players, some of whom control property along it.

“These are some of the biggest infrastructure projects out there,” adds Davis. “You have to get all these people to play nicely together to pull it off.”

The Right Side of the Tracks

If they can pull it off, the train could spell all sorts of exciting opportunities for Michigan travelers.

For starters, there’s the obvious plus of advancing an alternate “nodal hub” (a potential focus of recent Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding) toward the recent population swell in Detroit. This could reduce Chicago congestion, which is a terminus of three major east-west Amtrak lines concentrated in the state’s lower third. By feeding into that, a north-south running railway service would also create a statewide funnel for commuters into nearby cities, as well as a means of accessing other rail lines throughout the Midwest and beyond.

On an even more basic level, a passenger rail system of this design would transform statewide travel, especially for those who don’t drive or own a car.

As Ulstad highlights, a public transport system, like a train, would also serve as another “check” on the list for families eyeing Michigan as a permanent move.

“We really see that other states are moving in that direction; and if we don’t do that here in Michigan, we’re not going to have people boomeranging back,” she notes.

Full Steam Ahead

So just how far away are we from a north-south passenger train of this kind? Ulstad remains optimistic that a passenger rail—though maybe not a full-service line—could be in place by as early as 2030.

Following the conclusion of WSP’s study, which is projected for December 2025, the next step of the implementation process, as outlined by the Federal Railroad Association (FRA), would tip the project’s first domino through “development of a scope, schedule, and cost estimate” in preparation for a Service Development Plan.

Though both Groundwork and WSP stress that the goal is to have a train up and chugging as soon as possible, the multiple variables at play make an exact timeline impossible to predict.

“The train tracks are already there, and there are trains that go along this route every week,” Ulstad notes. With this infrastructure in place, Ulstad highlights the possibility of implementing a trial line or commissioning an independent engine for limited service or special events.

“Moving forward, I think it’s going to be really important for Michigan to invest in more [efforts] like this, and for the country to invest in it, if we want to stay competitive on a world stage,” she adds.

For more information on the North-South Passenger Rail Study, visit the Groundwork Center at groundworkcenter.org.