Train Station with 78 Daily Riders Gets $1 Million in Stimulus Renovations

From the Mackinac Center for Public Policy

The Jackson Amtrak station will get $1 million in renovations thanks to the American Relief and Recovery Act (the federal stimulus program), according to the Jackson Citizen Patriot. But Wendell Cox, a transit consultant in St. Louis, Mo., questions why an Amtrak station with 78 customers a day would warrant such an expense.

Cox pointed to the Chatsworth station located in southern California about 40 miles from the Los Angeles area as the type of facility Jackson requires. Chatsworth gets twice as many trains and about 20,000 more passengers per year than Jackson, but has just a platform with a shelter and a ticket vending machine. It is unmanned. There is a building that has a museum and is also shared by a bus company.