(The Associated Press circulated the following story on June 22.)
LANSING, Mich. — More people are riding Amtrak’s three Michigan passenger train routes one year after the state solved a budget problem that threatened to eliminate two of them.
Ridership is up 8.8 percent on the Blue Water line, which serves Port Huron, Flint, Lansing and Kalamazoo, said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari.
The Pere Marquette line, which runs along the Lake Michigan shoreline from Grand Rapids to Chicago, saw its ridership increase 11.7 percent.
The Blue Water line and the Pere Marquette lines both are subsidized by the state.
The state is paying Amtrak $7.1 million this year to operate the Pere Marquette and Blue Water lines.
Ridership jumped by 13.6 percent on the Wolverine line, which runs between Detroit and Chicago and is part of Amtrak’s nationwide system that operates with federal assistance.
Overall, the three Michigan lines carried 339,000 travelers in the eight months ending May 31, up from 301,000 in the same period a year earlier.