* Rockford has been hoping that a new Amtrak service could boost its local economy by drawing suburbanites further west. But that project is on hold for now…
Amtrak representative Ray Lang met late Wednesday afternoon with [GOP Rep. John Cabello of Machesney Park] and other members of the House Public Safety Appropriations Committee. Lang told the lawmakers all expansion projects are on hold for the foreseeable future.
“I asked him if Amtrak is coming to Rockford, and he said, ‘No,’” Cabello said. “They are federally and state funded. When their funding goes down, they have to live within their means, unlike us.”
Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey said the issue is not dead.
“To say that Amtrak is dead is misleading. Ray Lang testified the (governor’s) proposed budget would not have enough funding for this year. He testified to something we already knew.
He also added, “The governor proposes the budget. It’s up to the Legislature to pass the budget.”
* This may have been coming for a while…
While Illinois Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford, sits on the committee and supports passenger rail, he stands by his claim that funding to bring it back by this year was never in place.
“It was made clear, which we tried warning last year, that Quinn was not honest with the citizens of northern Illinois when he said last year that the project and operations were funded and rail would be running later this year,” Syverson said last month.
* But, wait, there’s more…
A top Amtrak official says Illinois would be on the hook to repay more than a billion dollars in federal aid if service is reduced on the Chicago-St. Louis passenger rail corridor. […]
His comments to a House appropriations panel came as Rauner has proposed a budget for the next fiscal year that would slash the state’s share of Amtrak funding by 40 percent, from its current $42 million per year to $26 million.
Lang said if service cannot be reduced on the Chicago-St. Louis route because of the federal payback issue, service would have to be cut on other routes. […]
Lang’s statements run counter to Illinois Department of Transportation spokesman Guy Tridgell’s comment to the Lee Enterprises Springfield bureau on Tuesday.
“The state’s financial support for Amtrak’s annual operations is independent of any construction work that’s ongoing or has already taken place,” Tridgell had said in an email.
- Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 9:41 am:
The state has made a substantial investment in the Chicago-St. Louis corridor and there are soon-expiring ARRA funds to be matched there with state dollars. So more than a single whammy there.
- Team Sleep - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 9:53 am:
This is where not having a long-term federal transportation bill is hurting Illinois. We can only do so much. The last major federal bill was passed and signed into law ten (10) years ago. That is unfathomable. I would love to be optimistic and hope that President Obama and the GOP leadership could strike a deal, but I doubt that is likely given the toxicity in D.C.
I often wonder if some mayors in towns along the proposed high-speed rail corridor have sold their residents a bill of goods. Sure, some of the funding was there. But high-speed rail money was available to all states and was part of a fairly competitive process. IDOT was arguably ill-equipped to handle all of the responsibilities that came with the application and planning of high-speed rail.
In short - this is a mess.
- walker - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 9:59 am:
Shrinking pains.
- jerry 101 - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 9:59 am:
Brucie’s administration really needs to read up on things before spouting off. These guys are a just an embarrassment.
Heckuva Job, Brucie!
- Wordslinger - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 10:11 am:
Geez, Rockford should catch a break already.
- Ubecha - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 10:19 am:
Recent polling makes it very clear that Rockford residents, and the rest of the 17th CD, support Amtrak and want intercity passenger rail service re-established as soon as possible.
http://utu.org/worksite/PDFs/HR%203040/IL-17_Amtrak_Survey_February_2015.pdf
- HappyToaster - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 10:21 am:
The service lane got changed mid-project.
Originally it was a restoration of Amtrak service to Galena and on into Iowa. Iowa and Canadian National said no.
Once it became extending Metra Milwaukee West out to Rockford, it really should have transitioned to a commuter level service provider.
Maybe the state should address too far for RTA, too close for Amtrak rail service for towns like Rockford, DeKalb and Kankakee.
- Wordslinger - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 10:47 am:
HT, there was passenger rail from Chicago to DeKalb as late as 1971, but the powers that be there at tne time pushed to end it, in order to keep people from Chicago out.
Try taking public transportation out to Oak Brook and you’ll understand the thought processes at work.
- Rahm's Parking Meter - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 10:49 am:
Metra should be extended to DeKalb, as an NIU alum, it never made sense why the townies did not want rail.
Amtrak to Rockford should happen too. Long overdue.
- Wordslinger - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 10:53 am:
RPM, for the townies in DeKalb who didn’t want passenger rail service, it made perfect sense to them, believe me.
- train111 - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 10:54 am:
I have to chuckle as the Amtrak reauthorization bill recently sailed through Congress with—get this–bipartisan support. Seems even the teaest of the tea party guys isn’t about to cut off an actual constituent service in his/her district despite how much they may go on the campaign trail wailing about government spending.
That being said, we are our own worst enemies when it comes to passenger rail in America. It isn’t that we do not have the technology, the thing that makes it so prohibitively expensive iis to accomodate all the government regulations. To have a route where trains can do over 70mph, one must eliminate all grade crossings–or set up all grade crossings so that one can not drive around the gates. That’s just one.
On the other hand, there is hardly a section of railroad track in Illinois in better shape than the rural sections of the Chicago St Louis line–rebuilt for high speed passenger service.
- Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 10:56 am:
Maybe the state should address too far for RTA, too close for Amtrak rail service for towns like Rockford, DeKalb and Kankakee.
Yes, all these areas are in no man’s land, as well as the Illinois Valley towns west of Joliet and the Fox River towns west of Aurora. All these corridors have been studied, but it’s pretty expensive to get one line funded, much less 3 or 4, and there’s the not insurmountable but problematic issue of being a non-RTA county or city. Kenosha WI solved it with Metra, the South Shore serves a long distance commuter market with Indiana taxpayer help, and the Hiawatha service operates as a quasi-commuter Amtrak line. But once you get 60, 70, 80 miles out, it’s a long trip for a commuter going downtown.
- DuPage - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 11:05 am:
What was that about cutting 16 million off Chicago-St.Louis and then cause us to have to pay back over a BILLION to the feds? Is Rauner that inept?
- Wordslinger - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 11:09 am:
Train, your insights on this subject are always appreciated.
I’m noodling around with the idea of an extended bucket list trip to Asia in the next couple of years and the passenger train networks there are simply amazing.
Cheap (outside Japan), modern (in most countries) and widespread.
To further the point, you can actually travel quite comfortably and reasonably from Tokyo to Dublin on regularly scheduled passenger trains and ferries. Never have to go in the air.
- JS Mill - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 11:09 am:
@Word- When I went to NIU I always wondered why they didn’t have rail service. It would have helped enrollment. Then, I stayed in Dekalb for a couple of summers and figured out the reason, it is just as you allude.
- Soccermom - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 11:31 am:
Word, we were having such a nice time, and then you brought up taking public transportation to Oak Brook. That’s just mean.
- A guy - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 11:50 am:
===Soccermom - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 11:31 am:
Word, we were having such a nice time, and then you brought up taking public transportation to Oak Brook. That’s just mean.===
SMom, I had to get up and run to avoid an “accident” before complimenting you on this.
- Wordslinger - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 11:58 am:
Soccermom, many years ago, I had an interview for a freelance gig out at that big tower in Oak Brook. Before cell phones.
I thought I had the public transportation from Oak Park figured out. I got it wrong. When the bus driver kicked me off, I figure I was about a half mile from the tower, staring me right in the face.
Long story short, no country for walking men.
I ended up schlepping through back yards, a golf course and finally sliding down the berm and hiking the expressway trying to reach the elusive tower (I’m in a suit and tie, carrying a briefcase).
I was almost to the exit when a trooper pulled up.
At first he was real friendly.
“You run out of gas? I didn’t see your car back there…”
As I explained myself, his mood changed considerably as he realized he was talking to a lunatic. He ran my ID for warrants, concluded I was a truthful idiot, gave me a stern lecture and dropped me off at the tower.
I was only about two hours late, covered in mud and sweating like a well-digger.
No, I didn’t get the gig.
- ChiTownSeven - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 12:04 pm:
It’s nonsense to say that the State of Illinois made “substantial investments” on the Chicago-St. Louise train route, as if Illinois owns that route. Railroads aren’t public highways. Take a look at the underlying construction and service agreements between IDOT and Union Pacific Railroad, and what you will see is that IDOT gave millions of dollars to UP so that UP could improve its own private property, with no enforceable promise that UP would do anything to improve Amtrak’s on-time performance between Chicago and St. Louis. Quinn and Hannig both were in UP’s pocket, and what they touted as “high speed rail” is really nothing but massive corporate welfare to Union Pacific. And in jumping into bed like with with UP, they turned away Spanish, Japanese, French, and British consortiums who wanted to build true “high speed rail service” between Chicago and St. Louis, without relying on UP’s tracks.
Rather than give all of this money to UP (with no strings attached), IDOT could have spent a little on service to Rockford.
- train111 - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 12:07 pm:
Happy Toaster
Amtrak and CN have a long running feud, so that they had to get a second route is no suprise.
The second rte is Mtra Milwaukee West to the west side of Elgin, where a connection will be constructed to reach Union Pacific’s West Chicago-Elgin-Belvidere-Rockford branchline, which certainly has more population to serve and would probably produce more income than CN’s line which goes through nothing.
I also chuckle about all the free market guys now screaming about the BNSF service as ‘the market’ has decided that hauling 106 cars of crude oil is a whole lot more profitable than hauling your butt out to Naperville.
train111
- Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 12:39 pm:
train 111, the fine citizens of Genoa are made to feel all warm and tingly by your comment. They were aghast when the route was switched over to UP at the last minute. I agree, CN and Amtrak are like oil and water and there would be no tears shed in CN Tower if the Chicago-Carbondale runs were dropped.
- Rahm's Parking Meter - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 3:48 pm:
Word, sprawl will eventually reach DeKalb one way or not, and NIU is the ONLY University downstate, that I can think of that does not have a rail link to downtown Chicago…
- Wordslinger - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 4:40 pm:
RPM, sprawl is already there, that was just the thinking at the time.
- Rapscallion - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 4:45 pm:
Amtrak rail is a patronage dinosaur that has earned a long deserved demise. It’s not cost effective, and never will be.
Last summer I travelled in Europe through the chunnel from London to Paris and from Florence to Rome. Expensive, but worth taking once. The concept of high speed rail makes sense in Europe and Japan because they never made the huge investment in roads and airports that were made in the US. Even in London the major “expressway” was only two lanes and in no way resembled an American major city artery.
Heathrow airport and Rome international had about the same traffic and a minor regional airport, NOTHING like and OHare, Midway or any major Us city airport.
America’s infrastructure is built to accommodate air and road travel, and rail freight. The investment to maintain those systems isn’t going to go away. Investing in a high speed rail AND car and air travel is prohibitively expensive, unnecessary and will never be justifiable from a cost benefit standpoint.
- HappyToaster - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 6:02 pm:
@Rascallion
What a strange statement.
The EU’s road density is far higher than in the US, Heathrow does a higher passenger count than O’Hare, and Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport(Rome) consistently does more traffic than but a handful of US airports.
- Plutocrat03 - Thursday, Mar 26, 15 @ 7:09 pm:
And where will the money come from to subsidize the new capital costs?
As we do public transportation the farebox provides far less than half the operating costs,my he capital costs are another source of revenue deficits.