This morning as I listened to WCBU’s news broadcast, I was shocked to hear Ray LaHood say that Amtrak is never going to come to Peoria and we should be satisfied with bus service to Galesburg and/or Bloomington to connect with Amtrak there.
First of all, IDOT hasn’t even done a feasibility study on the proposed Amtrak route to Peoria yet. Why is LaHood prejudging the outcome of that study? There are a lot of people working on getting Amtrak back to Peoria because they believe it will be good for the economy, for college students, for tourism, and of course for transportation options for Peoria residents.
Secondly, this is the second time that LaHood has tried to sabotage local transportation plans. LaHood torpedoed attempts to build a Chicago-Peoria interstate highway, suggesting widening Route 29 instead. Now he’s trying to undermine the efforts of local officials to bring passenger train service back to Peoria.
LaHood has supported upgrading existing transportation facilities, such as I-74 and the airport terminal and runways, but he apparently doesn’t support adding more transportation options that could benefit Peoria. Why is LaHood holding Peoria back? Why does Ray think Peoria doesn’t deserve better?
Update: I talked to Jonathan Ahl tonight at the city council meeting and discovered that he had posted about this topic and I missed it. My apologies. You’ll want to read Jonathan’s take on it since he’s the one who interviewed LaHood.
I’m sure it has something to do with the PPD and the trail advocates. He’s taken the position of supporting the trail and removing the Kellar Branch. How would it look now if he supported passenger rail service, regardless of which line it used? If he’s going to be “consistent” he has to oppose any expansion of any rail service.
Here’s one for you CJ: allegedly, Bob Michel was responsible for the interstate highway from Chicago to St Louis to NOT go through Peoria. Any truth to that? And if so, might this be a matter of the student following in the ways of his teacher?
I guess the question should be who are his biggest contributors? That might give you a clue.
Evidently you answered your own question. Why doesn’t he think Peoria deserves better? It is not just a question of Peorians getting better transportation to other parts of the state, not just Chicago, but for others to get better access to Peoria and bring their dollars here to spend. We need those dollars. What is LaHood’s problem with enhancing the economic development in the Peoria area? Is he so rich he can’t see down the end of his nose to those that need that money, and the jobs that come with it?
I heard that this morning too, and was waiting for a post :). You are too good. His reasoning was so ridiculous too, something along the lines of people in the Chicago suburbs driving a half hour to get to the train station. So it makes sense for us to take the hour bus ride in the wrong direction to get to B-N or Galesburg to get on a train. What a moron.
I think Martha is right. Bonnie told him trains are a thing of the past, never mind that gas prices continue to rise, as does train ridership everywhere else in the country. The future is bicycles, don’t you know? We are going to ride on her trails, never mind the weather, and to heck with the disabled. And no more messy industries, we are going to live off of sick people (“med-tech”). The State is going to pay their bills with socialized health care. It’s lunacy, of course, but until enough people in this town screw up the courage to tell the emperor (or empress) they have no clothes, it goes on.
It is time for someone with lots of bucks to step forward and run for Congress and knock LaHood out of his seat. Instead of being a champion for needed change that would benefit the Peoria community he tries to push back new ideas and defeat them before they can get started.
Mister Ed: Or an alternate idea would be to find a viable candidate and start fundraising now and word of mouth and so on —- not necessarily someone with money — that just seems to bred more of the same — viable candidate and start now.
The reason for I-55 to not go through Peoria was to try and keep businesses here. At the time, we didn’t know the Interstates were going to criss-cross the country and there was still hope a roadside dinner or repair shop could survive on a two lane road. In hindsight, it was a dumb decision, but at the time, Michel was doing what was best for Peoria business.
Ray is right on. Peoria will have bus service to the station in Normal. ISU Baby, spend some dough in downtown Normal before you get on the train.
The story about the Citylink bus with service to Bloomington/ Normal did not get a whole lot of attention. When Ray talked about it everyone listened.
Think for a minute what it would cost to upgrade rails in Peoria to get to the Amtrak standards, including grade improvements, track rights. The Southbound train after it traversed to Peoria from Daleyville where would it go? Lomax IL, Burlington, IA,Hannibal, MO maybe Branson, MO. Where would be the next destination that would make monetary sense?
Trains are fun, trains are great, now Peoria has a use for those neat looking trolley’s traversing passengers to Normal or Galesburg, All Aboard!!!
If the Quad Cities and Rockford end up with service and Peoria doesn’t, stick a fork in Peoria she is done.
To ilstateredbird: The train would come down the IAIS (old route of the Peoria Rocket) servicing passengers in the LaSalle/Peru area and continue on to Peoria, Springfield and St Louis. Another train would start at St Louis and continue the route back to Chicago. The IAIS is right now being upgraded north of Chillicothe and is sceduled for improvement around Peoria next year. Take your filthy stinky buses and put them where the sun don’t shine! Bring back the Peoria Rocket!!!
The higher the gas prices go, the more people will take to rail.
ilstateredbird wrote: “The Southbound train after it traversed to Peoria from Daleyville where would it go? Lomax IL, Burlington, IA,Hannibal, MO maybe Branson, MO. Where would be the next destination that would make monetary sense?”
There’s no need for Amtrak trains to run through anywhere. One dedicated trainset could make two roundtrips daily between Peoria and Chicago.
Ed’s correct about the Iowa Interstate track upgrade (Peoria’s first railroad and route of the old Rocket until New Year’s Day 1979) and I do believe it would be the best route to restore Peoria – Chicago service, especially if service to the Quad Cities uses that same route east of Bureau Jct.
I lived in Bloomington at the time I-55 was being proposed and built. The original plan had it curving away from Bloomington to Peoria, and then back again around Lincoln. It was known as Kerner’s Curve since it was Gov. Otto Kerner who proposed it. I don’t remember all the politics of it at the time, but there was a huge outcry because the road didn’t take a direct, straight line route to St. Louis, following the existing Route 66. It just didn’t make common sense. That probably had as much to do with Peoria not being on the route as did Bob Michel wanting to protect local business.
I thought it was the Rock Island Rocket??
Ray hopes to save all the money for his other ‘pet’ projects, ie, anything that benefits his little group of monied republicans. More money for the museum and other crap anyway.
Lots of us take the train up to Chicago for regional and world meetings, especially if we have folk flying in from in from around the world. The Chicago to Peoria flights are just to spotty so we have been shifting the meetings from Peoria to Chicago. I think it would get good ridership from the Peoria area. $20 each way, can not be beat.
Thatisit – you need to break free of the partisan stuff. Party names mean little and only serve to divide the public. The insular group of elitists that run Peoria are not all Republicans. They come in all political stripes.
Mouse, You are absolutely correct!! I would like to see more centrist based public leadership in Peoria and central Illinois. I absolutely hate all the political bickering and have little tolerance for extreme politicians – leftists or rightists. The vast majority fall in the middle. We need more independent centrist thinkers and leaders; folks that are not wedded to fringe thought, policy, or groups.
I agree completely with Mouse and Ed, however, I believe you are living in a dream world. It is the way it is. Peoria is Republican any which-way you slice it. I am not trying to start an argument, but name any ‘big-money,’ or so-called ‘civic leader’ that does not adhere to Republican Party lines. Anyway…… In the end I guess I can say “I did not vote for Lahood!”
Republican or Democrat, when you live in Peoria you cannot possibly vote strictly one way or the other unless you are a complete freakin moron. No Peorian in his right mind would vote for our current governor, it is looking like the same thing for Lahood.
Yes, yes. Point taken. Really though, we are all part of an automobile nation. Comparisons of U.S. public transport systems to those of Europe have been being made for decades. The U.S. lags way behind. Granted, most European countries do not have the problem we have with great distances between towns, major cities, etc. True, we do not need another Amtrak / Govt. bail-out problem. If it boils down to a ‘cost vs. travel time’ concern, then a way to make rail travel more efficient becomes the issue. LaHood’s dismissal of the project based on his ‘oh-so educated’ opinion of the matter is ridiculous. Politics aside.
For all of you please check this out:
http://modeshift.org/?p=136
SD: Awesome — and thank you for the link.
Sweet.
This is what I am talking about. Turn riverfront museum project into cool train station with shops, etc. It would be like having a mini-airport right in downtown Peoria. If Civic Cent, etc wants people to come to Peoria, what better way than to offer direct travel into the city?
The better place to turn into a train station would be the concrete eye sore that Joe’s Crab Shack sits on. Surely it could be rennovated to be more attractive and useful.
As to the museum… it should be done the way it was originally presented to be done, before the bait n switch that exists as a plan now.