U. S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the “Train Cars Act” (S.3360) on Tuesday in the Senate. The State Journal-Register explains what the bill proposes:
Durbin’s bill provides funding to encourage manufacturers currently supplying passenger rail cars overseas to open modern facilities here. And it provides a tax incentive for private domestic businesses to re-enter the passenger rail equipment business and rebuild facilities and train cars in the United States.
The legislation also would create a trust fund to replace the nation’s train cars by transferring one-quarter cent of the per-gallon motor fuel tax into the trust fund for three years. That would generate about $400 million a year, Durbin said.
It’s good to see more funding being proposed for passenger rail service. Whereas the federal government provides tens of billions of dollars for highways and airports, Amtrak has been treated as the redheaded stepchild, getting a mere $1 billion each year, even as they stave off annual efforts from the White House to cut off funding altogether. With gas prices on the rise, rail ridership is rising dramatically, and more funding is being proposed both in Congress and at the state level.
Amtrak and IDOT are currently studying the feasibility of Peoria-Chicago passenger service.
Just being on time would be an improvement!!!
Correct me if I am wrong, (I’m sure someone will) but didn’t LaHood say Peoria didn’t need a rail service? Gee thanks. Ray!!
How easy it is to use Amtrak in Normal to travel to and from Chicago! Have you seen “Uptown” Normal? Pretty impressive, with a couple of nice, affordable “Chicago quality” restaurants (such as Medici’s). What a perfect, walkable neighborhood for an Amtrak train station! My only wish is that all Amtrak stations would be as huge and elegant, and as safe and as clean, as the station in Champaign.
Peoria definitely needs infrastructure improvements in order to keep up with Bloomington/Normal. When does run-down Peoria plan on building an “uptown” Peoria? In a perfect world, it would be as nice as the old downtown in Champaign……
Ray LaHood: Most people prefer not to ride in a gas-guzzling, dirty bus if other options are available. What is Aaron Shock’s view on the transportation issue? Or have “big oil” interests allegedly lined his pockets?
IDOT and Amtrak: Since you are starting from scratch, why not just build a high speed rail line from Peoria to Chicago. Please make sure the new rail infrastructure will permanently remain state property. I understand that the Canadian National railroad owns the tracks between Chicago to St. Louis. Canadian National is a private, foreign company, and it WILL NOT allow high speed rail on its tracks. This is why high speed reail between Normal to Chicago will never happen. When building/expanding rail service to/from Peoria, why tangle with the restrictions dictated by a private company?
By the way, please make the all the passenger trains electric. We do not need yet another diesel powered train!
While you are at it, why not build a second high speed train network that runs East/West, one that runs from Quincy to Danville, with stops in-between?
Why not allow train service from the Peoria airport to the to-be-determined new Amtrak station in Peoria? Since Peoria will be building a new airport terminal, just use the old airport terminal property for an Amtrak station. How nice would it be to fly to the Peoria airport, take a short walk to the train station, and take a high speed train to small metropolitan area within the state!
How about inserting a provision in the bill that would allow federal highway dollars to be spent on trains? The state of IL should also allow highway dollars to be spend on rail service. I understand that state and federal governments do provide matching dollars for money that local governments spend on local roads, but they do not provide for matching dollars for money spend on local rail service. This needs to change! We don’t need more roads. We need more rails!
Remember the old saying: “Will it play in Peoria?” What happened? Nothing new or exciting ever happens in this run-down town anymore. How Peoria has fallen!
There was an interesting piece on NPR about the railroads in Chicago. Seems the railroad companies are looking for a bypass to Chicago.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1315687
When I listened… I thought, mm would be a great opportunity for Peoria to be a bypass hub. Too bad our city council, park district, et al is so hostile to rail.
bourgeois pig wrote: IDOT and Amtrak: Since you are starting from scratch, why not just build a high speed rail line from Peoria to Chicago. Please make sure the new rail infrastructure will permanently remain state property.
If you have a few billion dollars laying around, you pacify the landowners and construct the numerous bridges to keep the new line grade separated from roads and other rail lines…
bourgeois pig wrote: I understand that the Canadian National railroad owns the tracks between Chicago to St. Louis. Canadian National is a private, foreign company, and it WILL NOT allow high speed rail on its tracks. This is why high speed reail between Normal to Chicago will never happen.
Actually, the existing Amtrak route between Chicago and St. Louis is mostly owned by Union Pacific. Canadian National owns the Chicago – Joliet portion. Union Pacific has two other Chicago – St. Louis routes for freight operations and has shifted all but local business off the one Amtrak is using. Amtrak has trackage rights on this line and can operate high-speed trains if the necessary supporting infrastructure is in place.
For HSR to happen on the Chicago – St. Louis route, additional track and infrastructure improvements will be necessary, particularly between Alton and St. Louis, where Amtrak trains are frequently delayed by Terminal RR Association dispatchers due to heavy freight traffic.
Last year, Some improvements were made in the Chicago, such as at Brighton Park.
Had to laugh when i read your casual reference to a “mere $1 billion each year”….. back where I come from, that’s real money.
I’d like to see a healthy AMTRAK but also have to wonder how the federal funding for AMTRAK per passenger compares to the funding per traveler for interstate highways. Also, I think a substantial portion of the federal highway funding is funded by gas taxes….
Obviously it’s a lot of money compared to the change you have in your pocket, but it’s not a lot of money compared to what we spend on highways and airports. By the way, here’s the answer to your second question:
Sadly, the Midwest and West are coming so late to rail transportation development. It’s difficult to build new rail lines now, because nobody wants them near their house or business. Seattle, WA is a great example – they still haven’t built their light rail system to the best of my knowledge, and they started trying in the 80s, if not earlier.
Some interesting ideas there bourgeois pig. And excellent facts as always Dave and CJ. With folks like you around, there’s hope for better rail infrastructure in the US yet!
Thanks for the insight…I’ll have to do some research to see if I can develop the comparative costs per “passenger” for each of these two transportation methods.
And who wants to be European? 🙂 We’re Americans. (tongue in cheek comment). Though they do have some benefits from typically being smaller more densely populated countries which tends to tip the scales in favor of public transportation over highways.
“It’s difficult to build new rail lines now, because nobody wants them near their house or business. ”
Thats odd… I’ve read that in metropolitan areas where light rail has been deployed, the home values in good proximity to the stations has skyrocketed. That would seem counter intuitive.
Mahkno,
I think the problem in Seattle is that there is no room to build a light rail system without tearing down a swath through neighboorhoods. Seattle does have it’s “Sounder” commuter rail system, though.
http://www.soundtransit.org
The Peoria to Chicago idea is way too restrictive. Amtrak is actually looking at running trains throughout the entire state. This is the place where things are going to come to us and bring their dollars to us. Just going from Peoria to Chicago for shopping or eating is not going to work. Its traveling for schooling, business and other things both to and from other places in the state. Business people could live in the country type setting and work in the big city with a short train ride. College students could take classes in other areas to fill in their cirriculum without having to move for the semester. There are a million things that can be done to benefit the area if the trains run to a lot of other places in the state and they come to us. Think big, think the entire state, not just Peoria and Chicago.
US PIRG is more than a little biased, but it is interesting to see what propaganda they are putting out.
And btw, Illinois collected an “excess” of about $100 million in gax taxes last year and will do about the same this year. That’s going to be used to pay for after school programs for politically connected Chicago Democrats ( I kid). That doesn’t even include registration and licensing fees, just from the two gasoline taxes. Actually that’s just from the gas sales tax portion, not the gas tax portion.
I find US PIRG’s stats a little hard to believe but I don’t have anything to back that up other than reality in Illinois right now. But it reminds me of all the people that like to claim Illinois is a low tax state based solely on our income tax rate and not accounting for all the taxes we pay to all the record number of government units in Illinois.
Oh, and this funding Durbin announced is more about corporate welfare than transportion. The money is being given to already rich people so they can “expand” their businesses and personal profits in the US. It might create a few jobs, but we will never know because no one will follow up on how well this corporate welfare scheme delivers on results. This pork does absolutely nothing to feed to hungry, cure the sick, or take care of those that can’t take care of themselves. It’s immoral to take from the poor and give to the rich, as this does.
Chicago, as the nation’s third largest city (pop. 3 million/metro 9.5 million), is the sole reason the Midwest even has rail passenger service, and why Amtrak has a national network. Chicago proper has more people than the St. Louis metro area (2.8 million)! The combination of leisure and business travel will ensure enough business for twice-daily Chicago – Peoria Amtrak service.
Amtrak is studying Chicago – Peoria. If Chicago – Peoria doesn’t work, then nothing will. If and when such service is implemented and is successful in terms of ridership and farebox recovery ratio, then Peoria – St. Louis via Springfield would be the logical next step.
We are an origin and destination market, and must market it like one.
I recently heard Greg Nickels, Mayor of Seattle, speak about issues regarding transportation and sprawl. He said the light rail from Downtown to Sea-Tac( their airport) will open in ’09. Read more about it here:
http://www.seattle.gov/Transportation/lightrail.htm
Dave,
I wasn’t referring specifically to Seattle. But yeah, sometimes tearing down homes is going to happen. But I think there will be a silver lining in that demand for real estate along those routes could go up not down. If the rail is well maintained, the train isn’t going to be ‘that’ noisy. It won’t be the kathunk kathunk kathunk kathunk of freight. They don’t need to be blaring their horns all the time either. If you got enough rail traffic, the kiddies are going to know to stay away.
They tear down homes and businesses and lots of other things to put in freeways and bypass roads and think nothing of it.
I’d never heard of the Sounder up in Seattle, so I went to the site, perused their history document, and lo and behold, the damn thing broke ground about 1 month after I moved to Florida. Seattle is in a rather constricted corridor. It lies between the Puget Sound and Lake Washington, both huge. Think of it as if Chicago were in between two really thin Lake Michigans. SO land is at a premium. But the thought is still valid. Aside from the rail lines that already exist in town (god willing they leave the Kellar line where it is), imagine if they wanted to build a new rail line into the center of town/Downtown? You’d have a hell of a lot of folks pitching fits, not wanting to sell, etc, etc.
Although, yes, living near a good commuter rail line can improve property value. Not too close, though, as stuff right next to the Ls in Chicago takes a value hit because of the noise.
Check this link out. http://www.apta.com/research/info/briefings/briefing_1.cfm