Chicago To Become High-Speed Amtrak Hub?

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Oct 6, 2008 5:30PM

Last week, the U.S. Senate passed a bill, the Federal Railroad Safety Improvement Act, that President Bush says he'll sign [though the margin of yeas to nays - 74 to 24 including yeas from both Illinois Senators Obama and Durbin - made the bill veto-proof] that will send $13.1 billion in funding to Amtrak over the next five years. Part of the funding could go to creating a nine-state high-speed rail network throughout the Midwest, composed of 3,000 miles of track, of which Chicago would serve as the hub.

As the price of automotive and air travel skyrocket and the nation plunges into recession, Amtrak is becoming an increasingly popular way to travel; the existing Chicago-St. Louis route saw a 15 percent increase in ridership over the last year, and Amtrak's route between Milwaukee and Chicago saw a 25 percent increase. Sayeth the Trib's Jon Hilkevitch:

Modern, comfortable, double-deck trains with wide seats and large windows would churn along at top speeds of 110 m.p.h. The faster trains would shave hours off trips, delivering passengers from one downtown to another hundreds of miles away.

Amtrak trains in most of the Midwest now operate at up to 79 m.p.h., although average speeds are much slower, especially around Chicago due to freight traffic.

Among the possible improvements/additions of the rail network are:

• Reduction of travel time from Chicago to St. Louis from 5.5 hours to 3 hours, 49 minutes.
• High-speed line connecting Chicago to the Twin Cities, cutting that trip from eight hours to five, including stops in Milwaukee and Madison.
• Routes east to Detroit, Cleveland, and Cincinnati.
• New routes that would include Dubuque and the Quad Cities.
• A revival of the Black Hawk line, shut down since 1981, that would run through Rockford, Genoa, and Galena.
• A nine-state network, called the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative, including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin.

To pay for the network, which could cost as much as $7.7 billion, the involved states would need to match 20 percent of the cost. Of the total cost, $6.6 billion would be spent on infrastructure while the rest would go to paying for new trains.

Amtrak in Chicago photo by josephp