Stimulus Money Helps Alleviate Train Congestion

By Lindsey Miller in News on Feb 17, 2010 10:00PM

The CTA trains are another story, but if you use Metra and Amtrack trains to get around Chicagoland area, your ride may soon get a little faster.

Chicago will receive $100 million in federal stimulus money for 16 projects that would decrease rail congestion. That means building overpasses and underpasses, and improving tracks and signals to make it easier for freight trains, passenger trains, and sometimes, cars, to coexist.

It will also create thousands of jobs - as is the goal with stimulus money.

Under the existing system, it can sometimes take freight trains more than a day to travel through Chicago and they block passenger trains and cars in the process. The improvements are estimated to cut rail delays by 57,631 passenger hours per year and motorist delays by 344,499 hours annually. That saves nearly $10 million per year, estimates the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency program.

Illinois agencies actually submitted a total of 49 transportation requests for more than $2.3 billion in stimulus grants. The Illinois Tollway and the Illinois Dept. of Transportation lost out on the $300 million they requested for an interchange connecting Highway 57 and the I-294. However, Normal received the $22 million it requested for a multi-modal transportation center that will serve Amtrak trains, local and regional buses, airport shuttles, and taxis, not to mention the future 110-mph high-speed trains between Chicago and St. Louis.

Speaking of the rails, the CTA told the Red Eye that it plans to launch a "train tracker" pilot program sometime this year to display arrival times on the platform screens.