(The following story by Mike Sullivan appeared at SuburbanChicagoNews.com on November 2.)
CHICAGO — For the fifth consecutive year, Amtrak ridership is up sharply in Illinois.
Officials say running trains more frequently fueled a national record for passengers.
Roughly 3.6 million passengers climbed aboard Amtrak trains in Illinois, including all trains at Chicago’s Union Station, Amtrak officials said.
On the Chicago-St. Louis Lincoln Service corridor, ridership on state trains more than doubled, rising a remarkable 108 percent. Total ridership on the corridor rose by 42 percent, to more than 477,000.
Downstate Illinois trains reported ridership increases ranging from 33 percent to 47 percent.
Ridership nationally topped 25.8 million in Amtrak’s fiscal year ending Oct. 31.
Alex Kummant, president and CEO of Amtrak, said highway and airway congestion, volatile fuel prices, increasing environmental awareness and a need for transportation links between growing communities are some of the factors behind the increased ridership.
However, Mike Claffey, media relations spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Transportation, says scheduling more trains per day is the most significant factor behind the rise in ridership.
“What we believe is, if there’s more opportunities to take the train, it makes it more convenient if you’re not limited to just one or two times of day,” he said. “It really makes it more convenient to make the trip if there’s more possibilities.”
He noted that high gasoline prices are forcing many motorists to sidetrack long car trips, opting instead to take the train.
Plano and Naperville are the lone towns near the Fox River Valley that offer Amtrak rail service. But, according to Claffey, IDOT is doing a feasibility study to bring Amtrak service to Rockford, the Quad Cities and Peoria. “There definitely is a lot of interest out there in the state in getting passenger service,” he said.
Another factor in Amtrak’s increasing ridership, Claffey said, is the state’s doubling subsidies for Amtrak train service.
“Last year, the state doubled the funding from $12 million to $24 million,” he said.
“Then in the current budget, for fiscal year 2008, which is now under way, there’s $28 million for state-supported trains,” Claffey added.
Total ticket revenue for the fiscal year, $1.5 billion, was an 11 percent increase over the $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2006, according to Amtrak officials.