(The following story by Chuck Sweeny appeared on the Rockford Register Star website on September 21, 2009.)
ROCKFORD, Ill. — With an Oct. 2 deadline looming to apply for federal cash, the state says there’s no time to continue debating the merits of which rail route is best for Amtrak service between Chicago and Rockford. (The Rockford to Dubuque, Iowa, portion of the Amtrak route isn’t debatable; there’s only one line.)
So, the Bureau of Railroads of the Illinois Department of Transportation will pick the route it determined in 2007 to be the best of four options — the Canadian National Railway’s main line through Genoa, Rockford, Freeport, Galena and Dubuque, Iowa.
“That’s what we’re going to do. We have to have a pretty much defined route. We can’t show uncertainty,” said George Weber, the bureau’s chief, when I talked to him Monday.
“We’ve always said from the beginning we’d defer to local preference,” Weber said. But that local preference has gone back and forth.
At a 2007 meeting called by Sen. Dick Durbin, the CN line was picked despite misgivings of Boone County leaders, because the CN route runs south of Belvidere, through Genoa.
“It was some months after that meeting that the local group had a strong consensus to go the other way,” Weber said, meaning the Union Pacific line through Belvidere and Cherry Valley.
The state agreed, but there was no funding.
Now, there is $8 billion available from the federal government, part of President Barack Obama’s plan to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure.
“When it became public that we were going to defer to Belvidere, we received a number of letters from people in Genoa and DeKalb County who wanted the CN route,” Weber said.
Rockford and Belvidere leaders were adamant that the train had to go through Belvidere on its way to Rockford. That way, the track upgrades could also advance their plan for commuter rail to Chicago.
“We thought we’d never get to local consensus, and with the application nearly due, we have to go forward with the best route we can,” Weber said.
The CN route “was cheaper according to the 2007 study; capital costs for the CN route were $32 million, and the UP route was $43 million. Ridership was projected at 74,000 a year on the CN route, and 53,000 on the Belvidere route. The schedule was 15 minutes shorter on the CN line,” Weber said.
“So we’re going with that, based also on the fact that you only have one dispatcher for the whole line, which provides a better opportunity to run the train reliably, rather than three or four handoffs” among dispatchers.
Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari agreed that the CN route “is faster, less expensive to operate and has the best potential for ridership.”
Rockford Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Einar Forsman is disappointed about the Genoa route’s choice, but he’ll support it reluctantly.
“I guess (Weber) wants to rely on that 2007 study, since it’s an Amtrak-commissioned study,” Forsman said.
“Certainly, Rockford is not affected by the decision, but in the bigger picture of our region’s future, I think the Belvidere route would serve us better,” he said.