(The following story by Dave Gathman appeared on the Courier News website on August 6, 2009.)
GENOA, Ill. — A political battle has been simmering during the past three months over the question of “Will Genoa and DeKalb County get once-a-day Amtrak passenger train service, or will Belvidere and Boone County get that?”
But the real stakes may have more to do with another question: “How soon can the Belvidere-Rockford area get Metra commuter service to Chicago?”
In 2007, Amtrak experts studied four possible routes for a new Amtrak train to run once a day in each direction from Chicago through Rockford to Dubuque, Iowa.
• Route A, the one favored by city officials and planning agencies in the Belvidere and Rockford area, would head west along Metra’s Milwaukee District West Line as far as Elgin’s Big Timber station. Then it would cross onto the one-track Union Pacific Railroad freight line that parallels Metra’s line there. After passing through Gilberts, Huntley, Union and Marengo, the train would stop in Belvidere, then move onto CN’s Chicago-to-Galena track in Rockford.
• Route B, nicknamed “The Airport Route,” also would start on the Milwaukee West Line but continue along that original rail line as the line’s ownership changes from Metra to the Canadian Pacific Railway. The train would pass through Pingree Grove, Hampshire and Genoa, and stop at the Rockford Airport on its way to Rockford.
• Route C, favored by officials from Genoa and DeKalb County, would follow Canadian National’s Chicago-Galena line almost all the way, rather than switching over to that in Rockford. This route would pass though Wayne, South Elgin, Plato Center and Burlington, and stop at a station to be built on Genoa’s south side.
• Route D, nicknamed “The Hybrid Route,” would start out like the Airport Route, then switch to the Canadian National in Genoa.
A big surprise
Amtrak’s study estimated the cost of starting up each route, how many riders each would attract, how long the trip would take and how much it would cost to operate each route after subtracting expected revenue.
By all four criteria, Route C through Genoa beat the other three. The study estimated the CN-Genoa route would draw 74,500 riders a year, compared to 53,600 for the Union Pacific-Belvidere route. The study also concluded that the Genoa route would cost $11.5 million less to put into operation, that trains could reach Rockford via Genoa 15 minutes faster, and that the Genoa route would need $100,000 a year less in state subsidies than the Belvidere one.
For two years, officials in Genoa and DeKalb County assumed the new Amtrak route would go along Route C. But this spring, Genoa City Manager Joe Misurelli discovered that Belvidere-area officials had been campaigning so hard for Route A that the Illinois Department of Transportation was about to recommend that route to Washington.
Over the past few weeks, Genoa, DeKalb County and the Genoa Chamber of Commerce have been lobbying for their route. To the north, Belvidere and the Rockford Metropolitan Agency for Planning have counterattacked by quoting a recent study of their own that concluded the Belvidere route would draw more riders and be cheaper.
The biggest plum in all this for Belvidere and Rockford might be a head start toward getting Metra commuter service. A Northern Illinois Commuter Transportation Initiative was formed in 2002 to research Metra expansion toward Rockford. Hampshire and Pingree Grove lobbied for any Chicago-Rockford commuter route to go down the Canadian Pacific through their villages. Huntley, Marengo and Belvidere crusaded for Metra to use the Union Pacific through their towns. In 2008, a study group recommended the Huntley-Belvidere route.
Getting the tracks and stations ready for Amtrak would be a big step toward also getting them ready for Metra. As things stand, seven miles of Union Pacific track between Belvidere and Rockford are in such poor condition that trains are limited to 10 mph. The Union Pacific line between Elgin and Belvidere has no signals to warn an engineer if another train is ahead, and it has no sidings where trains going in opposite directions can pass each other. There is now no connecting track between the Milwaukee West Line and the Union Pacific at Big Timber.
In Genoa, though, Misurelli insists the city has no interest in commuter service. “If Metra ever extends its service to Hampshire, a logical extension might be to go even farther along the (Canadian Pacific) line” to Genoa, Misurelli said. But that would be a different set of tracks than the one Amtrak would be using.
Clock is ticking
State legislators, Amtrak and IDOT have sustained a careful neutrality.
Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said Tuesday that “we’ll run the train on whatever route the state chooses and work with the municipalities.” However, Magliari also said that “we stand by our 2007 study.”
A summit conference convened in Genoa July 20 included state Sen. Brad Burzynski, R-Rochelle, and state Rep. Ron Wait, R-Belvidere — both of whom represent both Genoa and Belvidere. The legislators left saying they hadn’t endorsed either alternative.
Time is running out. When IDOT had to submit a pre-application for federal funds last week, George Weber, the head of IDOT’s railroad bureau, compromised by listing both routes. But by Oct. 2, a more detailed application is due.
“Ideally, the parties will reach a consensus,” Magliari said.