(The following story by Thomas V. Bona appeared on the Rockford Register Star website on April 30.)
ROCKFORD, Ill. — The Northern Illinois Commuter Transportation Initiative decided this morning to seek funding for a Metra-style train line from downtown Rockford through Belvidere to the Big Timber Metra station in Elgin, giving the Rock River Valley a commuter-rail connection to the Chicago area.
The route also would go through Huntley and Marengo.
The group of government and economic-development leaders chose the route because it goes through the most populous areas of the region.
The Rockford Area Transportation Study, the local metropolitan planning organization, will vote on the recommendation in the coming weeks. The project needs the approval of RATS to move forward, but many NICTI members also are on RATS and voted for the project today.
But don’t rush to find a Chicagoland job yet. The new train line is still years away, and a lot of things stand in its way. The planners will do a federally required environmental study this year, then formally seek federal, state and local funds to pay for a $247 million project.
The project might not even qualify for federal funding, planners said today, because it costs too much per potential rider. Instead, they might have to pay for it through local bonds, state funding and partnerships with Metra, Amtrak and Union Pacific Railroad.
Any state funding would likely come from a long-debated capital plan.
There was a lot of talk today about trying to get the Illinois Department of Transportation to move its proposed Amtrak service to this route to combine capital investment. Under that idea, Amtrak service would start first, and commuter rail later.
A commuter-rail line would have more frequent trains stopping in more places than Amtrak service would provide.
The commuter-rail service could draw 5,200 riders a day and 1.3 million riders a year.
NICTI has studied mass-transit options since late 2006.
Other options it seriously considered were a commuter rail route from Elgin through Genoa and Davis Junction to Chicago Rockford International Airport; and two “rapid-bus” routes along the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway (Interstate 90) from the Chicago suburbs to Rockford.