Getting your money's worth - how Glenview's wealth influenced transit planning
The Hiawatha Amtrak route occupies an interesting niche in Midwestern public transit. It's the only Amtrak route that runs several times a day. It connects Chicago and Milwaukee, providing a reasonably quick, convenient connection between the two downtowns. But even with two tracks for its entire length, the route can only handle so many trains at a time. And between Canadian Pacific freight trains and Metra commuter trains, they can only add one or two trips.
Like other state-supported routes, Hiawatha is primarily funded by the departments of transportation of the two states it serves - in this case, IDOT and WisDOT. The two DOTs also get to decide a lot of the schedule specifics, as well as whether the route gets wi-fi or any kind of meal service (like, if you are wondering why it's the only state-supported route serving Chicago Union Station not to have a cafe car - WisDOT decided to cut costs a few years back).
Milwaukee-bound Hiawatha train arrives in Glenview
It was WisDOT that first suggested what seemed like a pretty straightforward idea. If you want to get more people to take Hiawatha, you are going to need to give people more options - which means more trains. And, because capacity is limited, they need to figure out how to address the biggest cause of rail congestion - the freight trains. So WisDOT proposed building a new track on the nearby freight line where freight trains could wait, freeing up the tracks for passenger trains.
Only problem is that the track would be located in the pretty posh suburban village of Glenview. Residents and even the village leadership howled, complaining, not unreasonably, that this would put freight trains in residential neighborhoods and leave them idling for hours, locomotives spewing diesel all the while. The tracks in question already had freight trains, but this would multiply it. Nevermind that this would benefit Glenview - its downtown train station is one of Hiawatha's intermediate stops, which, as I learned while researching the issue, actually comes in handy even for riders who don't go any further north (Amtrak tickets between downtown Chicago and Glenview are more expensive than Metra tickets, but the trains are much faster (since they don't make any intermediate stops), which makes the price difference worth it)
Now, I've seen how this sort of thing usually plays out. The transit agencies involved organize meetings, make a few tweaks to sort of address the concerns, but the plan largely proceeds as announced. But, like I said, Glenview isn't just anywhere else. When residents complained to their congressmen, the congressmen listened. And they demanded more studies on the plan's environmental impact.
Oh, and the village board wound up spending almost $505,000 to lobby against the proposal. That's a little over half a million in property tax revenue. Because Glenview.
few weeks ago, the IDOT announced that it wouldn't support putting in holding tracks in Glenview or a the City of Lake Forest further north. Per Lake Forester newspaper, the plan isn't entirely dead as heads of Amtrak and two Departments of Transportation are still discussing ways to increase service on the route, but holding tracks are probably not going to happen, at least not the way WisDOT wanted.
Now, I will readily admit that I'm biased. I'm a transit rider with an Amtrak Guest Rewards account. More trip times means more ways to spend the points I've accumulated over the past eight years. But even so... Like I said, I can't help but think that this would have gone very differently if something similar was proposed in, say, the City of North Chicago.
Whatever merits the objections may have... money shouldn't be the deciding factor
Like other state-supported routes, Hiawatha is primarily funded by the departments of transportation of the two states it serves - in this case, IDOT and WisDOT. The two DOTs also get to decide a lot of the schedule specifics, as well as whether the route gets wi-fi or any kind of meal service (like, if you are wondering why it's the only state-supported route serving Chicago Union Station not to have a cafe car - WisDOT decided to cut costs a few years back).
Milwaukee-bound Hiawatha train arrives in Glenview
It was WisDOT that first suggested what seemed like a pretty straightforward idea. If you want to get more people to take Hiawatha, you are going to need to give people more options - which means more trains. And, because capacity is limited, they need to figure out how to address the biggest cause of rail congestion - the freight trains. So WisDOT proposed building a new track on the nearby freight line where freight trains could wait, freeing up the tracks for passenger trains.
Only problem is that the track would be located in the pretty posh suburban village of Glenview. Residents and even the village leadership howled, complaining, not unreasonably, that this would put freight trains in residential neighborhoods and leave them idling for hours, locomotives spewing diesel all the while. The tracks in question already had freight trains, but this would multiply it. Nevermind that this would benefit Glenview - its downtown train station is one of Hiawatha's intermediate stops, which, as I learned while researching the issue, actually comes in handy even for riders who don't go any further north (Amtrak tickets between downtown Chicago and Glenview are more expensive than Metra tickets, but the trains are much faster (since they don't make any intermediate stops), which makes the price difference worth it)
Now, I've seen how this sort of thing usually plays out. The transit agencies involved organize meetings, make a few tweaks to sort of address the concerns, but the plan largely proceeds as announced. But, like I said, Glenview isn't just anywhere else. When residents complained to their congressmen, the congressmen listened. And they demanded more studies on the plan's environmental impact.
Oh, and the village board wound up spending almost $505,000 to lobby against the proposal. That's a little over half a million in property tax revenue. Because Glenview.
few weeks ago, the IDOT announced that it wouldn't support putting in holding tracks in Glenview or a the City of Lake Forest further north. Per Lake Forester newspaper, the plan isn't entirely dead as heads of Amtrak and two Departments of Transportation are still discussing ways to increase service on the route, but holding tracks are probably not going to happen, at least not the way WisDOT wanted.
Now, I will readily admit that I'm biased. I'm a transit rider with an Amtrak Guest Rewards account. More trip times means more ways to spend the points I've accumulated over the past eight years. But even so... Like I said, I can't help but think that this would have gone very differently if something similar was proposed in, say, the City of North Chicago.
Whatever merits the objections may have... money shouldn't be the deciding factor