Officials pushing for more trains on Joliet’s future high-speed rail
By Bob Okon bokon@stmedianetwork.com October 26, 2011 9:34PM
delays for Joliet transportation center
JOLIET — The first bids on the city’s new high-speed rail station have been pushed back.
The city at one point wanted to put the first job out to bid this month but now is aiming at sometime before the end of the year.
Joliet is building a $39.7 million multimodal transportation center designed to accommodate high-speed rail trains, Metra traffic, buses and other modes of transportation. The state of Illinois has put $32 million into the project, largely because Joliet will be the first stop south of Chicago for high-speed rail trains.
The project — which also includes a realignment of existing tracks, new parking and a bus turnaround — is scheduled to be completed in late 2013. To get the project going this year, Joliet had planned to put part of the parking lot improvements out to bid this month.
But Knight Engineers & Architects, which got the multimodal job in September, will need more time to prepare the project for bids, said Kendall Jackson, the city’s director of planning.
“We’re going to try to do it this year,” Jackson said.
Pushing back the first bids will not necessarily delay the end date on the project, Jackson said.
The city had been targeting a 2011 groundbreaking for the project.
“That’s going to happen,” Jackson said. However, he added, “There may be a ceremonial groundbreaking.”
Actual work on the project is not likely to start until early 2012 — at the soonest.
Updated: November 28, 2011 10:15AM
JOLIET — State transportation officials want to add more trips for future high-speed rail trains moving from Joliet to St. Louis.
The trains actually will start in Chicago. But Joliet is where they will start to accelerate to the new high speed of 110 mph.
“We will start at 110 mph right there,” said Michael Garcia, bureau chief for high-speed rail at the Illinois Department of Transportation, as he pointed to Joliet on a map on display at a public forum this week.
Representatives from IDOT and the Federal Railroad Administration have been traveling Illinois to collect public comments on the plan to add trips and what would it would take to get that done. They were in Joliet on Tuesday.
More trips would require more tracks.
Illinois has approval to run three high-speed trains down the Chicago-St. Louis corridor starting in 2014. The state wants to expand the number of trips to eight.
More trips typically increase ridership, Garcia said, because riders have more options as to when they can come and go.
“Frequency (of trains) and reliability are the two things that sell tickets,” Garcia said.
Reliability is getting better because of improvements being made on the tracks, he said. IDOT believes more trips will make train travel more appealing as well.
The purpose of this week’s forums has been to collect public comments on the various routes that might make eight daily high-speed train trips possible.
Amtrak won’t be able to run that many trips south of Joliet now, Garcia said. A second track would have to be built.
When the high-speed rail is in place, Amtrak trains north of Joliet only will travel the current maximum speed of 80 mph. New routes will have to be designated to run more trains. Maps at the IDOT forum showed 16 possible routes on existing tracks in a section of the Chicago area running from as far east as Interstate 94 to as far west as Interstate 55.
Road closures and costs
Tuesday’s Joliet forum drew an assortment of people, from those with a general interest in high-speed rail to those with a point to make.
Among those with a point to make was Mark Schneidewind, manager of the Will County Farm Bureau, who wanted to make sure that high-speed rail won’t shut down rural roads farmers need to do their work.
“They’re not talking about any closings in Will County at this point, which is beneficial,” Schneidewind said.
Jim Taylor of Shorewood said he’s interested in high-speed rail, but wonders what it will cost.
“It depends on how it gets paid for,” Taylor said. “I don’t really like the idea of it being partially paid for and then being left to local levels of government to support into eternity. If the market doesn’t support it, the government has to support it.”
IDOT cites increased Amtrak ridership but an IDOT spokesman said the agency does not know if numbers will increase enough to support the system.
Those who did not attend the forum but are interested in learning more about the high-speed rail plans can visit www.idothsr.org, where they also can comment on the proposal for more train trips in the Chicago-St. Louis corridor.
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