Illinois (Gov. Rauner) commits to CHI to Quad Cities service

[afigg]

Good news (more or less) that came out last week for the stalled Chicago to Quad Cities corridor service project. Gov. Rauner has agreed to support the service and ask the FRA for an extension of the FY2010 grant. But from the article, unless IDOT can spend only the federal funding portions to get track and station work started, the project may remain stalled until Illinois ends its budget crisis/standoff. And the last I read on the state budget standoff, who knows when that will happen. However, I expect the FRA will grant the extension.

Meanwhile, the plans for Chicago to Rockford IL service appears to be in deep freeze because that was entirely a state funded project.

Quad Cities Times: Illinois commits to Chicago-to-Q-C rail project. Excerpts:

The state of Illinois has told the Federal Railroad Administration that it is moving forward with the Chicago to Quad-Cities passenger rail project, an official said Tuesday.

The decision may well keep in place $177 million in federal funding that was awarded in 2010 for the connection, but that will be up to the Federal Railroad Administration, which had said the grant would expire June 30.

Local officials have been lobbying Gov. Bruce Rauner to ask for an extension.

“The Illinois Department of Transportation has informed the Federal Railroad Administration that it will be proceeding with the proposal to reintroduce passenger rail service between Chicago and Moline," Guy Tridgell, a spokesman for the Illinois DOT wrote in an email Tuesday morning. "As we move forward, we remain strongly committed to looking out for the best interest of all Illinois taxpayers."
.......
Henry Marquard, director of government relations for the Quad-Cities Chamber of Commerce, said it is his understanding that Republican and Democratic budget proposals in Springfield include funding for the rail project, but without a resolution to the impasse, it may be difficult for the state to commit to a timeline.

Still, he said he's hopeful that the state's commitment will satisfy the FRA.

 

[Deni]

It kills me how long we've been waiting for these trains to come to fruition. I'm more bummed that the Rockford train seems to be on permanent hold because I would actually use that one on a regular basis, but the QC train would certainly be a welcome (more welcome if the Iowa City-Des Moines-Omaha extension plans actually happen one day as well) addition to IL service.

 

[neroden]

So, after screwing things up for years, Rauner finally decides to accept the federal funding. But still won't sign a state budget.

What a jackass. I'm glad he didn't manage to destroy the Quad Cities route through his grandstanding and inaction, however.

The Quad Cities route will be *massively* successful if it ever gets built (which seems to require the removal of the Rauner obstacle).

 

[jfandre]

It kills me how long we've been waiting for these trains to come to fruition. I'm more bummed that the Rockford train seems to be on permanent hold because I would actually use that one on a regular basis, but the QC train would certainly be a welcome (more welcome if the Iowa City-Des Moines-Omaha extension plans actually happen one day as well) addition to IL service.

Not to mention getting rid of the fossil currently mismanaging Iowa's affairs.

 

[Lonestar648]

Illinois has so many past and present misappropriations by so many, from the Governors on down the line, it is hard to imagine the state getting out of their financial crisis. They raise taxes which has forced businesses and individuals to leave the state, so the state raised taxes, now they are faced with another increase hoping that people and businesses will stay despite paying more in taxes. The local future train routes in Illinois are victims of all this mess, thus the people of Illinois and surrounding states totally lose.

 

[PaulM]

Illinois has so many past and present misappropriations by so many, from the Governors on down the line, it is hard to imagine the state getting out of their financial crisis. They raise taxes which has forced businesses and individuals to leave the state, so the state raised taxes, now they are faced with another increase hoping that people and businesses will stay despite paying more in taxes. The local future train routes in Illinois are victims of all this mess, thus the people of Illinois and surrounding states totally lose.

True, Illinois has a disfunctional political system, but the anti-tax rant sounds like an old wives' tale. The income tax rate was temporarily increased to where is was on par with most states; but soon reduced back to where it was. I recently sold a second home in Colorado, so I know that Illinois's income tax is is lower than CO's, where all the yuppies and hipster seem to be heading.

And how many towns of 40,000 population in Texas have two trains a day each way and have a station with a huge parking lot that more often than not is almost full? I'm retired and could move anywhere, but can't bring myself move because of the easy living here.

 

[Lonestar648]

San Antonio to Texarkana has the Texas Eagle north and south daily and Beaumont to El Paso has the Sunset Limited 3X East and West per week. Then Oklahoma City to Ft Worth is daily north and south. Now a few cities have limited commuter rail with Dallas have the largest system and San Antonio having none. Do the cities need more rail options? Absolutely! The one thing Texas has that most states do not have is No Income Tax and the lowest business taxes, that is why so many business are transferring to Texas. Toyota USA is moving its 5000 employee corporate center from Cali to Texas. We used to live in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago, so for two decades put up with the craziness in Springfield. When the company I worked for sold out, letting all 2000+ employees go as part of sale, we looked around for months, but ended up moving to Texas and were immediately happy we did. My son in law was in commercial construction, his company couldn't find enough work so closed its doors. after a year of looking they moved to Texas, finding an even better job within a month, plus Texas needs teachers so bad, my daughter was hired quickly to finish out a teacher on leave then full time from then on. Illinois was so frustrating while we lived there, so much money spent with nothing to show for it, the corruption oozing everywhere. What other state has their Governors in Jail? I don't hold out much hope with Illinois politics for future rail projects.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

San Antonio to Texarkana has the Texas Eagle north and south daily and Beaumont to El Paso has the Sunset Limited 3X East and West per week. Then Oklahoma City to Ft Worth is daily north and south.

If that's enuff to satisfy voters like you, no wonder Texas can't have nice things.

And do you think Texas is "shovel-ready"? In the coming recession, suppose there's another Stimulus for infrastructure investments, that is, another $8 Billion for passenger rail. Suppose the feds say to Illinois and to Texas, we could let you have about half a Billion each. Then Illinois could be double-tracking another 100 miles of the Lincoln route before snow flies; they have the plans. Texas doesn't have a plan for one damn mile of upgrades to interstate rail. They'd still be wishing Santa would leave them a map of the railroads under the tree.

 

[afigg]

The state legislature and the Governor agreed to a 6 month stopgap budget to keep the state government from shutting down. I searched for news reports and was able to confirm that the stopgap budget has funding for the Quad Cities/Moline project.

Quad City Times: Q-C officials: Illinois budget has rail money. Several excerpts:'

The budget that Illinois lawmakers passed and Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law on Thursday includes funding for a passenger rail connection between the Quad-Cities and Chicago, area lawmakers and economic development officials said Friday.

It's not clear how much money was set aside in the legislation, but a state Department of Transportation official said Friday it will cover "pre-construction activity" in fiscal year 2017.
........
Henry Marquard, director of government relations for the Quad-Cities Chamber of Commerce, said a section of one of the budget bills the governor signed Thursday that had $100 million for rail projects included enough funding for the Quad-City project to secure the federal grant. And, he said, he expected there would be construction on the project in 2017.

The question is how long it will take for the state DOT and project managers to restart active work on the Quad Cities corridor and stations. With work stopped, what?, over a year ago, could take some months to restart work if they have to rebid contracts or renew permits.

Still, the long delay in starting the Quad Cities service means that the Nippon-Sharyo bi-level cars needed for the corridor should be delivered in time for the start of the service. Well, assuming the N-S bi-level production does not run into more major problems and the federal funds are available. So maybe in later 2018?

 

[neroden]

Illinois has so many past and present misappropriations by so many, from the Governors on down the line, it is hard to imagine the state getting out of their financial crisis. They raise taxes which has forced businesses and individuals to leave the state, so the state raised taxes, now they are faced with another increase hoping that people and businesses will stay despite paying more in taxes. The local future train routes in Illinois are victims of all this mess, thus the people of Illinois and surrounding states totally lose.

The anti-tax ranting is nonsense; taxes are not a monolith.

Illinois does have one really stupid problem: there's a state constitutional provision which prohibits them from having a progressive income tax, thus meaning that in order to raise taxes on billionaires, they have to raise the income tax rate on everyone else too. (In normal states like Colorado, New York, California, etc., the income tax rate is lower for poor people. Y'know?) However, that's not the biggest problem.

The biggest problem is.... refusal to raise the income tax. This tends to cause them to instead to raise the really regressive taxes, like sales tax, and like fees paid for permits, and so on.

It's documented that businesses are very happy with high income taxes. *This makes sense*. The great thing about income taxes is that you only pay them if you have *income*. What businesses really dislike are taxes which they pay whether or not they had a good year -- property taxes, sales taxes, permitting fees, etc. These can make the difference between running the business and closing it. Income taxes *can't* -- you don't pay 'em if you had a bad year -- so all honest businesspeople much prefer income taxes to the alternative taxes.

 

[neroden]

The state legislature and the Governor agreed to a 6 month stopgap budget

Finally! It's been six months of Rauner grandstanding and demanding union-busting laws. Finally he gave in and agreed to actually pass a budget without his "hostage-taking" non-budget-related provisions -- even if it is only for 6 months.

 

[neroden]

The question is how long it will take for the state DOT and project managers to restart active work on the Quad Cities corridor and stations. With work stopped, what?, over a year ago, could take some months to restart work if they have to rebid contracts or renew permits.

As I remember the status of the work (I could be wrong):

-- Most of the work on the BNSF portion of the line was done, and all the contracts were signed. If any work is outstanding, it should restart immediately on BNSF's schedule.

-- None of the work on the Iowa Interstate portion of the line had started, and design work was not quite finished. I don't know whether there was a fourth-party contractor on the design work (other than Iowa Interstate, BNSF, and Illinois DOT). If not, they can probably pick up where they left off pretty fast. Iowa Interstate isn't that busy and will probably be happy to start work ASAP.

-- The Moline station has been progressed independent of the state rail line funding by the city and should be finished before the rest of the work.

-- Property acquistion for the junction was not complete. I'm not sure how long it'll take them to get that done. I'm not sure whether the design was finished either. The site had been surveyed and the state DOT had talked to BNSF and Iowa Interstate but I don't know how far they'd gotten.

-- I haven't heard a *word* about the Geneseo station since 2012 and I'm guessing it won't open with the rest of the line.