More Illinois HSR upgrades

[eagle628]

http://www.pantagraph.com/news/state-and-regional/illinois/article_0f8ed1c6-54d9-11e0-9df0-001cc4c002e0.html <--another $685 million for track and grade crossing improvements.

 

[Eric S]

None of the news articles on this have been very clear. I don't believe this $685 million is "new" funding (i.e., from FL), but rather just another portion of the $1.2 billion (ish) that IL has already been awarded.

 

[eagle628]

None of the news articles on this have been very clear. I don't believe this $685 million is "new" funding (i.e., from FL), but rather just another portion of the $1.2 billion (ish) that IL has already been awarded.

I don't think so either; I'd imagine those won't be announced for a while, I don't think the bids are even due for a couple weeks. Probably this was just another chunk of the money that UP, Amtrak, the feds and the state government came to an agreement on. Probably like what happened with Washington and North Carolina recently.

 

[Steve4031]

One interesting thing is that they are going to upgrade Alton to Mississippi river to 79 mph. The sb speed limit is 50 mph and northbound speed limit is 30 mph.

 

[AlanB]

None of the news articles on this have been very clear. I don't believe this $685 million is "new" funding (i.e., from FL), but rather just another portion of the $1.2 billion (ish) that IL has already been awarded.

I don't think so either; I'd imagine those won't be announced for a while, I don't think the bids are even due for a couple weeks. Probably this was just another chunk of the money that UP, Amtrak, the feds and the state government came to an agreement on. Probably like what happened with Washington and North Carolina recently.

It's not new funding, this is still part of the initial grant to Illinois, with a bit of the follow-up monies from Wisconsin & Ohio. This is phase II of the project, phase I started last year. I'm not sure how many phases they've actually planned.