Where there's a Will, there's a way

I went to the rally against putting high speed rail on the 3rd Street corridor last Wednesday. They make a good case for why it's the wrong location and I was glad to see they aren't opposed to high speed rail in general.

I listened to Illinois Dept. of Transportation Director Gary Hannig on WTAX explain that Union Pacific spent millions on the 3rd Street corridor and plans to significantly increase freight traffic on that line. He then went out of his way to emphasize that there's NO CONNECTION between that and UP pushing to have high speed rail on the same corridor.

Give me a break. UP found a way to divert federal money designed for high speed rail to be spent on the same line where they already planned to increase freight traffic. Does Hannig really expect us to believe it's only a coincidence that UP will benefit from the overpasses and other improvements our tax dollars will pay for?

UP is notorious for chronically delaying Amtrak and the company has a history of hostility to subsidized passenger rail. Anyone who has taken the Texas Eagle from Springfield to Chicago knows that it often arrives 3-6 hours behind schedule due to delays by freight trains.

To his credit, Dick Durbin is one of the lead Senators holding UP accountable. A UP spokesperson in this article says that the problems are unique to the St. Louis - Chicago corridor. If you do google searches you'll see UP make the exact same statement about many other corridors across the country that all have "unique" problems with delays caused by UP. Congress agreed that UP was the worst offender and Amtrak's on-time performance improved significantly over the past year after new federal fines against freight companies were levied for delays.

Considering the history, I'm deeply skeptical that any passenger train which shares lines with UP freight traffic and depends on UP dispatchers will ever be truly high-speed. It's also disappointing to hear local planning officials only talk about moderately-improved-speed-rail instead of the seriously high speed rail proposed by the Midwest High Speed Rail Association. It's not clear to me how putting the current plan on the 10th Street corridor might impact the future of 220mph high-speed trains.

I'm also curious about who owns land along the 10th Street corridor that the county is setting aside money to buy for the multimodal facility. And has the local Chamber had any communication about this issue with the US Chamber, whose President sits on the UP Board of Directors? This debate raises many questions I haven't heard answered.