Pols cheer stimulus package for high-speed rail

Illinois and city leaders gathered at Union Station in downtown Chicago Friday to cheer $1.2 billion in federal stimulus money heading to the state for high-speed rail.

They lauded the investment as an upgrade to the nation's passenger-rail system and to Chicago's importance as a Midwestern rail hub, but also as a much-needed jobs program.

The lion's share of the money, $1.1 billion, will go to bring high-speed rail to the corridor between Chicago and St. Louis. Amtrak Chairman Tom Carper said it would cut travel times 30 percent with trains traveling up to 110 mph.

It's part of an $8 billion package of grants approved in Washington, D.C., this week, with $4.5 million being devoted to improve current or future Amtrak routes. Federal Railroad Administrator Joe Szabo said $2.6 billion was going to the Midwest, with Chicago at the hub of those improvements, including upgrading the rail lines to Detroit and Milwaukee and extending the latter on to Madison, Wis.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said the groundwork for the plan had been laid long ago, so the state was ready to receive a share of the stimulus money when it was freed up for the project. The money also will help unsnarl "freight-rail bottlenecks in our state," Gov. Pat Quinn said.

The plan to improve the passenger-rail system also was touted as a jobs plan.

"Passenger rail is more than a transportation issue. It's totally an economic-development issue," Carper said.

Quinn, who is committing the state to $400 million in matching funds in the project, predicted it would once again make Chicago's Union Station a busy hub of national travel.