Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
This project keeps getting worse and worse. Now it's just blatantly a subsidy for NS.
The best and cheapest option is simply to run Amtrak trains all the way up the St Charles Air Line to a new direct connection into Union Station. This alignment is 100% grade separated with no tight curves and will soon have zero freight interference. If there is a connection at Grand Crossing at all, it should be in the northeast quadrant moving trains from Michigan and points east onto the SCAL.
Why depress roads all over the place, rip up half of Englewood (not exaggerating here) and spend hundreds of millions of public dollars so that one track can be installed that NS will ever-so-kindly share with Amtrak, assuming Amtrak can fit into its busy freight schedule...
What a racket. The railroads have figured out, yet again, how to get billions of dollars of taxpayer money while contributing very little to the general welfare.
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^ You are definitely one of the 2 or 3 top transportation experts on this forum, and I'm sure I'm not the only one here who appreciates your input. But I'm just wondering, isn't it the whole purpose of the CREATE project to benefit Chicago's freight rail system? Untying freight bottlenecks is the primary purpose of this investment, while benefitting passenger rail is seen as a secondary goal; is that not correct?
Btw, using public dollars to benefit private companies is certainly not just happening in one part of Chicagoland. We all know that the O'Hare expansion will ultimately be rigged to benefit United and American Airlines, even though funding for the project will be mostly on the taxpayer's dime.