Freight train mess in Chicago gets stimulus help

(Photo of freight trains passing through Chicago from Flickr and photographer Kumar McMillan)


Believe it or not, a freight train can take as long to get through Chicago as it does to go on to the West Coast. This railroad hub is so congested, with its 40,000 rail cars passing through each day, that trains usually travel at 9 mph or less. They have been known to take 36 hours to get through the area.

So it was good news to hear last week that the U.S. Department of Transportation was giving a $100 million recovery grant to improve the situation.

The money will be used to upgrade traffic control systems, switches and signals, build a bridge and otherwise facilitate trains in moving through one of the world’s busiest hubs. Only Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai see more freight train traffic. And estimates say rail traffic could almost double here in 20 years.

The DOT money is expected to attract an additional $62 million from non-federal sources. (I hope that doesn’t mean the state, because we know what kind of fiscal shape it is in.)

CREATE
Back in 2003, following a 1999 winter storm that had trains backed up for 500 miles, a program called CREATE (Chicago Regional Environmental and Transportation Efficiency) was agreed to by the city, the state and the 6 railroad companies that go through Chicago. CREATE hasn’t been able to do much so far, for lack of money. So, thank you, President Obama and Ray LaHood (Transportation Secretary, who happens to be from Illinois.)

Most of the $1.5 billion in announced TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grants went for rail and public transit rather than highways.

Chicago is not the only region to get a large grant. Two other freight corridors got similar amounts – one in Tennessee and Alabama, the other in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland. And there are many other small projects throughout the country.

More fuel-efficient
Freight train companies (if you’ve seen the recent ads) boast they can carry a ton of goods 436 miles on a gallon of gas. They also say by taking truck traffic off the road they can ease highway congestion. The Texas Transportation Institute says trains are 3 times as efficient as trucks.

Truckers argue they can move things faster and can go anywhere. Over the past 20 years freight has been moving from rail to trucks and planes. And trucking’s carbon footprint has grown.

Quebec and some European countries are subsidizing a move back from trucks to rail. And the White House has put a priority on rail – both passenger and freight.

The cost to complete all the CREATE projects planned for the Chicago area is estimated by DOT at about $3B, and last year it was running $2.6B short of its goal. The $162M won’t get them there, but it will be a start.

And it’s nice railroads are getting some respect.

Read more about the TIGER grants at DOT.

(Sources: ClimateWire, Medill Reports, U. S. Department of Transportation)