Setting STAR Line?

Crain's reports that a group of suburban municipalities is gearing up to oppose the Canadian National Railway's purchase of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway's line that stretches in a giant circle from Waukegan to Gary. CN is going to use this line to reroute freight trains that currently have to travel through the City of Chicago. This will allow railroad properties in the City to be developed for other uses. As anyone who had taken Metra's Aurora and Geneva lines to Chicago can observe, railroad property in Chicago has been extensively developed with relatively high density housing.

As previously reported, Metra has designs on part of the EJ&E line for the western branch of its much-anticipated STAR Line. Metra will find it much harder and certainly more expensive to acquire this right of way if CN proceeds with transforming it into a key link in the nation's rail transportation network. It will be interesting to see if Metra gives aid and comfort to the suburban NIMBY group (meant only to be descriptive in this case). According to the article, the opponents of the CN move are unlikely to be able to block CN's acquisition of the EJ&E line.

The juxtaposition of a group of suburban municipalities with low density/auto-centric development patterns opposing the expansion of a rail line that will free up space for higher density, more transit-friendly development elsewhere in the region is instructive. It does not appear that there is any public body--be it the RTA or the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning--whose job it is to weigh the cost and benefits of the CN takeover from a regional perspective. In terms of CO2 emission reduction, for example, which will do more--build the STAR Line in areas that are mostly sprawling and auto-centric or build walkable, transit friendly development is an area already comparatively well served by transit (at least until the 1/20/08 Doomsday).

Even if the STAR Line wins that contest, is it time for Metra to put the STAR Line to rest anyway? Metra seems to be having a hard time developing believable projected ridership numbers that would support such a major new capital investment. The fact that the proposed State capital plan has a 10:1 highway/transit funding ratio (compared to a 2:1 ratio in the last capital bill) certainly does not indicate strong support for the STAR Line specifically and public transit generally. Metra can't pay its bills now without raiding its capital funds. Adding a new line that will surely operate at a substantial operating loss would only make its financial position worse.

Put these all together--a weak business case, lack of public/political support for the STAR Line in the State capital bill, Metra's operating funding challenges, and arguably other transit investments that will do more to reduce congestion and auto travel than the STAR Line--and maybe it is time for the STAR Line to be mothballed.

STAR Crossed?

Crain's Chicago Business reports in its September 10th edition that the Canadian National Railway is in talks with U.S. Steel Corp. to buy the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern tracks for as much as $1 billion.

The EJ&E tracks run from Waukegan to Northwest Indiana, passing through numerous suburban communities including Lake Zurich, Naperville and Joliet. CN plans to use the tracks to reroute rail traffic that now goes through Chicago. This will help speed rail traffic through the region, a top economic and transportation priority.

Hasn't Metra based its STAR Line plans on this same EJ&E corridor? Metra's description of the STAR Line states that:

The 55-mile route, connecting Joliet to O'Hare International Airport, calls for the use of two dedicated transportation corridors. The first corridor is known as the Outer Circumferential Corridor and runs approximately 36 miles along the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern (EJ&E) railroad corridor. The route starts in Joliet, goes north through Plainfield, Naperville, Aurora and West Chicago and continues to Hoffman Estates at Prairie Stone.

The line would then connect to the Northwest Corridor Segment from Prairie Stone, heading east via Schaumburg, Rolling Meadows, Arlington Heights, Elk Grove Village and Des Plaines and on to O'Hare International Airport.

If CN is successful in acquiring the EJ&E and using it as the "key bypass route" for rail traffic in the region, what does this mean for Metra's plans to use the same right of way for its STAR Line?

At a minimum, CN's purchase of the EJ&E, its investment in improvements to that railroad and the heavy rail traffic that the line will carry under CN's ownership would make it much more expensive for Metra to acquire track access or actual right of way in the corridor. More dramatically, the region may have to decide whether the EJ&E is more useful to the region if it carries boxcars rather than well-fed folks in boxer shorts.