CHICAGO — A longstanding effort to extend Metra’s BNSF line service beyond Aurora, Ill., west to Kendall County took a step forward last week as Metra’s board of directors approved a $4.7 million engineering study to address capital and operating costs.
The study, to be paid for from previously earmarked federal funds, will consider possible terminals in Yorkville, Plano, or Sandwich, as well as additional stations in Oswego and Montgomery, the Daily Herald reports. Oswego has already purchased land for a station and parking lot.
The study will allow supporters of the expansion to know “how much funding they will need to secure to make it happen,” Metra spokesman Michael Gillis told the paper.
Funding for the actual construction and operation faces significant barriers. Kendall County is not part of the six-county Regional Transportation Authority, Metra’s parent agency; existing Metra service is funded in part by sales taxes collected in those counties. So Kendall County would have to find a source to fund the construction and its portion of the service.
First, actually quite a few people do want to live in Kane and Kendall Counties but that does not mean they deserve or are entitled to subsidized mass transit service to get to work. People who move out there do so for specific reasons and understand full well the traffic congestion and lack of transit service. I know people out in Princeton who use Amtrak to commute to jobs in Chicago. Putting more riders on the four state supported trains per day on this route make a lot more sense than extending the Metra service.
Second, the municipal boundary between Aurora and Naperville has always more or less been Illinois Route 59 so technically the Metra station is located on the Aurora side of boundary. I grew up in Naperville and remember very well the battles in the late sixties and early seventies that finally settled the boundary. I always thought of that area as Naperville (old habits die hard).
Third, Eola has always been a secondary Chicago area yard for CB&Q. The CB&Q had a large facility along the south side of the main line where they cut up old freight cars and old commuter coaches. There was a roundhouse on the north side of the tracks at the west end of the yard. There were a handful of flag stop trains (at Eola Road) operated for the benefit of CB&Q employees like the LaVergne station next to Clyde Yard in Cicero. The commuter servicing yard has always been in Aurora but Eola was used to store retired commuter coaches before they were cut up.
Fourth, I’m sure many readers remember the beautiful two story red brick Burlington station down at the south end of downtown Aurora. It served both the commuter trains and the Zephyr fleet as well as the GN and NP through trains.
Fifth, this is an incredibly STUPID idea and an incredible WASTE of money. The money could be better spent on increasing frequencies on the North Central route or increasing service between the O’Hare Rosemont station and the Loop. Also the Heritage Route would be a better option here if it was upgraded.
There are not enough people going downtown from the western towns west of Aurora to warrant commuter service and regardless of the population for a decade or two because work patterns are changing. Who will want to live in Plano or beyond and spend nearly 2 hours on a a “commuter” train going downtown and/or in the intermediate suburbs? Best to operate a new state train the extended area is to be served and turned at Mendota maybe and/or changing the departure of the current Illinois Zephyr by an hour to an hour and a half earlier departure at Quincy and Chicago. What is not being studied is a waste of time and money that could go to other and better worthy projects.
Older CB&Q and BN suburban timetables do show Eola as a termination point for some trains. The timetables also indicated that Eola was not a passenger stop. Presumably, Naperville was the last passenger stop and the equipment deadheaded to Eola for layover.
There are 2 paths to the extension.
If Kendall votes to join the RTA, then Pace (the bus unit of RTA) will have to offer transit services in Kendall as well. This includes paratransit services. local bus routes to and from the train stations and to local malls, court houses etc.Joining RTA is more than just trains, many aren’t aware of this.
If Kendall does not join RTA, then the local municipalities will have to provide the revenue to pay for the service extension themselves, either through municipal taxes or a property tax. Illinois property taxes are already at the breaking point and Illinois is about unload a major gas tax increase for roads, so that leaves a local sales tax.
RTA works on a sales tax model, so the towns would simply be doing what an RTA vote would do. But what the study has to determine is, is the costs for providing the service going to met with enough revenue generation? And that is the $4.7 million dollar question.
If not, then Metra would simply adding more deficits to their budget with little to gain.
ALL – Accoding to the web site, Wayne K. is correct, the Aurora staion is downtown. I stand corrected. I was last there about 25 or more years ago and I seem to remeber terminating at Eola, not downtown. Is it possible this changed??.
Re: Metra may be awesome but there is a limit as to what it can do and where it can serve.
If it can serve the “people that matter” it can be expanded. If the “people that matter” would rather use their computers while commuting they might be pushing for an expansion. The “people that matter” like living in the remote suburbs away from the problems caused by those peasants.
It’s either that or putting the Tesla into auto-drive mode and hoping for the best. (Elon better not kill to many of the “people that matter” or he’ll ruin this self-driving car fantasy).
Claes – I believe the Aurora station moved about 25 to 30 years ago. I knew the question would come up but because I wasn’t 100% sure I didn’t mention that (as I sort of remembered) there was a downtown station in decades past.
Claes – I agree with you on electrification and on your comparison with Europe. Among other benefits of electrification (several) there would be faster acceleration of trains, passenger and freight both.
Mr. Landey: Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the Aurora Metra station located a stone’s throw from the river, pretty much in the center of the incorporated area of Aurora? Or has it moved east recently?
As to the speed with which Metra gets folks to the “outer communities”, yes, one would wish that the trains could run faster. More dedicated right-of-way would help. As would, heaven forbid, electrification of the service. To compare with our brothers and sisters in Europe, a similar regional train system there would be all-electric and would have been so for many years.
The BNSF line extension has been talked about for about twenty years now. This study will determine what the estimated costs will be. Then, one of two things need to happen in order to extend service: Either Kendall County will need to join the RTA which likely would be determined by voters in that county. Or, the municipalities that Metra would serve in Kendall County will have to figure out how to pay the costs.
As the Aurora and Route 59 stations are becoming overcrowded with passengers from Oswego, Montgomery and Yorkville, this service expansion is becoming more when than if. Consider this… The combined population of Oswego, Montgomery & Yorkville in 1990, just before suburban sprawl and building boom of the 90’s, was 12,588. Now, twenty-nine years later the combined population is @74,000!
Notes:
* The Route 59 station is half Aurora (south side) and half Naperville (north side).
* Eola is still town – population @100 – and used to have its own commuter stop / platform until sometime in the 1970’s (?). BTW… Eola allegedly stands for: end of line Aurora (?)
* The Aurora station is in downtown Aurora in the old roundhouse. If Metra service is extended, will this station be reconfigured? The old Aurora station closed @1988.
* Oswego bought land for a station back in 2004 and it built two parking lots. A park-and-ride to Aurora was in place until @2015; not sure if it’s operating now.
* Plano, which already has a station for Amtrak, is the likely end of the service expansion but don’t count out an extension all the way to Sandwich.
* Also worth mentioning is that BNSF & Metra would have to renegotiated contracts for labor & other if a service extension is agreed to.
* ‘Rush-hour’ express trains that run non-stop between Chicago and Naperville take as little as 31 minutes to cover the roughly 32 miles. You can’t do that in your car at 5:30pm! Frequencies… Between 4:17pm and 6:31pm 21 Metra dinkies depart Chicago. That’s an average of one every six minutes. Sixteen of the twenty-one stop at the last two stations – Rt 59 and / or Aurora.
* Electrification of the BNSF line? Too much money, too much wind and too much other bad weather.
Chris
4.7 million for a study? They sure can spend money …….
Charles, As an Aurora native, you are incorrect in your assessment of the Aurora area Metra stations. There is no Eola station. The three area stations are downtown Naperville, Route 59 and downtown Aurora on Broadway just five blocks north of the 1922 downtown Aurora depot as James Giblin describes. Wayne
Between the new (proposed terminus) to Aurora then express to CUS at 2 trains inbound in the AM rush & 2 trains out bound in the PM rush. Lets see what hahappens!
For an organization tight on money, this study is a big waste of time and money at this time.
After the NIMBY win on the Chi-Milw line, I say good luck.
For those fawning for fast electric service as it relates to Aurora, it already existed at one time and the service ceased in 1957. The Aurora passenger platform along the Fox River behind the Broadway Street Station survived unused for many years until it was ripped out for a park and trail in the early 2000’s.
As for a service extension, Metra just needs to know if they can get the cost of service to line up with the potential tax revenue of adding Kendall County to the RTA.
Hey if Kendall wants to pay for the stuff (stations, cars, etc.) up front, then let em at it.
” …. service beyond Aurora…” For service beyond Aurora, Metra would first have to get to Aurora. Metra doesn’t get as far west as Aurora. The “Aurora” station is east of the city. I wish the outer communities well, but the fact is, Metra trains – even the express trains – take a long time to get to the outer stations. At the outer limits, train frequencies decrease, meaning wider headways thus longer wait times. Metra may be awesome but there is a limit as to what it can do and where it can serve.
James – I see your point but I think you mis-counted. I believe there are three stations where you post two. The three are (I believe) Naperville, Route 59, and Eola. The Naperville station is in Naperville, the Eola yard in the eastern section of Aurora. The huge park-ride in the middle at Route 59 straddles the city limit. At Route 59, the south side of the tracks is in Aurora (according to a twenty year old map I have) and the north side of the tracks is a checkerboard of Naperville and whatever township is there.
As a professor of mind half a century ago said, “only an idiot” could draw the “boundary” between a city and a township in the midwestern states.
The confusion here probably stems from the so-called Route 59 station located midway between downtown Naperville and downtown Aurora. This station is located just west of Illinois Route 59 and literally just a stone’s throw east of the former EJ&E main line which crosses BNSF on the east side of a community formerly called Eola but now within Aurora city limits.
The Route 59 station is Metra’s busiest on the entire system in terms of ridership probably due to its excellent highway access. Many residents from Kendall and Will Counties currently drive up to this station on a daily basis, so this begs the question of whether or not the line extension would actually create any new ridership or just reshuffle the deck.
There is also the issue of where the extension line trains would be serviced since it seems a very expensive proposition to either build a satellite coach yard or have trains continually shuttling back and forth to the Metra coach yard in Aurora. Metra is facing serious financial problems these days and this extension concept seems like one of the stupidest ideas in recent memory.
The Naperville station is located in the old part of town, near North Central College. The current Aurora station was originally the CB&Q roundhouse on the north end of downtown Aurora. The late Walter Payton was an original investor in the conversion of the roundhouse into a retail and restaurant venue. The original CB&Q Aurora station was located at the south end of downtown Aurora just north of the split between the Omaha and St. Paul main lines. The original town of Aurora was laid out basically along and parallel with the Fox River. The CB&Q began life as the Aurora Branch Railroad which connected with the Galena & Chicago Union (CNW) to gain access to Chicago.