Saturday, April 14, 2007 12:21 AM CDT
Our View: It's easy to see why Amtrak ridership is up
By the JG/T-C Editorial Board
editorial@jg-tc.com
Going to Chicago, but you don’t want to get up at the crack of dawn, or deal with the Windy City’s maddening traffic?
Then take the new 9:30 a.m. Amtrak train leaving the Mattoon depot.
You can do it, thanks to the addition of new trains on the Chicago-to-Carbondale corridor. Since the new trains were introduced nearly five months ago, ridership has increased 68 percent — 73,000 travelers took to the rails.
The number of travelers using the Mattoon Amtrak passenger station stands at more than 2,000 a month, climbing by several hundred over the past couple of years.
The 9:30 a.m. train, in particular, has become popular with people passing through the Mattoon depot on their way to Chicago. It allows them to reach the city in the morning and return in the early evening.
Before the new train was introduced, travelers had to arise before the rooster to catch a train to Chicago. Amtrak’s additions also included new trains connecting Chicago with St. Louis and Quincy.
Amtrak still faces a problem with being on time — railroads always have — but efforts are under way to make sure trains arrive and leave on schedule.
The upsurge in Amtrak’s traffic comes at a time when Mattoon city officials and the Coles County Historical Society are ratcheting up the project to refurbish the Mattoon depot.
Public funds and private donations will be utilized to restore the facility. Working together, financing agencies are preparing the bidding process for the first phase of the depot’s renovation.
The 90-year-old brick and mortar and marble building will undergo a comprehensive overhaul designed to resurrect its turn-of-the-century beauty and also make it more functional in a modern world.
The first phase of the project centers on the installation of a public elevator — an alternative to mounting and descending the deep set of stairs connecting the street-level entrance to the passenger lobby and train platforms.
The project also calls for renovation of the building’s interior and exterior. An eyesore today, the passenger platform in the subway will be renovated. The depot will also have a food service, local history museum and various business outlets.
The city wants to encourage Eastern Illinois University students to use the depot. They hope to achieve this by working with EIU officials to add shuttle buses between Charleston and Mattoon.
The Mattoon depot probably will never enjoy the crush of travelers it embraced from the time it opened during World War I to the end of World War II, when passenger tains transported the bulk of Americans. But with the cost of gasoline climbing and the addition of new trains to the Amtrak system, rail traffic may, indeed, enjoy a resurgence.
The key to increasing rail travel is on-time service, reasonable rates, attractive passenger cars, well-maintained rail beds and depots that are clean and attractive.
Just last week, it was reported a French passenger train set a new speed record exceeding 380 mph. But France is recognized for its high-speed rail passenger service. The U.S. is not.
If passenger train ridership can be increased to the point where the railroads look at it as a financial plus, rather than a mandated minus, perhaps we’ll see high-speed rail serve in the United States.
Imagine going from Chicago to New Orleans at speeds in the hundreds of miles per hour.
That day may come, but right now we’re encouraged to see Amtrak’s service and the depot facilities being improved.
— JG/T-C Editorial Board
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DJS wrote on Apr 14, 2007 10:31 AM: