The long-stalled idea of reviving passenger rail service through LaSalle County is itself revived because of efforts in Peoria. Civic leaders there want to connect Peoria to Chicago. The route would have stops in the LaSalle-Peru area, Ottawa, and Morris.
Illinois Valley Area Chamber Executive Director Bill Zens thinks it has a good chance with Peoria on board. He says Peoria wants to grow. The passenger rail service would help this area grow too.
Zens says he’d like a stop in Utica, too. Considering the number of visitors to the state parks and other attractions, he says it makes sense to try to relieve some of the car traffic there.
At North Central Area Transit, Transit Director Kim Zimmerman is encouraging people in LaSalle County to take the Illinois Department of Transportation’s online survey about the proposal. It asks you how often you would use the service, where you’d like it to stop, how much you’re willing to pay, and more.
NCAT buses go to Peoria twice a month. Zimmerman says NCAT gets requests for trips to Chicago and its suburbs. But NCAT doesn’t go there, so she has to turn them down. She welcomes the chance to take people to a train station to get them started on such trips.
IDOT plans to finish a feasibility study in April. Click this link to take the survey.
It was in 2003 when former Ottawa Mayor Bob Eschbach started a feasibility study on commuter rail from LaSalle-Peru through Ottawa and on to Joliet. The study found that it would take $163 million to start it and $9.7 million per year (figures not adjusted for inflation since) to run it.
Passenger rail service through LaSalle County is available via Amtrak routes that go through Mendota. Service through communities along the Illinois River ended in 1979 when Rock Island Rail Line workers went on strike and the company went out of business the next year.