Railroad project could bring jobs, development to Rockford and miles of tracks through Boone County

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  The $8B Great Lakes Basin proposal would bypass Chicago, where congestion drains U.S. rail commerce.

 
• The proposed Great Lakes Basin railroad would travel south from an existing railroad that runs through Milton, Wisconsin. From there, the tracks would head south through Boone County, east to Indiana and north to Michigain City, Indiana. PROVIDED IMAGE

 
Backers of the proposed Great Lakes Basin Railroad say they're poised to file an application for a railroad operator license with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board...

By Isaac Guerrero
Staff writer
Posted Feb. 27, 2016 at 9:00 AM

ROCKFORD — A team of investors is poised to ask the U.S. Surface Transportation Board this week to build an $8 billion freight railroad that, if approved, could lift economic development and job creation to new heights in the Rock River Valley.

The roughly 275-mile railroad loop would bypass Chicago and thereby shuttle goods more quickly from coast to coast.

The so-called Great Lakes Basin Railroad route resembles a giant C, an extension of an existing railroad from Milwaukee to Brodhead, Wisconsin, to a new line that would travel south through Boone County — with a western spur to the Chicago Rockford International Airport — south to Lee County and east to Indiana before heading north, where it would terminate in Michigan City, Indiana.

The new freight line is a moonshot. No railroad project of this size and scope has been tackled for more than a century. The project's backers have deep pockets and say they'll finance the endeavor privately, with no public subsidies. Even so, they face daunting hurdles, including acquisition of vast stretches of private land. If all goes well, supporters say, construction could begin in late 2019.

The long odds don't deter Frank Patton, a suburban Chicago businessman who assembled a coalition of railroad experts and venture capitalists to advance what they call the Great Lakes Basin route.

“We're very much aware that, to most people, this seems like an impossible idea,” Patton said. “But you know, Victor Hugo said that the mightiest army in the world isn't as strong as an idea whose time has come. In our minds, we think that's exactly the case.”

Patton pitched the plan for the Great Lakes Basin project to the Rockford Metropolitan Agency for Planning, or RMAP, board of directors last fall. The agency comprises regional municipal and county elected officials who decide how to best spend federal transportation dollars that flow to the Rockford region.

In Patton's initial pitch to RMAP, the proposed Great Lakes Basin route snaked through Winnebago County with a direct link to the Rockford airport. Further inspection of the route revealed a need for environmental impact studies to gauge the effect of development on sensitive lands along the Sugar River and near the Winnebago-Rock counties line. Those studies would be prohibitively time-consuming, Patton said.

Attention has turned to a new route that would traverse Boone County, from north to south, instead of slicing through environmentally sensitive land in Winnebago County. The new proposed route would travel through Bonus Township, part of which includes Belvidere, said Belvidere Mayor Mike Chamberlain.

He and other RMAP board members aren't keen on the new Great Lakes Basin route, but they're reserving an official opinion until Patton and his team submit a formal application to the federal government that explains the project in detail.

“Farmers are not going to be happy in Boone County," Chamberlain said. "I suspect that if this route is chosen there will be opposition from landowners.”

A greater concern, Chamberlain said, is that railroads have powers of eminent domain — the right to seize private land for public use. So property owners along the route may have no choice but to sell the necessary right of way for the Great Lakes Basin project, even if they're not happy with whatever cash offer is made.

There's an additional concern, Chamberlain said. The new railroad appears to hold substantial economic development potential for the south Chicago suburbs. And the route could provide fuel for two mammoth and politically charged capital projects that have never materialized, but have also never died: a proposed passenger-service airport in Peotone and the Illiana Corridor, a four-lane expressway that would link Interstate 55 in Illinois with Interstate 65 in Indiana.

Former Gov. Pat Quinn pushed for construction of a Peotone airport and a $1.3 billion Illiana Tollway that would link Illinois and Indiana. His successor, Gov. Bruce Rauner, put a hold on the Illiana plan amid concern that the highway would put Illinois taxpayers on the hook for some $500 million in borrowing. Similar concerns have been raised about the Peotone project, although the state last year bought additional land for the would-be airport in the south Chicago suburbs.

The Peotone airport is viewed by leaders in the Rock River Valley as a direct threat to the economic potential of the Rockford airport, which is poised for more cargo business when a giant jet repair hub opens for business this summer.

Steve Ernst doesn't think the Great Lakes Basin poses any threat to Rockford or its airport. A former city engineer and retired RMAP director, Ernst believes that quite the opposite is true.

“We have a legacy freight rail yard on South Main Street in downtown Rockford,” Ernst said. “All of transportation and urban planning that RMAP and the city of Rockford have done for the last 20 years has been to find a more suitable location for that rail yard.”

Railroad operators don't want to use a rail yard that's in the middle of a urban setting, like the one along South Main, Ernst said. That property is better suited for mixed-use development, he said, and the best site for a major freight terminal would be at or near the city's airport.

“That's what the Great Lakes Basin route does,” Ernst said. “There would be a spur directly to the airport. And the city could reclaim that legacy rail yard on South Main. This plan is better for the railroads, it's better for the Rockford area, it's better for Chicago because it alleviates congestion there, it's better for everybody.”

• The president of Great Lakes Basin Railroad is Jim Wilson, a longtime Chicagoland resident who now lives in Humble, Texas, just north of Austin. Wilson has several decades of railroad management and operations experience, including 18 years in executive and operational roles with Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (now known as BSNF). Patton won't name the investors behind his team, although he said their identities will be disclosed as soon as this week, when a formal application is submitted to the federal government.

  “There will be a very extensive public input process as we move forward,” Patton said. “The Surface Transportation Board requires that, and I can tell you there will be plenty of opportunities for people in Rockford and in Boone County to give us their input. There's no monopoly on wisdom as far as we're concerned.”

  Decision-makers at the U.S. Department of Transportation are likely to look favorably on the Great Lakes Basin proposal, Ernst said, because backers of the project aren't asking for a dime of local, state or federal money.

  “There's simply not enough public subsidies at the local, state or federal level to support projects of this size,” Ernst said. “I personally feel that Washington is looking for a showcase project like this. I think they're latching on to this because these kind of public-private partnerships will be how big capital projects of the future will be done.”

  For now, the notion that the revised alignment would aid the Illiana and Peotone projects “is scuttlebutt and should be treated as such,” Chamberlain said. But if that notion proves true, he said, then the Great Lakes Basin project “has a negative effect on what we're trying to do at RFD and throughout the northern Illinois region.”

  The Great Lakes Basin idea has been the subject of news reports for some time. It has gained credibility because of a renewed interest in the rail industry. Most notably, Berkshire Hathaway, the company of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, has reaped huge profits since it purchased BNSF railroad in 2009.

  If the railroad is built with either a direct link or a spur to Rockford's airport, there is an opportunity on the city's southern edge to build a rail-to-truck terminal that could be a powerful economic driver for the region. The project is more enticing because of the proximity of UPS' cargo hub at the airport and the prospect of additional cargo business there.

  The airport is viewed by many leaders in the Rockford region as a diamond in the rough, an economic development juggernaut that has yet to exploit its true potential. That airport and the confluence of Interstates 90 and 30 and U.S. 20 give Rockford a competitive advantage for jobs and prosperity desired by leaders in urban areas across the country.

• To that end, RMAP is attempting to supersize itself. Members of its Policy Committee approved a resolution Thursday that allows the agency to restructure itself into a multi-county regional planning council. The goal is to fold Winnebago and Boone counties into a larger alliance with Stephenson, McHenry, DeKalb and Ogle counties. The counties could then outsource transportation, housing and land-use planning services to RMAP and enjoy the benefit of a larger lobbying voice in Springfield and in Washington when opportunities are available for jobs and development projects that would benefit the entire region.

  “I represent 26,000 people in the city of Belvidere,” Chamberlain said. “But if we can work on job creation and economic development as a region of seven counties — now we represent a million people. All of a sudden, you're speaking with a larger voice, a more powerful voice. So that when money starts coming from the state and federal level, you have a greater opportunity to be granted those dollars.”

  Isaac Guerrero: 815-987-1361; iguerrero@rrstar.com; @isaac_rrs

• Above is from:  http://www.rrstar.com/article/20160227/NEWS/160229571/?Start=4