CAEE Seminar – Cross Rail Chicago

Prof. Paul Anderson, Prof. Jamshid Mohammadi , and Prof. Brent Stephens of the Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering department will be hosting a seminar featuring Richard Harnish, Executive Director, Midwest High Speed Rail Association. The topic of the seminar will be Cross Rail Chicago.

Abstract

The Midwest High Speed Rail Association is working with local officials to create the first link in the Midwest high-speed rail network by rethinking how we use infrastructure we already own. Chicago is the hub of the Midwest. Despite having a massive rail infrastructure woven deeply into its fabric and extending in every direction, Chicago can barely handle the current load of Amtrak intercity and Metra commuter trains. We need a high-capacity passenger line, free of interference from freight trains and highway crossings, to provide the frequency and reliability required for high-speed rail. Building a high-capacity rail line through Chicago would be an enormous undertaking. Luckily, most of it already exists.

This passenger rail corridor would serve a wide variety of travelers coming from and going to from many places, all following the same uninterrupted path through the city. It would provide effortless rail travel, from high-speed trains from across the Midwest to frequent, all-day commuter trains to points around the region. It would allow express trains to O'Hare from downtown and McCormick Place. It would become the core of the Chicago region's transit system and the heart of a re-energized Midwest passenger rail network. This would be a tremendous undertaking if built from scratch, but fortunately, most of it already exists under public ownership. Metra has two key lines that could be linked together and modernized to create such a trunk line: Cross Rail Chicago. Cross Rail Chicago would be the highest impact transportation project in the Midwest, providing more passenger capacity than any other single piece of transportation infrastructure.