ryanch wrote: After the previous Illinois expansion, loads of people came on here to say it was all just election year politics, and the trains would be gone in a year. Instead, it's been a very successful expansion. If Quinn wanted a cynical election year push, he'd get the train running in the election year, not the year after. "We're allocating money to run sometime the year after the election" isn't nearly as sexy to voters as you all seem to think. This seems more likely to be something he believes in and supports, and/or something people he listens to believe in.
Well, I was not one of those who panned the additional service to Carbondale, Quincy and St. Louis. But I will point out a couple of differences. The prior expansions involved additional frequencies on existing routes, and were designed to take advantage of the economies of scale and geometric ridership increases that accompany multiple frequencies; none resulted in single frequency service on a route. In contrast, the new stubbed Blackhawk plan will result, at least initially, in just a single frequency on a new route. Second, with the prior expansion, the state announced a plan, stuck to it and implemented it. It did not change routes and terminals well into the project and without warning. That, however, is exactly what is happening with the Blackhawk.
Yes, getting the train up and running before November would be a much bigger feather in Quinn's cap than service next year, and I'm sure he would start service immediately if he could. I suspect the reason he's not doing that is that it's pretty near impossible at this point. But the new services to the Quad Cities and Dubuque were supposed to be some of his signature transportation improvements. As of now, however, pretty much nothing has actually occurred with either of them--something I'm sure his GOP opponent will point out. Since he can't actually implement either service by November, a new route to Rockford in 2015 may be the only rabbit he could pull out of the hat at this late date. I'll be very happy of this eventually does result in a multiple-frequency service to at least Rockford, but I think a lot of cynicism/skepticism is warranted as of today.