Station upgrades that were funded and/or began construction in 2011.
I thought it would be useful to review some of the progress that the Midwest states made in the combined MWRRI effort in 2011. (note that MWRRI = Midwest Regional Rail Initiative as properly titled by the thread starter Ardecila) Not to be confused with the MWHSR effort which is pointless to report on.
The genius of the MWRRI is that it has properly identified many different investments required to successfully build a high functioning regional rail system. And it has broken the investment down into manageable and achievable parts that can survive the shifting political and financial winds.
So while the temporary setbacks in Ohio and Wisconsin and to a smaller extent Iowa and most recently Troy, MI may 'derail' those particular efforts. They really had no significant overall impact and in fact redirected funds to the willing participant MWRRI states.
Among the requirements for successful Intercity Rail and Regional Rail systems is passenger distribution at the beginning and end of the trip.
Chicago is obviously the most well equipped city for this task. But feeder cities also need well functioning transit stations that can accommodate Intercity buses, city transit buses, taxis, long term parking, bikes and pedestrians as well as the Regional Intercity rail trains. Here are some recent winners:
Bloomington Normal, IL Multi Modal hub
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Moline, IL Multi-Modal Hub.
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Alton, IL Multi-Modal Hub
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And St. Paul, MN Union Station which has large renovation plans and is to be the hub of the Twin Cities regional transit plan.
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Other upgraded stations from 2010 and earlier include, Milwaukee downtown and airport stations, St. Louis downtown and Racine, WI stations.
St. Louis Gateway Multi Modal station (opened 2008)
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Milwaukee Downtown Intermodal (opened 2007)
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Sturtevant, WI (Racine) (opened 2006)
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Milwaukee Airport Amtrak (opened 2005)
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Michigan also won funding for the Birmingham/Troy Multi-Modal station but that was rejected last month by a Tea Party activist mayor and 4 councilmen. I expect that grant to be re-allocated to another Michigan city with
Grand Rapids,
Lansing and
Ann Arbor all having viable, competitive multi modal station plans on the table and will gladly accept the Troy money.
Next up: track upgrades..