Lake Forest Amtrak Hiawatha Line Stop Would Benefit Region: Study

LAKE FOREST, IL — A new Amtrak stop in Lake Forest on the Hiawatha line between Chicago and Milwaukee would provide shorter trips for hundreds of thousands of passengers and provide service to significantly more travelers, according to a study presented to the Lake Forest City Council Monday.

The report, authored by DePaul University Professor Joseph Schwieterman, evaluates of the ridership potential of adding new Amtrak service to the Lake Forest stop. It found "notable advantages over existing stations," including better parking and access to the expressway than Glenview, the only other Illinois stop in the five-stop, Hiawatha Corridor. There are seven daily round-trip journeys on the 86-mile route.

The study notes Lake Forest is just 2.1 miles from I-94, compared to three miles to get to the Glenview station from I-90, or five miles to get there from I-294.

More than a half-million people would have access to shorter trips to Wisconsin, and the new station would add 190,000 potential passengers within 15 minutes of a stop.

And of those within 30 minutes of either stop, about nine times as many (2.8 million of the 3.1 million residents) would have faster trips using the Lake Forest station.

The study also finds a Lake Forest stop would offer parking advantages. Its parking lot is currently underused and the city has offered overnight parking. Parking facilities in Glenview are already at full capacity and do not allow overnight parking.

Schwieterman is the director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul and the president of the Chicago Chapter of the Transportation Research Forum. In addition to the Lake Forest City Council, his study has been provided to Amtrak representatives, transportation officials staff of Illinois' senators and congresspeople, according to Lake Forest City Manager Bob Kiely.

"What we're trying to work on right now is to create an agreement with Amtrak, because Amtrak has verbally indicated they are OK with a stop as long as the pedestrian underpass is constructed," said Kiely.

"We are actively looking for funding for the construction of the underpass," Kiely explained the city is engaging federal rail and transportation agencies to show the value of the proposal. "We want them to understand the importance of safety at that stop as well as the importance of having an Amtrak stop in Lake County."

Conversations are underway with Amtrak to explore the possibility that trains traveling between Milwaukee and Chicago could start stopping at Lake Forest while the pedestrian underpass is under construction, Kiely told Patch.

The project, which is expected to cost up to $9 million, could break ground as early as mid to late-2018, with completion anticipated by late 2019, he said.

The plan to add the Lake Forest stop to Amtrak Hiawatha has already been approved by most stakeholders. It was endorsed in a 2010 Memorandum of Understanding with the Illinois and Wisconsin departments of transportation, as well as Amtrak, Metra and Canadian Pacific Railroad. The Lake Forest City Council endorsed the plan in 2012, and it also has the support of local governments, elected officials and business institutions.

Read the full study below:

_{Top photo via City of Lake Forest}