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Why can’t I take the train to Starved Rock?
What if you could take a train to Starved Rock – and celebrate in reviving downtown Utica?
Starved Rock State Park has long been the busiest attraction in the Illinois Department of Natural Resources’ catalogue of parks, forests and lakeshores.
Problem is, Starved Rock is too busy, especially in the summer and especially on weekends, when cars full of tourists come crawling down LaSalle County Trunk 178 from I-80 only to find the Starved Rock parking lot already full.
“There is no more space in the parking lot on weekends,” said Park Supt. Alvin Harper. “We cannot fit another vehicle in.”
Nor is there a legal way to expand parking. Enlarging the lot—or building a multi-story garage—cannot be done without degrading the precious natural environment that made Starved Rock popular in the first place. Starved Rock’s soils, streams, vegetation wildlife and 13 miles of hiking trails—along with the 100-foot-high limestone outcropping that gave it its name—are legally protected from encroachment or alteration.
Starved Rock State Park, and nearby Matthiessen State Park, offer unique canyons and waterfalls in the mostly flat Prairie State. And, they could be a quick train ride from Chicago.
The State of Illinois has plans to add service to most of the Rock Island Corridor. A unified corridor plan is needed,
So how are people supposed to get to Starved Rock without a car?
Simple: The State of Illinois needs to establish fast, frequent passenger-train service over the 162-year old railroad main line that runs just across the Illinois River from Starved Rock and connects the park to the state’s three largest cities.
Those tracks, built by the former Rock Island Railroad, link the state’s largest metro area, Chicago, with almost 9 million residents, with its two second-largest metros, Peoria and the Quad Cities, each with over 400,000 people.
Rebuilding the Rock for 90-mph Regional Rail and creating a bus connection at Utica on the north bank of the Illinois would enable a million or more new visitors per year to visit Starved Rock without using an automobile.
We don’t have to rebuild the Rock Island just to serve Starved Rock
Rail service to Starved is a bonus that comes with opening up rail service to the Quad Cities and Peoria, both of which are served by the same main line that serves Starved Rock.
With their 400,000+ populations and powerful, diversified manufacturing/tech economies, Peoria and the Quad Cities are way overdue for fast, frequent, and affordable train to Chicago.
In most parts of the world it would be unheard of for a metro with 9 million people to lack passenger-train service to a city of 400,000 less than 200 miles away. Dublin, with 1.35 million people, has 14 trains a day to Cork, which has less than 200,000 people and is only 135 miles away.
Regional rail would allow Illinois residents to enjoy the unique features of Starved Rock – and leave the car at home.
Trains would enhance Utica’s role as the gateway to Starved Rock.
Utica Redux!
Since the former Rock Island main line doesn’t actually enter the park, how would rail passengers access its attractions without a car?
A bus shuttle. The Village of Utica is located right on the old Rock Island main line directly across the Illinois River from Starved Rock State Park, a 10 or 15-minute bus ride.
And that would be just fine for the Village of Utica (pop. 2,352).
“We’ve been working with Peoria-Chicago Passenger Rail for a couple of years now trying to get rail service restarted,” said Village President Dave Stewart. “We are in the process of acquiring an old building by the railroad tracks so when the time comes it can be used for a station.”
Illinois needs a much bigger railway program
“When the time comes”—that’s the problem. The State of Illinois allowed the Rock Island Railroad to decline dramatically since the famous Rock Island Rocket streamliners that thundered through Utica on their way to the Quad Cities, Des Moines, Omaha, Denver, Kansas City and Los Angeles. The railroad will need to be rebuilt with modern track and modern signals.
But, the State’s railway program is too understaffed, and too underfunded, to take on important projects like this. Until the legislature funds the program, passenger trains can do nothing to alleviate the traffic jams and environmental threats to Starved Rock State Park.
The State of Illinois partnered with the Union Pacific to modernize the Chicago – St. Louis route. The State’s program should be expanded to include the Rock Island.
Nor can they help Utica in its two-decade struggle to bounce back from the April 20, 2004 tornado that nearly wiped out its tiny business district and killed 8 patrons of the town’s historic Milestone Tap. Like all veterans of life on the Illinois prairie, the Milestone customers did exactly what they were supposed to do when they heard the tornado approaching: they fled to the basement. But the funnel was too powerful, and the frame superstructure collapsed into the cellar and crushed all the refugees.
“About a block of our downtown was wiped out,” Stewart said. “Much of that has now been rebuilt, and the bars and restaurants are popular. We’re expanding, and it’s going to look very nice when it’s done—sort of like the Batavia Boardwalk. We call it “The Market on Mill.”
High-performance passenger trains mean high-performance downtowns
And if high-performance, high-frequency passenger trains were to connect Chicago with Peoria and the Quad Cities with a stop at Utica for a bus transfer into Starved Rock State Park, Utica’s recovery would be complete—and then some.
“The Market on Mill is only a block from the railroad tracks,” Stewart said. “Visitors to the Park could come up to Mill Street for a drink or dinner and catch a later train home.
“That would be a win for Utica,” he said. “But it would be a win for Chicago, Peoria and the Quad Cities too.”
Get Involved
The Illinois General Assembly is debating the future transit and regional rail right now. The package should include a State Railway Program to invest in bridges, trainsets, and better track.
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