About the Project
The Chicago to Quad Cities service is proposed to have two round trips per day (four passenger trains per day) from Chicago to the Quad Cities and other intermediate locations including, La Grange, Naperville, Plano, Mendota and Princeton. A new station is proposed for Geneseo and Moline recently built a multimodal facility that includes accommodations for passenger rail service.
The environmental studies to restore this service began in 2009. A Tier 1 Environmental Assessment (EA) was completed in September 2009, and a supplement to the EA was completed in August 2010. Both documents were completed in compliance with NEPA and the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) Procedures for Considering Environmental Impacts. The Illinois Department of Transportation and the Iowa Department of Transportation worked jointly on the preparation of these documents and associated studies.
The EA and its supplement included an evaluation of two round trips per day and a full build-out of five round trips per day. The studies within the EA provided for a phased implementation of this service with Phase 1 consisting of two round trips per day between Chicago and Moline, IL at 79 mph. In November 2011, the FRA issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI).
Schedule
Following successful completion of the preliminary engineering and NEPA process, the project will move to the final design phase followed by construction.
