February 19, 2015: Illinois Governor Rauner unveiled a spending plan yesterday that would cut train service levels across the state of Illinois. The plan suggests a $16 million cut to the current $42 million subsidy which would result in a reduction in the number of trains running between Chicago and St. Louis and Chicago and Carbondale. Other services affected could include the Quincy-Chicago link, 7 state-backed trains running to Milwaukee, etc.
The cuts are designed to offset the loss in revenue from when the state’s temporary income tax increase was recently rolled back.
These cuts will take service levels back to 2013 levels and will affect the routes providing service to some of Illinois’ busiest stations, often times the ones that serve college campuses like Illinois State University, Southern Illinois University, Eastern Illinois University, University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and more.
The nearly 2 million passengers who rode Amtrak in Illinois last year would be affected by these cuts.
If you would like to give the Governor feedback on these proposed cuts, please contact his office using the info on the following link: http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/Pages/ContacttheGovernor.aspx
Article source: http://thesouthern.com/news/local/state-and-regional/rauner-wants-to-cut-amtrak-service/article_9e8f37b3-a6ad-5c1b-8c9d-bd6531cd60d0.html