On Friday, Oct. 31, members of the Quad City Passenger Rail Committee announced during a press conference at the Q in Moline that the Moline-to-Chicago passenger rail project received funding from the Illinois Transit Bill.
Rock Island County Board Chair Richard “Quijas” Brunk and Moline Mayor Sangeetha Rayapati, members of the passenger committee, said the Illinois Transit Bill funds several transportation projects throughout the state. This bill is $475 million for all downstate transit projects.
Rayapati said the money will not be accessible until June 2026. She said the efforts of Quad Citizens helped secure this funding after several years of advocacy.
“The thing that really helped push it over is everyday people who saw the call to reach out to legislators that a lot of us leaders shared online,” Sangeetha said. “Folks in the Senate and the House in Springfield got hundreds of letters from regular citizens saying why we needed this.”
Brunk said the owner of the railway, Iowa Interstate, the Illinois Department of Transportation and the Quad City Rail Committee will work together to decide a route and create a timeline for this project.
“There’s still those conversations that still need to be had. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done,” Brunk said. “But the passage of the transit bill essentially puts us at that doorway, right? We’re at the door, we’re at the threshold. Things can truly start moving quickly from here.”
Brunk said this project is expected to be completed in approximately five to seven years. He said he expects that the train will go from Moline to Chicago twice a day, with tickets that will cost similar to Amtrak prices.
Augustana sophomore Sepideh Khamissi is from Wheaton, IL. She said she used public transportation during her first year as a student.
Khamissi said this train will be helpful to Augustana students living in the Chicago area for getting to and from home. Since the train can not stop directly at Augustana, she does worry about how students will get to the station.
“Having a short bus or shuttle that takes you from Augie to the railway might help because if people are taking the railway to go home that means they probably don’t have a car and can’t drive there,” Khamissi said.
