Last November, when it became clear that local transportation planners were wary of extending the Chicago Transit Authority’s elevated Blue Line to the northwest suburbs, Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson boarded a plane for Washington.
Once there, Larson, eager to build a rail line that would feed northwest suburban companies hungry for workers as well as Schaumburg’s already successful shopping district, found a willing ally in U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.), who needs suburban votes if she is to win re-election this fall.
Together, the mayor and the senator engineered a political end run to secure congressional authorization that substantially improves the chances for extending the Blue Line “L” beyond O’Hare International Airport.
Largely because of Larson’s persistence and Moseley-Braun’s political position, authorization for the Blue Line expansion is included in a transportation bill approved by the U.S. House and awaiting Senate action. The bill has been stalled in the Senate by a dispute over an unrelated amendment, but it may be voted on there this week.
The bill provides no money for the project, and local officials still aren’t sure how much it might cost to extend the “L” down the Northwest Tollway, with proposed stops at Elk Grove Village’s huge industrial park and Schaumburg’s Woodfield Shopping Center.
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But inclusion of the Blue Line extension in the final version of the bill will bestow on the rail project the approval of Congress and allow it to be considered for critical federal funds.
And though the extension still must be approved by Chicago-area transportation officials, the move by Larson and Moseley-Braun pushes it significantly forward. Before, regional transportation officials didn’t even have the rail-line extension on the list of projects for which they intend to seek federal money.
Some transportation officials were caught off guard by the efforts of Larson and Moseley-Braun. The Blue Line extension is only one of several alternatives being studied to ease traffic congestion in the northwest suburbs, they said. And this move appears to advance the rail proposal at the expense of potentially cheaper alternatives, such as road widenings or creation of special highway bus lanes.
“It would be nice if the region would speak with one voice on this issue with the federal government,” said Julian D’Esposito, chairman of the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, one of the groups studying transportation alternatives in the northwest suburbs. “I don’t think anyone knew anything about this. We didn’t know, and I don’t think the state knew.”
Larson said he wasn’t trying to circumvent the transportation planners, who have either omitted the rail extension from their priority lists or were willing to look at it only in comparison with obviously cheaper alternatives.
Rather, he said, he was just making sure that federal funding would be ready should local officials agree to the plan.
“It was pointed out to us by a number of people that unless the project was named (in the transportation bill), it would not be eligible for any federal dollars,” Larson said. “If we waited for everyone else to do what was supposed to be done in terms of mass transportation, this project would never have gotten off the ground in the first place.”
Moseley-Braun used her position on the Senate Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over mass transit funding, to push for the rail-line authorization.
She was sharply criticized by Republicans last month when the original transportation bill reduced Illinois’ take of road money to 92 cents from the federal government for every $1 in gas tax paid by its citizens. The state used to get $1.03 for every $1 of gas tax paid.
Besides helping Moseley-Braun repair some political damage, advancing the Schaumburg rail extension could help her shore up support in the suburbs.
Suburban voters, particularly women, were the key to Moseley-Braun’s election in 1992. But Moseley-Braun’s personal and financial foibles have since cost her support among those voters. In the Nov. 3 election, she faces a well-financed challenger, Republican Peter Fitzgerald of Inverness, heir to a family banking fortune.
The proposed northwest suburban rail extension would cut right through Fitzgerald’s home turf.
Moseley-Braun’s spokesman, Michael Briggs, denied that the senator’s involvement was politically motivated.
“This is just one of any number of things she has done that would help the suburbs,” he said.
The maneuvering by Larson and Moseley-Braun does not guarantee federal rail transportation dollars from the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, but ensures that the project will be considered.
“This is the early stage of moving from a dream to something that has potential,” said Steven Collens, a legislative assistant for Moseley-Braun.
But the project will have plenty of competition from 108 transportation projects vying for federal funding over the next five years.
Among them are an estimated $650 million needed to prepare Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics and $315 million to rehabilitate the deteriorating Douglas branch of the CTA’s Blue Line.
There are 70 other rail proposals competing with the northwest suburban Blue Line extension, including a Comiskey Park station for CTA and Metra trains and a proposed commuter rail link between O’Hare and Midway Airports.
“The Blue Line extension is just starting. All these other projects are far more along,” said Philip Pagano, executive director of Metra, another participant in the regional transportation study. “Everybody understands this new project needs to go through a preliminary study.”