Quinn for Illinois

By Brian Brueggemann

Gov. Pat Quinn, speaking at a news conference at the Alton Amtrak station on Friday, said the high-speed rail project announced for Illinois will provide an estimated 6,000 jobs.

Quinn said the jobs would last for three years, the estimated length of the project.

"That's 6,000 jobs for people to work and earn a good wage, get good benefits," the governor said.

Quinn said Illinois would be contributing about $700 million to the first phase of the project, to go along with $1.2 billion that Illinois will receive from the federal government to develop high-speed rail service from St. Louis to Chicago. The money from the federal government is part of $8 billion that President Barack Obama announced earlier this week for developing high-speed rail on routes scattered across the country.

Although Illinois' fiscal condition is bleak, Quinn said the state's investment in the project is worth it.

"It's all about jobs. No. 1 is jobs," he said.

Fellow Democrats speaking with Quinn at the news conference were U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello. A host of local and state legislators and officials, mostly Democrats, and union leaders gave them a warm reception.

Also on hand was Amtrak Chairman Tom Carper, who said passenger transportation by rail is growing. He said ridership at the Alton station is up 62 percent since 2006, with about 75,000 passengers arriving or departing from there in 2009.

"This is more than transportation. This is building for the future," Carper said.

Not everyone shared Carper's enthusiasm. A small group of people held signs protesting the possible closing of Alton's prekindergarten program, blaming it on a lack of state funding.

Quinn said the $1.2 billion from the federal government and the $700 million from the state will pay for railway improvements, such as removing bottlenecks, replacing crossings, adding passing tracks, overhauling tracks and updating signal systems and train-control technology.

That will quicken rail travel, but to get trains up to the much-hyped 110 mph, another $2 billion would have to be spent on a second phase of the project. The second phase would include adding a second, parallel track for the 110 mph trains.

Durbin said the federal investment "is going to mean more jobs -- jobs for today and jobs for the future. Today's announcement assures that Chicago, already a major rail hub of the nation, will soon become the major high-speed rail hub of the Midwest and the nation."

Costello said he's been pushing for a high-speed rail project since the early 1990s. "This is a culmination of about 20 years of work," he said.

Durbin said high-speed passenger rail service will lead to development around the train stations.

"Let me tell you, it opens up opportunities," he said.

Alton Mayor Tom Hoechst said he hopes his city will benefit from Chicago tourists.