March 25--Using $14 million from a federal grant, Metra plans to replace a 135-year-old single-track bridge across the Fox River in Elgin with a two-track structure.
Metra CEO Don Orseno said the project will improve reliability on the Milwaukee West Line and reduce maintenance costs.
"It's basically a bottleneck on the line," said Metra spokesman Michael Gillis. "It will give us a lot more flexibility to get through the area."
"This solved the bottleneck on the line," Elgin Mayor Dave Kaptain said. "That bridge is well over 100 years old and needed to be replaced. We're happy it's finally getting done."
Metra recently won a $14 million federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant to replace the old bridge.
The rest of the project's $34 million cost will come from a reallocation of $14 million in existing Regional Transportation Authority bond funds and a $6 million contribution from the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Metra Board on Wednesday approved the amended 2016 capital program that allows the bridge to be built.
The RTA money was reallocated from another bridge project, which can be funded through an $11.3 million increase in federal funds because of the recently passed Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act.
Metra has been wanting to replace the Elgin bridge for years, but was waiting for the funding, Orseno said.
Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth traveled to Elgin in May 2014 to take a look at the aging bridge.
Kaptain said at one time, while Pat Quinn was governor, part of the reason for the visit was a proposed rapid rail line from Rockford to Chicago with Elgin as one of its stops but that project no longer is in the works.
Orseno said the plan is to construct a new bridge with a single track, move operations to that track, and then tear down the old bridge to replace it, so that there will be two tracks. Metra expects to complete final design of the project this year, with construction starting in 2017 and continuing through late 2018.
The line is used by 6.8 million passengers per year -- and every year, speed restrictions, train conflicts and signal problems at the bridge add 36,000 hours to rider commutes, according to Metra. The bridge carries 49 Metra and eight CP trains daily.
Courier-News reporter Mike Danahey contributed.
mwisniewski@tribpub.com
