Senator Dick Durbin has met with Mayor John Pritchard about proposed cuts to passenger rail that could end up being detrimental to communities like Galesburg.
At issue is a proposed cut to the Southwest Chief, which stops in Galesburg and other communities during its route west. Amtrak wants to break up the route by having passengers spend at least some time on buses during their trip.
Pritchard says that’s just not a good idea. “It’s kind of a domino effect,” says Pritchard. “They start eliminating sections of trains, ridership goes down, they say ‘these trains aren’t worth running because they have no ridership.'”
Which Pritchard says, in turn, could mean lost visitors and revenue to Galesburg. Durbin says he’s going to keep looking into it.
“You cannot discontinue long distance service without a vote of Congress,” says Durbin (D-IL). “We have the last word in it, but you can starve it to death. We’re trying to make sure it’s funded properly.”
The Senate has passed such funding, while it still has to go through the House. Durbin says it’s part of an omnibus spending bill, however, which may cause some problems.
As for future funding? “With a new administration, you wait to see a signal from the new President and the new head of Amtrak. The signals we’ve been receiving are not encouraging, because when it comes to long-distance service, they have been talking about pretty dramatic cutbacks. Congress sees it different. We’ll be working to come up with something on the Congressional side that, I hope, is more helpful to the communities currently served.”
Durbin, while in Galesburg, also spoke to political science students at Knox College.
CLICK HERE to watch a Facebook video of most of the meeting between Durbin and Pritchard.
