Commuter rail agency Metra wants to permanently expand service between the Loop and O’Hare Airport despite a lackluster pilot that offered hourly service during the Democratic National Convention.
About 2,400 passengers took the North Central Service line to or from O’Hare during the trial period between Aug. 11 and 30, according to Metra.
It’s a smaller number than Metra hoped for.
The problem was that most of the estimated 50,000 delegates were shuttled by buses to and from the airport, according to Metra spokesman Michael Gillis.
“That sort of gutted the market we would have had,” Gillis told the Sun-Times.
Despite the poor showing, Metra still wants to expand the service permanently to help fulfill the agency’s goal of providing more frequent regional service.
Metra ran trains hourly between Union Station and O’Hare during the pilot, a major increase from the regular service of six daily weekday trains and none on the weekend. The goal was to offer an alternative to the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line between O’Hare and downtown.
“We are interested in more extensive, permanent service because we are trying to develop new markets to build ridership, and it would be beneficial to Metra and the region to have fast, frequent connections between the region’s two largest job centers (O’Hare and downtown),” Gillis said in an emailed statement.
Gillis said there are still “major hurdles” to permanently expanding service.
Metra needs agreements with two freight railroads: Canadian National, which owns some of the tracks, and Canadian Pacific Kansas City, which dispatches trains on another portion of the route. The companies agreed to the pilot program but won’t likely agree to a permanent change without infrastructure improvements, Gillis said.
Those improvements include extra track, sidings, crossovers and flyovers, he said. Metra may also want different trains that are “more compatible with quick trips back and forth” from the airport,” Gillis said.
Metra this year announced it had ordered its first battery-powered trains that could arrive as soon as 2027 to improve all-day service.
Metra recently received federal grants announced this spring to improve pedestrian accessibility at the O’Hare Transfer Station. The station, near one of O’Hare’s long-term parking lots, requires passengers to cross a street to access the People Mover tram to get to the airport itself.
Fixing the station, and adding an indoor walkway to and from the People Mover, should be a priority for Metra, said Rick Harnish, director of the Chicago-based High Speed Rail Alliance. He said he was nearly hit by a car while crossing the street at the station once.
Harnish said Metra’s desire for better O’Hare service is nothing new. But, he said, the transit agency and state and local governments must aim higher if they are serious about improving passenger rail.
“This current piecemeal approach is not going to get us there,” Harnish said.
Harnish envisions a rail system that connects other cities to O’Hare, not just the Loop. “It should be Barrington to O’Hare. Milwaukee, Madison, Blue Island …. I’m really happy that Metra is pursuing this. I wish the state would get more serious about having a passenger rail program so we can do that.”