Huntley Petitions Pile Up For Amtrak Station

More than 2,300 petitions asking for an Amtrak station in Huntley had collected on Village Clerk Rita McMahon's desk by mid-afternoon Friday with more still to be added to the pile.
"We'll FedEx them to Governor Quinn's office Monday morning," said McMahon.

The Village Monday asked residents to circulate the petitions in an attempt to persuade the Governor he should pick a northern Amtrak rail route from Chicago to Dubuque, especially with Huntley as a midway stop.  Quinn chose the route late last year and local officials including Congressman Don Manzullo and State Rep. Mike Tryon found a warm reception for a Huntley stop in May. In August, however, as FEN first reported, Quinn decided a different southern route looked pretty good, too, and ordered a whole new study without telling anyone in McHenry County.

The petitions are the first batch in a hoped-for flood to show area residents are all behind a Huntley Amtrak station.  However, as the petitions have circulated during the past week village officials said it's evident a lot of residents aren't really clear about what they're supporting.  Here's the condensed version:

Amtrak, the nation's quasi-governmental passenger train operator, wants to provide direct service between Chicago and Dubuque.  There are two lines it could choose, one that runs through Huntley and another that runs through Genoa, Huntley's apparent current rival. Huntley thought it had an ace in the hole with an offer this Spring to pay for a station.  "We have ample resources in land and money, if need be, to put a stop in the community," said Village Manager Dave Johnson Friday.

No one has any particular place in mind for a Huntley Amtrak station right now, though.  On the rail line, obviously, and somewhere "Downtown", which is to say, basically, not the cornfields. Something not very big.  "This is Amtrak, not Metra," said Johnson.  "It's not going to need a lot of parking. It's not like Crystal Lake."

Metra's the Chicago-area commuter rail service and Huntley would dearly love to have that extended out from Elgin.  Planners figure that's still at least a decade away, though.  Nevertheless, when the time comes for a Metra extension, they reason, having an Amtrak stop already in place sure wouldn't hurt Huntley's application.

Right now, "We think there's ample demand for Amtrak service," said Johnson.  "There are lots of people who'd like to go up to Galena for a boat ride or in to Chicago for a weekend."

"It's not going to congest Route 47 and it's not going to clog the Downtown," Johnson said.  "The schedule's one train each way (per day) and they'd go through Huntley whether there was a station here or not."

At least they would if the Governor goes back to his original route choice which is what the petitions are all about.

You can download petition forms here: http://www.huntley.il.us/documents/LetterandPetition-HuntleyAmtrak.pdf

In the pic:  Huntley officials expected to have about 2,500 petitions collected Friday to support at Amtrak station in the village.