I attended the 3rd Annual William O. Lipinski Symposium on Transportation Policy at Northwestern University (Symposium Page).  This year’s topic was titled “Moving the Goods: Chicago and the Nation’s Freight”.  While many of the symposium presentations were related to the Chicago Region Environmental And Transportation Efficiency project (CREATE Webpage), freight in the Rockford region can [...]

September 28, 2009
Today, a meeting was held regarding the Chicago-Dubuque Intercity Passenger Rail Corridor and the State of Illinois application for Recovery Act funds from the High Speed Rail Intercity Program (HSIPR). IDOT has completed its Environmental Assessment document and chose the original Blackhawk rail route (Canadian National) that will have proposed stops in South [...]

September 17, 2009
On September 14, RMAP submitted its TIGER Grant Application. Consequently, a press conference was held today at the Chicago Rockford International Airport, led by Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey, Winnebago County Chairman Scott Christiansen, Belvidere Mayor Fred Brereton, Greater Rockford Airport Authority Chairman Mike Dunn, RAEDC Executive Director Janyce Fadden and myself. In essence, the [...]

“Amtrak and TIGER and Freight, Oh My”
September 2, 2009
Today I attended a luncheon at the City Club in Chicago sponsored by the “Sandhouse Gang”, a discussion group that focuses on all things rail. This group is operated out of the Transportation Center at Northwestern University. The following excerpt from the website link above tells the story of [...]

“Eyeing TIGER’s Funding Wagon”
While this may sound like an award-winning blockbuster movie, it is actually how I spent the month of August – focusing almost entirely on the region’s TIGER (Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery) Grant Application, which is due September 15, 2009. As I stated in my June RMAP Blog, the TIGER Grant is a discretionary [...]

August 27, 2009
Today I attended a roundtable discussion with a group called Housing Action Illinois. Many housing stakeholders attended, including the Rockford Housing Authority, the Winnebago County Housing Authority, and the City of Rockford Community Development + Human Services Department along with other entities involved in providing affordable housing. My attendance was to explain the role [...]

August 11, 2009
In other MPO news, today I met with The Canadian Pacific Railway representatives along with Winnebago County Chairman Scott Christiansen and Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey. Canadian Pacific recently acquired both the DM&E (Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern) Railroad and their subsidiary holding of the IC&E (Iowa, Chicago & Eastern) Railroad. The DM&E acquisition was [...]

August 24, 2009
Today I met with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) and the Rockford Park District as it concerns the Alpine Road Rail Station. Eckberg Park is located near this rail station, so the Park District is a stakeholder there. In addition, the IEPA is doing some environmental clean up of the property, [...]

Friday, July 31st:
I attended a meeting of regional partners that have joined together to create an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act application for broadband.  RMAP is being joined by the IT Departments of cities and counties in the region that spans Winnebago, Boone & McHenry counties.  The group brings together the interests of municipal and [...]

Wednesday, July 29th:
The NICTI consultant team and I met with the project staff of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), Region V office in Chicago to discuss the NICTI project that is going through the FTA’s Mew Starts process.  We took the opportunity to review the project and the various required components of New Starts, but [...]

Monday, July 27th:
A truly eventful day.
I was invited to attend the Midwest High Speed Rail Summit luncheon event in downtown Chicago that immediately followed a press conference to announce the signing and delivery of a letter that brought together 9 midwest states that spoke with one voice to advocate for a true high speed rail project between [...]

Tuesday, July 21st:
I met with RMAP’s freight industry expert, Dr. Joseph L. Hutchins, and arranged to have his services to assist RMAP in the creation of a grant application for the Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program. TIGER is a $1.5 billion discretionary program as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that targets upgrades of [...]

Tuesday, July 7th:
The official launch of the Northwest Illinois Blackhawk Express involved a major press event at Davis Park today.  Members of the Illinois General Assembly, local elected officials, members of the coalition team, passenger rail advocates and interested citizens announced the initiation of www.bringrail.com and the petition-signing drive that will run through the Labor [...]

June Signing Off…
In closing the June 2009 RMAP blog, I would like to thank Jim Reid for his dedicated service to the Rockford Park District. Jim served as the Deputy Director of Capital Planning & Asset Management, and retired on June 30th after 35 years of service. Jim was greatly involved in RMAP’s development of [...]

Thursday, June 25th:
I met again today with the folks from the Northwest Illinois Blackhawk Express Coalition. July 1st will bring a soft launch of their website, http://www.bringrail.com/. At this time, business and citizen Amtrak advocates can sign an online petition and share testimonials as to why they believe Amtrak would be beneficial to our community. [...]

Wednesday, June 24th:
I met with Jeff Boothe today, Partner at Holland & Knight, LLP out of Washington, DC and Chairman of the New Starts Working Group, regarding the status of the FTA’s New Starts program. Jeff is writing the new guidance for President Obama’s administration, so I wanted to ensure that I could maximize [...]

Friday, June 19th:
I met with all the Financial Directors of RMAP’s partner agencies today to discuss funding for the next fiscal year. The meeting served to help understand budgetary and financial issues that affect RMAP operations.  As you may know many of our municipal and county partners are experiencing revenue shortfalls due to the tough [...]

Tuesday, June 16th:
I attended a Transportation Advisory Committee Meeting hosted by State Representative Chuck Jefferson (69-D). Many stakeholders throughout the Rockford region who are responsible for transportation advocacy and projects were in attendance, including Patrick Zuroske, Capital Planning Manager for the City of Rockford, Bob O’Brien, Executive Director of the Chicago Rockford International Airport, [...]

Monday, June 15th:
I attended the Finance & Committee of the Rockford City Council (see page 19-20 for agenda) this afternoon to get authorization for RMAP funding for the 2009-2010 fiscal year budget, which begins July 1st. The City of Rockford is RMAP’s fiscal agent and provides financial oversight for RMAP operations. Each of the RMAP partners [...]

Friday, June 13th:
Today I met with John Cressman, the new Executive Director of the Rockford Housing Authority (RHA) , along with Mark Kendall, Director of Collaboration Development, and Steve Kennedy, Director of Information Services, for Community Collaboration, Inc. (CCI). We discussed dashboard metrics and other data RHA and CCI are collecting on low-income and subsidized [...]

Thursday, June 12th:
Today I met with the Rockford Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs group. Chamber President Einar Forsman and Greater Rockford Airport Authority Chairman Mike Dunn discussed the launch of the grassroots Northwest Illinois Blackhawk Express Coalition.
Over the past few years, transportation professionals, legislators and local leaders have been working for the return of [...]

Tuesday, June 9th:
The Executive Committee of the Northern Illinois Commuter Transportation Initiative (NICTI) met today to continue discussions on operating structure for future commuter train service to Chicagoland.  The discussions were based on previous NICTI action to select the Locally Preferred Alternative route. The committee preference for an operating structure was a mass transit district [...]

Thursday, June 4th:
Mayor Larry Morrissey coordinated a meeting with a local architecture firm to discuss options for building the Amtrak rail stations in Rockford. I attended this session, which brought many ideas to the rail station table that would allow for economically sound construction as well as flexibility and convenience.
Currently, we have a two-year window to [...]

JUNE 2009 RMAP BLOG:
ALL ABOARD! THE BLOG TRAIN HAS LEFT THE STATION!

All hail high-speed rail!  June was jam-packed full of events and information to help Rockford reign in the train.
Monday, June 1st:
I attended a Federal Railroad Association (FRA) workshop in Chicago with Bryan Davis, Deputy Chief of Staff for Illinois 16th District Congressman Don [...]

Welcome to the RMAP Executive Director’s blog. My name is Steve Ernst, and I am the Executive Director of RMAP, the Rockford Metropolitan Agency for Planning. The goal of my blog is to inform, educate, and disseminate information to you regarding Rockford’s infrastructure planning processes, which will include progress reports on our overall transportation goals; [...]