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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
A RESOLUTION SUPPORTING CROSSRAIL CHICAGO
WHEREAS, Cook County is the financial, business and culture capital of the Midwest, bringing in millions of tourists and visitors every year; and
WHEREAS, Cook County is in the midst of preparing its first Long Range Transportation Plan in more than 70 years - a multimodal blueprint that will highlight the critical importance of improved and expanded public transportation services to maintaining Cook County's economic vitality and accommodating increases in population, businesses and jobs; and
WHEREAS, improved and expanded passenger train service is essential to maintain Cook County's economic vitality and allow for increased growth and prosperity; and
WHEREAS, a new initiative for first-class passenger rail service called CrossRail Chicago has emerged which would, for the first time, connect Metra route lines together, knitting together the Chicagoland region; and
WHEREAS, Metra and Amtrak services bring in millions of people to Cook County and serve hundreds of thousands of Cook County residents, but suffer from one fundamental flaw: all trains terminate in downtown Chicago and do not travel through downtown Chicago, making regional travel on a train less efficient and less attractive; and
WHEREAS, most of the Metra stations are stub stations where all tracks end and therefore do not allow for crosstown service; there are two existing tracks at Union Station along the river that travel through the station, connecting northbound and southbound service which also could be used for crosstown service; and
WHEREAS, a 16th Street connector track exists which could allow for Metra Electric and Rock Island trains to connect to Union Station then travel west, northwest and north, directly connecting the Southland with the rest of Northeast Illinois; and
WHEREAS, Cook County residents of high unemployment areas do not have easy transportation access to areas with job surplus...
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