Harsh winter weather, track construction, and low gas prices are getting the blame for a drop in ridership in Illinois on Amtrak. The three state-supported routes, connecting Chicago with Carbondale, Quincy, and St Louis, show a ridership drop of four percent for the twelve
months ending Sept. 30.
More than 1.3 million riders is still a greatĀ year, says the government-supported passenger rail line.
“Our biggest Downstate station, our most popular station for Amtrak travel to and from Downstate Illinois, is Bloomington-Normal. We do a lot of business with the Illinois State University faculty, staff, students, and the business community there,” says Marc Magliari, the passenger rail line’s Chicago-based spokesman. “We do big business in places like Champaign-Urbana, where we have more people riding the trains on Amtrak than there is space for them in the waiting room.”
Nationally, ridership was up 0.2 percent to 30.9 million.