Macomb, home to Western Illinois University, can't be reached by four-lane highway. It doesn't have airline service or bus service. So plans to reduce Amtrak service on the Illinois Zephyr from seven to four days a week has Macomb officials worried. "It's our only form of public transportation," says Sheilah Dye, executive director of the Macomb Area Chamber of Commerce.

The Zephyr runs every morning from Quincy to Macomb and on to Chicago. It makes a return run at night. But Amtrak, searching for ways to cut costs, wants to eliminate those runs Tuesday through Thursday. "It's going to have a tremendous impact on our business community," Dye says. "A number of our business people use Amtrak to go to Chicago for meetings and marketing. Most of them prefer to go to Chicago and back the same day, or stay overnight." If Amtrak makes good on its plan to cut the mid-week runs, "people would have to leave on Monday and couldn't return until Friday. It wipes out the ability of these people to travel to Chicago on business."

Most Western Illinois University students who use Amtrak do so on weekends and wouldn't be directly affected by the cuts. However, some of the university's employees go to Chicago for meetings and some students use Amtrak during the week to commute to their internships in Chicago, Dye says.

The Zephyr is one of several trains targeted by Amtrak for cutbacks or elimination of services by June 11. Amtrak announced in December that it was eliminating service between Chicago and Milwaukee, along with a shuttle bus between St. Louis and Carbondale. Included in a second round of cutbacks announced in April:

•Elimination of the seven-day-a-week Chicago-Springfield-St. Louis Statehouse train.

•Elimination of the six-day-a-week Loop train between Chicago and Springfield.

•Reduced service from seven to five days a week on the Chicago-Champaign-Carbondale City of New Orleans train.

•Reduced service from seven to four days a week on the Chicago-Champaign-Carbondale Illini train.

To keep Amtrak at its current level of service in Illinois, the state would have to increase its Amtrak subsidy to as much as $7 million in fiscal year 1996 — or find some way to reduce or share costs. The state had planned to appropriate only $2.6 million in state money for Amtrak next year, the same as in fiscal 1995.

The state may or may not be able to come through with increased funding, but officials are hopeful they can find alternatives. "We are negotiating with Amtrak to try to reduce the cost of services," says George Weber, section chief of the passenger rail section at the Illinois Department of Transportation. "We have met with Amtrak twice. Right now, we're just trying to minimize service cuts."

The cutbacks are part of a comprehensive nationwide restructuring plan designed to restore long-term economic vitality to the Amtrak system, according to Deborah Hare, director of communications for Amtrak's intercity business unit in Chicago. Amtrak officials explained that they would face a cash shortfall of $200 million by June 1995 unless cuts were made. By making these cuts Amtrak would improve their annual bottom line by $364 million annually.

"There was a systematic approach to this," Hare says. "It's not just Amtrak lopping off parts of the system." Besides reducing or eliminating money-losing routes, the restructuring involves finding ways to increase revenues (such as raising fares), improve productivity (such as replacing old equipment that is costly to maintain) and increase marketing through local business units.

"We haven't done a good job of marketing locally," Hare says. "We have a lot of competition from airlines, bus services and, of course, cars. Our long-term goal is to totally revamp the way we do business. We want to be much more customer-oriented and commercially driven."

Amtrak is a private corporation created by Congress in 1970. It is charged with operating a nationwide passenger rail service, but also is authorized to contract with state and local governments to provide intercity rail service. Illinois has subsidized such routes since the early 1970s, with the Zephyr the first to be subsidized. State subsidized trains in Illinois carried a total of 521,000 passengers on 16 trains (eight round trips) in 1994.

Amtrak service is considered vital downstate. For example, no interstate highway directly connects Quincy and Chicago, making the Zephyr the only direct link. Students make up 60 percent of the passengers on the Quincy route, which includes Western Illinois University. The Carbondale corridor services three major universities — Southern Illinois University,

16/June 1995/Illinois Issues

Amtrak plans to eliminate the Chicago-Springfield Loop train and Chicago-Springfield-St. Louis Statehouse train June 11 and reduce Chicago-Milwaukee service, the Chicago-Champaign-Carbondale Illini and City of New Orleans trains, and the Chicago-Quincy Zephyr routes.

Eastern Illinois University and the University of Illinois. The Eagle and Ann Rutledge routes run daily between Chicago and St. Louis, so Springfield riders wouldn't be totally stranded. However, they might have to stay overnight in Chicago.

Amtrak announced in December that it was eliminating service between Chicago and Milwaukee, but additional money from Illinois and Wisconsin and higher ticket prices saved four of the seven daily runs.

Local officials, business leaders and legislators from western Illinois cities served by the Zephyr also have met with IDOT and Amtrak officials in an attempt to keep services from being reduced, says Sheilah Dye.

Options discussed so far include raising fares, reducing operating costs by eliminating cars or streamlining crews finding ways to increase ridership.

"At this point we haven't made an outright offer, but we realize we may have to commit to guarantee so much in ticket sales each year," Dye says. "Our Chamber of Commerce has a transportation committee working on this. We're asking, 'What can we as a community do to increase ridership?'"

"We have more or less offered a menu of options to the states," Hare says. "We're saying, These are the services we offer and here's what they cost.' Right now, we're trying to retain the maximum level of service possible. Amtrak does not want to cut routes, nor do cities or states want routes cut. We will continue our current level of service if state and local governments are able to support it."

Some states have increased their fares by as much as 30 percent to 50 percent, says Weber. But Hare believes the increase would be smaller than that for most routes. "Amtrak will look at this on a case by case basis," she says. "The state of Illinois will have a large say in that."

Meanwhile, the nation's governors have joined Amtrak in asking that a trust fund be set up for capital investment — a move Hare believes would help Amtrak to reduce operating costs. "Old equipment costs more money to maintain and isn't as attractive to customers," she says. One suggestion is that money for the trust fund be raised through a 1-cent-per-gallon increase in the gas tax. The governors also are asking that states have more flexibility in the way they use federal funds for transportation. Currently the funds can be used for highways and mass transit, but not for rail, Hare says.

Nevertheless, the current Republican-controlled Congress has expressed a desire to phase out Amtrak funds for operating costs entirely over the next five years. Amtrak has requested $260 million for operating costs in fiscal 1996 (down from $392 in fiscal 1995), plus $150 million in "one-time transitioning funds" to cover the costs of restructuring the system.

Hare is uncertain when or if this year's requested funding will be approved. "We've done a lot this year to make Amtrak a more efficient company," she says. "We hope Congress will take notice of this."

Meanwhile, IDOT is seeking a way to keep trains running between cities and towns in Illinois. "Our top priority is meeting the travel needs of the citizens in Illinois," Weber says. *

Debi Edmund is a free-lance writer and an editorial assistant at Illinois Issues.