Illinois scored more than $1.2 billion of the $8 billion in federal high-speed rail stimulus grants to be announced Thursday, enough to cut the Chicago-to-St. Louis travel time by nearly 25% and remove a major South Side bottleneck for Metra, Amtrak and freight railroads.
hat’s far less than the $4.5 billion in grants that Illinois was seeking, but it will cut 80 minutes off the 284-mile downstate route and complete projects that are critical for future high-speed rail improvements…