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Last month, the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Transportation for an $85.2 million TIGER II grant on behalf of the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) program’s partners.

The application seeks funds for three projects, which were previously submitted in IDOT’s application for a Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER I, grant:
• a $74.6 million project (No. B9/EW1) in Bedford Park, Chicago and Summit that involves the construction of double track and crossovers between a Belt Railway Co. of Chicago and Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad/CSX Transportation line, and two new seven-mile main tracks around the south side of the Clearing Yard;
• a $25 million project (No. WA2) that calls for installing a bi-directional computerized traffic control system on a CSXT line along the Western Avenue Corridor in Chicago, as well as the reconstruction of two bridges and upgrade of 10 hand-thrown switches to power switches; and
• a $6.9 million project (No. WA3) that involves the installation of connection tracks from CSXT to Norfolk Southern Railway between two NS tracks to a BNSF Railway Co. lead track in Chicago.

Federal funding for the projects would be obligated by September 2012. The CREATE program previously was awarded a $100 million TIGER grant.

About 25 percent of the nation’s rail traffic travels through the Chicago region and the CREATE program aims to alleviate major bottlenecks along the region’s freight- and passenger-rail corridors. The public/private partnership program includes more than 46 rail and 25 grade separation projects that call for restructuring, modernizing and expanding Chicago’s rail network.

CREATE partners include Amtrak, the Association of American Railroads, Belt Railway, BNSF, CSXT, CN, Canadian Pacific, Indiana Harbor Belt, Metra, NS, Union Pacific Railroad, IDOT and the Chicago DOT.