Change sends Metra outcry to next stop

Change sends Metra outcry to next stop
Originally published Friday, Sept. 15, 2006

By Nadia Malik
Daily Herald Staff Writer

An hour of her time so Buffalo Grove riders can shave five minutes off their commutes doesn't seem like a fair trade to Michele Gregory.
But that may be the reality for Gregory and other suburb-to-suburb commuters who use the North Central Line to get to work and back again.
Gregory travels from Mundelein to Itasca each day, using River Grove as the transfer point between the North Central Line and the Milwaukee District West line.
Until Monday, her trip home took 90 minutes. Now, it takes 2 1/2 hours.
On Monday, Metra tweaked the North Central schedule to offer express service. To create the express trains, one commuter train in the morning and one in the evening was eliminated - each split into two trains that make alternate stops along the route.
But none of the express trains stops in River Grove.
"That stop is touted as a transfer option," complained Robert Rosenkranz, a Round Lake Beach resident who also changes trains at River Grove. "How they can eliminate that, I'm not sure."
For Gregory, it meant that on her way home, she sat at the River Grove station an hour and 20 minutes waiting for her train north. She boarded the train in Itasca at 4:39 p.m. and got off in Mundelein at 7:07 p.m.
"One of the reasons we agreed to move to Mundelein when we got married is that I would still be able to get to work without driving," she said. "The first thing I did was check the Metra schedule."
Robert Gilb moved from North Carolina to Lake Villa to work at Shriners Hospital for Children in Chicago.
"It was based on my ability to get to work in a reasonable amount of time," he said.
As it is, Gilb leaves work at 4:30 p.m. to catch the 4:46 p.m. train from River Grove to Antioch. If he works late or is caught in traffic, he has to cool his heels and wait for the 6:20 p.m. train.
Eric Strong of Grayslake said he has to keep his fingers crossed on a daily basis that his bus won't be late so he can just make the train.
Metra officials have said the new schedule released Monday is likely not the final one. But even if a new timetable is released in the next month, there is no guarantee that the River Grove stop will be added back during the 5 p.m. rush hour.
"We're severely limited based on the amount of the freight traffic on the line as to what we can do there," said Meg Reile, a spokeswoman for Metra.
The service was changed in the first place after the double-tracking of the line in January. Although more trains were added to the North Central line, Buffalo Grove residents said the timings became even more inconvenient.
Buffalo Grove village Trustee Jeff Berman, a regular commuter to downtown Chicago, pushed for changes to the schedule with the backing of the village, state Rep. Sidney Mathias and Congressman Mark Kirk.
Even the new schedule, Berman said, still doesn't address many of Buffalo Grove riders' concerns. The problems of the River Grove commuters appear to be symptomatic of the general dissatisfaction with the schedule.
"The problem is that Metra hasn't really addressed any of the issues with the schedule," Berman said.
For example, the last train out of Buffalo Grove in the morning is at 7:27 a.m., which is too early for many commuters who have to drop children off at school, Berman said.
Plus, that train often sits in Franklin Park for 10 or so minutes because of cross traffic, Berman said.
Metra, meanwhile, said it's tough to change the schedule because Canadian National owns the line.
"We're not as free as we are at other points in the system to make adjustments," Reile said.
Metra has no immediate plans to have an express train stop at River Grove, Reile said.
"When we looked at the changes we were able to make, the benefit was to a greater number of riders," Reile said. "We had to look at what trains we could make to serve the greatest number of people."
That doesn't leave too many options for Gregory, whose husband will pick her up from work now so she isn't arriving home at 7:15 p.m.
"If they want to get more cars off the road, this isn't helping because this is going to cause one more car to get on the road," she said.