"Why would you want to stop anyone from escaping the ugliness?"

Because it's the only way to push them to end the ugliness.

That having been said, I do support your position, even if I don't support your argument. As a resident of Chicago, having listened in on this discussion, I find that the last thing that I'd want to see is a wave of tourism coming our way from your city. If you're coming here with your minds made up, refusing to see anything other than a city of welfare collecting mobsters that exists nowhere outside of your own imaginations, then I suspect that I can speak for a few million people in this metro area when I ask you to please stay home. Having you around is not going to be a lot of fun.

Setting up the proposed Amtrak line would only make your visits to us more frequent than they have been in the past. No thanks.

"If this is built what happens when we see a huge increase of thugs rolling in?"

Sigh. Right. The thugs are going to line up to take a multi-hour train ride, during which time somebody might recognize them, call the conductor, and leave them facing the police, with no possibility of a quick getaway, because the only transportation at their disposal won't be under their control. That, and the fact that cops ride the train, meaning that from a bad guy's point of view, the trip begins with trouble already on board. Trouble that would probably be looking for him, if he had just committed a crime.