(The following story by Brad Cooper and Robert A. Cronkleton appeared on The Kansas City Star website on March 22.)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Support is building across Kansas for new train service that would connect Kansas City to the Dallas area.
About 10 cities, including Lawrence and Emporia, are getting behind an effort to run daily Amtrak trains to Fort Worth by way of Topeka, Newton, Wichita and Oklahoma City.
And now the Kansas Department of Transportation is willing to spend between $150,000 and $200,000 to study the feasibility of the service.
The study, which will be done by Amtrak, probably will not start until this summer. It likely will not be completed until the third quarter of 2009, officials said.
The Northern Flyer Alliance, a group of civic leaders, has been lobbying aggressively for the service. It met at Kansas City’s Union Station in December to discuss the proposal.
Mark Corriston, the Kansas City director of the Northern Flyer Alliance, said the plan would bolster Kansas City’s role as a transportation hub while giving an economic boost to smaller Kansas cities.
The Amtrak proposal would introduce a new transportation dimension to Kansas, which does not offer subsidized passenger rail service, as neighboring Missouri does.
“There’s a lot more interest these days in seeing what can be done for transportation without spending a lot of money on highway improvements,” said KDOT spokesman Ron Kaufman.
The study will set up Kansas to have a serious discussion about rail service when state lawmakers embark on a new transportation plan. The current 10-year plan runs out in 2009, and the state will be faced with billions in cost for highway needs alone.
Currently, Amtrak’s Southwest Chief, which operates daily between Chicago and Los Angeles, serves the route between Kansas City and Newton and beyond, with stops in Lawrence and Topeka during the early morning hours.
The Heartland Flyer, supported by the Oklahoma and Texas transportation departments, operates daily between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City.
The study will look at a possible connection between the two routes from Newton to Oklahoma City, an extension of the Heartland Flyer to Kansas City or another new service.
“Linking the Southwest Chief route to the Heartland Flyer route at Newton and Kansas City seems to be a logical connection within Amtrak’s national system” and is worth further study and analysis, Kansas Transportation Secretary Deb Miller said in a statement.
“Before we can make any decisions about expanding passenger rail service, we need to examine a number of issues including cost, schedule and the likelihood of travel delays due to freight traffic on the line,” she said.
The Northern Flyer Alliance wants to extend Amtrak’s Heartland Flyer north from Oklahoma City through Wichita and ultimately east to Kansas City. The route begins in Fort Worth.
Corriston said the service could be an economic boon for smaller Kansas cities.
He points to tiny Strong City — population 584 — that would like to bring in tourists to see the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. He points to Emporia State University, which would like an easier way to bring in international students from Kansas City. He points to Topeka, which might benefit from a commuter train coming each day from Kansas City.
The alliance estimates it could cost $12.7 million a year for operations and $6.5 million in track upgrades.
The Kansas Legislature would not only have to approve money for its share of the service, but also would have to remove a constitutional restriction on using state money to supplement Amtrak.
Alex Kummant, Amtrak president and chief executive officer, said in a release that state-supported routes were the fastest growing parts of his business:
“We have carried out several studies in the Midwest and elsewhere in the last few years, with Illinois doubling the size of its state rail program since 2006 and California continuing to rack up growth that has contributed to five straight years of record Amtrak ridership.”
The state Transportation Department has received letters and petitions supporting the expansion, including from Arkansas City, Strong City, Lawrence, Winfield and Emporia.