(The following story by Alyson E. Raletz appeared on the News-Press website on May 6, 2009.)
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A Senate budget committee on Tuesday derailed a possible Amtrak study for passenger service connecting Kansas City to St. Joseph on its way to Omaha, Neb.
The House slated $100,000 for the specific Kansas City-Omaha feasibility study last week when it approved a stimulus bill that uses about $2.4 million in federal money for various state planning and capital improvements projects.
However, senators on Tuesday broadened the language in HB 21 to direct the Missouri Department of Transportation to conduct a more general feasibility study of corridor expansion within the state as long as it is able to obtain an appropriate stimulus grant.
Rep. Dr. Rob Schaaf, R-St. Joseph, who helped convince House budget leaders to include the Kansas City-Omaha study, said he was disappointed, and hoped to reverse the change when the Senate and House negotiate the differences later this week.
“It’s frustrating around here,” Dr. Schaaf said.
The change from Senate Appropriations Chairman Gary Nodler, R-Joplin, came after Democratic senators pointed to other parts of the state that desired passenger rail service, too.
Sen. Frank Barnitz, D-Lake Spring, pointed to interest in a line between St. Louis and Springfield or St. Louis and Joplin. Sen. Joan Bray, D-St. Louis County, asked if the committee could make the language more generic or if senators needed to add in “all the routes we like.”
A MoDOT official told senators the department in the next eight months would evaluate about six identified passenger rail corridors in the state and then pursue funding for a study on the one that has the most interest and is most doable.
“We’re not trying to pick one corridor expansion over another at this point because we don’t have the data, but it is a process,” said Brian Weiler, MoDOT’s multimodal operations director over rail, aviation and waterways. Mr. Weiler in the early 1990s served as the city of St. Joseph’s airport manager.
Routes the department intends to look at are Kansas City to Omaha, Kansas City to Springfield, Springfield to Branson, Springfield to Joplin, St. Louis to Hannibal and Springfield to St. Louis.
So far, MoDOT has received the most feedback on the Kansas City-Omaha and St. Louis-Springfield lines.
Dr. Schaaf said he had intended a sole focus on a study from Kansas City to Omaha, with Missouri stops in St. Joseph, Parkville and Weston to help promote tourism.
Mr. Weiler said $100,000 wouldn’t have been enough to fund a feasibility study of the two rail corridors that exist between Kansas City and Omaha, but it would’ve been enough to possibly leverage other commitments from Iowa and Nebraska before proceeding.
Mr. Weiler credited Dr. Schaaf for pleading a good case for passenger service through his community, which, paired with the Obama administration’s emphasis on mass transit and high-speed rail, has fueled a lot of enthusiasm.
“By no means do we want to dampen that at all,” Mr. Weiler said. “A couple of years ago, we’d have not had that discussion.”
But he warned that it would take years for any lines to be established.
“While there is, for the first time, significant funding in the federal budget to support intercity rail, it is just a start,” he said. “The (last) thing we’d want to do is set up service that is unsuccessful and unreliable.”