Passenger rail backers grateful for meeting with Branstad

Backers of a plan to restore passenger train service to Iowa City met today with Gov. Terry Branstad. And that's all they have to say about that.

“We met with the governor,” said Kelly McCann, communications director for the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce. “We're very grateful for the time he spent with us.”

McCann said Branstad, a skeptic of the plan to institute two daily Amtrak round trips between Chicago and Iowa City, met with a chamber delegation for about an hour. She said the chamber may have further comment after Branstad delivers his budget message Thursday.

Asked if her scheduled presentation to the Legislature's Transportation, Infrastructure and Capitals Appropriations Subcommittee next week signals that the passenger rail funding will be in Branstad's budget, Iowa Department of Transportation Director Nancy Richardson said she hasn't heard otherwise.

“Until somebody tells me we aren't, we are,” Richardson said.

The chamber has made rail service a priority since March 2009. The federal government allocated $230 million of the project's $310 million total cost last fall, leaving Iowa and Illinois to cover the balance.

Illinois has committed $45 million toward the route's Chicago -Moline leg. The Iowa Legislature appropriated $11.5 million for planning and design work through 2012, but House Republicans have identified made that spending a budget-cutting target. Branstad is also reluctant to fund the service's $3 million annual operating subsidy.

Iowa City chamber officials hoped to convince Branstad to allow planning and improvements to the Iowa Interstate Railroad's track to proceed. They said a decision on the operating susbsidy can wait until nearer the 2015 target date for service to begin.

If the state proceeds with improvements to the Cedar Rapids-based Iowa Interstate's track – the new trains would run over those rails between Iowa City and Wyanet, Ill., 102 miles.

Richardson thinks the subcommittee wants to understand the project, “its cost-benefit and what they would get for the investment they have been asked to make.”

She spoke to Branstad Monday and “he's still considering it.”

“I advised him that I believe it provides a good benefit to the citizens. If we are going to do anything more for passenger rail in Iowa, this is the route that first makes most sense.”

“We have a sort of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with this funding that we have secured with Illinois. He's (Branstad) been very open-minded and interested in learning more about it. I also understand we're in tough time and he has to weigh all of those recommendations. But I certainly would recommend we stay the course.”

Backers of the plan are cautiously optimistic about gaining Gov. Terry Branstad's long-term support for the project, based on what they're hearing from fellow Republicans.

“In conversations I've had with Republican leadership, they're cautiously optimistic about the project,” Rebecca Neades, vice president and director of public policy for the Iowa City Chamber of Commerce, told The Gazette Editorial Board on Monday afternoon.

The Iowa Legislature has appropriated $11.5 million for planning and design work through 2012, with an additional $20 million pending. But the Republicans who won a legislative majority in November have named passenger rail as budget-reduction target.

Although Branstad has questioned the projected $3 million annual state subsidy to keep the service operating, Neades said he's indicated support for the capital improvements to the Iowa Interstate Railroad, over whose tracks the trains would run between Iowa City and northern Illinois.

The state can't accept the capital spending without committing to running the passenger trains. But trains won't begin running until 2015, leaving the state time to come up with the operating money while the track and signal improvements proceed.

“There's no need to stop construction and wait for four years,” said Paul Rumler, executive director of the Quad Cities Passenger Rail Coalition.

Rumler is confident that the new train, which also would serve the Quad Cities, will carry the projected 246,800 passengers. He compared the new service to that linking Chicago and Quincy, Ill., about half the size of Iowa City. Trains on that route carried 209,466 last year.