Branstad: No state role in new rail service

CEDAR RAPIDS - Gov. Terry Branstad has all but ruled out state support for an Iowa City-Chicago Amtrak service.

“I don't want to get into the operating-subsidy business,” Branstad told The Gazette's Editorial Board during a meeting Thursday in Cedar Rapids after he unveiled his budget plan. “It's a slippery slope.”

Plans for the train supporters call the Chicago Flyer have been under way about two years. The Federal Railroad Administration allocated $230 million to the project last fall for capital costs, leaving Iowa and Illinois to come up with the balance. The projected total cost is $310 million.

Once the trains start running in 2015, the two states would also subsidize the service's ongoing operational costs. Branstad isn't interested in covering Iowa's share, estimated at $3 million a year.

“I'm sympathetic, but I don't think the state should be in the business of subsidizing something that's going to be an ongoing loss,” he said. “What's the railroad willing to do?”

Branstad suggested the Cedar Rapids-based Iowa Interstate Railroad, over whose tracks the trains would run between Iowa City and Wyanet, Illl., work with online communities to cover the service's costs. He also questioned planners' projections of 247,000 riders in the train's first year.

“In an urban area, you can probably have a much better ridership than in a rural state,” Branstad said.