City Manager Randy Oliver updated city council members this week on plans to form a committee to look at the feasibility of building a trail alongside the Kellar Branch rail line:

Representatives of the City, Park District, Peoria Heights, and TriCounty Regional Planning met with Central Illinois Rail and Pioneer Rail in separate meetings as requested by the Mayor and Council. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the possibility of side-by-side rail and trail for the Kellar Branch. The result of these meetings is a recommendation that a task force be formed by the Village of Peoria Heights and the City of Peoria, with each community nominating three members, to determine by April 1, 2008, whether side-by-side rail and trail is feasible or not. The feasibility is intended to consider both engineering feasibility and financial feasibility. The Committee has suggested that three members each be appointed by the Mayor of Peoria and Peoria Heights. The meetings will be noticed and opened to the public. It is proposed that the Committee draw up the railroads, the Park District, City staff and outside technical resources if necessary to make a recommendation to the two cities.

Journal Star city beat reporter John Sharp has been following up on this story and found out some interesting info:

• The City hasn’t chosen their representatives yet. “Oliver said the Peoria City Council could decide by its Jan. 8 meeting if this is the direction the city wants to go and, if so, who should serve on the committee.”
• Peoria Heights has. “Peoria Heights Mayor Mark Allen said he plans to have his Village Board vote on his three recommendations by Jan. 2. Allen said he will recommend Peoria Heights residents Vern Kimberlin and Sherryl Carter serve on the committee along with Junction City owner Alexis Khazzam.”
• It’s estimated to take “about $10,000” for the committee “to be able to go out and get their technical questions answered by someone this committee feels is unbiased.”
• Hopefully, if everyone agrees, the cost will be distributed among the entities on the committee. “The city of Peoria plans to contribute $2,500, and various other parties – including Peoria Heights [and Pioneer Railcorp] – will also be asked to contribute.”

One of the proposed Peoria Heights participants, Alexis Khazzam, was interviewed recently on WEEK-TV. He feels the city should take a “tougher stance” and should charge the rail carriers rent to use the line. His strategy is, “By charging the rail companies rent, it’ll make them say, ‘if we only make $50,000 operating or serving the customer that exists on it, it might not be worth it for us to pay $180,000 for rent a year,’ or it might spur them to say, ‘okay, we know what we need to pay; we need to increase revenue.’ At least it’ll be out of the city’s hands and in the trail advocates’ hands and the rail advocates’ hands and let that be a fair fight.”

First of all, the underlying assumption here is that keeping the line open for one customer is not justified. Unfortunately for trail advocates, the Surface Transportation Board (STB) ruled just the opposite — keeping the line open for even one customer is justified in this case. Thus, any effort by the Cities, as rail owners, to force closure by charging excessive rent will similarly be struck down by the STB.

Secondly, as was stated in the WEEK report, Pioneer maintains that its contract with the City is still in force, and the City claims that it expired under its own terms in 2004. That contract called for the city to charge the rail carrier $1 per year in rent to operate the line. The city also has a signed land use agreement with the Park District that charges them the same amount — $1 per year — to rent the land if it’s able to be used for a recreational trail.

I would consider this rail/trail committee to be the first real progress we’ve seen in over a decade on the Kellar Branch controversy. Hopefully the committee will come up with a solution that works for all parties involved.