So predictable. Yesterday there was a story about the Kellar Branch in the newspaper, so today — like summer follows the spring — the Journal Star had another editorial about it.

The absurdity in this is that the city owns the track where the train cars are parked, not Pioneer Railcorp.

Actually, the absurdity is that the city bought the track in the first place to improve rail service to growth cell two. Now that they have an operator on it that is trying to do just that — in fact, he even offered to buy it from the city — they want to instead abandon it and turn the corridor into a linear park that taxpayers will be stuck maintaining forever.

He’s [Guy Brenkman, Pioneer Railcorp] become a master obstructionist, imposing his will over the desires of countless Peorians and their elected leaders.

Yeah, countless Peorians. As if we had a referendum on it or something. I’m sure that countless Peorians are in favor of it now, thanks to relentless advocacy from the city’s only major newspaper. If people knew all the facts that the Journal Star doesn’t find fit to print, they might feel differently.

It is outrageous that one man can stand in the way of a project that thousands of people (the Rock Island Trail attracts an estimated 120,000 annually) will enjoy for walking, running and biking.

Sounds like the Rock Island Trail is meeting our needs just fine, then, doesn’t it? They sure are optimistic that this trail will be immensely popular. Of course, these are the same people who predicted that over 17,000 households would be likely to join the RiverPlex. Reality: not even close.

We’d like to think that the public interest will prevail soon.

I, too, hope the public interest will prevail soon. However, I have a different view of what’s in the public interest in this case. I happen to think that bringing more manufacturing (and thus jobs, revenue, and population) to Peoria is in the public interest. I think abandoning a working rail line that runs year-round and brings revenue to the city and turning it into a park that only gets a little use in the warmer months and brings no revenue to the city is not in the public interest.

Parks are good. Turning abandoned rail lines into linear parks (like the Rock Island Trail) is a good idea. Forcibly abandoning active rail lines to the detriment of businesses that are using those lines is a terrible idea. And I just want to remind everyone that this will work to the detriment of those who use rail trainsportation in growth cell two. They will go from having access to several rail lines to only having access to one rail line. Remember from Econ 101 what happens to prices under a monopoly? But that’s the city’s solution with the UP spur they’re trying to build.

Indeed, let’s hope “that the public interest will prevail soon” — the public interest of jobs and growth instead of the empty promises of the park district.