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I was going to respond to this in the previous post’s comments section, but I thought it deserved its own blog entry. I received this fair criticism of my last entry from an anonymous commenter:
IÂ don’t think you’ve received any comments yet because this blog is opaque. Please boil this down to something the average interested person can understand.I still think you’re off base for wanting to keep Brenkman in business at the expense of a good trail through a town that is seriously under-trailed. Your proposal to route the trail along and through Detweiler doesn’t keep the trail close to PEOPLE. I don’t want to have to put my bike in may car to get to a TRAIL!
First, I admit the last entry was pretty arcane, so let me attempt to “boil it down,” as requested:
Pioneer wants to buy the Kellar Branch line from the city. The city doesn’t want to sell it because they want to tear it out and turn it into a hiking/biking trail. However, there’s a possibility that Pioneer can force the city to sell the line against its will by going through the Surface Transportation Board (STB). The STB has sole control over the railroad right of way; even though the city owns the line, they can’t just do with it what they want. They would need to get STB approval to stop running trains over it and turn it into a trail. However, the STB, as a rule, leans toward keeping rail service in place if there’s a carrier willing to service the line. In fact, that’s why they allow forced acquisition of rail lines to begin with — to keep the trains running.
So, the city (or technically, their contracted rail carrier, Central Illinois Railway) has sent notice to the STB asking if they can discontinue service on the Kellar Branch. Pioneer has sent notice to the STB that they want to buy it. The city is trying to rebuff Pioneer’s offer by saying the Kellar Branch was abandoned in the early 80’s (which is true) and claiming Pioneer can’t offer to buy the line under these circumstances (which I think is false). The upshot is that this will likely be another drawn-out case before the STB, and there’s a chance that Pioneer might win this one.
Secondly, I never said I was for “keep[ing] Brenkman in business.” I’m simply for keeping the Kellar Branch a rail line for a variety of reasons you can read about in a previous blog entry. Â
Finally, I love this final comment: “I don’t want to have to put my bike in [my] car to get to a TRAIL!” And yet the Park District would have us believe that people will flock to Peoria to use our trails and have a huge economic impact. Here’s someone who says they won’t even drive across town to use the trail — they’ll only use it if it’s in their back yard! So much for all those tourism dollars from trail enthusiasts. Ha!
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