Richard Neumiller, former mayor of Peoria and member of the now defunct railroad commission, is on a new passenger rail task force put together by the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission (TCRPC). Neumiller was appointed by Mayor Jim Ardis to represent Peoria on the task force. Here is the full list of task force members, provided by the TCRPC:
| City of Peoria | Dick Neumiller |
| Village of Bartonville | Rhonda Wolfe |
| City of Chillicothe | Randy Stevens |
| Limestone Township | Bob Lawless |
| Tazewell County | Clint Drury |
| City of Pekin | Steve Brown |
| City of East Peoria | Ty Livingston |
| Village of Morton | Norm Durflinger |
| Washington Township | Gary Manier |
| Woodford County | John Krug |
| Village of Roanoke | Kevin Braker |
| City of Eureka | Marc Pasteris |
| Village of Metamora | Bill Belshaw |
| Woodford County Township | Gayl Wyss |
| Peoria County | Paul Feltenstein |
Tri-County Regional Planning Commission
| Stephen Van Winkle | John Blossom |
| Russ Crawford | James Polk |
| Dean Grimm |
Bloomington Normal
| Mark Peterson, Town of Normal |
| Aaron Quick, City of Bloomington |
Ex-officio Members
| Steve Jaeger, HOI Port District |
| Larry Koch |
If you’re counting, you may notice that there are 22 members (not including ex-officio members), not 21 as stated in the Journal Star the other day. For more information on the Illinois River Valley Council of Governments, see the TCRPC’s overview here.
I caught up with Terry Kohlbuss, executive director of TCRPC, and we had a good discussion regarding the task force’s plans to establish a link between Peoria and Bloomington. On the positive side, they still see a direct passenger rail connection between Peoria and Chicago as the ultimate goal. That’s important, because it means they are still awaiting the Amtrak-IDOT report and are not trying to second-guess its conclusions. However, where we disagree is on the strategy for meeting that ultimate goal. As stated in my previous post, the task force wants to pursue a link with the Bloomington Amtrak station first — starting with carpooling, then vans, then buses, then a passenger rail shuttle, and eventually direct service via Bloomington to Chicago.
I still fear that such a strategy is too risky. Rail service from Peoria to Bloomington will not produce high ridership, and given the cost of establishing Peoria-Chicago service, low ridership between Peoria and Bloomington could be used by politicians to justify killing passenger rail here before a direct link to Chicago can be established. I’m afraid decision-makers would not conclude that Peoria-Bloomington service is unpopular, but that rail service in general is unpopular and unsupported. That would be a real tragedy that would set Peoria back thirty years.
A better strategy would be to establish direct service between Peoria and Chicago first — which will produce high ridership numbers — and use that success to add more rail lines in the future, perhaps even an east-west route like the one being proposed by the task force, especially if it could be extended to Champaign.