So the predictable Journal Star editorial on the Kellar Branch today says this:

From where we sit, reports on the viability and cost of dual use of the corridor are too unreliable for that choice to be on the table now.

This was the most shocking quote in the whole editorial because the editors, for the first time in recent memory, did not just repeat the Park District’s numbers as though Moses carried them down from the mountain. No, they’re now “unreliable.”

Then, another shocking statement: “We generally acknowledge the economic development potential of railroads and other transportation infrastructure.” Good, good. They’re recognizing the obvious now. Any hope that they were coming to their senses was soon dashed, however:

But with regard to the Kellar branch specifically, two decades of trying with little success make us dubious. Whatever the excuses – and rail proponents cite several – the line has not delivered.

You gotta love self-fulfilling prophecies. For about 13 years of the last two decades the city has been trying to shut down the line, and the western spur was only completed less than a year ago. These are just “excuses”? Why, I could just as easily say that after two decades, the Park District has failed to make good on their promise to convert this to a hiking path and raise property values. Whatever their excuses — and trail advocates cite several — the Park District hasn’t delivered.

Here’s another little gem:

If the Kellar is such a can’t-miss economic development asset, why unload it at a loss?

Au contraire, if the Kellar Branch is worth $1.2 million dollars, why should the city lease it to the Park District for $1/year just so they can tear it up and build a trail on the corridor with at least six million more taxpayer dollars, not including on-going maintenance? Is that good stewardship of taxpayer money? What’s the return on that investment for the taxpayers? When will that investment break even? How? Most of the track in question is located in the Village Peoria Heights, not the City of Peoria. How does this benefit Peoria taxpayers?

It’s a wonder Councilman Gary Sandberg, City Hall’s most vocal skeptic of public subsidies for private businesses, has never complained about the significant subsidy for past users of this rail line; they got something for nothing courtesy of local taxpayers.

Suppose for a moment that we accept the Journal Star’s logic here. What do you think would be the reasonable solution to this?

• (a) Start charging more to lease the line to rail carriers
• (b) Reinstate the $175-per-car fee the city levied in the 1980s that made the line uncompetitive
• (c) Sell the line so that a private owner can pay taxes on the line, thus removing the supposed “subsidy”
• (d) A and B combined
• (e) Lease it to the Park District for $1/year so it remains off the tax rolls, remove the $1.2 million (their figures) rail line, and instead of subsidizing tax-paying, job-creating businesses (like we do everywhere else in Peoria, including Junction City where they were just given enterprise zone status), start subsidizing bikers and joggers who already have nearly 9,000 acres of park land and miles of sidewalks and residential streets on which to exercise.

Naturally, the Journal Star picks the most nonsensical option: (e). Add to that the $100,000+ in legal fees the city has been paying to secure this $1.2 million corridor for the benefit of the Park District and, to paraphrase the illustrious editorial board, some folks, I dare say, are just caught up in the romance of trails. But there’s a price to that passion, and Peoria has been paying it too long for too little return.