Larew: Iowa’s high-speed rail pitch is strong

The governor's office remains hopeful that Iowa and Illinois will secure funding to establish a passenger rail route from Iowa City to Chicago when federal dollars are handed out next month, the Iowa City Press Citizen reports.

At a re-election campaign
fundraiser for Gov. Chet Culver on Sunday in Iowa City, the governor’s Chief of
Staff, Iowa city attorney Jim Larew, said state officials believe the grant
application Iowa submitted with Illinois on Aug. 6 is a strong project that has
the attention of the decision makers in Washington.

Larew was one of about 75
Culver supporters and staffers who gathered in the backyard of the historic Grant
Wood home at 1142 E. Court St., owned by long-time Culver family friend Jim
Hayes. The governor’s father, former congressman and senator John Culver, was
the honored guest at the event.

Larew said the governor
is committed to the idea of building a high-speed rail system through the
state, beginning with the leg from Chicago to Iowa City then extending westward
in future years.

"There’s no governor
in America who has put more of a spotlight on the need to expand passenger rail
opportunities for citizens," Larew said.

Earlier this year, the
Iowa-Illinois application was passed over when the Obama administration handed out
$8 billion in stimulus money to other rail projects. With another $2 billion
set to be doled out at the end of September, Iowa and Illinois’ Departments of
Transportation have reapplied and are requesting nearly a quarter-billion
dollars in federal funding, or about 80 percent of the project’s total price
tag of $310 million.

Larew said that in
meetings with the U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Railroad Administration,
officials have lauded Iowa’s proposal.

"They said the Iowa
application sparkled," Larew said.

Tammy Nicholson, director
of the IDOT’s Office of Rail Transportation, said in a phone interview that the
220-mile route is expected to serve 246,000 passengers annually, according to
an Amtrak study. If it receives funding this year, the line could be up and
running by 2015, she said.

"We’re very optimistic
that this route will have strong ridership and a lot of use," Nicholson
said, pointing to the University of Iowa and the University of Iowa Hospitals
and Clinics as "huge draws" for travelers.

The route would use
existing lines owned by BNSF and Iowa Interstate Railroad, Nicholson said. The
maximum speed of the train would be 79 mph, with an average speed of 53.5 mph.

The Iowa-Illinois
proposal, which is being called the Green Line by state officials, also includes
plans to incorporate environmentally friendly practices into its construction
and operation.

"What we want to do,
for example, is see whether locomotives can be using biodisel," Larew
said. "Wouldn’t it be great if we were creating the energy here in the
Midwest that would be used for the locomotives? And passenger rails are already
an efficient way to carry passengers."

The rail project is among
the initiatives Culver is pursuing to strengthen Iowa’s infrastructure and spur
development. Culver’s I-JOBS program has poured $785 million into projects
statewide with the hopes of putting Iowans back to work and to rebuild after
the 2008 floods and tornadoes.