Peoria Station

In politics, it takes guts to stand up to the loudest group. Doing so requires one to embrace facts and stand for truth. The politicians who spoke to Friends of the Rock Island Trail Monday at Paparazzi Restaurant, as reported by the Journal Star, do neither. And they make embarrasingly ignorant (and ironic) assertions that are easily debunked.

First, David Pittman, acting vice-president of FRITI, asked for the candidates’ position in regard to the Kellar Branch and what they would do about it in the next 12 months. Both current and previous Peoria Heights mayors expressed support for removing the track so that a trail could be built. No shock there.

Current Peoria City Councilman and current candidate for City Treasurer, Patrick “Lets do a Meigs Field Operation” Nichting, called it “‘an outrage’ that three members of the Surface Transportation Board are ‘holding us hostage’ to keep an unused railway in place.”

(I said “ironic” – the Pioneer Industrial Railway hauled a carload of lumber up the line that same day!)

Nichting then complained:

“The city of Peoria spent $2 million so Pioneer Parkway had rail access…That opportunity’s there, and nobody is using it.”

Pioneer “Parkway” already had rail access, Patrick. Why would anyone spend $2 million to get something they already had? Although not being used as originally intended, lots of storage cars are using it. Scores of them already in just the first two months of 2009.

This from a councilman who had the opportunity to listen a decade ago to objections from rail supporters of the highly-flawed plan to reconfigure rail service to Pioneer Industrial Park. But Nichting and other members of the council wouldn’t hear of it and went ahead with this plan to replace the Kellar Branch only to get egg on their faces with the collossal failure of what had been promised to be “comparable service.”

Candidate for Peoria City Council Dan Irving said, “If business was using the rail, I would support business…It’s not.”

Let me repeat, the Pioneer Industrial Railway hauled a carload for Carver Lumber Co. up the line the very day these words were spoken.

Now, I know neither Mr. Irving, Mr. Nichting nor others in the room were aware, but it is ironic isn’t it? And it shows how woefully (and willfully?) uninformed they are. They claim the Kellar Branch isn’t used, yet it is. They say no business uses the line, yet one does.

The good news is that this meeting suggests reported “negotiations” between the railroads (CIRY, Pioneer), the City Council, Park District, and whoever else has a stake in the final outcome of this issue have not proceeded as the trail proponents would have liked. The good thing is, for the time being anway, that taxpayers don’t have to hold so tightly to their wallets (for a trail anyway), and a tax-paying business is getting the most efficient, cost-effective transportation it can from a willing carrier.

- David P. Jordan