On a recent trip from Chicago to Des Moines, Laurie Kliewer was bumped from her overbooked flight, causing her a five-hour delay.

The irony wasn’t lost on Kliewer, director of the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission. She was on her way to the Statehouse to lobby Iowa legislators to pass a bill for the state to join the multi-state compact, which is seeking to build a high-speed passenger rail system for the Midwest.

“I’m not here to advocate trains over planes,” said Kliewer, who is a senior policy analyst for The Council of State Governments’ Midwestern office, which staffs the rail commission. However, a Chicago-based high-speed rail system serving the Midwest could take significant pressure off both airlines and highways for 100- to 500-mile trips between between cities, she said.

The MIPRC is seeking the states’ support to create pressure on Congress to adopt the same type of 80-20 funding for passenger rail service that is now received for major highway and airport construction projects.

The measure is opposed by the Iowa Motor Truck Association and other industry groups that say the bill would divert state funds from highway construction and maintenance.

Six Midwestern states have already joined the compact; Iowa is one of four states that are considering legislation to join this year. In Iowa, the trains would operate on the Iowa Interstate Railroad Ltd. line from Omaha through Des Moines and Iowa City, running to Rock Island, Ill., and then feeding into a rail line to Chicago. Bus lines would feed into the system from Sioux City, Fort Dodge and Cedar Falls.

Backers of the proposed system want to have it operational by 2025. With it, approximately 90 percent of the Midwest’s population would be within a one-hour car ride to a rail station or a half-hour from a feeder bus station, according to a 2004 online report published by the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative. The group, which is distinct from the rail commission, is a consortium of nine Midwest state departments of transportation, including the Iowa DOT.

Rep. Libby Jacobs, co-sponsor of the House bill, House File 330, that would add Iowa to the compact, said she hopes the House legislation, which has been introduced during the past several sessions, will pass this year. The bill was unanimously voted out of the House Local Government Committee earlier this month.

“I’ve been very involved with the National Council of State Governments,” said Jacobs, a Republican from Des Moines. “This is just one initiative that made a lot of sense. We needed alternatives for transportation. If we can be a link in a high-speed rail system, that could provide us with a lot of benefits.”

The Iowa Motor Truck Association opposes the measure because it believes providing funding for passenger rail would divert federal and state funds away from highways.

“We’re not opposed to anybody who decides they want to build another mode of transportation,” said Scott Weiser, the association’s president. “What we are opposed to is them using someone else’s money to do it.”

Fuel tax and vehicle registration fee revenues, which made up 75 percent of the $1.09 billion in road use tax funds the state received last year, are constitutionally mandated to be used to fund only highway improvements. However, revenue from the 6 percent state sales tax on motor vehicle sales, which last year totaled $224.5 million, is not earmarked and that’s money the truckers’ group fears might be raided, Weiser said.

Sen. Jack Kibbie, the Republican president of the Senate, said he believes it’s time Iowa joins the rail commission.

“All we’re looking at is a possible solution for moving people in the future, not today,” he said. “Iowans would appreciate a passenger train moving through the state. It’s certainly a long-range proposal. It will keep a lot of passenger vehicles off the highways.”

Kliewer said lobbyists’ opposition to the bill is based on a misperception.

“We have never advocated for any portion of the highway fund,” she said. “We have always advocated for a dedicated fund (for passenger rail). I think Iowa legislators need to understand the benefits that passenger rail would have, and that it’s not going to hurt our existing highways and freight carriers.”

Building such a system would require a $1.1 billion investment in high-speed trains and $6.6 billion in track upgrades to handle speeds of up to 110 mph, according to a 2004 report by the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative.The plan calls for a 10-year construction period with the largest metro areas connecting directly to Chicago receiving service first, followed by Iowa in the later phases of the project.

The Iowa Interstate Railroad, whose line the proposed system would operate on through Iowa, is currently upgrading its tracks to handle 286,000-pound freight cars moving at speeds of up to 40 mph.

“We’re not opposed to it,” said the railroad’s president, Dennis Miller, “but I really don’t have any information on it, either. If somebody wants to spend the money to upgrade the line to accommodate high-speed rail, we wouldn’t stand in the way.” Provided sufficient sidings are built, both freight and passenger trains could efficiently operate on the same tracks, he said.

John Hey, a transportation planner with the DOT’s Office of Rail Transportation, said the initiative will remain at a standstill until there’s movement at the federal level to fund passenger rail.

“So right now it’s at a position where we’re waiting on some kind of development at the federal level,” he said.

Kliewer said the rail commission’s immediate goal is to gain more members so that it can approach Congress with additional clout to seek federal funding.

“What we’re looking for is an 80-20 federal-state funding split,” Kliewer said. “Passenger rail is really the only form of transportation that doesn’t have federal funding.”

The commission, whose six current members are Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and North Dakota, is trying to get six additional Midwest states to join. Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan are each considering bills this year. Kansas and South Dakota are also eligible to join the commission.

Each member state has four members on the commission: one appointed by the governor, one private-sector representative, one state senator and one state representative.

The member states currently pay annual dues of $15,000, though the amount has decreased as additional states have joined, Kliewer said.



For state fiscal year 2005, receipts into the RUTF totaled an estimated $1.09 billion. This represents $430.1 million in fuel taxes, $391.4 million in registration and other miscellaneous fees, $224.5 million in use tax on the purchase of motor vehicles, $21 million from underground storage tank fees, $14.3 million from driver licenses, and $5.6 million in interest.