Arkansas City is on each of four prospective Amtrak train routes slated for Kansas as part of a recent feasibility study, but there is no guarantee the town’s depot will ever see passenger train service there again, officials said.
That’s why the state is beginning a series of meetings this week to garner public interest in expanding Amtrak’s passenger rail service. New rail service for Amtrak’s Heartland Flyer could potentially connect Newton and Arkansas City with Oklahoma City and the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.
Arkansas City’s Senior Citizen Center, 320 South A, will play host at 6 p.m. Thursday to a special meeting between the Kansas Department of Transportation and city and county representatives. The meeting is open to the public, but is directed more toward providing information for local officials.
A second meeting is set for 5 to 7 p.m.Tuesday, May 25, at the Best Western Atrium Garden, 3232 N. Summit. KDOT will give a brief presentation at 5:20 p.m. and also at 6:20 p.m. KDOT officials are welcoming the public to this meeting and hope visitors will give them feedback on what they think of the proposed rail service. Arkansas City is considered a very reasonable place to stop for the line, according to a KDOT spokesperson.
"I’m not sure that (a stop in Arkansas City) is a given, but it seems like a logical place," said Tom Hein, public affairs manager for KDOT in the Wichita metro area. "If Kansas taxpayers are going to help subsidize this service, we want to offer as much opportunity for those citizens to use that line."
Other public meetings to discuss possible train stops are set for Lawrence, Wichita, Newton, Emporia, Topeka and Kansas City.
Of the handful of towns vying for inclusion in the tentative plans, Emporia seems to have the loudest voice, according to Hein. "They have been very active in this process, saying, hey, we want to be a stop."
Besides public input, KDOT is looking for a city’s willingness to devote some tax dollars for a local depot.
"They don’t have to be big fancy stations," said Hein. "You just need a place where people can get tickets and wait for the train."
Winfield is also being considered as a stop, but city manager Warren Porter said he’s more interested in hearing what KDOT and Amtrak have to say first before Winfield commits any dollars for a depot.
"Everybody wants a stop, there’s no question about that. But not everyone’s going to get one," said Porter. "I want to see a proposal first."
Although there is a nationwide push for more accessible passenger rail service, the feasibility study shows this form of public transportation must be heavily subsidized by taxpayers.
The cheapest proposed route connects Newton with Ft. Worth (via Arkansas City), has a $156 million price tag for start-up costs (in 2009 dollars), and an annual operating cost of nearly $6 million, half of which would need to be publicly subsidized, according to the feasibility study.
Getting the new line going won’t happen any time soon. KDOT and Amtrak still have to agree on a route and perform another study. If approved by the state legislature, there still remains a several year wait for new locomotives and passenger cars to be built, said Hein.
"They are saying there is a wait for these (cars and locomotives) because there is a demand around the world for mass transit that wasn’t there before the fuel crisis," said Hein. "Right now Amtrak is saying it’s a number of years before (ordered) equipment would even be ready."
You can find more information about the passenger rail service at http://www.ksdot.org/.
