Web posted
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Rail study gets notice for session
By FOSS FARRAR
Traveler Staff Writer
A feasibility study on extending passenger rail service from Oklahoma into Kansas is being planned by Kansas Department of Transportation, a local senator said Wednesday.
Representatives from Amtrak, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and the KDOT will meet to discuss a study that will examine the proposed extension of the Heartland Flyer Passenger Rail Service, said state Sen. Greta Goodwin, D-Winfield. Oklahoma transportation officials also were expected to attend.
A planning meeting will be held Friday morning, she said.
"We'll be looking at route, connections and time lines, and the cost and potential of freight lines as well as passenger lines," Goodwin said.
Goodwin said she was asked by the transportation secretary, Deb Miller, to work on the plan. Goodwin also worked on a transportation plan called T-2000 under Gov. Bill Graves.
Amtrak's Heartland Flyer has made daily runs between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth for the past eight years. Passenger rail proponents say it would be relatively inexpensive to extend that service north into Kansas.
Whatever is decided in the planning meeting will come back to the Senate Transportation Committee, said Goodwin, who is a member of that committee.
She said she is optimistic that Kansas will move forward on a passenger rail plan. "It sounds exciting," Goodwin said.
Besides transportation, other key issues Goodwin will be working on in the upcoming legislative session include the following:
* Coal plants: This will be a hot item because of the negative decision on the Holcomb plant by the state secretary of health and environment, Goodwin said.
Health and environment is not a regulatory agency, she said. "We would have to pass a law for a regulatory agency; there is none."
* District Attorney Bill: Goodwin said she cosponsored a bill that would create district attorney offices in all 32 judicial districts, if voters would approve this move, per judicial district.
* School funding: This year is the third year of a funding plan created after a state Supreme Court ruling requiring legislators to provide additional school funding.
Goodwin said she'd like to see base-per-pupil funding not only used for teacher retention, but also for the hiring of new teachers because of a teacher-shortage crisis.
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