Hundreds attend meeting on proposed statewide trail

Hundreds packed the Knights of Columbus Hall in an Osage County town Thursday night to learn more about a proposed recreation trail that would connect the eastern and western border of Missouri.

The Rock Island Trail would require turning 144 miles of railroad in mid-Missouri into a trail, from Beaufort in Franklin County to Windsor in Henry County. Counties and cities west of WIndsor are already converting 47 miles of the railroad, formerly owned by Ameren Missouri, into a trail, connecting Windsor to Kansas City. If the 144 miles in question were to also become part of the Rock Island Trail, it would make a loop from St. Louis to Kansas City in conjunction with the Katy Trail in the eastern part of the state.

The federal Surface Transportation Board would first have to approve the project, and transfer the property from the Missouri Central Railroad Company, owned by Ameren Development Co., to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. It would then be up to the state to decide on if and how to pay for it.

Supporters of the trail use the Katy Trail as an example of the potential economic boon the trail would have on communities directly in line with the project. Missouri Parks director Bill Bryan said towns like Rocheport enjoy greater tourism and tax revenue because of the Katy Trail’s proximity.

Some community members also felt a recreation trail may spur a more active lifestyle. Jody Miles, a member of the trail advocacy group MORIT (MIssouri Rock Island Trail), said her’s and other’s children currently can’t walk to their school in Owensville due to the two-lane highway the school sits near. However, a new trail in place of the seemingly derelict railroad could change that.

“The railroad goes underneath Highway 19 and runs the whole length of the school district,” Miles said. “And thus, it would allow for students to actually be able to propel themselves to school.

However, land owners and the Missouri Farm Bureau see the railroad’s conversion to a trail as a circumvention of the rights of the people whose land the Ameren railroad sits upon. If a trail did go into place, the land owners would need to build a fence around their property not to interfere with the trail. Bryan said the state would pay for the materials to build to fences, but not the labor to build it. Bryan added land owners may not be happy with the work the state does, and leave the work instead to them. However, some at the meeting saw it as another burden the state placed upon potentially unwilling land owners.

“They don’t like the thought of tax dollars having to be used for something for that,” one affected land owner from Argyle said. “I mean, a bicycle trail in Argyle? I don’t see it paving the streets in Argyle, because we’ve got potholes, folks.”

Others also questioned just how much towns would reap in tourism and taxes if the trail went in, like supporters claimed. Bryan said the Katy trail was paid for through a combination of public tax dollars, as well as millions in private partnerships, such as one with Edward Jones in the St. Louis area during the trail’s construction in the 1980s. Missouri state parks are also partly funded through a one-tenth of one percent sales tax voters first approved in 1984, and renewed three times since, most recently in 2006.

An Ameren official at the meeting said the company owned the railroad because it thought it would benefit the Labadie Power Station, more than forty miles west of St. Louis. However, the railroad running west of it is no longer used.

State representative Tom Hurst, a Republican from Meta, hosted the meeting. He said he wanted all stakeholders to come to the table and dispel rumors around the project. He admitted the project, if approved, would not see any construction beginning for another five or six years. However, the meeting was intended the shape a conversation early as the process with the Surface Transportation Board continued.