Posted on Mon, Dec. 04, 2006

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KATY TRAIL | Hike-and-bike path progress report

KC-St. Louis link edges closer to finish

Negotiators hope to gain key trail sections by using private levees and a Rock Island rail line.

By BILL GRAHAM

The Kansas City Star

Missouri trail advocates have progress in the east and hope in the west toward the longtime goal of connecting Kansas City and St. Louis via the Katy Trail.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources is negotiating an agreement that would allow the Katy Trail State Park to bypass flood-damaged areas in St. Charles County by using the tops of private flood levees as trail beds. That would allow the trail to extend 11 miles farther to the northeast — from St. Charles to Machens — making it easier to link up with existing St. Louis metro area trails and the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, said Sue Holst, a department spokeswoman.

“We’re very close to getting an agreement with the levee district,” Holst said.

Meanwhile, St. Louis-based AmerenUE is being asked by Gov. Matt Blunt and Attorney General Jay Nixon to allow the state to use a segment of an old Rock Island rail line the utility controls from Windsor, Mo., to Pleasant Hill. That would provide Kansas City area trails a connection to the Katy Trail.

All sides say negotiations are ongoing for the Rock Island right of way as part of the compensation to the state for damages when the utility’s Taum Sauk dam broke and flooded a state park in 2005.

The Katy Trail already extends 225 miles from St. Charles, Mo., to Clinton, Mo., and it draws several hundred thousand riders and walkers each year. It opened in 1990, on the former Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad bed.

But at either end of the trail, advocates want to add links so there is an unbroken trail system from Kansas City to St. Louis, one that other towns in the state could connect to.

Such a trail would also link the existing trails and bridges that cross into Kansas and Illinois from both cities.

The Kansas City parks and recreation board recently chimed in with a resolution supporting creation of a “seamless” cross-state link that would provide the backbone for a multistate trail system.

“We’d like to see it completed all the way to St. Louis,” said Mike Herron, North Division manager for the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department. “The resolution encourages them to get it done and make it a priority.”

Trails for walking, jogging and bicycling are being built in parks and subdivisions throughout the Kansas City region.

But the challenge is connecting the mainline trails to add variety and length to the system, said Steve Rhoades, MetroGreen trails coordinator for the Mid-America Regional Council.

For example, if the Katy Trail was extended to Pleasant Hill, Rhoades said, officials then could negotiate with the Union Pacific railroad to use another segment of unused rail bed from Pleasant Hill into the Leeds neighborhood near the Truman Sports Complex.

Completion of that line would enable a link to trails being considered in the floodway in the Blue River bottoms that border the Leeds area. From the Blue River, links could be made with trails being considered on city-owned flood levees along the Missouri River’s south shore.

Finally, the tie could be made with Kansas City’s Historic Riverfront Trail in the City Market area, which already links several downtown neighborhoods, Kansas City, Kan., and the Northland.

But an unbroken trail between state lines is a moot point if no agreement can be reached with AmerenUE.

The utility owns Rock Island right of way across central Missouri, but only 50 miles of track on the east side of the state are used, said Mike Cleary, a company spokesman. However, AmerenUE planned to redevelop the railroad line across the state as an economic development tool within its electric service area.

Trail advocates were discouraged that the Rock Island segment from Windsor to Pleasant Hill might never be available, Rhoades said.

But on Dec. 14, 2005, a dam was breached at the AmerenUE Taum Sauk Plant in eastern Missouri. The 1.5 billion gallons of floodwater released heavily damaged the Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park.

The company has yet to settle with the state on damages.

That prompted Blunt to ask for use of the line for the Katy Trail as part of a settlement.

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon shares the vision of a cross-state trail, said spokesman Scott Holste. But he declined to be more specific, saying Nixon is involved with legal issues regarding the trail.

Nixon, a Democrat, is expected to challenge Blunt, a Republican, for the governor’s post in 2008.

Cleary said the company is caught in politics as it negotiates with both offices on a settlement that might include the Rock Island line.

“They’re both trying to outdo the other on how much they can beat up on AmerenUE,” Cleary said. The company wants to do what is reasonable, he said, “but we’re not going to give them a blank check.”

Rhoades said if Rock Island right of way is acquired, money to pay for new trail development would have to be located. The final cross-state links could take a decade or more to finish because of legal and financial questions.

“But if people know it’s going to happen, they’re going to figure out how to connect to it,” he said. “Unfortunately, it took something like the devastation at Taum Sauk to put it back into the mix.”