Last Friday, TCRPC held a meeting with federal and state lawmakers.  At this legislative session, Tri-County commissioners made it clear that passenger rail remains a top priority for the commission.  For more information, please see the following news articles:

Peoria Journal Star

A passenger rail connection for the Peoria area remains among the highest legislative priorities in both Springfield and Washington, D.C., for the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission.

At least one local lawmaker is promising to help local officials take that message to Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, commission members heard Friday at their annual meeting with the region's legislative delegation.

"We want the Peoria area to be on the radar," commissioner Dean Grimm said, bemoaning the fact that a metropolitan region of 350,000 people didn't have a rail connection but that, for example, "our friends in Kewanee with 10,000 people just got a new Amtrak station."

(SNIP)

Sen. Dave Koehler, D-Peoria, said he would work to set up a meeting with Quinn on the topic. But he also suggested that commission members might want to reconsider their recent vote to reject taking a look at running a bus from the Peoria area to link up with Amtrak in Bloomington, Princeton or Galesburg. He said after the meeting that doing so could potentially help justify the need for rail.

WMBD Radio

A recent Tri-County Regional Planning Commission meeting with federal and state legislators triggered the "hot button" of rail service in Peoria.  After an IDOT study revealed it's wasn't currently feasible for a Peoria to Normal train, IDOT offered to pay for a study to consider a temporary bus shuttle to the Twin Cities.  Tri-County narrowly vote that down.

But, during the legislative meeting, lawmakers sugggested Tri-County might want to reconsider.  It seems IDOT looks at a bus as a stepping stone to future passeneger rail.  State Senator Dave Koehler says it's a matter of seeing if there is interest.  Some Tri-County members reasoned, people would not board a bus, they would just drive to either Normal or Galesburg to board Amtrak.

Koehler says he understands, but it might be better to work on filling a shuttle bus to need for Amtrak in Peoria. Peoria is the largest metropolitan region in Illinois without direct Amrtrak access.