The addition of the Rock Island Line would be huge. I have ridden the KATY from end to end..250 miles 3 times. I would love to travel this new rails to trails path!
Think passion, and you think place. Think snow skiing, for example, and you think Colorado. Think fly fishing, and you think Montana.
It’s not that you can’t snow ski elsewhere or fly fish countless other places, but because of a combination of good fortune, vision and by seized momentum, these places have become synonymous with a particular passion. They own it.
What if, when you think cycling, your mind shifted to Missouri? Could we become the state identified with that passion, an identity built on one of the best, oldest and longest rail-to-trail networks in the country?
Fortune has smiled on Missouri, Greg Harris told me last week. He is executive director of Missouri Rock Island Trail Inc., and he said rail routes that were put together more than a century ago — including land acquisition, grading, leveling and bridging — create opportunities for a new generation and new modes of transportation.
It’s a question of vision and seizing momentum when the moment appears.
Harris said one of those moments is nearly here.
Sometime this fall, salvage work for rails and ties will be completed on the 144-mile Rock Island line that crosses much of the state on the south side of the Missouri River.
At that point, it can be transferred to the state — but the state must accept it.
Accepting ownership of the line would ratchet up Missouri’s reputation as the country’s premier rail-to-trail and cycling destination and all that that means for tourism and economic development.
Missouri already has the longest rail-to-trail route in the country, the 290-mile Katy Trail on the north side of the river, anchored on each end by a major city and passing through many smaller communities along the way. Like Missouri’s park system — of which it is a part — the Katy is the envy of other states.
http://www.joplinglobe.com/news/lifestyles/andy-ostmeyer-is-a-moment-at-hand-for-missouri-to/article_568a4708-1adc-5ec8-a381-6331a8852d1a.html