Missouri Bicycle News

According to a Boonville Daily News:

Just over a year has passed since the Boonville City Council passed a resolution pledging support to protect the MKT Bridge. Monday night, the council voted to add weight to its stance, by filing a “friend of the court” brief in support of the lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon to keep the bridge at Boonville. . . .

“This is a key step for Boonville to take to keep the bridge as part of the Katy Trail,” said Paula Shannon, chair of the coalition. “By weighing in as a friend of the court, Boonville acknowledges the importance of the federal rails-to-trails contract.”

At issue is whether the state can release its contractual and property right interests in the historic bridge. In addition to the Department of Natural Resources, Nixon has expanded the case to include Union Pacific for breach of contractual obilgations to maintain the bridge for transportation and trail use. Last used in the 1980s, UP has plans to demolish the bridge, using parts of it for a new structure at Osage City.

The Missouri Bicycle Federation has also filed a friend of the court brief in this case, representing the interests of citizens and trail users. MoBikeFed's interest in the case rests on the fact that abandoning and removing the bridge creates a disconnection of the underlying rail corridor at that point. This disconnection threatens the "railbanked" status of the corridor. If that status, which is defined by a complex array of federal laws and regulations, disappears for the section in question, then the Katy Trail will cease to exist on that section.

If the bridge is removed it is not a certainty that the Katy corridor will lose its railbanked status but it is a possibility, and the factors that would determine whether or not the corridor's railbanked status would be successfully challenged are very unpredictable.

In short, removing the Boonville Bridge is playing dice with about a 160-mile segment of the Katy Trail.

• More details and background on this issue from MoBikeFed here.
  
  
• More stories about Boonville's entry to the MKT Bridge lawsuit in the KCStar and Springfield News-Leader.

permanent link to article: "City of Boonville to file friend of court brief in Katy Bridge case"
posted by Brent Hugh at 3/29/2006 06:02:00 PM |comment on this article