U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen, D-Moline, left, and Ben Leischner, executive director of the Quad Cities International Airport, discuss the possibility of the airport being home to a spaceport in the future. Mr. Sorensen went on a tour of the airport on Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. CREDIT DAVE THOMPSON
The Quad Cities is used to playing the long game when it comes to transportation infrastructure. The new Interstate 74 bridge is the perfect example. The bridge took 30 years to get the support and monies allocated to make it happen, and the project had to deal with the complexities and politics of two states. […]
The Quad Cities is used to playing the long game when it comes to transportation infrastructure. The new Interstate 74 bridge is the perfect example.The bridge took 30 years to get the support and monies allocated to make it happen, and the project had to deal with the complexities and politics of two states.Construction of the new bridge began in 2017 and was completed in 2021 at a cost of approximately $1 billion.“You don’t think when you start your career that something might take 30 years to happen,” Bettendorf City Administrator Decker Ploehn said in a WQAD News report. “But something this big, and this bountiful, does take that long, and it was very cool to be a part of.”Now the Quad Cities is looking at two other potentially long-term transportation infrastructure projects: one new and one seemingly stuck.The new project is the novel spaceport concept that congressional leaders and officials at the Quad Cities International Airport recently discussed.The idea is for the airport to one day become a home to a spaceport that could be used to launch and receive jet-like spacecraft from runways, deliver cargo to orbit and even help with a mission to Mars. U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen, D-Moline, is a ranking member of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, and a champion of the idea. “We’ve got to look out 10, 20, 30 years,” Mr. Sorensen said on a recent tour of the airport. Bringing a spaceport to the Quad Cities “could cause immense growth in the region.”The other project is the long-discussed passenger rail service from Moline to Chicago.This project which seemingly has had countless starts and stops received some good news when Moline City Administrator Bob Vitas was recently appointed to the Illinois High-Speed Railway Commission by the Illinois Municipal League.A City of Moline news release said the appointment does not immediately address the impasse between the City of Moline, Amtrak and the Iowa Interstate Railroad which has delayed passenger service here and left Moline’s $16 million downtown rail station empty since 2018. “I will serve in this position until such time as the commission completes its works and provides the Illinois Legislature with a plan for high-speed rail to serve Illinois,” Mr. Vitas said in the news release.“It will not resolve the issues with Iowa Interstate directly, but it will impact those discussions as Moline is a principal city to be served by connecting to the high-speed rail. At the end of the day, Moline’s Amtrak service will connect the city to Chicago and the high-speed rail system.”The community has been fighting for passenger rail to Moline for decades through lobbying and public campaigns, but so far those efforts have been derailed.To get any big transportation infrastructure project accomplished it takes vision, doggedness, and most importantly patience. But now might just be the time, especially with the $1.2 trillion infrastructure legislation passed in 2021 and key champions in Mr. Vitas and Mr. Sorensen.
