Should the state of Iowa follow through with funding a passenger rail line from Chicago to Iowa City – and eventually to Des Moines?

That’s the question on the mind of officials at the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), which began an online survey this week to ask community members just that, with a simple choice of “yes” or “no.”

Representatives of the MPO and other transportation organizations convened for Transportation Day at the Capitol on Jan. 26, where Gov. Terry Branstad expressed hesitation about completing the funding to get the line from Chicago to Iowa City.

The Federal Railroad Administration awarded $230 million to the Iowa and Illinois departments of transportation last October to initiate the line. To ensure the grant, though, lawmakers in Iowa must approve up to $20 million in state funding.

Funding must be approved by 2015. The Chicago-to-Iowa City line, if funded, would in all likelihood eventually be extended to Des Moines and Omaha, pending a study of five potential routes by the Iowa Department of Transportation. MPO Senior Transportation Planner Dylan Mullenix told the Business Record in December that “it’s not like it’s going to deviate off that path to go around Des Moines.”

Also on the MPO online survey is a question about increasing the gasoline tax in Iowa, which hasn’t changed since 1989.