IOWA CITY The governor of Iowa, Chet Culver, is making a big push in his state for high-speed rail.

He made a well-publicized train ride across eastern Iowa to attend something called the Midwest High Speed Rail Summit in Chicago. At the summit, he confabbed with folks from other states who are as eager as he is to establish speedy passenger rail service across the Midwest.

For his part, Culver wants to see links to Dubuque, the Quad-Cities, Iowa City and, eventually, Des Moines and Council Bluffs -- all communities in Iowa.

Culver and the other rail advocates have their hearts set on getting a share of the $8 billion in federal stimulus funds set aside for passenger rail.

"We're going to take advantage of this opportunity" to share in the federal dough, said Culver.

A Chicago-based, high-speed rail hub is considered to be in a reasonably good position to glom onto federal rail money because of the multi-state effort, and the fact that President Barack Obama and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood both are former Illinois congressmen.

Some of the more enthusiastic rail advocates are predicting an Iowa City-to-Chicago link could be a reality within two years.

Reality, say motorcoach industry advocates in Iowa, is that buses are cheaper, faster and more environmentally friendly than trains - and they're available today without spending billions of dollars of taxpayer money.

James Q. Lynch, writing in The Quad-City Times of Davenport, Iowa, thought it might be interesting to get a different take on high-speed rail, so he interviewed a coupla bus folks.

One was Eugene Hibbs, the station agent for Burlington Trailways and Greyhound in Iowa City.

Hibbs, none too subtly, notes that the number of people who currently make the Iowa City to Chicago trip by bus is a fraction of the 160,000 people a year that rail enthusiasts estimate will make the trip. The Iowa Department of Transportation guesses there will be 187,000 trips a year.

"Where are they coming from?" Hibbs wonders. It will take more than Iowans, making a once-a-year pilgrimage to Wrigley Field or an annual Chicago shopping vacation, to fill those trains, he generously points out.

Typical bus passengers out of Iowa City are people visiting their families, students and some people traveling on business, he said.

Culver predicts the passenger rail link will create opportunities for bus companies. Maybe.

"We look forward to working with some of the bus companies because they are going to play a role in this plan potentially," opined the governor. "Once we get the link between Chicago and Iowa City, one way to get ridership up is a bus option from Des Moines to Iowa City so people get the option of jumping on Amtrak even if they live in Des Moines. That has worked well other places."

Ron Moore, president of Burlington Trailways, has worked with Amtrak, busing people to rail depots on the Indianapolis Amtrak route.

He doesn't see any advantage, though, for his company if it loses revenue on its Iowa City to Chicago routes because of a costly train. His company offers about 100,000 seats a year on those routes.

"We're not filled to capacity, but it helps to subsidize our other routes" into smaller communities, Moore said. "If we can't make money on our main routes, we can't subsidize service to Ottumwa and other communities. Those smaller communities could see a loss of service." Whoops.

He and Hibbs also question the idea of convenience. Greyhound and Trailways offer four buses a day to Chicago - five on weekends. Three of them make the trip in less than five hours.

"I can't see the upside except the legroom and you can stand up while its moving," Hibbs said of train travel. Buses don't offer a diner or a bar car, but new motorcoaches offer televisions, wireless internet access and bathrooms, he said. "They're absolutely fantastic."

Buses also beat Amtraks on-time performance, Hibbs notes. Amtrak typically has a 90- to 100-minute delay at Mount Pleasant. At Iowa City, buses average delays of less than 15 minutes, he said.

Hibbs laughs at rail advocates "green" argument.

One Iowa rail fan said developing passenger rail will "make the world green because rail is one of most efficient modes."

Hibbs points to a 2008 study that found buses average 206.6 passenger miles per gallon of fuel while intercity rail - Amtrak - gets a modest 67 passenger miles per gallon. Also, buses CO2 output per mile is roughly a quarter of the output of intercity trains.

Bottom line, said Hibbs, "if service is terrible, the price is not right and it costs the taxpayers $6 million a year and $30 million upfront, then you've got to ask how many people will take the train."

Good question for Governor Culver.

But then we suspect that what the governor is really after is the millions of federal taxpayer dollars it will cost to build and operate high-speed rail, and he could care less how many Iowans end up riding the trains to Chicago.

And he appears to care even less about the good folks living in small Iowa communities who stand to lose their bus service even as those high-speed trains blow by Iowa corn fields.