Amtrak has released a study on behalf of the Iowa Department of Transportation concerning the feasibility of passenger-rail service from the Quad Cities to Iowa City on a route originating from Chicago. Annual ridership on the full route is estimated at approximately 187,000 passengers, based on two daily round trips and track improvements being made to allow maximum speeds of 79 miles per hour. The states of Iowa and Illinois would share the capital-investment costs, and the estimated annual Amtrak operating-contract expense of roughly $6 million. The estimated cost to upgrade the railroad infrastructure in this example is $54.9 million. Reports and maps concerning this study are available at (http://www.iowadot.gov/amtrakstudy/).

The Mississippi Valley Growers' Association (MVGA) built successful markets over 15 years in Davenport and Bettendorf, with six Iowa Farmers' Market Improvement Competition awards from the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, the Iowa Department of Agriculture, and the Iowa Farmers' Market Association. The River City Market Association (RCMA) formed 11 years ago. The MVGA and the RCMA have negotiated leases from the city together since 2002. This was confirmed by Charlie Heston, Levee Improvement Commission, at the March 12 meeting. In 2007, we formed a joint board and have shared expenses for patrol officers. We worked diligently to develop a plot map that the patrol officers thought would provide the safest traffic flow for customers. This plot map was submitted to Charlie Heston and leases prepaid in December for the upcoming year.

Dale Haake of Davenport is the fourth Quad City Poet Laureate, joining former laureates Dick Stahl, Rebecca Wee, and Kathleen Lawless Cox. The new Quad City Poet Laureate will officially begin his two-year term on Wednesday, April 16, at 7 p.m. at the Quad City Arts Center, 1715 Second Avenue in Rock Island. There, Haake will be formally introduced to the public and will give a reading of his work. The event is free and open to the public, and will be happening in conjunction with National Poetry Month.

As he prepares for his third solo studio album, the guitarist Johnny A. - who will perform Saturday at the Redstone Room - wants to return to where it all started nine years ago.

"I kind of want to get back to a personified version of my first album," he said in a phone interview last week.

I'm not sure what "personified" means in that context, but I'm certain there's one problem with that plan: It would involve returning to a time when Johnny A. was learning a new genre - the instrumental - and his fellow musicians were learning to play with him. That age of innocence will be impossible to recapture, but Johnny A. hopes to rediscover the intimacy of his first solo work.