COLUMBUS, Ohio — In a small sign of support for rail passenger service, Ohio legislators have included funding for the state to rejoin a regional rail group.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that the state’s $61 billion, two-year budget passed by the state House of Representatives includes $25,000 in funding each year for the state to join the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission, which connects states seeking passenger rail improvements.
Ohio withdrew from the group in 2013 during the administration of Republican Gov. John Kasich, who also turned down federal money for Cleveland-Cincinnati passenger service.
The budget now moves to the state Senate. The deadline to finalize the budget is June 30.
Three routes in or through the state — Cleveland-Toledo-Detroit; Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati, and Chicago-Fort Wayne-Columbus-Pittsburgh — were among those selected for the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development Program in 2023 [see “Full list of passenger routes …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 8, 2023].
Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, and Wisconsin are current members of the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission, based in Lombard, Ill. Ohio is one of four states eligible to join that is not currently a member;; Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota are the others.
elderlentzes@gmail.com
Chuck Lentz / Grand Island–
I may not know all there is to know–not living near Ohio–but I believe, with 3 large cities in Ohio, passenger service there is a “no brainer.”
It will happen only if MAJOR funding occurs to upgrade the RR lines to allow for high enough speeds to draw customers. Anything less than an overall average speed of at least 65 mph probably won’t succeed. That’s what is need to compete with the Interstate Highways between the 3 cities.
The next question is “can fares at least cover all the operating & maintenance costs if the service begins”. Otherwise, it’s not worth doing.
Same could be said of Hwys & they often don’t include the price of the large amounts of land they confiscate to widen hwys or interchanges. A lot of the cost for rail projects is the RR’s gouging the project from the get go. Padding the price to make up for capacity issues they should have addressed with their own finances but didn’t want to tap into the shareholders dividends. Where is OH going to get equipment for this dream? There is no surplus equipment are they going to order new equipment? That will be expensive & a long wait. This legislation is meaningless in the current political environment there may not be any passenger rail in this country by the end of the year!
$25K each year is hardly exorbitant. It’s about the cheapest thing in government I ever heard of. Trains however are a whole lot more expensive.
Now let’s talk about Ohio. Amtrak when started left off one of its most obvious routes: NYC to CHI via Buffalo and Cleveland. Wasn’t long before the Lakeshore was established, something like six months. Start-up costs were next to nothing, as Penn Central had the rolling stock, the stations etc., just needing a check to run the train.
That was then and this is now. Now, passenger train start-up costs are enough to send a trainload of astronauts to Jupiter and back. Was it last week the estimate for Minneapolis to Duluth would be $719 Million?
“Ohio withdrew from the group in 2013 during the administration of Republican Gov. John Kasich, who also turned down federal money for Cleveland-Cincinnati passenger service.”
Ohio did the same as what Florida did under Rick Scott. They refused to support the operational cost of HSR after the Feds put up the capital to build it. The forecasts showed the annual operating costs were exorbitant.
While not HSR, Florida got Brightline instead. But its not clear what this coalition wants to accomplish long term, other than look for money.
The Ohio proposal under Obama’s stimulus was not HSR, rather conventional Amtrak service. The major criticism was a planned average speed of 40 mph. Kasich killed it, like Walker in Wisconsin for Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago service.
One of the several reasons that the proposed Milwaukee to Madison train never happened was this: the proponents labeled it “high speed rail”. It would not have been high speed rail. Had it been implemented it would have schlepped along its indirect and curvy route like any other train.
All that was about fifteen years ago. In the ensuing fifteen years, much more has come to be known about the costs (higher and higher) and the ridership (so-so) of passenger trains in America. Thus when to Boring Alice came along last year, no one called Alice “HSR”, she is what she is and people ride it in decent numbers. The lesson is this: stop making claims or projections that don’t hold up.