Ohio Competing for Stimulus High Speed Rail Funds

February 24, 2009 by John

Ohio works to get on track for a share of railway stimulus funds
Posted by Karen Farkas/Plain Dealer Reporter February 23, 2009 05:40AM
Categories: Real Time News, Traffic

Passenger rail advocates in Ohio don’t want to be left at the station as an unprecedented $8 billion in economic stimulus funds are distributed for high-speed and intercity rail projects.

All Aboard Ohio, a nonprofit organization promoting rail, has asked the Ohio Department of Transportation to go after $400 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation for 10 projects, including $250 million to establish passenger rail service on existing tracks between Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati.

“Ohio has as much a chance as anybody else,” said Ken Prendergast, the organization’s interim executive director. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

ODOT must submit a strategic plan by April 18, 60 days after President Barack Obama signed the stimulus bill into law, Prendergast said. The Federal Railroad Administration will distribute the funds to state transportation departments. The money, which does not have to be matched with any local or state dollars, is available through Sept. 30, 2012, the longest time frame in the stimulus plan.

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Posted in Rail X-ing | 14 Comments

14 Responses

on February 24, 2009 at 9:46 pm | Reply Jeff

John, does the fact that this money is for passenger rail on existing tracks differ from the 3-C plans at all? And what is top speed on these tracks?
on February 24, 2009 at 10:07 pm | Reply johnwirtz

Jeff,
The 3C plan is indeed for passenger rail on existing tracks. I can’t tell you what the current top speed on the tracks is, but it really doesn’t matter. Some minimum amount of work would take place to upgrade the ties, curves, signals, gates, etc… You might want to take a look at The Ohio Hub Plan. It calculated capital costs for three scenarios in section 2.10; 79 MPH, 90 MPH, and 110 MPH.
on February 25, 2009 at 9:31 am | Reply Bruce Rawson

Wonderful! Passenger rail with out matching dollars? The only way Ohio could move foreward. Write your representatives to make shure ODOT doesn’t drop the ball!
on February 25, 2009 at 10:48 am | Reply Ryan

The map that the link shows can’t possibly be accurate, unless they’re going to relay track from Mansfield to Galion and add some kind of connection from the old C&O to the Big Four tracks in Marion (currently, there’s no way to switch from west-bound CSX to south-bound NS or CSX at the Marion union station and I doubt there’s enough land to make one). Not sure where they came up with that map…
on February 25, 2009 at 10:50 am | Reply johnwirtz

I didn’t like the map either. That’s why I didn’t include it in the post. There has been a lot of crying from Mansfield and Akron that they’re not on the route, but the tracks are where they are.
on February 25, 2009 at 11:14 pm | Reply Noozer

Actually, I’m told Akron and Canton are among the route “scenarios” presented to Amtrak for the 3-C study. It would have been easier if the old Erie Railroad Mainline still existed between Canton & Mansfield, but there are still rail connections that can be made to make it possible. It would take some major upgrading of the rails, trackbeds and signals, but it is possible.
on February 25, 2009 at 11:48 pm | Reply johnwirtz

Wow, that surprises me Nooz. I’m sure Mansfield would generate more traffic than Galion and I’m sure a Canton-Akron-Cleveland commuter rail route would be great, but that diversion seems like a sure-fire way to slow down a trip from Columbus to Cleveland. Also, this would leave out Cleveland Hopkins airport, which seems like an important modal transfer to me. Of course, going to Springfield and Dayton on the way to Cincinnati seems a bit out of the way too. I’ll leave it to the travel demand modelers to decide.
on February 28, 2009 at 1:23 am | Reply Bruce Rawson

Cleveland Plain Dealer, 2/27/09, B3: headline: GOP wants to wait for Amtrak study of rail plan. “They want the state to wait until a study by Amtrak has been completed in August before moving a muscle on the 3C Corridor… the Republicans lack the votes to slow down the project. House Democrats and rail advocates worry that if the state doesn’t move foreward, Ohio could miss out on federal dollars for the conventional speed rail plan… Larry Davis, president of the Ohio Trucking Association, said his group also has concerns about the rail project. They are concerned that federal highway dollars may be funneled by the state for…(to)… the 3C Corridor project- something that ODOT officials have denied will happen in this budget.” We need to ask ourselves: aren’t the republicans simply interested in tripping up the 3C project so their highway contractor pals can scoop the $250 million?
on February 28, 2009 at 10:06 am | Reply johnwirtz

The article in the original post stated that the money is available through September 30, 2012. It’s just that a strategic plan for the money has to be submitted by the April 18, 2009 deadline. I say proceed with the strategic plan to secure the funds, wait for the Amtrak study in August, and then if Ohio is awarded the grant and if the Amtrak study is acceptable, start spending the money. It seems like it would be foolish to pass up the funds completely to wait for an Amtrak study when the Ohio Hub plan has already done so much research.
on March 3, 2009 at 5:49 pm | Reply BruceMcF

I’ve read much of the most recent ORDC Ohio Hub plans, and while it is all in existing rail RIGHT OF WAY, it is only partially on existing tracks … where using a right of way with heavy freight usage, it is new track, where sharing a lightly used single track freight line, the design envelope is 10 miles of passenger passing track for each 50 miles of line.

BTW, the map in the PDealer is just a schematic, the real maps are at the ORDC Ohio Hub site:

Ohio Hub Maps
on March 3, 2009 at 8:15 pm | Reply Noozer

Some Republican members of the Ohio General Assembly don’t want to proceed with the ORDC strategic plan. That was evident in their questions today in the House Finance Committee. They feel we should wait until the Amtrak study is done on the 3-C…. which ultimately means Ohio falls further behind other states in what will be a stiff competition for federal dollars from both the Stimulus Act and the upcoming federal transportation bill.

The best strategy now is to aim your e-mails and phone calls at the members of the Ohio Senate and particularly at the GOP members. Not all are necessarily opposed, but unless they hear from advocates, they will likely fall into line to vote no.

All Aboard Ohio has posted an advocacy portal to assist in that effort:

http://209.51.133.155/cms/index.php/content/advocacy
on March 5, 2009 at 12:27 am | Reply Paul

Ohio needs rail badly. Please proceed with this project.
We need an alternative to driving. This rail project is open-ended, if you build the high speed rail, then businesses
will crop up in those places, it feeds tourism, creates jobs,
reduces oil consumption, etc. You can’t go wrong with it.
on March 5, 2009 at 4:25 pm | Reply Stu Nicholson

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 5, 2009
Contact:Ken Prendergast All Aboard Ohio Interim Executive Director (216) 288-4883 kenprendergast@allaboardohio.org

Ohio’s general fund could see millions of dollars in savings in the first year after the introduction of passenger rail service linking the state capital with Ohioâ’s other largest cities. That’s the finding of All Aboard Ohio, a nonprofit educational organization, which analyzed state employees expenditures and policies for travel.

See the analysis at:http://members.cox.net/neotrans/3C_state_business_travel.pdf

The benefit would be even greater if Ohio used a federal grant rather than state funding to support the operating costs of modern passenger trains in the Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati (3-C) Corridor.

Ohio is eligible to fully fund 3-C Corridor operating costs with federal dollars,said All Aboard Ohio Executive Director Ken Prendergast.

Ohio can also free up millions of dollars from the general fund that used to go for state employee travel expenses and instead use them for education,vocational training and other important programs. And with 3-C Corridor trains, more Ohioans who aren’t physically or financially able to drive can reach these educational, employment and related opportunities.

This idea isn’t new. The State of Illinois has a reduced-rate Amtrak fare for intra-state train travel. Each time a state employee (including teachers and administrators at state universities) books the state-rate fare, $50 from the general fund is deposited into a passenger rail development fund.

Ohio spends more than $12 million per year to operate a State Motor Vehicle Pool, cars and vans used for state-related business travel around Ohio. Many more state employees are reimbursed for travel made in their own cars, Prendergast noted.

In All Aboard Ohio’s analysis, it found that one state employee traveling round-trip between Cleveland and Columbus cost the state $226. This didn’t include costs of overtime or parking. If that same employee took the train, if it were available, the state would save $184 in direct transportation costs and improved productivity.

If just 50 state employees took the train each day in the entire 3-C Corridor to conduct state business, the state could save $2.3 million per year. If 100 state employees took the train per day, the state could save $4.6 million annually.

Should the state secure a federal grant to pay for 3-C passenger rail operations, the entirety of those savings would go back into the state’s general fund. It isn’t known how many employees are traveling per day in the 3-C Corridor but it is likely in the hundreds,Prendergast said.
Not only is the train much less expensive than driving or even taking the bus, employees cannot do any work while they drive but are getting paid as if they are at work, Prendergas said. If train service was available, they could safely use telecommunications and work on a laptop computer.

Routinely, state employees tell us they must use overtime to get caught up on work which was set aside while they were driving to and from meetings.

This isn’t nostalgia or romance. It’s smart public finance.
END
on March 6, 2009 at 1:57 pm | Reply BruceMcF

One thing to add to what All Aboard said … what is being sought for the Ohio Hub is mostly capital investment … it might need some operating subsidy for the first few years, as most new systems need some time to build up ridership, but it will only need ongoing operating subsidies if established as a 79mph system … the 110mph system offers sufficiently short travel times to be self-supporting, and since the Triple-C corridor is the strongest corridor on the system, it will reach an operating surplus the fastest.