(The following story by Jim Provance appeared on the Toledo Blade website on February 27, 2009.)
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Proposed changes to Gov. Ted Strickland’s two-year transportation budget would require the state to study the economic feasibility of direct passenger rail service between Toledo and Columbus.
The language developed in the Ohio House stops short of mandating development of such a line to complement the one being immediately pushed by Mr. Strickland to connect Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland.
“The reality is the best railroad station already constructed is in Toledo,” said Rep. Peter Ujvagi (D., Toledo), chairman of the committee’s transportation subcommittee. “The largest number of Amtrak passengers [from Ohio] is in Toledo. From there, you have the opportunity to connect to Detroit and Canada.”
The language was added yesterday to the House Finance Committee’s revision of Mr. Strickland’s transportation budget, which requires the state to pursue restoration of passenger service from Cincinnati to Cleve-
land. Slower-speed service would begin on an existing freight line with the goal of eventually upgrading to high-speed rail.
Separate from the governor’s two-year $54.7 billion plan for the rest of state government, the transportation budget is to be sent to the full House as early as next week.
The likely funding source for the rail project is about $9 million included in the recently enacted federal economic stimulus package for rail development in Ohio.
The bill still includes Mr. Strickland’s priorities of authorizing the Ohio Department of Transportation and regional transportation authorities to impose tolls on newly constructed roads and bridges.
The bill also would allow police for the first time to pull over drivers for the sole reason of failing to wear seat belts, authorize the use of controversial traffic cameras to enforce speed limits in construction zones, and mandate that drivers use headlights whenever conditions require the use of windshield wipers.
Language in Mr. Strickland’s original budget called for the funding of environmental impact studies into other potential passenger rail lines, including a Toledo-Columbus corridor. But the revised version would take the Toledo-Columbus line a step further by requiring completion of an economic study. The proposed Toledo-Columbus route would use freight tracks now operated by CSX Transportation Corp., as would the Cleveland-Columbus section of the Three-C’s corridor.
Bob Sullivan, a CSX spokesman, said the railroad is open to discussion about passenger service, but cautioned that any project would have to address passenger safety, cost, rail capacity, and liability. In particular, he said, CSX’s exposure to liability could not be increased by any introduction of passenger service. With that understanding, he said, “we’re certainly willing to discuss it.”
The CSX tracks between Cleveland and Greenwich, Ohio, northeast of Columbus on the Three C’s Corridor, are among the busiest on the company’s system, hosting dozens of freight trains daily on part of its route linking Chicago with New York and New England.
The other CSX stretches that the passenger-rail plan proposes to use have half as many, or fewer, daily freight trains, but also have less capacity to handle passenger trains and would need tracks and signals to accommodate them. Except for the end points in Toledo, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, stations would have to be built at all stops along the routes.
“Given the fact that there are direct [transportation] routes to the state capital from every major city in the state except Toledo, I think the language specific to Toledo was warranted,” said House Speaker Pro Tempore Matt Szollosi (D., Oregon), who is not a finance committee member.
Rep. Clyde Evans, a Republican from rural Gallia County, said he is open to the rail concept. But he questioned the wisdom of authorizing a passenger rail line when so many questions remain unanswered.
“I don’t know how anybody could vote on this with no more information than we have,” he said. “We don’t know how much it’s going to cost to subsidize this. It might take money from other projects. As for those who say, ‘If you build it, they will come,’ that’s a movie that was centered on a dream. I suppose if we vote on this, we’re going to be voting on a dream.”
Amtrak is expected to complete a study, including cost estimates, of the Cincinnati-Cleveland corridor by late summer.
As it now reads, the bill requires the state to work with Amtrak to improve existing service between Toledo and Cleveland while also working toward adding service to Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati. For Mr. Ujvagi, that would mean a train traveling through Toledo during the day and not just the wee hours of the morning.