(The following story by Tom Troy appeared on the Toledo Blade website on February 27, 2009.)
TOLEDO, Ohio — An intermodal yard in South Toledo – where containers would be off-loaded from trains to trucks and shipped to new warehouses – has emerged as one of the city’s targets for attracting money from the federal stimulus package now being opened in Columbus.
“One individual project that we spent a fair amount of time discussing was the intermodal proposal which we’ve been talking about for a couple of decades,” Mayor Carty Finkbeiner said yesterday as he recounted his trip to the state capital Wednesday to lobby for a share of the $787 billion stimulus plan.
“We needed to make that presentation personally rather than mail it in,” he said, referring to the $333 million worth of projects he and two associates pitched in Columbus.
The arrival of stimulus money coincides with a developing consensus locally to expand the Airline Junction rail shipping yard at Hill Avenue and Fearing Boulevard into a full-fledged intermodal site with cranes.
Airline Junction is where Norfolk Southern Corp.’s main east-west line meets the line to Detroit. The $13.2 million expansion would create more sidings so more trains can be stopped and unloaded without slowing down east-west traffic on the line.
The project is expected to create about 800 spin-off jobs and spur $28 million in small manufacturing and warehouse development in a five-mile radius.
Richard Martinko, director of the University of Toledo’s Intermodal Transportation Institute, said Norfolk-Southern has committed to invest up to $5 million, which would be added to an $8.1 million commitment from the public sector.
“My understanding is as soon as the funding spigot is turned on they are ready to begin work,” Mr. Martinko said.
Mr. Martinko and Jerry Chabler, a member of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority board of directors, are members of the Mayor’s Joint Intermodal Task Force and traveled with the mayor to meet with Governor Strickland’s chief of staff, John Haseley, and other officials Wednesday.
Mr. Chabler said the goal of the meeting was to make an impression on behalf of northwest Ohio.
“It was a good meeting, one of the best I’ve ever been to, and I feel it will bear fruit in the future,” Mr. Chabler said.
Officials are still just guessing how the stimulus money will be distributed.
“We don’t know what the rules are yet. We believe the major two criteria are that they want something that can be started pretty quickly, and they want something that will have an impact,” said David Amstutz, development director for Mayor Finkbeiner.
Also unclear is how much of the $787 billion will be available to Ohio entities. The federal package has $8.2 billion directed to Ohio, much of it dedicated to the Medicaid program, schools, and the state budget.
The mayor’s list of projects includes $11.7 million to pay up to 50 additional police officers for three years, which would be presented directly to the federal government.