Governor defends plans for passenger rail | The Columbus Dispatch

I'm sure it will bring alot of jobs to Ohio with train upkeep and track upkeep and so on. Wait a minute is CSX hiring?

Good for the Governor. He's right that it's about the future. We need to start getting things in place for when oil is permanently above $100/bbl. and people need to travel.

Polls consistently show that 80% of Ohians want us to develop trains. I think the GOP is frustrated that Strickland has done a better job of cutting spending than their candidates did and is trying to use this to distract people. Even with this train, Strickland is still the biggest spending cutter in 30 years.

Just looking at the 'success' of COTA in this town (subsidized because it doesn't make any money), and AMTRAK (no longer in service here because IT didn't make any money), sure! I'll get on board a train that's going to cost me more money to go on it than if I drive to cleveland, and it's going to take me twice as long to get there riding the train rather than driving. Oh! Not to mention having to rent a car when I get there. Makes perfect financial sense to me to have MY tax dollars that we know will fund more unsustainable union wages, health benefits, sick time, several weeks paid vacation and ten holidays and overinflated pensions! I'm down with that! ALL ABOARD!!

Passenger rail service will be an important part of Ohio's transportation infrastructure and we'll look back in 15 to 20 years and be grateful for this "seed money" investment. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will a fully functioning system with service throughout each of the three C's.

anonymous wrote:

Two questions:
1. Is it really true that passenger trains in the U.S. can't go faster than like 79 mph, because of federal regulations, and if so
2. Why not make the majority of the trains that run on this track express trains, without stops between the major cities? Instead of averaging 39 mph, they could average 79, and more people would ride because the C cities are going to be where most of the riders come from anyway.

Answer:

1. No. The speed depends upon the grade of the lines. The speed limits for different grades currently are 79 mph, 110 mph, and 139 mph. The 3C will start out at 79 mph and be upgraded to 110 mph by 2016.

2. Because congressman like to lobby for stops in their Districts in order to support the funding.

When the oil runs out wrote:

In day to day existence, it is normal to consider the plans of change to be extravagant...not worth the effort.....
What is not realized day to day realities change. Consider $8 to $10 per gallon gasoline. Your kid goes to college at UC, or BW. You moved to Pickerington. The economy is in another recession. Choices to transport the children to school are available to you the parent. It now costs $200.00 per car trip in your SUV that has gained a fuel efficiency of 20 miles per gallon. You tell the college student child don't come home to see your boyfriend, it's just too expensive.
Choices for the kids are the bus, car-pool, shuttle vans, hitchhiking, hiking, well maybe not all reasonable choices.
How about the train ? With the lack of planning, there is o train to take, it does not exist in the $8 to $10 per gallon day, it ws not considered prudent Feb 24, 2010.
With planning, a great choice is available, safe, efficient, much less expensive,(if viewed in future costs), environmentally significant, scenic, fast, historic, plausible, needed, desired, sensible and on and on. Applaud today and its blessing, but look to the future, see the need America, OHIO, fill it, just do it.

Will we really care what was going on when the bomb goes off. No matter what planning we do, will it really matter? NO it won't. The point is, preparing for the worse is not fiscally sound. The oil was supposed to run out in the 20's, then the 70's. It's all the same End of the World scare. My concern is, with all the oil being sucked out of the ground, what is filling up the space left behind. Someday the world may just collapse - lol

Macktrapper wrote:

<quoted text>
It was exactly your kind of thinking that got California in the mess they are in financially. So you want to turn Ohio into California?

I disagree. California's problem is almost entirely the result of a combination of unfunded, mandated ballot referendums and a legislature that refuses to fund them when they're passed.

Gotta be open-minded wrote:

I think it's hard to predict the long term benefit that rail service might provide to the state. No doubt, when it first opens, if the trains only run at 40mph it won't be popular or profitable. However, long-term, if we don't make an effort to try this, we may regret it. If we don't take the $400M it will go somewhere else like CA. CA isn't passing on this opportunity and they have much higher debt and more problems than we do. Rail works in Europe, it could eventually work here too.

Rail works in Europe for a number of reasons. First they have trains that run from city to city and trains that run inside major cities. Second, Europeans are not in a love affair with their cars, they're fine sitting on a train. Also they have stricter rules about times and schedules. Further they had trains that went 39 miles an hour 50 years ago, if we want to make this attractive we have to do it better. Otherwise it will fail before it gets the chance to fly. I would love to be able to commute by train, but for nwo it's not in the cards until someone who knows what they're doing is in charge.

Taxes2death wrote:

Just looking at the 'success' of COTA in this town (subsidized because it doesn't make any money),

How much has the north outerbelt been subsidized? How much money does the north outerbelt make? We've been spending an average of $180 million per year on the north outerbelt. If we just stopped working on the north outebelt for 1 year, we could fund this train for 10 years. Then we could finish rebuilding the north outerbelt the next year, and the next and the next...

anonymous wrote:

Two questions:
1. Is it really true that passenger trains in the U.S. can't go faster than like 79 mph, because of federal regulations, and if so
2. Why not make the majority of the trains that run on this track express trains, without stops between the major cities? Instead of averaging 39 mph, they could average 79, and more people would ride because the C cities are going to be where most of the riders come from anyway.

The speed the train can go is dependent upon what the trains and tracks were designed for. The system were building is rated to be max 79mph (39 mph is the average speed including the stops). It just costs a lot more to upgrade to actual high speed rail. That is why they are building the basic infrastructure like grading the land for tracks, building stations, ect. Now to upgrade high speed rail its much more reasonable. We have to start somewhere.

Faster than a Highway wrote:

Do people not fully read articles? These trains will go 70 mph between the cities, which last time I checked is 5 mph faster than the current speed limit on the highways. The 40 mph stat that keeps getting thrown out there is an average speed over a trip from Cleveland to Cincinnati, or visa versa, which includes stops in Columbus and Dayton on the way.
I wish people would bother understanding the facts before posting nonsense on a message board.

What in the world is the difference? So you go a little faster along the cornfields between Cleveland and Columbus. On average you're still moving 39 MPH. On a typical drive for me between Columbus and Cleveland I travel 65-70MPH. Again, that's AVERAGE. Sometimes, I go over the limit, and sometimes I go under. That, and I can leave whenever I want--not reliant on a static train schedule--and if I need to stay over for a meeting, I don't have to worry about missing the train.

Interesting fact. the 8 billion dollar high speed rail stimulus averages out to 26.67 per person in the country. That's pretty high. Except in ohio our 11 million people only account for 293 million of that 8 billion dollars. As a state we're getting over $100 million more than we're putting in.

I say we take it before its off the table and instead of netting 100 million extra than we put it, we lose our 293 million in tax money to another state.

If Gov. Strickland was a wise man,he would scrap the 3C train plan, which is dead end. The future demands a bit more forward thinking than re-inventing the wheel.

Personally I'm thrilled about it. We're going to pay taxes regardless, why not something that helps people commute? It must be nice that you all have the gas money to make 2 and 3 hours commutes one way every day and have such stable jobs that you don't need to look outside the city, but for us middle and lower class people, this might lend a helping hand!

What about I-74 and I-73? If they want to put $400 million in transportation money to good use, that would do it. Extending a couple new interstate corridors in this state could be done for that amount, and the return on the investment will see a completely underdeveloped part of the state (dare I say the last underdeveloped part of the state) take off economically as two interstates go through it and connect to I-64. The return to the state would be phenomenal.

Not to mention... hardly anyone uses public transportation for long distance travel in the US, and probably ever will. Its a terrible idea to invest so much money in an idea contrary to the culture of how we travel in this country. Its like keeping Amtrak afloat in the first place... how much money did that cost the government? This will only add to that cost, because almost nobody will use this train, and it will have enormous maintenance costs.

It's just a better idea to finish what's been started. I-73 and I-74 have been on the drawing board to run across the US for decades, but nobody's ever done anything with them with few exceptions. Having Ohio take the lead in building them would open up southeast Ohio to the rest of the state by interstate, and would also have other states like West Virginia, and the eastern US opened more directly to Ohio by interstate. It's just a good idea to do this.

this would be a great thing for cols. stick to your guns governor.

This change is crazy. 400 million will only cover a study and plan. Another 15 billion would be needed to complete this even with the use of existing track. Then the taxpayers will have to foot the subsidies each year as it will never pay for itself. Personally, I have no desire to pay for someone else's transportation, which we already do now.

Moving here from St Louis two years, they added an 8 mile stretch to the Metro train there. Price tag was 850 million. Do the math.

Let's embrace not going into more debt for a change...why stick our necks out for something that will cost us more to use (parking, cab fare, etc) based on the proposed rail routes than it would to just use our own cars.
Ever think of not shipping jobs overseas to create more jobs??

The 400 mil would be better used to build some sort of elevated system that runs above. The money would build several "towers".Freight and passenger will never work on the same tracks.Build it above the existing system that already connects major cities and all states could tie into it. Speed would not be a problem.300-400 MPH wouldn't hurt anything except birds now and then. That system would be cheaper and safer to run after it is established.Freight got rid of passenger service and it would again. More revenue in freight.

This is not the governors idea. It is the idea of the scammers who will get rich with this agenda. A successful politician is one who can get agendas moved into place........ this governor should be impeached for breach of trust, as dosent he know it, like everyone else that we are BROKE!