Ohioans wonder whether new rail line will be too slow, underutilized

[Evergrey]

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/politics...ail-naysayers/

Governor lashes out at rail naysayers


From the Associated Press:

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland is lashing out at critics of the state’s plan to use $400 million in federal stimulus money for a startup rail service, calling them “cheerleaders for failure.”

Strickland said Tuesday he’s tired of people who attack every idea that comes along and always look for something negative to say.

The governor says that’s not the way to move Ohio forward.

Strickland, a Democrat running for re-election, says the plan will create at least 8,000 jobs and is a first step toward building a passenger rail infrastructure.

Some Republicans have questioned the plan, and newspapers have been full of letters to the editor on the topic, some supportive, some critical.

...

[LMich]

I love Strickland. Talk about not pulling any punches. Seriously, we've been debating this for decades; it's time to stop talking and start doing. In the time we've dragged our feet, nations have built entire comprehensive/uniform and modern rail systems, and some are now even onto connecting lower tier cities.

[tallboy66]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

Cleveland is larger than St. Louis, FYI while Columbus is Ohio's third biggest metropolitan area. And Ohio is one of the most urbanized states (along with New Jersey) in this country so that doesn't make any sense but then again nothing you wrote made sense.

Yes Ohio,the state, has a good population but it has small to medium sized cities.
Cleveland has 400,000,Cincinnati, 300,000 or so Columbus has 700,000 the metro areas which include so much space to get the population up to the millions would be completely useless for high speed rail without connecting commuter service or some kind of parking areas similar to airports.

Illinois has 12 million in it 6+ mill. live in the Chicago area. Ohio has 11+ mill. which is spread between Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati,Dayton, Toledo... no real big cities to be a hub for high speed rail.

The Chicago commuter rail, The Metra has an approx. WEEKLY ridership that is more than the population of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati combined and without any other type of commuter rail, which Cleveland and Dayton both sort of of have it would be useless except to get from one side of the state to the other with a stop in Columbus for the Ohio State kids.

[mhays]

I don't think you grasp the irrelevance of municipal populations.

[LMich]

That and that hub-and-spoke isn't the only successful layout for a transit system of any kind.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by tallboy66

Yes Ohio,the state, has a good population but it has small to medium sized cities.
Cleveland has 400,000,Cincinnati, 300,000 or so Columbus has 700,000 the metro areas which include so much space to get the population up to the millions would be completely useless for high speed rail without connecting commuter service or some kind of parking areas similar to airports.

Where are you getting your population figures from?

Per Wikipedia:
Ohio 11,542,645
Cleveland
City 433,748, Metro 2,250,871
Mansfield
City 49,579, Metro 124,999
Columbus
City 754,885, Metro 1,773,120
Dayton
City 166,179, Metro 848,153
Cincinnati
City 333,336, Metro 2,155,137

Total population near the Ohio 3C train stations:
City 1,737,727, Metro 7,152,280
That's 62% of the total population of the state within one county of the railroad tracks, and I haven't yet accounted for the rural counties along the corridor.

[ColDayMan]

He's an idiot. Leave him alone.

[Cleveland Brown]

Originally Posted by tallboy66

Yes Ohio,the state, has a good population but it has small to medium sized cities.
Cleveland has 400,000,Cincinnati, 300,000 or so Columbus has 700,000 the metro areas which include so much space to get the population up to the millions would be completely useless for high speed rail without connecting commuter service or some kind of parking areas similar to airports.

Illinois has 12 million in it 6+ mill. live in the Chicago area. Ohio has 11+ mill. which is spread between Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati,Dayton, Toledo... no real big cities to be a hub for high speed rail.

The Chicago commuter rail, The Metra has an approx. WEEKLY ridership that is more than the population of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati combined and without any other type of commuter rail, which Cleveland and Dayton both sort of of have it would be useless except to get from one side of the state to the other with a stop in Columbus for the Ohio State kids.

Ohio is a much more interconnected state, than many of it's peers. The demand is there for transportation between the cities, as evidenced by the expansion of the highways linking them and the fact that even the private sector realizes that greater passenger service is needed to connect the cities.

[tallboy66]

Originally Posted by mhays

I don't think you grasp the irrelevance of municipal populations.

Yes I do, and as soon as Ohio stops trying to include a 6 county region at 2 million and call it a big city and Columbus keeps comparing itself to NYC why because they have a minor league team owned by the Yankees, so... last time I checked Ohio was in the Midwest NOT the East coast.

As far as the western states having high speed it makes sense too, because at 110 or higher you can zip across the state(s) and be in Vegas, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon or take a nice sleep and end up in California.

[tallboy66]

Originally Posted by electricron

Where are you getting your population figures from?

Per Wikipedia:
Ohio 11,542,645
Cleveland
City 433,748, Metro 2,250,871
Mansfield
City 49,579, Metro 124,999
Columbus
City 754,885, Metro 1,773,120
Dayton
City 166,179, Metro 848,153
Cincinnati
City 333,336, Metro 2,155,137

Total population near the Ohio 3C train stations:
City 1,737,727, Metro 7,152,280
That's 62% of the total population of the state within one county of the railroad tracks, and I haven't yet accounted for the rural counties along the corridor.

Sounds about right but you're not going to have high speed rail STATIONS in rural areas only in major cities, remember this thing is starting at 110mph, true high speed is more like 200+mph.
A city like Mansfield is an outhouse on the high speed line, oh wow 50,000 people the Neighborhood I live in in Chicago has almost that much, what your looking at is finally getting a north/south Amtrak line to connect the cities together.

[ColDayMan]

Originally Posted by tallboy66

Yes I do, and as soon as Ohio stops trying to include a 6 county region at 2 million and call it a big city and Columbus keeps comparing itself to NYC why because they have a minor league team owned by the Yankees, so... last time I checked Ohio was in the Midwest NOT the East coast.

As far as the western states having high speed it makes sense too, because at 110 or higher you can zip across the state(s) and be in Vegas, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon or take a nice sleep and end up in California.

Again, you're an idiot.

Chicagoland is also more than a 6 county region. Maybe it should just be Cook County by your logic.

No one in Columbus compares itself to New York. That's just you and your delusional mind. And last I checked, the Columbus Clippers were Washington's minor league team.

And last I checked, Ohio bordered the Midwest, the Northeast, Canada, and the South. All the more reason why we need HSR in this state. And your justification to connect national parks versus why a state of 11.5 million people doesn't need rail is even more...idiotic.

Sounds about right but you're not going to have high speed rail STATIONS in rural areas only in major cities, remember this thing is starting at 110mph, true high speed is more like 200+mph.
A city like Mansfield is an outhouse on the high speed line, oh wow 50,000 people the Neighborhood I live in in Chicago has almost that much, what your looking at is finally getting a north/south Amtrak line to connect the cities together.

Well, you just said As far as the western states having high speed it makes sense too, because at 110 or higher you can zip across the state and yet remember this thing is starting at 110mph, true high speed is more like 200+mph, which means you don't know what the hell you're talking about. And yes, Mansfield is probably the size of Lakeview in Chicago but Chicago is damn near the size of Brooklyn in New York. Maybe they should stop wasting time on Chicago and spending more money on improving HSR between the DSW Shoes in Atlantic Yards going to the Co-op City JC Penney's in the Bronx instead. Since it has more population and all...

Good God, where do we find these people at?!?!?

[tallboy66]

OK.
The Columbus Clippers used to be owned by the Yankees( when I lived there for a God forsaken year.)
Columbus used to have an Amtrak train station too.

The point of rail travel is that you don't have to drive, you just sit and let the scenery go by.
I can make it downstate 120+ miles or so in 2 hrs or 2 and a half at worst on Amtrak.
The WORST time I ever had was 3 hrs going into Chicago on a weekend night.
So Amtrak going north/south in Ohio will be fine.
Now let's stop fighting and Go Blue.

[Jasonhouse]

Seriously...

[SuburbanNation]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

Cleveland is larger than St. Louis, FYI while Columbus is Ohio's third biggest metropolitan area. And Ohio is one of the most urbanized states (along with New Jersey) in this country so that doesn't make any sense but then again nothing you wrote made sense.

Not to split hairs, but the St. Louis CSA (which has very slowly caught up) only has a few thousand less people than the Cleveland CSA now according to the recent census estimate, and the StL MSA is 800,000 people more than the Cleveland MSA, which seems important to the nature of your argument. Unlike northeast Ohio, we don't have any close in minor metropolitan areas to boost our CSA, so our CSA and our MSA is very similar. All in all I consider them similar in status/size, but to put it lightly, Metropolitan Cleveland isn't at all larger than Metropolitan St. Louis in a real sense.

[ColDayMan]

I didn't mean to imply Cleveland was a much bigger area than St. Louis but I was strictly talking CSA. But to be fair to Cleveland, Northeast Ohio has many smaller MSA's (Akron, Youngstown, Canton) that generally use Cleveland as their hub. The MSA in Cleveland's sense would be an inaccurate portrayal though for St. Louis it'd make perfect sense as they are the only "island" out there.

[SuburbanNation]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

I didn't mean to imply Cleveland was a much bigger area than St. Louis but I was strictly talking CSA. But to be fair to Cleveland, Northeast Ohio has many smaller MSA's (Akron, Youngstown, Canton) that generally use Cleveland as their hub. The MSA in Cleveland's sense would be an inaccurate portrayal though for St. Louis it'd make perfect sense as they are the only "island" out there.

Correction, the STL MSA is around 600,000 more than Clevelands, not 800,000. Admittedly, I don't know much about how northeast Ohio functions (like Akrons relationship with Cleveland and how important MSA is in an highly urbanized state like Ohio) other than on Pierogi and that I can't find one around here to save my life other than summer festivals.

[bnk]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/politics...ail-naysayers/

• Video Link

Good job by Strickland. Too bad my image of him is nodding his head up and down behind HRC giving the" Shame on you, Barack Obama !!! Meet me in Ohio "tirade. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UwSuhIaTHU

[jmecklenborg]

It's back, thanks to the infrastructure bill.
https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/clevela...passenger-rail

[202_Cyclist]

That might be the worst looking map I've seen.

[mrnyc]

^ i’ll say! it’s very strange lol.

and rail is definitely not back with that regressive governor dewine. no chance.

also the longest sitting female congressperson marcy kaptur is actively trying to get a passenger line along lake erie too as her legacy. yet no mention of that? won’t happen either.