PHS14

Amtrak officials tell me otherwise. A daily Cardinal is actually looking better now that coal traffic is way down, CSX has built three passing sidings between Cincinnati and Chicago, and the FAST Act includes Sec. 11104 which we expect to have an appropriation in FY2017. But thanks for your concern. What are the Cincinnati ridership numbers on the Cardinal?

Obviously the focus of the Cardinal line is not Cincinnati despite its metro size.

Doesn't look good for Cincinnati having expanded Amtrak service, let alone a high-speed line to Chicago. Do you got some details or what? This was a respone to Sherman Cahal's gloomy post. Geez.

You need to keep up with KJP's response to my posts regarding this topic. For some reason, he doesn't convey the same info to you or Sherman Cahal. Sounds like you all need to group focus on this Amtrak-CIN topic so us lay-folks can decide who has spin or actual facts.

Amtrak officials tell me otherwise. A daily Cardinal is actually looking better now that coal traffic is way down, CSX has built three passing sidings between Cincinnati and Chicago, and the FAST Act includes Sec. 11104 which we expect to have an appropriation in FY2017. But thanks for your concern. You're welcome. Hopefully, Sherman Cahal reads this since he or she is the one putting out the downer news on this issue.

Doesn't look good for Cincinnati having expanded Amtrak service, let alone a high-speed line to Chicago.

The Senior Games ''flame'' thing on Mall B is much worse than these paper mache designs. The ''flame'' completely mars the sloping lawn vista. Looks like its rusting away. Get rid of this eyesore before attacking these Mall C designs.

Megabus has been chopping Midwest routes regardless of ridership. If they don't make enough money for shareholders, they're gone. The Cleveland-Chicago route has been one of their most successful and they've chopped it down to one round trip a day. The Pittsburgh-Detroit route was a tremendous success ridership-wise but Megabus completely eliminated it after only two years because it wasn't profitable enough. You really need to read up on what happened with this project behind the scenes (much of which I've already posted in this thread). But to save you from sifting through 157 pages... Gov. Kasich knows zip about passenger rail. He has no experience with it nor did any of his advisers. But they do listen to another major employer with campaign money. So CSX came to his campaign staff with check in hand in 2010 and told them to kill the 3C passenger trains because ODOT wasn't investing enough in new track capacity to accommodate their projected growth in freight traffic. Kaisch's campaign staff and advisers (include an active petroleum retailers lobbyist) concocted the lies about it being a 39 mph train and went to the editorial boards of major newspapers to affect their editorial content. So when Forest City Enterprises and Value Recovery Group planned a major real estate development at Riverside, next the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, they wanted a 3-C station with it. The value-capture from that development alone would have more than funded the annual operating subsidy of the 3C trains. Plus there were other station-area developments planned in downtown Springfield, Dayton and Sharonville (suburban Cincy station). There were numerous attempts to change the minds of Kasich's campaign staff as well at get news coverage of this value-capture mechanism but to no avail. Kasich was making political headway with the 39 mph 3C train and the whole "stop Obama's slow trains" mantra. Meanwhile Ohio remains as the nation's most populous state without a state-support passenger rail program. All of our surrounding states except Kentucky have passenger rail programs, with 110 mph service in operation or under construction next year. And by the way, Kasich also killed the state and federal engineering funds to design the increase in speeds of the 3C trains to 110 mph in phase 2. That's an interesting story but the 3C high-speed rail line did not happen. I've suggested letting this go since Kasich will use turning down Obama train money and pointing to Megabus failure for even more political mileage.

He didn't becoming a growth opportunity and considered it to be a boondoggle of cost, expense and long-term maintenance see it gaining traction politically. FTFY You can play edit games all you want but the reasons stated go hand in hand with gaining traction politically. He will gain political traction if the All Aboard Ohio types bring up the 3C rail nonsense; a plan he killed and can then point to bus service not being able to survive.

Perhaps Cincinnati should develop quality local public transit service before expanding to high or any speed train lines to any destination. I hear more about CIN efforts to gain more service and higher-speed rail access to Chicago than to Cleveland anyway. If the demand was there already, why is Amtrak only hitting CIN on a very limited weekly basis? What is the rational for high-speed service to Chicago?

He didn't see it becoming a growth opportunity and considered it to be a boondoggle of cost, expense and long-term maintenance.

Didn't think demand was an issue but financing may be so it's best to get as many projects financed, the sooner the better. Another real estate bubble is percolating out there.

Still, how much would a train ticket on a high-speed line cost to get to Columbus vs. a Megabus style ride or simply driving? Once in a place like Columbus, or even Cincinnati, how is one to get to their final destination unless it's right near a train station? Right, Megabus was cancelled due to a lack of demand. That's how business works. No demand, no service. Yet, somehow a vastly more expensive high-speed train line linking the 3Cs was going to work and sustain itself when even Megabus couldn't survive? I'm a public transit supporter but this whole high-speed train line from CLE-CIN never really made economic sense. The high-speed train cancel by Kasich issue should be dropped, and quickly. First, remember that the train Kasich killed would not have been high speed, but rather similar to the speed of driving, and the ticket prices would have been lower accordingly. But we have to start with that "slow speed" train and incrementally improve it to ever hope to get high speed travel. Watch what is happening on the Chicago-St. Louis corridor and the Detroit-Chicago corridor. Ohio is not leading the midwest in improved travel between its major cities. If I had business that took me from Cincinnati to Cleveland (or let's say Avon), I'd much rather take the train and sleep or work, and then rent a car or take a taxi to my final destination, than to waste an entire day making the drive. My parents can't make that drive any more. And that will be true of more and more of us. Second, no transit system is self-sustaining. We are all paying for the highways, whether we use them or not. We pay for the roads for trucks and MegaBus, why not pay for rails for freight and passenger rail? How many times have we bailed out the airline industry? Who pays for air traffic controllers? Not the airlines. As a transit advocate, why do you think that trains should be self-sustaining? (Transit services might come close to covering operating costs, but not capital costs.) Third, Uber has made it far easier and more reliable to get a taxi and get around our cities. And perhaps a rental car company would locate near a train station just like they do near airports. Finally, as to MegaBus's business, their claim of "lack of demand" doesn't tell us much, if anything, about whether there would be demand for train travel on the same route. Megabus may have lost customers due to lower gas prices, which made it easier for the people with cars to drive themselves, and maybe MegaBus (and its reputation as a low-cost carrier) couldn't raise prices sufficiently to cover their other costs and still be cheaper than their competition (Greyhound). Maybe health insurance for drivers and maintenance workers is their biggest expense -- I know ours went up 20% again this year (down from the 30% annual increases of a few years ago, but still . . . .) and ridership failed to keep up with the rising costs. Maybe including Columbus created a problem in scheduling buses throughout their network. Maybe they didn't have the right arrival/departure times. It could be a lot of things. MegaBus canceling the route at this time tells us very little about whether a train would be a popular alternative to driving or taking the bus. All this speculating about Megabus; health insurance increases etc are ridiculous. If a few people weren't willing to shell out a few bucks for a short-ride bus ride to COL on a Megabus, then why would many people shell out many more bucks for a high-speed train ride to downtown COL? Megabus tells a lot about whether a train would be a popular alternative to driving or taking the bus. Just drive to COL!

Location is nice but there already is an underground station under this location: Tower City.

Still, how much would a train ticket on a high-speed line cost to get to Columbus vs. a Megabus style ride or simply driving? Once in a place like Columbus, or even Cincinnati, how is one to get to their final destination unless it's right near a train station? Right, Megabus was cancelled due to a lack of demand. That's how business works. No demand, no service. Yet, somehow a vastly more expensive high-speed train line linking the 3Cs was going to work and sustain itself when even Megabus couldn't survive? I'm a public transit supporter but this whole high-speed train line from CLE-CIN never really made economic sense. The high-speed train cancel by Kasich issue should be dropped, and quickly. Buses and trains aren't equal substitutes. Take a look at travel markets in the USA with similar or lesser populations with multiple daily passenger trains and see what their business services are like and report back. Thanks for the homework assignment but why don't you do that; I can save you some time though: there are no high-speed trains connecting any U.S. city, closest is Acela. Sorry not everyone is ''all aboard'' in Ohio about this fantasy rail network you advocate. The best is you imagining tall, dense office buildings surrounding downtown train stations in cities like Youngstown, Akron etc.; you are living in a different world if you think there will be a vast Midwest network of high-speed trains connecting to Chicago, the ultimate black-hole money pit of the U.S. Cincinnati and Columbus should work on developing local transit systems and, for some reason, both of cities are pushing for high-speed trains to Chicago. CIN has maybe 1 or 2 trains per week; COL has no service at all. Local transit in both cities is abysmal. So with both of these cities lacking even decent local public transit, it's time to build a high-speed train line to Chicago? So delusional. Also, your All Aboard Ohio organization is interesting and good for you that you are passionate for trains. The summer get together in Cleveland looked like a great day for retirees to spend the day riding Cleveland's rail lines.

Still, how much would a train ticket on a high-speed line cost to get to Columbus vs. a Megabus style ride or simply driving? Once in a place like Columbus, or even Cincinnati, how is one to get to their final destination unless it's right near a train station? Right, Megabus was cancelled due to a lack of demand. That's how business works. No demand, no service. Yet, somehow a vastly more expensive high-speed train line linking the 3Cs was going to work and sustain itself when even Megabus couldn't survive? I'm a public transit supporter but this whole high-speed train line from CLE-CIN never really made economic sense. The high-speed train cancel by Kasich issue should be dropped, and quickly.

Terrible. This major injustice of non-transit funding leading to this is at the hand of Kasich and his Republicans who, as we know, cancelled the 3-Cs Amtrak (fully funded) route while personally godfathering the $330M Opportunity Corridor urban highway through the East Side ... That RTA's rail transit cannot properly expand -- let alone barely survive given faltering rail cars, due to State under (actually non)funding, in a City/metro area that claims to want to be more dense/urbanized and pedestrian and transit friendly, is a major embarrassment for this City and region. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, the health-hazard atrocity of drinking water lead poisoning in Flint, MI caused by political cheapness coupled with total indifference to the needs of a largely minority/working poor city, is even worse than the situation of Kasich-GOP-RTA/transit/rail passenger mess here in Ohio... ... oh, and by the way, did I mention Michigan gov Rick Snyder, the man ultimately behind the Flint travesty is also a Republican ... just like our beloved John Kasich? ... yep, the same group of folks we will be cheerily opening our arms to this summer when mighty RNC marches into town... .... NOTE TO CAVS: please win the title this year so I can try and forget about all this. It might be the time to not mention Kasich cancelling the 3C rail line given that Megabus has just cancelled its Cleveland to Columbus-Cincinnati service due to lack of demand.

That works. Complete with direct access to all train lines. Could it be possible to see lawyers and judges riding the RTA trains again? I like this location, works well and will look great. This would be TOD at its best with tons of built-in daily users. As far as being inconvenient to lawyers, they would have to adapt. It's not like they have an option. The idea for a development south of Carnegie at the foot of 9th Street is far more inconvenient and isolating than the Courthouse Plaza concept.

Anyway, what are some of the many locations downtown you have in mind? What about the Hippodrome Theater lots between Euclid & Prospect? With all of the residential infill planned for that area, I'd like to see that lot go residential as well. But I like some of the lots by the federal courthouse for the justice center, IMHO. I believe there was a proposal (or a few of them) a while ago for the lots next to the federal courthouse (wasn't it courthouse plaza?). I don't know if there's even enough room over there. I as well would prefer something on the Hippodrome lots, residential would be fine of course, maybe even some office development but then again the areas north and south of Playhouse Square offer tons of residential development (which is why I don't want the you know what south of Euclid)...

Anyway, what are some of the many locations downtown you have in mind? What about the Hippodrome Theater lots between Euclid & Prospect?

Understood, however, the jail needs to be not included if it stays downtown/CBD. I know the cost of transporting prisoners and all but worth the cost imo.

Yep... Just when downtown Cleveland is really gaining traction, this horrible news is released.

Well worth the wait.