gildone

The only way leasing the turnpike to work is if tolls go up. Why not just cut out the middleman, keep the turnpike in private hands, raise the tolls and use the excess for non-automotive transportation (i.e. Ohio Hub, public transit, etc)?

Noozer: I hope NARP is right about the Lott-Lautenberg bill. The structural changes to Amtrak and federal transportation policy in this bill are crucial if we are ever to move forward with modern passenger rail in this country. It stuns me how the US can be so advanced and so backward all at the same time...

clvlndr: this was discussed a few months ago on page 8 of this thread: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=4504.msg117619#msg117619 I posted the following in the above message: I talked to someone at RTA about this. The implementation of proof of payment is getting bogged down in bureacratic discussion. For example, lthere is concern about people who have no address how, so how do you follow up with a fine if they are caught without a ticket? I don't recall the other nonsense that this person mentioned is going on in the internal discussions. The discussion I had was in late January/Early February of last year.

As I recall, in the mid or late 1990's, Congress passed a provision in a transportation bill that would permit states to turn any stretch of interstate into toll road. I recall reading an article within the last 2-3 years about a state being the first one to take that step with a stretch of interstate. I forget the state, though, I'm thinking maybe Missouri.

Light rail doesn't necessarily compete with highways. It competes with urban streets moreso than highways. Comparison of highways to commuter rail and intercity rail would be a more accurate comparison.

Many older urban areas have lead contamination in front yards because of decades of burning leaded gas.

I'd say we're already paying a pretty heavy price in light of current world affairs... And in the multiple tens of billions of dollars in lost productivity we suffer annually because our transportation system is not at all balanced and not efficiently interconnected.

And your solution seems to be more of the same-- more lane-miles. As Einstein said (and I paraphrase)-- 'you cannot solve a problem within the same mindset that created it'. We are well past the point now where the conventional wisdom of more lane-miles to deal with highway congestion needs to change. We need a whole-systems approach to solve the overall transportation crisis this country is facing. Solutions are going to have to come from a variety of sources, including: mass transit, intercity rail, bicycling, pedestrian, and better land-use policies. Then there are long term energy price and supply issues that the country (and the world) are facing, this also needs consideration as we plan for how we are best going to move people and goods around in the 21st century. What we have been doing-- focusing most of our resources on highways-- is simply not working anymore and hasn't been for quite some time.

Yes, we bought less because the price went up in the 70's. But in the 80's a lot of non-OPEC supply came on-line. That combined with the demand drop led Saudi Arabia to cut back production (again, because the demand wasn't there) in the 80's while prices still dropped. There was a glut of oil in the mid-80s. We didn't buy all that was available. There was more oil than there was demand for it during that period. Again, my point is that we don't have to buy all of the energy available to us. We do, though, because the embedded incentives in our economy (which is a result of bad national energy policy).

KJP: You need to talk to your condo association about replacing the single pane windows in your building before you talk to them about solar panels and wind turbines. Prior to the natural gas price spikes a few years ago, the energy-savings payback period for the cost of switching from single-pane to double-pane, inert-gas-filled, low-e coating windows was 7 years. Now that the price of gas has gone up since then, the payback would be shorter. It's cheaper to save energy than buy it. My neighborhood is walkable and transit-accessible, (more than many, but not as much as KJP's). We replaced the windows in our house, added more insulation in the attic, put up insulated siding on the house. We will likely switch to a demand water heater in the next couple of years. We already have a high-efficiency washer-dryer set, and any future appliance replacements will be the most energy efficient we can get.

USDOT has the primary responsibility to serve the traveling need needs of the public in the broader context you suggest. To a point ODOT's job is to serve the citizen's of Ohio within its piece of that broader context, but its primary responsibility is to the State of Ohio and the needs and desires of its own citizens. We're also living in a democracy here. 80% of Ohioans want modern, efficient intercity passenger rail. Nationally, 70-80% of Americans want it (depending upon which poll you look at). Similar amounts want more mass transit.

But my point is that for those 10 or so years, we did NOTuse all the oil available to us, we bought less of it. Saudi Arabia had to reduce their production for several years. We don't have to use all the oil available to us, or at least we wouldn't have to if energy and transportation policies were more holistic and designed to optimize efficiency. And, energy consumption across the board did drop because building construction got a lot more energy efficient in the 70's. We waste a huge amount of energy in this country. We could consume quite a bit less with no change in standard of living if we would get the policies right-- in other words it is most certainly possible to NOT use all of the energy available to us. .

Yep, the last good news was the extension of the Pennsylvanian to Chicago which brought Ohio it's first daylight service in how many years? Of course you got to Chicago and Philly at crappy hours, but Toledo to Harrisburg, the schedule were good. That train lasted what, 4 years?

Let's hope they don't have undue influence over Strickland's replacement. The elections brought a sea-change in state-wide offices this year that maybe they won't be able to hand-pick the next ODOT director either. There needs to be serious campaign finance and lobbying reform if there is going to be any real, permanent change, though.

Ever notice, though, that the marina gas stations in Ohio are still "Sohio"?

That bit about spending more on signs that don't need replacing than on transit is great fodder for a group like AAO to file away for some hearing testimony or well timed press release sometime.

Ever notice how all the good Amtrak news never occurs in Ohio? The last good news we had was in 1998. It has been all bad news since...

I wish I could take transit or walk to work, but that option just isn't available and the only person I can carpool with doesn't want to carpool. My wife and I did our best to locate in a walkable community. We don't have to drive much for our day to day needs, but my job, which is simply too good to give up, is 28.5 miles away in an auto-centric, transit impossible exurb. I hate my commute, but I'm stuck with it for the time being.

Not entirely true. From the mid 1970's until the mid 1980's, the US economy grew while per-capita energy consumption dropped due to adoption of energy efficiency measures throughout the economy, more efficient cars, etc. Then the price of oil dropped, and we got wasteful again-- bought bigger cars, moved farther from work and bought bigger houses.

An example would be a Ford Focus wagon.

Fla.Guy: You are correct. I believe BP purchased Sohio in 1986 because they wanted a piece of the North Slope. I remember buying a Sohio map of Ohio the mid 1980's for something like 35 cents.

We really need to push to have non-automobile gas taxes be spent on transportation alternatives as well as Ohio's share of federal gas taxes. I hope Strickland is successful in his desire to focus ODOT more on maintaining the highways we have and expanding alternative modes. We at the grassroots need to push for this as well.

Well, if it were constructed to get the average speed up to 65-70 mph, wouldn't that be an overnight run from Chicago? Of course, that takes money, which just isn't there right now. The Toledo Port Authority did a study several years ago of a Toledo-Sanford auto train. The results were quite a bit better than they expected, and it revealed that half of the passengers would be from Canada.

Everybody wants something for nothing. The tolls pay for maintenance and the price of asphalt is going up with the price of oil. What do they expect? Of course, if they had built the toll road to European standards (or re-built it when they added the third lane), it would require less maintenance over the long run.