KJP

More good news.... May 5, 2006 Ohio Hub May Benefit From Freight Rail Project ORDC sponsorship of CSX intermodal project carries positives for passenger rail plan (Columbus) – ORDC Commissioners have voted unanimously to allow ORDC to sponsor a CSX railroad plan to build a bypass track and a high capacity intermodal freight yard at the railroad’s Parsons Avenue Yard in South Columbus. CSX is applying for funding through ODOT’s Transportation Review Advisory Council (TRAC). In addition to the immediate improvements to Parsons Yard, the CSX project would also improve the flow of rail traffic through downtown Columbus, Buckeye Yard in West Columbus and northwest through the communities of Marysville, Ridgeway and Mount Victory. These improvements would involve increasing clearances for double-stack container trains, building new passing sidings and new connections to other CSX rail corridors. “What these improvements will also do is help create a rail traffic flow that will facilitate the kind of high-speed passenger train service we are planning under the Ohio Hub Plan”, says ORDC Executive Director James Seney. “We want to see more projects like this around Ohio, because they help ease or remove rail bottlenecks and create a rail system that better accommodates freight and passenger rail. What’s more, these are the kind of projects for which Ohio can capture the costs as a potential state match for any future federal dollars, if a federal passenger and freight rail funding and development program is passed and enacted by Congress and the President.” The proposed improvements to the CSX Parsons Yard would help CSX deal with what has become the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. rail industry: container freight. Currently, CSX handles the loading / unloading of rail containers at its Buckeye Yard facility which has become overcrowded and requires hauling containers in and out by truck to a storage facility over a mile away. That truck traffic is putting an increasing load on local streets and Interstates, and is causing delays for shippers who demand faster service. A new “lift” facility at Parsons Yard would allow not only more room, but would enable an increase from around 135,000 “lifts” of containers and trailers annually that are currently handled at Buckeye yard to an estimated capacity of 450,000 “lifts” at the proposed Parson Yard terminal. The cost of the Parson Yard facility is an estimated at between $65 and $75 million and could take up to two years to build. Additional track improvements through Columbus, Marysville, Ridgeway and Mount Victory would bring the total project cost out to an estimated $100 million. ORDC became involved in the project because in order to apply for funding from TRAC, CSX had to have a public entity as a sponsor. Since the project has potentially statewide implications and benefits, ORDC is the logical sponsor.

Vulpster and Rob1412, There is some excellent research done by Donald Shoup on the correlation between free vs. paid parking, density, transit use, etc. He wrote a book called the "High Cost of Free Parking" which I highly recommend for anyone who cares about cities and transit. Check out: http://www.planning.org/bookservice/highcost.htm http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4622062 http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/ As for gas taxes being spent only on roads, there is a way around it. Oregon has a similar constitutional prohibition on the use of gas taxes, but spends $7 million per year in gas taxes on intercity rail operating support. The source? Lawnmowers, landscaping equipment, farming equipment and so on requires gasoline and diesel fuel, on which taxes are paid at the pump. Those tax revenues in Oregon went to pay for roads, even though highway users didn't provide those funds. So that was how Oregon was able to use them for off-road purposes: ie, rail. On a per-capita basis, I estimate that Ohio's share of non-highway generated gas taxes amount to between $25 million and $30 million per year. When Ohio is ready to start the first phase of the Ohio Hub System, this could be a way to provide operating support for the trains. How much service could this support in Ohio? In Illinois, the state just approved $24.3 million for one-year operating support for five daily round trips between Chicago and St. Louis, two daily round trips between Chicago and Quincy, and two daily round trips between Chicago, Champaign-Urbana and Carbondale. A similar level of service should be possible here in Ohio if we dedicated the "Lawnmower Tax" to purchasing passenger rail service.

Nothing that a few dozen trips to Home Depot couldn't fix!

^ Public investments in rail, transit, highways, education, jobs and just about everything else would be emasculated by the TEL amendment. If this amendment passes, the game is over for Ohio and I will leave the state. I've been way too tolerant of the brain-dead God squad in our state government.

I said worth voting for, not throwing-up for!

Seems pretty clear that Tricarichi didn't tell the Port Authority to blow him :behind:...

I think the bankruptcy of the Federal Highways Trust Fund in only a couple of years may be sufficient enough to put a lid on adding significant new road capacity. Problem is, the bankruptcy may also negatively affect maintenance needs as well.

"I've made really nice returns in these other markets," he said. "But the Sunbelt areas are really starting to flatten out. Cleveland wasn't a good place to invest a couple of years ago, but I think now there's potential for upside here." Nice to hear it from him. I agree with the guy. "I might be ahead of the curve, or I might be under the bus," he said. Or under the lake wearing cement shoes....

^ I think his estimates are low, based on the revenues generated by the Chicago and Indiana toll roads and what those entities got for leasing them. I was surprised at how the revenue-lease ratios were almost identical between the two. So I applied that ratio to the Ohio Turnpike's revenues and came up with a lease estimate of $8 billion (75-year lease) to $8.5 billion (99-year lease). BTW, for more information on this funding idea, visit the discussion string at: http://members.cox.net/neotrans/Turnpike_Lease_PP-BP.pdf Or, download a copy of the report NEOtrans researched/wrote for All Aboard Ohio: http://members.cox.net/neotrans/Turnpike_Lease_PP-BP.pdf

^ MLK used be a lot of different roads, streets and boulevards that were stitched together under one name.

^ Like you say, it's all about the land use when it comes to how bad the road congestion is. If you run a MARTA heavy rail line through sprawlville, you'll probably get riders who are trying to evade the traffic, but it doesn't reduce the traffic. Like water, traffic finds its own level in low-density, auto-centric communities where land uses aren't mixed and walking/cycling is punishable by maiming or death.

Hey, I'm 38-45, but that doesn't mean I can't admire the looks of a 22-year-old councilwoman. No laws (statutory or of nature) are being broken here! Any other hotties worth voting for out there?

I'll start it off. Here's an idea I had for funding a regional rail system for Northeast Ohio (aka NEOrail).... CAPITAL ALL NEO COUNTIES - 3 percent rental car tax Estimated revenue of $70 million per year Allocate $35 million per year to local 20-year bond issue at 5% = LOCAL: $425 million bond issue STATE MATCH: $125 million grant FEDERAL MATCH: $550 million grant TOTAL CAPITAL: $1.1 billion OPERATING $35 million excess rental car tax revenues plus Cuyahoga County $5 vehicle registration fee = $5.8 million Lake County $5 vehicle registration fee = $1.3 million Lorain County $5 vehicle registration fee = $1.4 million Portage County $3 vehicle registration fee = $0.5 million Summit County $5 vehicle registration fee = $2.6 million TOTAL REGISTRATION FEE REVENUES ... $11.6 million + EXCESS RENTAL CAR REVENUES ........... $35 million ANNUAL OPERATING FUNDING EST. ...... $46.6 million That ought to build for us a decent system!

Since our beloved elected officials in state capital have cut yearly transit funding from $40 million to $16 million (and counting?) and offers only about $30 million for rail development projects (while other states are increasing transit, rail $$$), we need some creative ideas on how to catch up and compete. So please consider posting your ideas here, as I'm aware that local and regional governmental officials view this site. Give them some hope on how we'll be able to move the masses in our state in a post-peak oil world!

Wow :-o She's babe-a-licious

And between Elyria and the Cuyahoga County line it's Butternut Ridge Road.

So oil companies are price-gouging? Think again. Here is an excellent analysis by Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial page editor... http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/mcnickle/s_448525.html The price of oil, gas & ignorance By Colin McNickle TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, April 30, 2006 "Ignorance is the mother of devotion," wrote Henry Cole in 1599's "Disputations at Westminster." And never have so many been so devoted to ignorance than in the escalating debate over gasoline prices. Let's start with the prices themselves. The current per-gallon pump price for regular gasoline and a barrel of crude oil are not "record" prices. If you calculate the prices in inflation-adjusted dollars, both cost more 25 years ago. If you paid for a gallon of gas in March 1981 in 2006 dollars, it would have cost just under $3.11.

Columbia > Great Northern Blvd. (Possibly) Lorain > Carnegie > Cedar I wouldn't include these because the roads run parallel to each other. Great Northern splits off from Columbia and Carnegie splits off from Cedar, even though the road splitting off becomes the dominant roadway.

That made me laugh, too. If some of these yahoos sat down to figure out how much it actually costs them to drive, they would sell their second or third car and change their spendthrift lifestyles. Let me provide an average driving cost from, of all places, AAA... 56 cents per mile. For a motorist driving a car they own 15,000 miles per year, that works out to $8,400. Gas is a small part (15-20 percent) of the cost equation of driving a car you own, yet everyone is in a tizzy over it.

It's also interesting how much the death of the Flats East Bank seemed to drop RTA rails already weak 9M numbers to 7M in the course of about 5 years. That would be hard to do since the Waterfront Line's best year of ridership was about 900,000. I believe it's down to about 250K or so now. I'd say a bigger factor in the rail ridership slide was the loss of several major downtown office and retail employers. Losing BP, Higbee's/Dillard's, May Co/Kaufmann's and perhaps others I'm overlooking made a lifestyle surrounding the rapid less convenient. RTA often acts as if these setbacks are a result only of unfortunate circumstances beyond RTA's control -- and that's true if you have no financial resources, staff or programs in place to affect change in land use surrounding transit facilities. Instead, RTA increasingly depends on commuters (work/school trips) for its ridership. While ridership based on commuting (work/school) is a solid foundation, that's all it should be -- a starting point. Getting larger ridership increases from a "transit lifestyle" -- large amounts of trips to the store, theater, restaurants etc. -- tend to happen more when TOD is being practiced. And, TOD happens most often where there are fixed transit facilities, with rail being the most "magnetic" for developers.

I don't have them either. I just made up my own based on what I know of the rail lines.

By the way, I thought you all might get a kick out of this then-and-now stuff.... First is the picture I posted in the previous message, taken by me in May 2003... Then there's this picture by the late Dave McKay, taken in March 1976, of the Erie Lackawanna commuter train backing toward Cleveland Union Terminal (Tower City) from E-L's East 55th Yard for the afternoon rush hour departure for Youngstown and a dozen other stations enroute (ie: Lee Road, Solon, Aurora, Mantua, Warren, Niles, etc.). The service had 10 more months to live...

"The best alternative fuel is to not use it," Linnell said. Linnell gets my Gold Star O' The Day award for best quote!

I was just going to post that stuff! Thanks for doing that Archer!

I thought I'd post some stuff from the EcoCity report I authored on the Lakefront Bypass. The following is the minimum trackage/infrastructure required to reroute a limited amount of freight train traffic (perhaps up to 15 of the 70-80 freights per day) off the lakefront. An overview graphic is below. The section that needs to receive the minimum investment -- in order to close a critical gap in missing trackage -- is between East 37th and Control Point 117 (a CP is a railroad site where a switch, or a complex of switches is remote controlled by a dispatcher or some other operator) via the North Broadway Corridor. The minimum investment is Option 1, which could cost upwards of $30 million.... Going west to east, here are some detailed images showing the options, starting with existing conditions: Start at the East 37th area.... Pictures of the West 37th area from the I-490 rail overpass: Here is the North Broadway corridor, with all options shown in the same image.... An image of the Vonwiler Yard area (the East 55th abutment is at the left edge). Track basically needs to be replaced here: Now for the CP117 area, where the former Erie Lackawanna crossed the former Pennsylvania RR. These all became Conrail properties, and now are all owned by Norfolk Southern.... And a photo of CP117, looking north from Union Avenue overpass...