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Group hears details on Valley rail service
TweetBy Sean Barron
YOUNGSTOWN — Even though rail service through the Mahoning Valley could be several years away, it’s evident many people are already on board.
Several dozen supporters of such an idea attended a grass-roots organizing session Thursday at the Youngstown Club, 201 E. Commerce St. Hosting the 90-minute meeting were All Aboard Ohio and the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.
The thrust of the gathering was to describe where things stand with respect to developing passenger-rail service connecting Cleveland, Youngstown and Pittsburgh, noted Kenneth Prendergast, All Aboard Ohio’s executive director.
The other speaker was state Rep. Robert Hagan of Youngstown, D-60th, who is also chairman of the Ohio House Transportation Committee.
Amtrak’s route now includes Cleveland and Alliance in Ohio, Beaver Falls, Pa., and Pittsburgh, missing Youngstown by about 30 miles. The last passenger train to run through the area was in 2005, he said.
The move would attract more businesses and jobs to the area while making Cleveland and Pittsburgh’s offerings more easily available to Valley residents, Prendergast noted.
“It would be a much lower cost and a more comfortable way of getting around,” he said, referring to giving the area more transportation choices.
A proposed route would see trains to and from Cleveland and Pittsburgh stopping in Ravenna, Youngstown and New Castle, Pa., all of which are major population centers in between.
Driving is the only choice for most Valley residents, yet many young people want more transportation options and more to do while on the go, Prendergast explained, adding that roughly 18 percent of area households have no car.
Train service also would benefit many older people, especially those who have vision problems and difficulty being in a vehicle for long periods, he continued.
Attendees seemed to support two options for linking the Mahoning Valley with the Cleveland-to-Pittsburgh corridor.
One was developing an interim service with a startup cost of about $30 million that would rely heavily on state and local funding. Two trains per day each way would go 79 mph, and such an idea might be in place in two or three years, Prendergast noted.
Before that can happen, however, a mile of missing track near Ravenna needs to be replaced, at an estimated cost of $10 million, he said.
The high-speed option, estimated at $500 million, would have four to eight 90-to-110-mph trains per day in each direction and would require mainly federal dollars. Completing all mandatory steps, though, could take until 2020, he explained, adding that the project likely would be enhanced by part of the $8 billion in federal stimulus money the Obama administration has earmarked for rail development nationwide.
Nevertheless, Prendergast continued, the interim idea can work in conjunction with developing the other. “We need to seize this,” he added.
Hagan talked about a recent trip to Spain to look at how that country is developing high-speed rail service, noting that Spain is investing billions of dollars in its high-speed systems and related infrastructure.
More than 150 trains pass through the station daily in Madrid, which also includes a shopping center, Hagan said. Despite the volume, the system has a near-perfect record of efficiency and timeliness, he noted.
“I realized we have a long way to go here [in the U.S.] to get our trains up to speed,” Hagan said.
Spain’s system is dedicated solely to passenger service. In the U.S., however, many tracks carry a mix of freight and passenger lines, which often causes tie-ups and late arrivals, Hagan noted.
Nevertheless, “I think we’re on the right road,” he added.
Advocates of bringing train service to the Mahoning Valley along the Cleveland-to-Pittsburgh corridor spoke on the idea Thursday at a meeting in Youngstown put on by All Aboard Ohio and the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber. Here are some key points:
More than 5 million people live along the 135-mile corridor.
Service would more easily link high-technology centers, health care, arts, higher education, advanced manufacturing and other Valley assets with those in Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
Such a move is appealing to many people partly because of high fuel costs.
Rail service also would make it easier for those in the area to travel to farther destinations such as Chicago, Harrisburg, Philadelphia and New York City.
Source: Ken Prendergast, executive director, All Aboard Ohio
Comments
Two days ago on Wednesday, I introduced Rep. Hagan and members of his House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to Tubular Rail train technology, in part to show that our advanced train technology, which does not need tracks or bridges to run on and can reach speeds of 150 mph and maybe more, could become a reality if the legislature passes a bill to create regionally based transportation innovation authorities. As Chairman Hagan and his committee members watched a special presentation of a clip from the Discovery Channel's show called "Future Trains," that featured Tubular Rail's patented technology, they saw a glimpse of a futuristic train that could be running in Ohio if lawmakers like Rep. Hagan team up with state transportation and development officials to make it happen. To watch the clip played for Rep. Hagan and committee members, follow the the link below to videos and clip on the "Future Train" box.
http://www.tubularrail.com/video.htm
Unfortunately, passenger trains that run on the ground -- going off the tracks, crashing into other trains and cars that often result in fatalities -- and can only go as fast as the slow freight train in front of them because tracks are shared, is not the future train system Ohio rail bosses should be spending over one-half billion dollars on for a "quick start" return of passenger train traffic. It's a bad decision for ridership now and into the future and cannot ever deliver to residents of the valley anything remotely as fast as the train in Spain Rep. Hagan rode. Isn't it time Ohio -- and the nation -- starts to explore faster, more efficient and greener alternatives to the diesel-burning turtle trains from yesteryear that will only average 39 mph between Cincinnati and Cleveland and will take six and one-half hours. Mr. Prendergast confirmed that funding is expensive, uncertain and tied to the largess of the federal government and that the time to do it will be measured in decades. Tubular Rail can all be made in America, with much of it being sourced in Ohio. And if you want high speed Spanish trains, you'll be sending billions of American taxpayer dollars over there, when a lot of it could stay here in Ohio, employing workers and helping families here. And while we understand Ohio is desperately seeking new manufacturing jobs as old ones blow away never to be seen again, we cannot understand why key state officials who could make things happen for us are so uninterested in doing so? For those who can see and act on the future now, the future will be a good place to be. But for those who walk into it facing backward, the future will be unforgiving. In which direction is Ohio looking? If it looks to slow passenger trains, that's the past. If it looks to Tubular Rail, it's looking at the future.
www.tubularrail.com
Mr. Spinelli, the reasons that such projects are difficult to fund is that ALL of the governments are BROKE, and the people with jobs who pay the taxes are being SUCKED DRY. There are more pressing concerns than building an entirely new rail system that would only be used by people wishing to travel between these three cities.
Conventional passenger trains can be operated at a much lower cost and use existing infrastructure. Like Mr. Hagan I was once a locomotive engineer, and your assertion that passenger trains are "crashing into other trains" makes it sound as if the technology is unsafe. There are new regulations requiring positive train seperation that will greatly diminish the possibility of collisions. Also, train dispatchers make every effort to expedite Amtrak train movements, and while delays do sometime happen, that is not the norm.
But I suppose that for some people, when you are spending other people's money then the sky is the limit.
It would be nice to have a railway to provide transportation, not only to Cleveland or Pitt but in the Mahoning Valley itself.
High speed passenger rail service is long, long overdue. However, current plans have a colossal missing link between the East Coast and the Midwest. That missing link is the Erie Corridor (connecting Buffalo to Cleveland) and the Pittsburgh-Cleveland connection. Erie has the highest poverty rates in PA and Youngstown/Warren has the highest poverty rate in OH. Closing these missing links are essential to the economic revitalization of NE Ohio and NW PA. Why are our politicos MIA on this critical issue?
Before spending billions on new rail lines, let's ask:
Why do people travel? Answer: to work, to purchase things, and for entertainment.
A lot of work in this country is no longer centralized in cities, as it was in the past. It's spread out, and not easily accessed by a transportation system limited to a few corridors. Modern work is often now broken into time segments that mean a person is less likely to travel to work, stay for 8 hours in one place, and then return home.
The places people travel to to obtain their food, clothing, and other items are likewise spread out. And gone are the days when you had to travel to a major city to purchase unusual or expensive things. Between the huge number of retailers who have geographically expanded, and the internet, where you can purchase almost anything right from home, there is very little reason to travel far to shop.
As for entertainment, this could be broken into at least two broad categories: travel to reach a specific destination (theater, civic center, etc.) for an event. Or travel, for the entertainment value of the trip itself. (taking a tour of, say, the wine country in California). While I know that many people in this area travel to either Pittsburgh or Cleveland for entertainment, I question if there is, or could be, enough of them to justify high speed or even conventional rail lines. And consider that the times these would need to run would be evenings and weekends, to accommodate entertainment schedules. Not peak-profit hours for railroads.
As for those without vehicles: some hard questions need to be asked, before billions are spent on this group of citizens. The questions are not meant to denigrate them, but only to assess the return on investment. First, why do they not have vehicles? Some may choose to not own a car, but many cannot afford one. If they cannot afford a car, there is a good chance they will not be able to take economic advantage of rail travel. They will not be likely to be traveling to a job, or an entertainment venue.
If they are elderly, and unable to function well enough to drive, there is a good chance that they will not be interested in much rail travel, for any reason. They will tend to be people who function locally.
Now, it's been discussed that younger people want more public transportation and perhaps in the major cities, they do. But Youngstown is not a major city.
I should point out that I LOVE trains! So I am not against the idea of rail travel - I'm old and romantic enough to remember what it used to be like commuting to work on a train. But that was when I lived outside a major city - and the majority of jobs were downtown - and most of us went to work in the morning and returned 8 or 9 hours later. Things have changed and we need to be practical - and I would want to see some very hard and serious numbers and planning, before any money was spent on building new railroads.
I would add that, obviously, another reason people travel is to visit other people - but I would again question if there would be enough people traveling from Youngstown to anywhere else, to justify rail service.