Ohio Passenger Rail News
Intermodal
+
Issue E-13
Intercity Rail
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Commuter Rail
All Aboard Ohio
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Public Transit
October 2016
Cincinnati Bell Connector streetcar sees 200K+ riders in 3 weeks
Calendar of Events:
LOCAL MEETINGS:
All meetings start at 10 AM
on the second Saturday of
each month:
CLEVELAND – (bold text
are links!) 3rd-level conf.
room above AAO office &
Tower City food court, 230
W. Huron Rd., Cleveland.
COLUMBUS – Grandview
Public Library, 1685 West
First Ave., Columbus.
TOLEDO – AAO office,
3rd floor (enter ground floor)
300 MLK Jr. Drive, Toledo.
COMING EVENTS:
Toledo Rail Forum <click it!
Oct. 24 11am-1pm (Gene
Skoropowski, Florida Brightline), cost: $25-$55, Toledo
Club, 235 14th St, Toledo, OH
Ohio Rail Dvlpmnt Comm
Nov. 16, 11 am, Room GA,
ODOT, 1980 W. Broad St.
Columbus, OH
Inside This Issue:
Cardinal Conference in Cincy
seeks daily trains
Pg 2
Toledo Amtrak station $1.2M
upgrades OK'd
Pg 2
Congress OKs full year of
Amtrak funding in CR Pg 3
NS builds link to ease NE
Ohio rail traffic jams
Pg 3
Lake Shore reroute via
Michigan postponed
Pg 3
Four decades of AAO history
is now online!
Pg4
Good things usually don't
come easily, and that was
the case with the Cincinnati Bell Connector streetcar. But on Sept. 9, the
3.6-mile, $148 million
streetcar finally opened to
the public. It took a major
grassroots campaign to
get it, including defeating
at the polls two anti-progress ballot issues, plus a
mayor and a minority of
City Council members
intent on stopping the
streetcar project.
But the people ultimately
prevailed. And the people
are enjoying the fruits of
their labors by riding the
streetcars in large numbers – 200,000+ so far!
Each day, anywhere from
two to four of the five
streetcars loop on a figure8 track between The
Banks on the riverfront,
downtown, and the historic
Over-The-Rhine district.
Young people and first-time transit riders are common on the
Cincinnati Bell Connector streetcar, begun Sept. 9 (AAO file).
With ridership doubling its
3,000-per-day projection,
Cincinnatians are asking
for improvements and
expansion – more streetcars to ease crowding and
more routes such as to
Uptown, Westwood and
Northern Kentucky.
The city, which sponsored
the streetcar, has more
than $2 million left in its
streetcar construction
account. All Aboard Ohio is
urging the city use those
funds to plan expansion of
the streetcar system.
In September, Atlanta won
$500,000 in federal funds
to plan expansion of its
2.7-mile streetcar route.
Kansas City, which uses
the same style CAF streetcars as Cincinnati, may
order more streetcars to
ease crowding and expand
its 2.2-mile route to reach
more destinations.
Midwest regional rail plan underway
Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) officials
confirmed that its delayed
Midwest regional passenger rail plan is underway.
The 6-month delay was
due to bidding problems in
hiring a project consultant.
The 18-month planning
process will likely include
stakeholder input meetings as well as other
venues for providing public
input (Web, mail, etc).
FRA's regional plan will
look ahead 40 years to
identify promising travel
markets in the Midwest
for developing passenger
rail corridors and projects
with federal investment.
FRA officials say the plan
could include short- and
long-distance routes as far
east as Pennsylvania and
as far south as Kentucky.
New or improved routes
won't be weighed in isolation to other new or existing routes, but measured
in a network context.
The plan will also illustrate
how links with local transit,
aviation, highways and
non-motorized modes can
create a seamless,
integrated transportation
system to carry travelers
from origin to destination
throughout the region.
Lastly, FRA's Midwest plan
will identify potential institutional arrangements, financial requirements, phasing planning and development activities needed to
implement the plan.
October 2016
Ohio Passenger Rail News
Page 2
Cardinal Conference in Cincy seeks daily trains
Nearly 100 people from along Amtrak's Cardinal route, from Chicago to
the East Coast, attended the first-ever
Cardinal Conference in Cincinnati on
Sept. 23. The goal of the conference
was to organize support for increasing
service on the Cardinal route from
thrice-weekly to daily.
The support came from attendees,
namely chambers of commerce
(including Cincinnati's which hosted
the event), Amtrak, Federal Railroad
Administration (FRA), senators,
congresspersons, state lawmakers
and officials, county leaders, mayors,
councilpersons, college officials,
tourism industry representatives and
business leaders. Freight railroads
CSX, Buckingham Branch and
Indiana & Ohio were represented to
ensure their involvement from the
start of the process.
All Aboard Ohio thanks them and we
especially thank these generous
sponsors: Cincinnati USA Convention
& Visitors Bureau, Fred Craig, Comey
& Shepherd Realtors, Haile/U.S. Bank
Foundation, HDR Inc., Chris Heckman, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Prus
Construction, Sierra Club, TranSystems, Peter Vorhees and Mike
Weber. Thanks so much!
The Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce hosted the first-ever Cardinal Conference
Sept. 23 to support daily Chicago-Cincinnati-East Coast Amtrak service. (AAO file)
The event featured presentations by
Morrell Savoy, deputy general
manager of Amtrak's Long-Distance
Business Line and Jim Matthews,
chair of the National Association of
Railroad Passengers. There also was
an expert panel discussion led by
Hon. Sal Pace, Commissioner,
Pueblo County, CO and member of
the Southwest Chief Coalition; Hon.
Knox Ross, Mayor, Pelahatchie, MS
and secretary-treasurer, Southern Rail
Commission; and Brandon White,
Office of Railroad Policy & Development, FRA. The panelists shared their
experiences with grassroots-based
efforts to restore and enhance
passenger rail services.
The last time Amtrak offered daily
service on its Cardinal route was
Sept. 30, 1981, when the train was
discontinued due to federal budget
cuts. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) got
some funding restored, bringing the
Cardinal back on Jan. 8, 1982 as a
thrice-weekly service. The train was
rescheduled from serving Cincinnati
in daytime so it could serve West
Virginia at more convenient times.
Amtrak estimates daily service will
result in a 96 percent increase in
ridership. The Cardinal links Chicago,
Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Charleston,
Washington DC, Philadelphia and
New York City plus other stations.
Toledo Amtrak station $1.2M upgrades OK'd
At its regular meeting on Sept. 14, the
Ohio Rail Development Commission
(ORDC) approved the spending of
$938,300 toward renovations of
Amtrak station facilities at Toledo MLK
Jr. Plaza. The funds came from a U.S.
Department of Transportation
appropriation secured in 2009 by Rep.
Marcy Kaptur (D-Toledo).
The funding originally was intended to
support the development of a
federally compliant development plan
of passenger and freight rail service in
the Detroit-Toledo-Cleveland corridor.
However Gov. John Kasich in 2011
ordered a halt to all activities intended
to develop a statewide network of 110
mph passenger trains and enhanced
rail freight corridors, called the Ohio
Hub Plan.
Also in agreement was the ToledoLucas County Port Authority which
owns MLK Plaza. It will sponsor the
renovation work and add $250,000 of
its own funds although the federal
grant doesn't require a local match.
All Aboard Ohio tried to get the Ohio
Department of Transportation and
ORDC to release the funds for corridor planning but to no avail. Since
these were flexible federal funds, we
instead looked for a capital improvement within a railroad right of way that
required a minimum level of environmental documentation. Resurfacing
Toledo station's two main platforms fit
that need; Amtrak and ORDC agreed.
The $1.2 million total will fund the
resurfacing of two 1,500-foot-long
station platforms next to two tracks
that Amtrak rebuilt in 2013. The
platforms also will be fitted with tactile
edges for Americans with Disabilities
Act compliance. Other improvements
include new drainage, overhead
canopy repairs and better signage.
In the past year, MLK Plaza was
retrofitted for $500,000 to add
Greyhound station facilities plus a 24hour Subway sandwich shop.
October 2016
Ohio Passenger Rail News
Page 3
Congress OKs full year of Amtrak funding in CR
With 36 hours to go before a government shutdown, President Barack
Obama signed a Continuing Resolution (CR) delivered to him by
Congress to keep the federal government running until Dec. 9. The CR
funds the government at Fiscal Year
2016 levels into FY2017 (starts Oct.
1) until Congress can pass a new, fullyear federal budget.
But Amtrak was funded for an entire
FY2017 by the CR due to a provision
included in the five-year transportation
program Fixing America's Surface
Transportation (FAST) Act that
requires Amtrak to implement new
accounting procedures in 2017.
o
o
East meets west in June 2016 at Chicago Union Station. From left is Amtrak's
Empire Builder to Seattle/Portland, Lake Shore Limited from New York City and
California Zephyr to Emeryville, CA in the Bay Area. (Lance Erickson Photo).
If Amtrak was funded for a portion of
2017 but under 2016 funding policies,
it would have had to run two parallel
accounting systems in 2017, causing
wasted hours of work and millions of
dollars in added costs.
totaling $1.39 billion, include a mix of
capital and operating funding. While
that amount is the same as 2016, it
requires Amtrak to spend any profits
generated by the NEC only on the
NEC, so total funding will be higher.
Congress funded Amtrak in 2017 at
$235 million for the North East
Corridor (NEC) and $1.155 billion for
the National Network. The amounts,
Other programs promised by the
FAST Act will have to be funded by
the 2017 Transportation-Housing
Urban Development appropriations
bill that Congress hopefully will pass
after the election. Ask Congress to
pass the best versions of the House
and Senate bills with these amounts
for needed rail programs:
● Consolidated Rail Infrastructure &
Safety Grants - $50 million
● Federal State Partnership For State
Of Good Repair - $25 million
● Restoration & Enhancement Grants
- $15 million
NS builds track link to ease NE Ohio traffic jams
In 2017 on the west side of Vermilion,
OH, Norfolk Southern (NS) will open a
new, 4,000-foot-long connecting track
to reroute freight trains and ease NS
freight and Amtrak passenger rail
traffic congestion on its Chicago Line
via Elyria, Berea and Rockport Yard
near Cleveland Hopkins Airport.
The $12.5 million project, funded
entirely by NS, will reroute about a
half-dozen daily freight trains via
Lorain, Bay Village and Lakewood,
roughly doubling rail traffic there.
The track connection, now under
To Buffalo
CLEVELAND
Lakewood
To
Toledo
New
Link
|
|
Berea
To
Pittsburgh
NS's reroute is a red line, Amtrak routes are in blue and other NS routes are black.
construction, may complicate future
will improve existing rail traffic fluidity
efforts to establish Lorain-Cleveland
issues and thus can help in expanding
commuter rail service. However, it
Amtrak service across Northern Ohio.
Lake Shore reroute via Michigan on hold, for now
Amtrak has reportedly postponed a
planned month-long reroute of its
Chicago-New York City Lake Shore
Limited trains via Michigan. Amtrak
remains interested in the reroute via
Dearborn, Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo
to test Michigan-East Coast ridership
and Dearborn-Toledo operations.
According to railroad union memos,
the reroute was to occur Oct. 1-31.
But track/signal work isn't yet done on
extending the Wolverine Corridor's
110 mph district (Porter, IN-Kalamazoo) east to Dearborn. The Michigan
Department of Transportation is
sponsoring or partnering on nearly
$600 million worth of infrastructure
improvements in the corridor.
All Aboard Ohio has urged Amtrak to
extend its New York City-Pittsburgh
Pennsylvanian service west to
Chicago via Youngstown, Cleveland,
Toledo and the Wolverine Corridor.
October 2016
Ohio Passenger Rail News
Page 4
Illustrations of the month
All Aboard Ohio
OHIO ASSOC. OF RAILROAD PASSENGERS
230 West Huron Road #85.53
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
844-464-7245 (toll-free)
[email protected] (click it!)
www.allaboardohio.org
Click here to JOIN All Aboard Ohio!
All Aboard Ohio (AAO) members in action! Above-left, Jon Shrubsole, an
AAO member and Director of Treasury and Regulatory Services at Cedarville University in Cedarville, OH, presented AAO Vice-Chair Derek Bauman
with a certificate of appreciation for being the keynote speaker at the Sept.
27th meeting of the Xenia Kiwanis Club. Above-right, Tom Horsman, AAO
At-Large Director and Senior Admissions Counselor at Cleveland State
University, volunteered for Rapid Cleanup this past summer to remove
trash from along nearly 40 miles of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit
Authority's rail lines. This scene was at the Ohio City Red Line station.
Four decades of AAO history is now online!
All Aboard Ohio (AAO) began as the
Ohio Association of Railroad Passengers (OARP) in 1973. A year later,
the nonprofit citizens association
published its first newsletter and
began a 40+ year journey of
documenting the history of OARP
and, more importantly, changes in
Ohio rail transportation.
The newsletters, starting as “The
6:53” and published today as “The
Ohio Passenger Rail News,” are
posted in AAO's Web site library.
Text in each newsletter, scanned with
an optical character reader, are all
searchable via Google. Newsletter
text can also be copied and pasted
digitally into other documents.
While much of the news, especially
on the political side, was disheartening, the newsletters reveal a lot of
behind-the-scenes machinations of
why events played out as they did.
the status quo. But there also were
successes in saving, improving or
restoring rail services and stations.
Most evident from these nearly 200
newsletters (and counting!) is that
OARP, later doing business as All
Aboard Ohio, has never given up the
fight for better trains and transit for
Ohioans. The newsletters are the
result of team efforts, including many
OARP/AAO members contributing
articles, photos and news briefs. They
were assembled by different editors
over the years – Tom Pulsifer, Ron
Bergen, Ken Wilt, Stu Nicholson and
Ken Prendergast.
All Aboard Ohio thanks past-Chairman Bill Hutchison for donating his
Our association's first newsletter in 1974. newsletter collection, office intern Matt
Murphy who scanned the newsletters,
Some of OARP's defeats were cases
and volunteer Iryna Tkachenko for
of bad timing while others were the
uploading them to our Web site.
result of interests seeking to protect
Thank you all for your contributions!