Politics, Transit| Published on January 27, 2010 5:30 pm

Ohio’s 3C Passenger Rail Corridor Receives $400M

By: Walker


According to a Statehouse source, the 3C Corridor should be officially receiving federal stimulus dollars tomorrow in an announcement following Obama’s State of the Union speech. In October 2009, ODOT and the Ohio Rail Development Commission submitted their application for $563 million to help fund a passenger rail line that would run between Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati. More information about the 3C Corridor can be found at 3cisme.ohio.gov. More information about tomorrow’s announcement can be found in a Dispatch article here.

Update #1: Gov. Strickland’s office is planning a news conference today (Thursday) in the Statehouse Rotunda at 1pm. Anyone planning on attending?

Update #2: It’s official. The 3C Corridor is receiving $400M in federal funding.

297 Comments

  • Fingers crossed that we’re getting all $230M that we’ve asked for. We’ll need it! I know there are quite a few more steps beyond this before ground can be broken. I wonder what sort of timeline we can ultimately expect.

  • like like like like like

  • Great news!

  • As much as I’m for rail, the propsed 3C inititiative is not high speed. I reside in Dublin, it does me no good if I need to get to North Olmstead, Gates Mills or any of the other suburbs. This will be a huge money fiasco.

    39 mph is not high speed, 139 mph is high speed.

  • jpunkster – Doh. I misread some old info (corrected in original post). Our application was for $563M.

    buckeyechuck – A train doesn’t have to service an entire population to be effective. I don’t think you’ll find 100% ridership on any rail system in the world.

  • Walker, you need effective ground transportation once you get to your destintation.

    The ACELA makes money for AMTRAK due to the fact it has the high speed, it serves the Amtrak DC hub, Philly Hub, NYC hub, and Boston HUB.

    All of those cities have great existing subway systems to transport one once they get off the train.  Columbus, Cleveland and Cincy do not.

  • Response #1 – And yet, somehow, people manage to reach their final destinations when they travel via airport to Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati.

    Response #2 – You’re absolutely correct. Columbus needs to haul ass on getting light rail up and running ASAP.

  • The funny thing is not everyone is going from Dublin to Gates Mills.

  • Walker beat on number 1. How we find it acceptable, on one hand, to fly into a city and only have a $25-30 taxi ride, car rental or long term parking as an option and, on the other, find it horrible that we will soon have an option to ride the rails into a downtown where we can pay 1.75 to board a bus and access most of the city is beyond me.

    But yeah, we do need to improve service. Still not as bleak as chucky makes it out to be.

  • The ACELA’s average speed is about 80 MPH btw.  This rail’s average speed should come in about 15-20 MPH lower.  This concept that we’re getting a slow train and everyone else is running bullet trains is just false information.  I’m not willing to spend hundreds upon hundreds of millions more to achieve another 15-20 MPH myself, and I think you’d be VERY hard pressed to get that project done.

  • # 1. People fly for the pure sake of speed.

    People don’t fly from Columbus to Cleveland as their final destination.

  • Chuck – No one is talking about flying from one Ohio city to another. We’re talking about arriving in one of these cities via airplane and needing some form of transportation to a final destination within the city. It’s done at airports with buses, taxis, car rentals, and visitor pickups. There’s absolutely no reason the same can’t be done with train passengers arriving at a station in these cities.

  • ^ Especially when you have an option that the airport doesn’t have, in addition to walking and cycling if you are in the immediate area around the station.

  • I hate flying – uncomfortable.  I’d take a train to Chicago (via Cleveland) before flying.

  • The Ohio cities do not have the same ground travel infrastructure your speaking of.

    I travel from Cleveland to Columbus, it takes me 3 hours on the train. My final destination is Worthington, now I’ve have to catch the #2 High St bus and ride that another 45 minutes north, with luggage ?

    I’m saving time ? I’m saving hassle ?

  • You may not find value, others will.

    Just like some find benefit with COTA, the freeway, bike trails and the airports and others may not find the same benefit.

  • You’re argument is based too much on your own perspective.  It sounds like this won’t work the way you want it to, but it will still work for plenty of people.

    ETA: What LoTW said

  • Thory,

    Why wouldn’t you ride Mega Bus?

     I have and it is extremely convenient and drops you right off in front of the the train station, the L, and all the bus routes

  • Not enough people will find enough benefit to make it viable.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.