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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.
Sweeney, their is a huge road north of us called the Ohio Turnpike. It stretches from the Pennsylvania line to the Indiana line and not one single taxpayer dollar was or has ever been invested on this road.
Not sure if you have ever heard of it.
buckeyechuck Says: Like I, said, what if this fails?
If a fear of failure were a good enough reason not to do something, then absolutely nothing would ever get done.
@BuckeyeChuck
I’m not sure where the $400K per mile number came from, but I think you are oversimplifying the problem. Not only will you need track, but ballast, ties, concrete walls to separate the rails from the highway, stations, and rolling stock. You also just eliminated the open trench drainage system in the median, so now you probably need some type of closed drainage system along the whole corridor. You also haven’t accounted for bridges that would get the rails under or over the highway in order to access stations.
California is talking $45 Billion for what appears to be about a 760 mile system. It’s damn near $60 Million per mile. Even if your system is somewhat less high speed, it’s not going to be $400K per mile. Don’t you think if it were cheaper to build a new track along I-71, they would prefer to have their own right-of-way, and that would be the actual plan?
Who said anything about the median ?
The state of Ohio owns right of way to a wide swath of land on the right hand side of the interstate. Both north and southbound.
The rail I’m talking about would be built adjacent to I-71 on those already right of ways Ohio owns.
California wants a Ferrari system, and their system of electified rail lines, tunnels, huge train stations and very expensive real estate blows the price sky high. Each train alone would run 75 + million a piece.
I think Ohio could do quite well on a Ford type system, just not a model T Ford.
The 400K per mile is an average per mile, some portions to build will be more expensive, others cheaper.
And where did the Model T lead us?
I don’t think Ricart, Germain or any other ford dealer are trying to sell new Model T’s today.
Buckeye, I agree with all your points. I am for rail too, but this plan is ridiculous. i believe you are correct in your assumptions that if this does indeed fail (which I believe it will) there will be a swarm of “I told you so” people and Ohio will never see any type of decent rail.
I love how everyone calls you troll, and insults you personally because you do not agree with them.
I forgot we do have one toll road in Ohio.
Chuck,
I can go to those dealerships and pick out a nice used car for dirt cheap if I can’t afford the new, shiny Ford. Just because I can’t get the big shiny car now, doesn’t mean I have to leave empty handed.
What I am saying is that your analogy is flawed.
Lbowacc,
Somehow people think if you question what the government is selling us on, you can’t possibly be for rail ?
There seems to be little room for a…. Hey, wait a minute, what about this. What about that.
The facts are the 3C group have been pushing the exact same idea for 20+ years. Equipment has changed, new ideas have come forward but they wil have none of it.
Which member of them has successfully run a passenger rail organization that has broke even or even came close to doing it ?
NONE
“Which member of them has successfully run a passenger rail organization that has broke even or even came close to doing it ?”
Transportation doesn’t break even. Period.
Now I think you’re just making up this whole “transportation engineer” thing.
On a side note how much is the Nelsonville bypass going to cost and the projected # of cars? I’m an OU grad and would love to see the improvements, but it’s going to be expensive to cut ~15 minutes from the commute from Columbus to Athens.
However, the Lancaster bypass I I00% support. That was truly a bottleneck that needed to be resolved.
I’d still like to see a detailed cost breakdown of your proposal if you have one. Building on the side of the road instead of the median would require a lot of earthwork, which is very expensive as well.
thanks core. that was exactly my point. why should rail be expected to be able to pay for itself completely when no other modes can, or are expected to? roads and airports are both heavily subsidized. gasoline is subsidized. COTA is subsidized. we have to let go of this double standard about the cost of rail. consider the positives that we’re getting for our money: rail is much cleaner and more sustainable then all of the above.
From the Dispatch…
Editorial: Money for rail deepens federal debt, won’t help with Ohio’s urgent needs
The Obama administration and Congress are sending a trainload of $8 billion to Ohio and various other states to spur rail development, but this is a problematic gift. This is money the federal government doesn’t have, and spending it adds to the annual budget deficit and the national debt.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2010/01/31/TRAINed.ART_ART_01-31-10_G4_65GE42T.html
^ Speaking of double standards.
the Nelsonville bypass will cost $200 million. $150 will come from stimulus. Sure it’ll make that critical Lancaster-Athens connection so much faster. but commuter rail linking millions of people is a waste?
http://www.constructionequipmentguide.com/US-33-Nelsonville-Bypass-Gets-Critical-ARRA-Funds/12960/
Did the Dispatch run an editorial questioning the expenditure on that project?
of course not. it’s a road, for cars.
oooo…plan. If we just call it a railROAD then nobody’s gonna have a problem with it…