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We’ve recently been getting daily news updates that the 3C Corridor passenger rail project is slowly moving closer to reality. Not everyone is on board though, and its expected that there’s going to be a few naysayers popping up to make complaints. Some citizens don’t think it’s a smart move to use less than a fraction of a percent of ODOT’s budget on passenger rail because only a fraction of a percent of Ohio’s population will ride it. A very similar complaint made an appearance in the Sunday Dispatch’s Letters to the Editor section (thanks to Juana for emailing me the link). The name attached to it was a Mr. Bob Weiler.
Is this the same Bob Weiler who is a fairly well known local developer? Is this the same Bob Weiler who serves on the Board of Trustees at COTA? Is this the same Bob Weiler who last summer publically derided inner-city rail transit in Columbus, which COTA would actually be in charge of operating?
Who knows. There’s no title or credentials listed with the Dispatch LTE. So it could be someone other than the guy in the photo above. Who knows.
I’m pretty sure high speed/Acela requires concrete rail ties for added stability instead of the wooden ties that we currently have. That seems like a pretty major project now, but seems doable in the future if this first attempt is successful.
I was wondering when this was going to find it’s way to CU.
Regardless of who Bob is, I am amazed at the “high cost” argument I keep seeing. Wouldn’t we be shouting from the rooftops if a statewide freeway project came in at $250 million and 1-2% of the transportation budget for yearly cost? We have less than 10 miles of roadway being “fixed” here locally at a cost of $1.6 billion. It’s too bad that gets ignored by the Bobs.
Would be nice if GM had the ability to build high-speed trains with their bailout bucks.
JonMyers: Weiler is not “just a critic of the rail plan.” He is also Mayor Coleman’s appointee to the transit authority and has a long and vocal history of opposing many forms of non-automobile mass transit.
I thought our freeways were our mass transit system…
I heard a presentation today from someone who is a national figure in the tourism biz. The money there says that rail is coming and they are planning for it. Either you do it or you leave money on the table – which someone else will be happy to grab.
<Nice to see you, roy!>
A.
Andrew Hall Says: <Nice to see you, roy!>
x10,000
Walker Says:
March 31st, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Andrew Hall Says: <Nice to see you, roy!>
x10,000
I was just thinking the same thing!
Ohio is the 9th most densely-populated state.
1 New Jersey; 2 Rhode Island; 3 Massachusetts; 4 Connecticut; 5 Maryland; 6 New York; 7 Delaware; 8 Florida; 9 Ohio; 10 Pennsylvania
You don’t see California or Nevada on that list– or Illinois or Wisconsin (places where high-speed might actually happen).
Ohio is equal to France’s population density. (France 279 per sq mi Ohio: 277/sq.mi.) France got lot trains dere. But Ohiah ain’t France. It jest Ohiah after all.
It is criminal that our three major metros aren’t connected by train. Slow or fast.
What happens when we spend this money (which I agree in the grand scheme of things isn’t very much) and gas eventually does go back up to 4 plus dollars a gallon – then someone finally masters mass producing an affordable automobile that doesn’t run on fossil fuels that becomes the new standard of transportation and we are left with an outdated mode of transportation that no one uses?
Arguably the car “replaced” trains, yet we have rail based transit across the world.
Both modes have equally appealing values. Having the choice to pick the best for a particular situation can only bring good things.
i would say the phrase “finally masters mass producing an affordable automobile that doesn’t run on fossil fuels” sums up the need to move forth on 3-C. There’s some many qualifiers in that statement – finally, mass-producing, affordable, doesn’t run on fossil fuels. given the potential lag there, why should Ohioans wait for what could be decades. also, if i thought of other countries where this might be a reality before the US – i.e. Japan or Gemany - I see no disinvestment from trains and transportation alternatives.