Ohio high-speed rail advocates say Maine’s passenger rail system is a huge success and could be a good model for a system connecting Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati.

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Ohio in race for rail funding

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2009/09/11/CHOOCHOO.ART_ART_09-11-09_A12_C6F1JIU.html

Many Amtrak trains do have dining/drinking cars, and you could always take a laptop or portable DVD player for entertainment. ;) Not exactly what you’re asking for, but still two things you can’t do while driving. But I digress…

Jefe Says: I should have outlined what I thought was relevant: the stats on people’s heuristics. Folks would use a relatively similar (though not the same, to be sure) decision-making process when deciding to drive vs. fly as when deciding to drive vs. the train. Case in point: Grubersauce’s post. That’s exactly how most of us make decisions, not through a thorough calculation of the depreciation of our cars and opportunity cost of time and such. That’s what Silver’s point was, and that’s why I’m concerned.

Sure, I understand your concerns, and I agree with Grubersauce that train travel would be cost prohibitive in scenarios such as the one he mentioned. I think the key word in all of this though (bolded above) is most. If most people make a decision to just keep driving cars along the 3C corridor, yet enough still do use other factors or have other scenarios in which train travel makes more sense, then shouldn’t the ridership still be likely to meet expectations? I mean… Silver’s point seemed to be that you have to go a long long long way out to get people to hit that 50%-50% sweet spot in the decision to drive vs fly. I’m saying that if we can get 5% of the people to ride the 3C on some occassions instead of drive, then we’re most likely going to see what most people would consider acceptable ridership levels and a significant enough impact on reducing highway congestion. It’s not like we’ve got to find that unrealistic 50/50 sweet spot for ridership to be adequate.

Anyway, all things said, I do appreciate your cautious optimism. The last thing I want to do is make anyone too overoptimistic with my opinions, only to have their expectations not met if I’m not 100% accurate with my armchair predictions and back-of-the-napkin calculations. I’m trying my best to look at this project in the most realistic manner possible.

I see the same trends with the rail vs the car.

Maybe if they have a bar and big screens in one of the trains… then it might be a different story ;)

Case in point: Grubersauce’s post. That’s exactly how most of us make decisions, not through a thorough calculation of the depreciation of our cars and opportunity cost of time and such. That’s what Silver’s point was, and that’s why I’m concerned.

As for trying something small and cheap first—I’m 100% with you on that. I also hope I’m totally wrong in my worries. I’m just very cautious in my optimism as long as gas is cheap.

Roundtrip:
4 people by car = 4 hours commute time and about $40 in gas
4 people by train = 6 hours and $160 in fares

Maybe they’ll have deals on the weekends for recreational travelers.

Anyway, I don’t know if the 50/50 split between the distance of St. Louis & NYC is really that worrisome for rail travel. I doubt the average train travel trips are that long, so I don’t know if the personal decisions that people make on those types of travel scenarios will have the same implications for rail travel. What we’re talking about here are much shorter distances (Cols-Cleve, Cols-Cincy) where air travel is practically non-existent and out of our potential scenarios for Ohio travel.

And while this argument works against rail (although to a lesser degree) you’ll notice that those cost comparisons of the drive/flight between NYC & STL are assuming you’re only one person driving or flying. Once you add an extra passenger or two, the cost effectiveness is reversed and driving becomes the cheaper alternative when you factor in the extra plane tickets.

Which actually ties into something else I was thinking about the other day and needed a good transition for (thanks!)… I was thinking about our previous discussion on successful ridership rates for the 3C and how that comparison could be made to the existing highway infrastructure. There are already expectations set by ODOT for total number of cars to be moved along each section of road, but I don’t believe the number of people per vehicle is taken into account for those figures. So my question would be… is a train from Columbus to Cleveland running at only 20% ridership any less effective than a highway running at expected auto capacity with 5-seater vehicles only each moving one person per car? The scenario reminds me a bit of those popular car/bus/bike images. Or it’s like saying that your refridgerator is “full” even though every condiment bottle is nearly empty.

Anyway, I think you and Nate and I can speculate all day on how rail will be utilized in Ohio, but I don’t know if we can really truely accurately measure the results until we put something in place. Which is why I’m a fan of trying something small and cheap first and seeing how it works before further investment.

Here is a great piece from statistics guru Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com on car/air/high speed rail travel. He’s the prevailing go-to guy with anything numbers-related these days.

The fact that it’s 50/50 whether someone drives from St. Louis to NYC is why I’m worried for rail ridership numbers.

http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/Rail/Programs/passenger/3CisME/Pages/default.aspx

The Metra train runs from Milwaukee to Indiana through Chicago. All three states fund the lines. Chicago also has subway and Amtrak service, making comparing Columbus’ mass transit to Chicago’s a difficult proposition.

Train would bypass Akron
By Staff and wire reports
POSTED: 06:22 p.m. EDT, Aug 23, 2009

A plan seeking federal stimulus money to restore passenger train service among Ohio’s major cities leaves out Akron.

Some potential stops have been dropped from consideration to keep travel time on the 250-mile route to about six hours, which would be competitive with highway driving times along the same corridor.

Incorporating Akron to the route would add about one hour and 30 minutes to the train’s travel time.

Local leaders understand why Akron won’t be included in the startup service, but want the city to be part of any expansion, he said.

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