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Ohio’s 3C Rail Plan gets $400M Boost

27 January 2010 5 Comments

The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that the Obama administration has earmarked $400 million for Ohio’s plan to link Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and Cleveland via high-speed rail.

From The Dispatch:

Ohio officials are banking on federal stimulus money for most or all of the estimated $517.6 million they say they need to improve existing freight rail to passenger standards and to buy trains.

obama-green-high-speed-rail

“This is some of the best news we have had in a long time,” Senator Sherrod Brown said. “If I put my ear down to the rail I think I hear a train coming.”

This is good news for people who are from Columbus but live in Cleveland (like me!) and their families. Hooray!

-AS

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  • http://www.seoohio.net/ Mark Stegman

    I can not wait to take the train to Columbus or all the way to Montreal; Downtown Columbus, Ohio will be a great weekend getaway from Cincinnati. WAY TO GO OHIO!

  • Nick Wright

    It’s not high-speed, but, hey, it’s a start.

    Dayton Daily News put up a good video illustrating their specific plans:

    http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-passenger-train-plans-unveiled-517706.html

  • http://www.columbusunderground.com Walker Evans

    Very exciting news! :D

  • tonyg

    Having been involved in the rail industry for over 25 years I will tell you that the money is spread too thin nation wide to actually do much and that what tends to happen is a speculation in land, property along side any proposed route. The discussion of “high” speed rail simply bring out the realitors , pumping land/ property values. It’s a version of pump and dump. There’s lots of examples of this in state after state. We all say we will ride the train, but if you don’t have enough population density along the entire right of way, it’s an ecominic bust in our system. It’s yet another way to foster land and property speculation. I think we’ve all have our fill of that recently haven’t we?

  • Seth

    From everything I’ve read, though, the Cleveland-Cincy band is the highest density corridor nationwide not to have passenger rail service. If that statistic is true, I would warrant that there is density enough to justify the rail. Regardless, this is exciting news. I for one will be exploring Cincy and (maybe) Columbus just as soon as it’s up and running. Let’s just hope that this triggers better rail schedules to Chicago and Pittsburgh for Clevelanders.