The report came in last week, in time for the state to put together its application for federal stimulus money, which is due in October.
Whether the study comforts the proponents or opponents of train travel is a matter of debate.
It projects a half million people will use the train in the first year. Seems like a lot, but that amounts to 1,300 persons a day, in a state of 11 million.
It posits six and half hours for a trip from Cincinnati to Cleveland. Some people find that laughably long, compared to car travel of 4 to 4½ hours, nonstop, depending on weather and who’s conducting your car.
But most train travelers seem likely to take shorter trips, where the time differences don’t seem so big. Anyway, there are always trade-offs in choosing modes of travel. With trains, there’s more travel time, but you can put the time to better use.
Moreover, the idea is not to replace cars, but to add an option for people who don’t have a reliable car, don’t like to drive, don’t want to use the gasoline, have trouble dealing with a spike in gas prices, or whatever.
The study envisions three or four trains through major cities in each direction every day.
The study pegs the cost of the 3C line (Cleveland to Cincinnati, via Columbus and Dayton) at more than $500 million of federal money, plus state and local expenditures on depots and such. It says the system would need a subsidy of $17 million a year after that. Almost no train systems support themselves.
But supporters say trains can spur economic development. Officials in Dayton and Springfield heard last week from a developer from Maine who talked about a line from Boston up to Portland that has revitalized a town in between. Robert Martin spoke of $7.2 billion in construction sparked by the train.
How that experience might translate to Ohio is not clear, particularly given Amtrak’s belief in limiting the number of stops.
Springfield, where officials have already been working on getting a station built, was not included as a stop in the Amtrak study. It still has hopes of being included eventually. It has won the attention of Columbus.
Perhaps the best case for passenger trains is the nature of Ohio. The study notes that Columbus is the largest city in the country, other than Phoenix, that has no train service. (Cleveland and Cincinnati have middle-of-the-night connections between Chicago and the East Coast.)
Moreover, the state’s cities are too close together for air travel to be attractive, except from Cincinnati to Cleveland.
The Amtrak report will not keep some people from seeing the 3C project as just another dubious big-government spending project. But spending some money that results in short-term construction jobs has something to be said for it as the nation faces an expected economic recovery in which the unemployment rate may be the last statistic to improve.
Moreover, trains can be part of a turnaround for the Dayton region. This community stands to benefit more than most, being the smallest metro area on the proposed line that would have service in two directions.
You know how those commercials for certain anti-cholesterol drugs say they can help if combined with good diet and exercise? Similarly, if trains are combined with other approaches to economic health, they can help lower the region's cholesterol.
— Cox News Service