The public (meaning us) seems to still be ahead of the curve on how important passenger rail is to our future economy. Here is an article from yesterday’s Washington Post on passenger rail becoming more and more popular. Yes Congress is seeing a national passenger rail network in our future too but I can’t get past the fact that we see the value before they do. Maybe that is how it should be.
This quote from the article puts it into perspective:
The high cost of energy, coupled with congestion on highways and at airports, is drawing travelers back to trains not only for commuting but also for travel between cities as much as 500 miles apart.
Other states are moving ahead with plans to cover those five hundred mile or less routes – like our Ohio Hub Plan that will eventually connect us to states within a four hour car ride (radius) of Ohio.
One more quote from the Chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in Congress: “I think we’re at a transformational point in intercity passenger rail service,” said Oberstar, D-Minn. Jim Carroll of the Erie Times News wrote about the tremendous popularity of the Erie Rail line – between his article and the Post article, everyone seems to be coming to the conclusion that not only high car fuel costs are in play here but also airport congestion, higher fees and cuts in air flight services. People are choosing trains over planes now. Good common sense, no? A quote that backs up the ‘radius’ of service idea:
Reguth said Erie’s station attracts people within a 100-mile radius. Students coming to the Erie region’s colleges and others leaving Erie for New York state colleges are a steady business, he said, and quite a few Amish people ride the train. But the number of trains and train seats have not kept pace with their popularity.
Erie is looking for more rail cars. Non-used auto plants could be put back in service to help with parts making for the rails. I can already see the advantage to hooking up a line from the Three C Corridor Plan (Ohio Hub) to Erie because from there you can go farther East.
Gets me back to the point that passenger rail service is the way to go for a stimulus package. You put people to work building new lines, they make money, they spend and stimulate the economy. And we get a rail service that helps unwind us from the bondage of auto fuel costs.
What do you think? Peace Out – 3C
2 responses so far ↓
1 Dennis // Nov 11, 2008 at 7:08 am
One guy in a garage, maybe. An auto plant, never. The amount of people taking the train from Erie has increased – from a dozen people a day to maybe two dozen people a day. It’s still not enough to fill a Greyhound bus. Amtrak still loses money every single day.
Denniss last blog post..Erie PA Today News, Events and Info for today, Monday, November 10, 2008
2 Carole Cohen // Nov 11, 2008 at 9:11 am
Hi Dennis. the issue in Erie is the same as it is here…currently…length of time per trip. And yet, if you look at the percentage of increases all around the Country, rail use is up in spite of the fact that most of the lines are not high speed rail. We could certainly utilize a closed plant or two to start getting more ‘legs’ of the fast trains running. Once length of time is not a factor, ridership will increase quite rapidly.
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