New passenger rail committee starts preparing for potential routes in Central Ohio

A new rail committee took a small step toward bringing passenger rail to Ohio by hosting their first meeting last month.

The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission's (MORPC) Central Ohio Passenger Rail Committee met on July 23 to organize themselves and begin laying the groundwork for passenger rail in Ohio, once thought a long shot in the Buckeye State.

"We have gone from being a pipe dream to a daydream, and hopefully that will soon become reality," Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission Chair Chris Amorose Groomes said at the meeting.

The committee is composed of mayors, city managers, policy experts and representatives from local organizations around central Ohio. Terry Emery, the city manager for Marysville, is the committee's chair.

Most of the meeting was dedicated to reviewing the rail projects' steps and deciding how the committee should be organized.

Mayors and representatives from Hilliard, Dublin, Worthington and Delaware also attended, sharing with the committee the steps their communities have taken to prepare for a possible train station. The rail project is still in its infancy and the specifics of the routes and stops have yet to be ironed out, meaning these communities are still vying for a potentially lucrative train stop in their towns.

What rail projects are coming to Ohio?

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced in December that Ohio would receive federal money to plan four proposed passenger rail lines. These routes are:

• 3C+D: Cincinnati-Dayton-Columbus-Cleveland
• Midwest Connect: Chicago-Fort Wayne-Columbus-Pittsburgh, including Lima, Kenton, Marysville, Newark, Cochocton, Newcomerstown, Uhrichsville and Steubenville.
• Cleveland-Toledo-Detroit
• Increasing Amtrak's current route frequency to Cincinnati from New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.

The Central Ohio Passenger Rail Committee, as a part of MORPC, are responsible for assisting the Ohio Rail Development Commission with planning and executing the 3C+D and Midwest Connect rail lines.

What's the timeline for these routes? What are the steps?

The state, Amtrak, and regional planning organizations like MORPC will receive $500,000 for their first step of planning the rail routes.

In this first step, the committee and other rail partners will focus on developing the scope and schedule for the next phase: route planning, according to documents shared at the committee meeting. This step will take 6-12 months.

Once the first step is complete—likely sometime in 2025—the committee and its rail partners will move onto crafting a service development plan that will outline the railway's routes, its stations and how service will work. This step will take one to three years.

The final planning phase involves preliminary engineering and environmental review to prepare the rail projects for construction, design and service, according to documents shared at the committee meeting. Like step two, this step will take one to three years.

After these three planning steps are complete, construction on the rail routes will begin in earnest. Committee members did not share a timeline for when construction will be complete at their meeting.

What impact will these routes have?

The proposed "3C+D" route connecting Ohio's largest cities and Dayton could generate $107 million for the state's economy and create up to 1,200 jobs, according to a study from rail advocacy group All Aboard Ohio .

"This passenger rail is not only about nostalgia, it's not cute. But there's definitely economic development impacts of connecting the region through passenger rail," MORPC Chief Mobility and Infrastructure Officer Parag Agrawal said at the meeting.

Ohio had a shot at $400 million in passenger rail money back in 2011, but then-Governor John Kasich opted to send the money back to the federal government, saying the trains were too expensive and too slow, The Dispatch previously reported .

The rail committee's next meeting is Oct. 22.

NHart@dispatch.com

@NathanRHart

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: New passenger rail committee starts preparing for potential routes in Central Ohio