Toledo City Council will consider new legislation to study the possibility of establishing a passenger train route between Toledo and Columbus.
The ordinance, which will have its official first reading at a council meeting Tuesday, proposes a $20,000, six-week study commissioned by city council to Transportation Economics & Management Systems Inc.
District 6 Councilman Theresa Morris, who proposed the legislation, spoke about why Toledo needs a passenger-train route to Columbus.
“If you’ve ever driven down to Columbus, you know that the road between here and there is awful,” she said. “I actually have almost been hit head-on driving by a wrong-way driver, and I feel strongly about looking into alternatives to our infrastructure.”
According to a preliminary study summary, TEMS will consider factors such as route population, route geometry, infrastructure needs, train speeds, and freight traffic to determine if passenger service between the two cities would be feasible.
Council’s draft legislation describes the study as an extension of a TEMS study jointly commissioned by the city and the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments of passenger trains linking Toledo with Detroit and Ann Arbor.
The consultant reported then that 79-mph trains linking those cities would cost about $389.2 million to develop, while increasing the top speed to 110 mph would boost the startup cost to $524 million. No further action has been taken toward developing such a train service since that study’s completion.
The initial $20,000 paid to TMACOG would eventually be paid back to the city at a later date, according to the legislation.
Toledo-Columbus was also one of several routes contemplated in a train-service scenario developed by the Ohio Rail Development Commission. The first of the Ohio Plan routes to get funding would have linked Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, but a $400 million federal grant awarded to Ohio in early 2010 for capital expenses was taken back toward the end of that year after newly elected Gov. John Kasich vowed repeatedly to cancel the project.
Ms. Morris spoke further about why now is the right time to start thinking about a Toledo-to-Columbus train.
“With the passage of the federal infrastructure bill, I think now is the time to unshelve some of these projects that we’ve had,” she said. “With this influx of money, there may be an opportunity to move forward on some of these.”
Councilman Rob Ludeman also expressed his support for establishing a passenger train line at the meeting, talking about how his parents used to take the train to Columbus for Ohio State football games when he was younger.
“That was before Uber and Lyft, and you didn’t have to worry about driving home from Columbus after the game,” he said. “I’ve driven that so many times, I drove that last week, and I would be happy to be able to hop on a train and go down to Columbus.”
Two alternative routes to be considered for the Columbus route would run through Findlay and Kenton or Fostoria and Marion, both along existing freight tracks operated by CSX Transportation Corp. A westward connection from either route toward Lima and Fort Wayne, Ind., will also be investigated, according to the study plan.
Should council pass the ordinance and the study is completed, the next step would be to hear the report, which would include pros and cons and ultimately recommend which route would be better to establish service.
First Published November 19, 2021, 11:23 p.m.
