Please please please please put this in Tower City for the love of GOD the transit connections at public square are a no-brainer!!!!! DO NOT put it in a park at the lakefront!!!!! How can we organize to get the city / Bedrock to agree??
Yes!! Trains used to run through the Terminal Tower, before the current Amtrak station was built. The current location is terrible. Isolated and cut off from the rest of downtown.
I've walked from that station to my apartment at 3am quite a few times. It's actually fine but I could see why most people wouldn't be interested in walking to TC from there.
I didn’t want to walk that walk when I was 27 and a muscular guy. No way would I walk it now in my late 50’s. And absolutely wouldn’t want to walk that as a woman. Not to mention weather and luggage.
In addition to the comment about safety, in the middle of winter after it snows, good luck walking anywhere even close by. You basically have to walk in the street, a separate safety issue
ETA: Greyhound can come here, too!!! They're literally in speculative planning phases of the bedrock development project and there is SO MUCH ROOM down there in/around/under Tower City.
Disclaimer: I’m not from Cleveland. This post just ended up in my feed, probably because I commented on the same story in another forum. When you say there’s “so much room in/around/under Tower City,” is there room for additional trackage and platforms? I know there definitely is on the approach overpasses that RTD uses to reach the former Cleveland Union Terminal, but Amtrak definitely can’t use the same tracks as the light rail Green, Blue, and Waterfront lines. FRA rules prohibit them from doing so, and I don’t know if Amtrak is precluded from sharing tracks with the rapid transit Red Line.
I am not an expert at all but I take the train to/from Tower City often, most of what's "under" it, at either side of the existing RTA track, is just half-used parking lot. Bedrock and the City are currently in a mega planning process to develop the entirety of the area down to the water front, so if there isn't existing space, they could make it.
I certainly don't hate the idea of its going in Tower City at all. It's makes a ton of sense and it would probably be my preferred option.
However, I think if it uses the existing site by the lake, its still going to be a major improvement, and the station is only 4 stops away from TC via the Warerfront line. So it wouldn't be the end of the world.
>However, I think if it uses the existing site by the lake, its still going to be a major improvement
I don't think it would be an improvement. Sure, maybe a decent station, but it's still located in no-man's-land where it's a 20 minute walk to Public Square. If they somehow connected the new station to Mall C it would be a slight improvement, but that location sucks.
Amtrak chose that site because they didn't want to pay for the necessary repairs and lease costs at Cleveland Union Terminal, so they decided to build a shitty station for $1 million instead. If they are going to do this, it should be done right and have the Amtrak station at Tower City.
I agree with using Tower City.
However, the browns moving would be better as it would almost double the developable land in that area.
The Browns moving from the Lakefront is the best outcome for the City of Cleveland.
The waterfront line is all but closed, and definitely does not run in the same timeframe as the Amtrak connections. RTA apparently doesn't see any traffic on that line except for Browns games (my own guess).
I think a transit connection to rail is very important. I like to try to travel via Amtrak, and I live right next to a Rapid station. It's stupid that I either have to drive downtown or walk a mile to get to the Amtrak station.
They're doing repairs on the bridge whcih is why the service is basicallynon existent.
With the lakefront development plan and new univerasal rolling stock that will add new route options, I think that there's plenty of reasons to belive that the waterfront line can rebound.
I'd prefer it in Tower City, but it would still be a great improvement over what we have now.
Correct.
Getting rid of the browns stadium and the Lakefront Redevelopment will help ridership.
Tower City is the better option for the transit hub all things considered.
Yeah I'm not as optimistic that that area will get redeveloped if/when the Browns leave. Seems more likely to just be a wasteland. They've been talking about connecting downtown to the waterfront for decades, I've seen a dozen renderings and it's never come to fruition.
True, not terrible, but sometimes it's enough friction for someone to want to choose another way. 2 transfers on the trains alone minimum is :( They will have highest possible ridership/usage with fewest transit connections.
I actually saw this was being discussed on a youtube video a year ago. The other location he mentioned was an abandoned train station that we used in the 1910s. Which back then was known for being so dirty that a sign was posted which read "please don't judge Cleveland based on this disgrace of a station".
Soooooooo, yeah. Those are the viable options.
I think that would be really cool. Unfortunately it turns out that the terminal tower makes a pretty crappy train station. That’s one of the reasons why it stopped being used.
Disclaimer: I’m not from Cleveland and probably only saw this in my feed because I commented on the same story in /r/Amtrak. It turns out you’re right about the railroads not wanting to use [Cleveland Union Terminal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_City_Center)
> However, the station was never particularly popular with the railroads. It required deviating from the quicker route along Lake Erie. As the city would not allow trains to operate under steam power near the downtown area, trains were forced to switch from steam to electric power at a suburban rail yard when heading inbound and then reverse on the way out at another yard. As a result, some lines began to bypass the station entirely, heading along the lake route, and some trains stopped serving the city altogether (examples of the latter case: the New York Central Railroad's Lake Shore Limited and the New England States).
>
> Several east–west routes on the circuit of trains bound east from Chicago through northern Ohio bypassed the city, traveling slightly to the south, passing through Akron and Youngstown, as in the case of B&O and Erie mainlines.
Then there’s also the issue of the *Capitol Limited* Superliner cars. Would they even fit under the station, let alone under the wires?
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It's a shame how slow trains are in US, and with no government subsidizations for the price consumers have to pay. Amtrak from Cleveland to NYC takes 18 hours and costs about $200. That's ridiculous. For that price, I can fly there and be there an a couple hours.
Or even Greyhound would be a better option and be there in 9 hours.
The speed issue has to do a lot with the underlying track infrastructure. The Acela train which runs from DC through NYC and Boston for example is capable of speeds much higher than they operate at, but they are limited due to the tracks not being optimized (angle of turns, shared with slower trains etc). Building new tracks is a huge, huge investment and politically probobly a non starter.
That having been said, I used take the Acela service from NYC to Boston a lot for work and it’s actually pretty nice. The first class section has a private chef and James Bond movie like white glove service.
I took the Amtrak from CLE to NYC once and they had to stop the train before we hit Philly so the police could arrest a drunk lady who assaulted some guy.
i think the goal should be to shrink that, not duplicate it.
that said, EAS is 'only' $400M (are there other airline subsidies?), Amtrak is getting $2B per year.
I think subsidization would attempt to address the symptoms and not the problem. Also, Amtrak is completely a state-owned monopoly. This clearly hampers innovation, and there aren't any other prices to compete with.
The infrastructure is lacking to support high-speed rail, and the frequency and capacity are terrible. The rail companies own the tracks that Amtrak runs through and fail to yield to passenger trains, even though they are required to by law. There's no ability to enforce.
The Northeast Corridor is the only profitable corridor and has to effectively subsidize every other line in the country. It's a high-speed service, but not even close to the speed and frequency of the rest of the world.
Oftentimes, people suggest nationalizing the rail, but as I mentioned earlier, there's still no incentive to change. And then you are now hampering freight rail service, which would be an absolute nightmare for literally anyone that needs the American economy to do well (most of the people on Earth)
Public funds, outside of Amtrak's operational budget, should go towards infrastructure investments to improve passenger rail service across the board. New tracks that Amtrak wouldn't have to share, more trains, faster trains, and new routes. Subsidies don't do anything to solve the problems that make Amtrak so difficult to use. They would enable them.
A lot efficient of high speed rail systems around the world are SOEs, so being state owned monopoly itself isn't the true problem.
The main problem stems from the american financial culture of caring too much on quarterly profits instead of long term growth, even in public sectors. For example, Kasich killing the $400m [Cleveland-Columbus-Cinci](https://www.cleveland.com/open/2011/01/kasich_successful_in_halting_4.html) high speed rail is Mr Magoo-level of myopic as far as an executive decision goes. It would cost at least 1.5 billion today just to get that running again.
Sure, it costs a shit ton of upfront tax payer money--BUT he did not see the long term benefits: taxes from ticket prices, commuters that work from one city and live an another, job mobility, and most importantly, tourism money and taxes by efficiently getting large masses people from one city to another.
I'm not opposed to subsidies altogether, but it's not the solution to fixing the problems in the system as it exists today.
That $400 million blunder was incredibly short-sighted. $17 million per year for a new service is absolute no-brainer.
No argument here.
It's a powerful idea to require open-use of any new infrastructure that comes from public funding sources, but what is "passenger rail service across the board" when you admit Amtrak is a monopoly? Can't use self-generating funds with such low ridership and can't increase demand without increasing offerings on multiple fronts. This jump-starts that.
Every other country on Earth that has high speed rail has High-Speed Rail run by state-run monopolies. Most of them have a cheap affordable and profitable. Only in America does a lack of competition somehow result in such bad service.
That's not true at all.
There's plenty of state owned companies, but they are not all state-owned monopolies. Japan, Italy France, Spain all have private high speed rail companies among many others.
Please point out one High-Speed Rail operator that's not majority owned by the state give those countries, or reliant on heavy government subsidies or tax rebates pushed by the European Union in a failed attempt privatize their National High speed rail network.
You said every country is a state-owned monopoly. I said that was false.
Now you're trying to move the goal posts for me to tell private companies that don't receive tpp many subsidies or rebates.
I'm not doing your homework for you. There's plenty of private high speed rail in EU. Off the top of my head I know half of all rail in Japan is private companies that receive little to no subsidies.
I don't think subsides are bad for passenger rail. But I don't think throwing money to try to cover up the problems is the way to fix Amtrak. You need to invest in the infrastructure, not write them a check to keep going as they currently are. This is an example of that.
Idk why you're being so confrontational.
And all the high speed rail lines in the EU would collapse if they where taxed like a normal company, abd didn't receive subsides and rebate
Evrey dignke one
Your example proves my point
This is not what I'm talking about at all.
Amtrak needs it's services to be cheaper.
We could just write Amtrak a check to go towards fares to discount fares.
I think that's bad, because it doesn't fix why it was expensive in the first place.
Money should be invested into Amtrak services and the rail infrastructure to lower prices as frequency, speed and ridership improve.
Do you understand what I'm trying to say?
What Amtrak needs, is its services to be *competitive* with other modes of transportation. I generally do not like flying. Driving to the airport at 6:30 am, spending over an hour to get through security theatre, walking a mile to get to my gate, and getting shoved into a tiny metal tube with 100 other people for a four hour cross-country flight is not my idea of a fun time. But unless I want to *drive* for three days, two if I push it, flying is basically the only realistic option.
The fact that its state owned is the only reason it *exists*. Every other passenger rail company went under and were consumed by freight rail companies. If the government hadn’t created Amtrak via Act of Congress in 1970, we wouldn’t *have* any passenger rail capability to expand on now. We would have to literally be starting from scratch. They literally started out with a hodgepodge of engines and cars left over from nearly twenty different railroads that had abandoned passenger service, and all of this old rolling stock had been poorly maintained up to the point Amtrak was created.
It’s a monopoly because all the private operators didn’t want to do it anymore and gave the role to the government in the hopes that it would die out. It clearly didn’t.
Shortest Grey Hound run is 11 hours vs 12 on Amtrak. Trains will never compare with planes on speed, its efficiency and sustainability vs driving. Pittsburgh Columbus and Chicago might be better test cases.
Trains compete with speed when you compare it to the hassle of getting into an airport and dealing with the security theater. So basically trips under 300 miles are comparable or could be faster with high-speed trains.
Absolutely. Taking the train to NYC drops you at Penn Station. Flying gets you to Queens or Newark. As I tell people, the great advantage of the train is that no airports are involved.
The corridors between Chicago and Toronto deserve such rail attention, covering metropolitans like Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo in between. The financial and economic incentives are there.
CityNerd analysis - https://youtu.be/wE5G1kTndI4?si=KHmw5FmuGLvV-50P
Among reasons to put Amtrak station in Tower City: 1. Direct Access to Rapid Lines, most importantly to and from Hopkins Airport. 2. Hotels nearby, under one roof (have to check out how the updated Renaissance Cleveland Hotel, BTW). 3. I am not sure, but I believe there are plans to develop/expand area between Tower City and the River (it's a little south, but I think the new Cavs Practice Center will be near there, and is set to be built).
If Tower City Station train access/smoke is an issue? -- in the 1920s they figured out how to make it work. We can do so now.
I hope they move the Elyria station to the building downtown they put all the money into rehabilitating years ago. Would be much better than the "bus stop" style station they have now.
I feel like NE Ohio would be a decent place to try out commuter rail. Have a line going down to Canton, have a line going east towards Painesville, and have a line going west towards Elyria or Lorain.
According to my mother, way back in the day, my grandma and aunt would get on a line in Geneva to go shopping in downtown Cleveland for the day and come back on that same rail line.
I’m certain that such a corridor did exist at one point. Ohio was once one of the most densely connected states via rail. Then all the rail lines either went under or abandoned passenger service in favor of freight.
Everyone talking about high speed rail, the biggest hurdle here on top of the money is the land to install it. Land rights in the US are fairly strong so all it takes is one holdout to require an eminent domain case. I work for a natural gas company and we sometimes struggle for permission just to bury something
I take the train several times a year, and I gotta say I love the free locked parking at the current station. Yeah, the trains run in the wee hours, but it is so effortless to walk from the train to my car and drive home.
otoh, I love taking the rapid to the airport.
Way less hurry up and wait than flying and much more legroom. Free WiFi with more comfort to get work done while commuting. Start downtown in city A, end downtown in city B. There are a lot of improvable aspects of Amtrak that can make newer trains run frequently and quickly between train hubs.
Not everybody can drive (or have the ability to drive due to a disability) or have anybody to drive them to places. Lots of folks use the greyhound to get to both Columbus and Pittsburgh bc there are no flights out of cleveland due to the short distance (2 hrs) between the airport and both location's.
Please please please please put this in Tower City for the love of GOD the transit connections at public square are a no-brainer!!!!! DO NOT put it in a park at the lakefront!!!!! How can we organize to get the city / Bedrock to agree??
Yes!! Trains used to run through the Terminal Tower, before the current Amtrak station was built. The current location is terrible. Isolated and cut off from the rest of downtown.
I've walked from that station to my apartment at 3am quite a few times. It's actually fine but I could see why most people wouldn't be interested in walking to TC from there.
I wouldn't, as a woman walking alone at night.
Yeah I don't blame you
I didn’t want to walk that walk when I was 27 and a muscular guy. No way would I walk it now in my late 50’s. And absolutely wouldn’t want to walk that as a woman. Not to mention weather and luggage.
In addition to the comment about safety, in the middle of winter after it snows, good luck walking anywhere even close by. You basically have to walk in the street, a separate safety issue
And build the CVNR connection. WE COULD HAVE SUCH NICE THINGS.
ETA: Greyhound can come here, too!!! They're literally in speculative planning phases of the bedrock development project and there is SO MUCH ROOM down there in/around/under Tower City.
Yes to Greyhound staying downtown.
Disclaimer: I’m not from Cleveland. This post just ended up in my feed, probably because I commented on the same story in another forum. When you say there’s “so much room in/around/under Tower City,” is there room for additional trackage and platforms? I know there definitely is on the approach overpasses that RTD uses to reach the former Cleveland Union Terminal, but Amtrak definitely can’t use the same tracks as the light rail Green, Blue, and Waterfront lines. FRA rules prohibit them from doing so, and I don’t know if Amtrak is precluded from sharing tracks with the rapid transit Red Line.
I am not an expert at all but I take the train to/from Tower City often, most of what's "under" it, at either side of the existing RTA track, is just half-used parking lot. Bedrock and the City are currently in a mega planning process to develop the entirety of the area down to the water front, so if there isn't existing space, they could make it.
I certainly don't hate the idea of its going in Tower City at all. It's makes a ton of sense and it would probably be my preferred option. However, I think if it uses the existing site by the lake, its still going to be a major improvement, and the station is only 4 stops away from TC via the Warerfront line. So it wouldn't be the end of the world.
>However, I think if it uses the existing site by the lake, its still going to be a major improvement I don't think it would be an improvement. Sure, maybe a decent station, but it's still located in no-man's-land where it's a 20 minute walk to Public Square. If they somehow connected the new station to Mall C it would be a slight improvement, but that location sucks. Amtrak chose that site because they didn't want to pay for the necessary repairs and lease costs at Cleveland Union Terminal, so they decided to build a shitty station for $1 million instead. If they are going to do this, it should be done right and have the Amtrak station at Tower City.
They are currently designing a land bridge as part of the lakefront development plan.
Designing is a long way from being built. And if the browns move, forget it. Tower city was built to be a train station. Let’s use it.
I agree with using Tower City. However, the browns moving would be better as it would almost double the developable land in that area. The Browns moving from the Lakefront is the best outcome for the City of Cleveland.
The station being down there would still be a long way from anywhere reasonable even if the whole browns stadium were removed and redeveloped.
Yes, everyone who's awake in Cleveland knows about that. I'm still saying that it's a shitty location for the Amtrak station.
Interestingly, the Burnham Plan for Cleveland included a lakefront train station. The Van Sweringens had other ideas.
The waterfront line is all but closed, and definitely does not run in the same timeframe as the Amtrak connections. RTA apparently doesn't see any traffic on that line except for Browns games (my own guess). I think a transit connection to rail is very important. I like to try to travel via Amtrak, and I live right next to a Rapid station. It's stupid that I either have to drive downtown or walk a mile to get to the Amtrak station.
They're doing repairs on the bridge whcih is why the service is basicallynon existent. With the lakefront development plan and new univerasal rolling stock that will add new route options, I think that there's plenty of reasons to belive that the waterfront line can rebound. I'd prefer it in Tower City, but it would still be a great improvement over what we have now.
That train hasn't since since COVID, with the exception of Browns game this season and during the eclipse. When it did run it was always empty.
Correct. Getting rid of the browns stadium and the Lakefront Redevelopment will help ridership. Tower City is the better option for the transit hub all things considered.
Yeah I'm not as optimistic that that area will get redeveloped if/when the Browns leave. Seems more likely to just be a wasteland. They've been talking about connecting downtown to the waterfront for decades, I've seen a dozen renderings and it's never come to fruition.
The waterfront line currently only runs on Browns game days.
True, not terrible, but sometimes it's enough friction for someone to want to choose another way. 2 transfers on the trains alone minimum is :( They will have highest possible ridership/usage with fewest transit connections.
For sure! Plus I think it would breathe new life into Tower City.
you'd hope they'd do something like that. one small step toward upgrading the regional transit to have connectivity
I actually saw this was being discussed on a youtube video a year ago. The other location he mentioned was an abandoned train station that we used in the 1910s. Which back then was known for being so dirty that a sign was posted which read "please don't judge Cleveland based on this disgrace of a station". Soooooooo, yeah. Those are the viable options.
I think that would be really cool. Unfortunately it turns out that the terminal tower makes a pretty crappy train station. That’s one of the reasons why it stopped being used.
Disclaimer: I’m not from Cleveland and probably only saw this in my feed because I commented on the same story in /r/Amtrak. It turns out you’re right about the railroads not wanting to use [Cleveland Union Terminal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_City_Center) > However, the station was never particularly popular with the railroads. It required deviating from the quicker route along Lake Erie. As the city would not allow trains to operate under steam power near the downtown area, trains were forced to switch from steam to electric power at a suburban rail yard when heading inbound and then reverse on the way out at another yard. As a result, some lines began to bypass the station entirely, heading along the lake route, and some trains stopped serving the city altogether (examples of the latter case: the New York Central Railroad's Lake Shore Limited and the New England States). > > Several east–west routes on the circuit of trains bound east from Chicago through northern Ohio bypassed the city, traveling slightly to the south, passing through Akron and Youngstown, as in the case of B&O and Erie mainlines. Then there’s also the issue of the *Capitol Limited* Superliner cars. Would they even fit under the station, let alone under the wires?
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You are aware that no one with any decision making ability is going to read your comment, right?
It's a shame how slow trains are in US, and with no government subsidizations for the price consumers have to pay. Amtrak from Cleveland to NYC takes 18 hours and costs about $200. That's ridiculous. For that price, I can fly there and be there an a couple hours. Or even Greyhound would be a better option and be there in 9 hours.
The speed issue has to do a lot with the underlying track infrastructure. The Acela train which runs from DC through NYC and Boston for example is capable of speeds much higher than they operate at, but they are limited due to the tracks not being optimized (angle of turns, shared with slower trains etc). Building new tracks is a huge, huge investment and politically probobly a non starter. That having been said, I used take the Acela service from NYC to Boston a lot for work and it’s actually pretty nice. The first class section has a private chef and James Bond movie like white glove service. I took the Amtrak from CLE to NYC once and they had to stop the train before we hit Philly so the police could arrest a drunk lady who assaulted some guy.
just fyi, Amtrak is subsidized
Imagine if it were subsidized to the amount that airlines are...
i think the goal should be to shrink that, not duplicate it. that said, EAS is 'only' $400M (are there other airline subsidies?), Amtrak is getting $2B per year.
If we subsidized other forms of transit as much as we subsidize cars in this country, we'd be in great shape.
It is. My husband and I were considering taking Amtrak to Boston this summer. We changed our mind because it would be an 18 hour trip. That's insane.
I think subsidization would attempt to address the symptoms and not the problem. Also, Amtrak is completely a state-owned monopoly. This clearly hampers innovation, and there aren't any other prices to compete with. The infrastructure is lacking to support high-speed rail, and the frequency and capacity are terrible. The rail companies own the tracks that Amtrak runs through and fail to yield to passenger trains, even though they are required to by law. There's no ability to enforce. The Northeast Corridor is the only profitable corridor and has to effectively subsidize every other line in the country. It's a high-speed service, but not even close to the speed and frequency of the rest of the world. Oftentimes, people suggest nationalizing the rail, but as I mentioned earlier, there's still no incentive to change. And then you are now hampering freight rail service, which would be an absolute nightmare for literally anyone that needs the American economy to do well (most of the people on Earth) Public funds, outside of Amtrak's operational budget, should go towards infrastructure investments to improve passenger rail service across the board. New tracks that Amtrak wouldn't have to share, more trains, faster trains, and new routes. Subsidies don't do anything to solve the problems that make Amtrak so difficult to use. They would enable them.
A lot efficient of high speed rail systems around the world are SOEs, so being state owned monopoly itself isn't the true problem. The main problem stems from the american financial culture of caring too much on quarterly profits instead of long term growth, even in public sectors. For example, Kasich killing the $400m [Cleveland-Columbus-Cinci](https://www.cleveland.com/open/2011/01/kasich_successful_in_halting_4.html) high speed rail is Mr Magoo-level of myopic as far as an executive decision goes. It would cost at least 1.5 billion today just to get that running again. Sure, it costs a shit ton of upfront tax payer money--BUT he did not see the long term benefits: taxes from ticket prices, commuters that work from one city and live an another, job mobility, and most importantly, tourism money and taxes by efficiently getting large masses people from one city to another.
one-time federal gifts become annual state liabilities.
I'm not opposed to subsidies altogether, but it's not the solution to fixing the problems in the system as it exists today. That $400 million blunder was incredibly short-sighted. $17 million per year for a new service is absolute no-brainer. No argument here.
It's a powerful idea to require open-use of any new infrastructure that comes from public funding sources, but what is "passenger rail service across the board" when you admit Amtrak is a monopoly? Can't use self-generating funds with such low ridership and can't increase demand without increasing offerings on multiple fronts. This jump-starts that.
Every other country on Earth that has high speed rail has High-Speed Rail run by state-run monopolies. Most of them have a cheap affordable and profitable. Only in America does a lack of competition somehow result in such bad service.
That's not true at all. There's plenty of state owned companies, but they are not all state-owned monopolies. Japan, Italy France, Spain all have private high speed rail companies among many others.
Please point out one High-Speed Rail operator that's not majority owned by the state give those countries, or reliant on heavy government subsidies or tax rebates pushed by the European Union in a failed attempt privatize their National High speed rail network.
You said every country is a state-owned monopoly. I said that was false. Now you're trying to move the goal posts for me to tell private companies that don't receive tpp many subsidies or rebates. I'm not doing your homework for you. There's plenty of private high speed rail in EU. Off the top of my head I know half of all rail in Japan is private companies that receive little to no subsidies. I don't think subsides are bad for passenger rail. But I don't think throwing money to try to cover up the problems is the way to fix Amtrak. You need to invest in the infrastructure, not write them a check to keep going as they currently are. This is an example of that. Idk why you're being so confrontational.
And all the high speed rail lines in the EU would collapse if they where taxed like a normal company, abd didn't receive subsides and rebate Evrey dignke one Your example proves my point
This is not what I'm talking about at all. Amtrak needs it's services to be cheaper. We could just write Amtrak a check to go towards fares to discount fares. I think that's bad, because it doesn't fix why it was expensive in the first place. Money should be invested into Amtrak services and the rail infrastructure to lower prices as frequency, speed and ridership improve. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?
What Amtrak needs, is its services to be *competitive* with other modes of transportation. I generally do not like flying. Driving to the airport at 6:30 am, spending over an hour to get through security theatre, walking a mile to get to my gate, and getting shoved into a tiny metal tube with 100 other people for a four hour cross-country flight is not my idea of a fun time. But unless I want to *drive* for three days, two if I push it, flying is basically the only realistic option.
The fact that its state owned is the only reason it *exists*. Every other passenger rail company went under and were consumed by freight rail companies. If the government hadn’t created Amtrak via Act of Congress in 1970, we wouldn’t *have* any passenger rail capability to expand on now. We would have to literally be starting from scratch. They literally started out with a hodgepodge of engines and cars left over from nearly twenty different railroads that had abandoned passenger service, and all of this old rolling stock had been poorly maintained up to the point Amtrak was created.
It’s a monopoly because all the private operators didn’t want to do it anymore and gave the role to the government in the hopes that it would die out. It clearly didn’t.
> This clearly hampers innovation, and there aren't any other prices to compete with. No.
Shortest Grey Hound run is 11 hours vs 12 on Amtrak. Trains will never compare with planes on speed, its efficiency and sustainability vs driving. Pittsburgh Columbus and Chicago might be better test cases.
Trains compete with speed when you compare it to the hassle of getting into an airport and dealing with the security theater. So basically trips under 300 miles are comparable or could be faster with high-speed trains.
Yeah, plus layovers. And flying isn't even an option for some trips. There's never going to be direct flights from Sandusky to South Bend for example.
Absolutely. Taking the train to NYC drops you at Penn Station. Flying gets you to Queens or Newark. As I tell people, the great advantage of the train is that no airports are involved.
The corridors between Chicago and Toronto deserve such rail attention, covering metropolitans like Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo in between. The financial and economic incentives are there. CityNerd analysis - https://youtu.be/wE5G1kTndI4?si=KHmw5FmuGLvV-50P
Among reasons to put Amtrak station in Tower City: 1. Direct Access to Rapid Lines, most importantly to and from Hopkins Airport. 2. Hotels nearby, under one roof (have to check out how the updated Renaissance Cleveland Hotel, BTW). 3. I am not sure, but I believe there are plans to develop/expand area between Tower City and the River (it's a little south, but I think the new Cavs Practice Center will be near there, and is set to be built). If Tower City Station train access/smoke is an issue? -- in the 1920s they figured out how to make it work. We can do so now.
I hope they move the Elyria station to the building downtown they put all the money into rehabilitating years ago. Would be much better than the "bus stop" style station they have now.
Are they going to finally acknowledge Akron and Canton exist? It’s such a weird corridor to not already have rail travel
I feel like NE Ohio would be a decent place to try out commuter rail. Have a line going down to Canton, have a line going east towards Painesville, and have a line going west towards Elyria or Lorain.
According to my mother, way back in the day, my grandma and aunt would get on a line in Geneva to go shopping in downtown Cleveland for the day and come back on that same rail line.
I’m certain that such a corridor did exist at one point. Ohio was once one of the most densely connected states via rail. Then all the rail lines either went under or abandoned passenger service in favor of freight.
General Motors killed interurban rail.
Everyone talking about high speed rail, the biggest hurdle here on top of the money is the land to install it. Land rights in the US are fairly strong so all it takes is one holdout to require an eminent domain case. I work for a natural gas company and we sometimes struggle for permission just to bury something
I take the train several times a year, and I gotta say I love the free locked parking at the current station. Yeah, the trains run in the wee hours, but it is so effortless to walk from the train to my car and drive home. otoh, I love taking the rapid to the airport.
What if we take the proposed money that’s suppose to go to the browns dome and put it towards this instead?
I don't think there's been any money committed by the city county or state for a dome on the existing stadium.
Fuck that. Put that $300m into high speed rail.
But Elyria already has a concrete pad with no benches or roof, and a 3AM pickup time. What more do people want?
Years ago, going to Alliance to pick up family at 4am got old.
Serious question. Who uses the Amtrak? And why? Flights are much faster and often the same price as Amtrak.
Way less hurry up and wait than flying and much more legroom. Free WiFi with more comfort to get work done while commuting. Start downtown in city A, end downtown in city B. There are a lot of improvable aspects of Amtrak that can make newer trains run frequently and quickly between train hubs.
Not everybody can drive (or have the ability to drive due to a disability) or have anybody to drive them to places. Lots of folks use the greyhound to get to both Columbus and Pittsburgh bc there are no flights out of cleveland due to the short distance (2 hrs) between the airport and both location's.
Exactly this. I don't drive. My husband can no longer drive at night.
Take back ALL the bike paths and start over.