By Ken Prendergast
All Aboard Ohio

An effort to develop commuter rail service using existing tracks has re-emerged in the West Shore Corridor — a market which offers some of Greater Cleveland’s highest population densities and regional commuting traffic levels into downtown Cleveland. West Shore Corridor regional rail service would use Norfolk Southern Corp. tracks to link the downtowns of Cleveland and Lorain via Lakewood, Rocky River, Bay Village, Westlake, Avon/Avon Lake and Sheffield Lake. The route could go farther west to Vermilion and Sandusky.

All Aboard Ohio, Westlake Mayor Dennis Clough and Lorain County Commissioner Betty Blair hosted a stakeholder's meeting to discuss the commuter rail project on July 19, 2006 and the group will hold a Cleveland meeting on August 30 at Cleveland City Hall (see event link).

Potential ridership exists in the corridor. In fact, the NEORail study conducted in 2000-01 at the request of the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency found that the West Shore Corridor was in a virtual tie with the Southeast Corridor (between Downtown Cleveland and Aurora) as the most feasible in the region. The West Shore Corridor’s limited freight train traffic, the presence of some station facilities, and high-quality track infrastructure could make regional passenger rail service on this corridor the easiest to physically implement.

However, the consulting firm that conducted the NEORail study, Parsons Brinckerhoff, said Northeast Ohio commuter rail service was only “potentially feasible” although NOACA officials prefer to use the term “marginally feasible.” Furthermore, start-up costs for a Lorain-to-Aurora route via downtown Cleveland were estimated by the study at $300 million. It would have to compete with many other rail transit projects nationwide for federal funds. And, West Shore community officials, especially Congressman Dennis Kucinich, were in no mood to hear about plans for more trains in the corridor after just emerging from a fight with NS to reduce freight traffic to a few trains per day.

So what has changed since the NEORail study? In short, a lot:

Skyrocketing gasoline prices — Costs have skyrocketed from a 2000 record of $1.70 per gallon. Gas prices are likely to keep trending upward for the foreseeable future due to global demand for oil exceeding supply;

• Federal Railroad Administration established a framework in 2005 for adding Quiet Zones — Not only is a clear framework now in place, but so are state and federal highway funding programs for adding Quiet Zones so that locomotive horns can be safely silenced. To create a Quiet Zone, more grade-crossing safety features must be added, such as four-quadrant crossing gates, a median barrier near the crossing, or a combination of features. Costs can range from $100,000 to $400,000 per crossing, depending on the extent of existing safety devices;
• Commuter trains are much shorter than freight trains — Concerns about commuter trains blocking road crossings like freight trains aren't warranted, unless A LOT of commuter trains are operated. How many commuter trains? A study for a planned commuter rail service in Central Florida showed that crossing gates actuated by a passing commuter train would block a road for 40 seconds. Compare that to the 200 seconds of blockage from a passing freight train, according to the study. There are currently three to seven daily freight trains in the West Shore Corridor, causing roughly 600 to 1,400 seconds of delay each day to area motorists and emergency vehicles. A local agreement with Norfolk Southern allows NS to operate up to 14 freight trains a day (equal to 2,800 seconds of total delay to motorists). Added to the existing freight traffic, it would take 35 to 55 daily commuter trains to reach the amount of delay to motorists allowed under the existing agreement. Admittedly, it is an extreme example, as the NEORail study proposed only 6-24 commuter trains per day. But it underscores the point that not all trains are equal in terms of their positive and negative impacts on the corridor.
• Reduce the traffic burden on U.S. Route 6 — While it is generally true that Greater Cleveland doesn't have serious traffic congestion, accidents, breakdowns, bad weather or construction on I-90 causes its rush-hour traffic flow to break down. Those glitches happen often enough for the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency to designate I-90 between Berea Road near Lakewood to Fulton Road in Cleveland as a rare west-side "Safety Hot Spot" with more than 200 crashes in the past three years. That unreliability causes a heavy flow of commuters to choose U.S. Route 6 (Lake/Clifton) all the way from Lorain County to Downtown Cleveland. Bay Village, Rocky River, Lakewood and Cleveland/Edgewater residents have told All Aboard Ohio about the difficulty of trying to make turns out of their sidestreets into this heavy flow of traffic. Plus, the heavy traffic unnecessarily increases road maintenance budgets in those communities.
• Downtown Cleveland development activity — Each regional commuter train can reduce demand for up to 2.5 acres of downtown surface parking lots. Those lots can then be redeveloped. Even with the large amount of surface parking downtown, developers and real estate firms say downtown lacks parking for suburban commuters to such an extent that it retards office development. By reducing demand for parking and redeveloping surface lots with offices, residential and retail activity, downtown becomes a more powerful economic magnet for the region, providing jobs for Cleveland and inner-ring suburban residents.
• Outlying station-area developments — Other aging commercial districts in the West Shore Corridor – like those in Cleveland’s Cudell neighborhood, Lakewood, Rocky River, Bay Village and Lorain – also would need less parking. They would benefit from station-area developments that re-energize their commercial districts. With transit-supportive zoning and regional planning, station-area developments in the West Shore Corridor would be a powerful counterforce to urban sprawl by diverting limited marketplace resources to smart growth activities. In the absence of station-area developments, car-oriented subdivisions and commercial parks along I-90 in Lorain County will continue unabated;
• New Environmental Protection Agency rules — EPA proposed in 2004 tougher clean-air rules to take effect in 2009. Among other targets, the rules will address mobile pollution sources (ie: vehicles). Greater Cleveland is already an air-quality non-attainment area. The new rules could result in less highway funding, penalties on local utilities and throw up a significant roadblock for Northeast Ohio to attract new business. In addition to diverting car traffic to rail transit, station-area developments will promote walking and biking. They are superior to park-and-rides in reducing emissions since cars emit most of their pollution in the first few minutes before their catalytic converters warm up;
• Poverty levels have worsened in older urban areas like Cleveland and Lorain — urban sprawl has broadened the spatial mismatch between available jobs at the urban fringe and job seekers at the urban core. The U.S. Census shows that only between 8-15 percent of available jobs in the Cleveland-Lorain-Akron metro area are accessible by public transportation in less than 40 minutes. Fast regional rail service, downtown development, and station-area developments in enroute communities would make more jobs accessible to more job seekers;
• Cost savings for commuters — Multiple car ownership would no longer be needed for users of the West Shore Corridor regional rail service. Residents of station-area developments might not need to own cars at all. Driving a car an average of 15,000 miles per year typically costs the owner of that car $7,800 annually, according to the AAA. Commuters who shed one car and instead take the train to work could save anywhere from $5,300 to $6,700 per year, providing a significant increase in their purchasing power to improve their quality of life and boost local economies;
• Inexpensive train equipment — Low-cost, second-hand train equipment has come on the market since the NEORail study was completed. Still-viable commuter rail cars from Chicago are selling for as little as $1 each and locomotives from Amtrak for less than $500,000 each. The equipment savings for the West Shore Corridor alone could be as much as $45 million. Use of this train equipment would mean locating a downtown Cleveland station on NS’s busy lakefront tracks.
• Inexpensive train equipment, Part II — Another type of train equipment has gained greater favor in recent years – diesel light rail. These self-propelled rail cars can be purchased new for about $3 million each (equivalent to the cost of a new locomotive), or they can be leased from a private financier. Diesel light rail can be dual-powered, meaning it can switch over to electrical power to use RTA’s Red Line tracks east of West Boulevard to Tower City Center and possibly to University Circle to promote connectivity with existing transit services;
• Funding — Last but certainly not least, funding is always an issue with any proposed transportation project. Federal and state funds for transit remain limited. However, in recent years, rail transit investment is increasingly going back to its roots when real estate developers and streetcar companies worked together to install tracks and build walkable neighborhoods along them. Madison Avenue in Lakewood was one local example in the 1910s, just as Shaker Heights was in the 1920s. While these so-called “promotional lines” didn’t enrich private interests, the real estate developments spawned by them did. These partnerships created a lifestyle where transit became an inseparable part of the community. Today, transit agencies elsewhere in the U.S. are reaching development agreements with municipalities and private developers to build station-area communities and redesign cities in more sustainable ways. A portion of property, income and/or sales taxes from these developments are used for a limited period of time to finance the construction of rail transit infrastructure. Redevelopment in the West Shore Corridor might provide such a funding option, just as it did decades ago.

Despite this cornucopia basket of benefits from regional rail, some officials and residents have expressed concerns about the impacts of adding commuter trains, despite new mitigation programs like Quiet Zones. A series of community stakeholder meetings is underway to learn from each other and from experts in other cities about mitigation measures and to find ways to resolve outstanding issues.

It is important for the West Shore Corridor and the region as a whole to not stand on the successes of the past. Instead, we must pursue catalytic economic development initiatives and services that make Greater Cleveland competitive with other metro areas, be prepared for a future of limited natural resources, and be a place of opportunity for people of all incomes, ages and physical abilities. Regional rail passenger service, when combined with safety enhancements, noise mitigation and thoughtful, consensus-based redevelopment around stations, can be a tremendous benefit for improving Greater Cleveland’s quality of life.

Updates
Lorain County will sponsor the West Shore Corridor alternatives analysis, and is submitting an application to Congress for $1.5 million for the study (2-28-07).

Resources

• Lorain-Cleveland 'West Shore Greenway' presentation (pdf 1.6 MB)
• Michigan launches pilot commuter rail from Detroit to Ann Arbor with Amtrak (2-6-07)