MEETING SUMMARY
West Shore Corridor Regional Rail Stakeholders
August 30, 2006
Cleveland City Hall

Selected highlights (Full Summary follows attendees list):

Dave Vozzolo, of HDR Inc. and was recently a Federal Transit Administration official, said federal funds are difficult to get for any transportation project. Even if they aren?t, a potentially quicker, less costly, and more beneficial (in terms of expanding a ridership base) way to fund a transit project is to use private financing via station-area real-estate developments.

A station-area development subcommittee was suggested by Westlake Director of Planning and Economic Development Bob Parry who agreed to lead it. Planning and development officials in communities along the route would identify potential station sites having development and redevelopment opportunities.

Another subcommittee, comprised of West Shore law directors and led by Bay Village Law Director Gary Ebert, would meet with Norfolk Southern Corp. officials to review and discuss their agreements reached in the late-1990s addressing train traffic levels.

NOTE: The next full meeting of the West Shore Corridor stakeholders will be held at 9 a.m. Oct. 20 at the Spitzer Conference Center at Lorain County Community College.

At the Aug. 30th meeting held in Cleveland, there were 39 attendees (listed alphabetically by last name):

Rob Berner, Mayor, City of Avon Lake
Betty Blair, Lorain County Commissioner
Tony Brancatelli, Ward 12 City Council, City of Cleveland
Sean Brennan, Chairman of the Board, Lakewood Chamber of Commerce
Angie Byington, Steering Committee, Elyria Plan 2015
Joe Calabrese, General Manager, Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA)
Len Calabrese, Director, Commission on Catholic Community Action
Dennis Clough, Mayor, City of Westlake
Michael Dever, Councilman At-large, City of Lakewood
Gary Ebert, Director of Law, City of Bay Village
Jon Eckerle, Senior Regional Realtor, Century 21 Commercial/HomeStar
Rich Enty, Planning Team Leader, GCRTA
Edward Favre, Office of Lakewood Mayor Tom George
Maribeth Feke, Director, Programming & Planning, GCRTA
Tom Ferguson, General Manager, Lorain County Transit
Scott Frantz, Transportation planner, Cleveland City Planning Commission
Grace Gallucci, Executive Director, Office of Management & Budget, GCRTA
Bill Gardner, Service Director, City of Sheffield Lake
Kate Giammarise, Staff Writer, Lorain Morning Journal
Jack Hall, Senior Transportation Planner, Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency
David Hartman, Director of Business Development, RE Warner & Associates, Westlake
Jennifer Hooper, Executive Director, Lakewood Community Progress Inc.
Bonnie Ivancic, Ward 4 City Council, City of Elyria
Kevin Kelley, Ward 16 City Council, City of Cleveland
Dennis Lamont, Lorain Street Railway
Howard Maier, Executive Director, Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency
Will McCracken, Oberlin
Joe Medici, Staff Writer, Elyria Chronicle-Telegram
Stu Nicholson, Public Information Officer, Ohio Rail Development Commission
Rick Novak, Executive Director, Lorain Port Authority
Joyce Parks, assistant to Lorain County Commissioner Blair
Bob Parry, Director of Planning, City of Westlake
Andrea Paspek, Law Department, City of Cleveland Ken Prendergast, Director of Research & Communications, All Aboard Ohio
Ken Sislak, Board Member/Northeast Ohio, All Aboard Ohio
Michael Skindell, District 13, Ohio House of Representatives
Vince Urbin, Development Department, Lorain County
David Vozzolo, Senior Associate, HDR Inc.
Jay Westbrook, Ward 18 City Council, City of Cleveland

Full Summary

Councilman Kelley called the meeting to order. The gathering was a special meeting of Cleveland City Council's Aviation and Transportation Committee, chaired by Councilman Kelley. Principle issues to discuss, per the meeting's agenda, are funding and the late-1990s agreements between local communities and Norfolk Southern, resulting from the breakup of Conrail Corp.

Prendergast, of All Aboard Ohio, gave a summary of the last meeting, held July 19, 2006 at Westlake City Hall (copy of that meeting's summary is available upon request). Prendergast also provided an overview of possible transit options for the West Shore Corridor between Cuyahoga, Lorain and Erie counties which could include:

• Locomotive-hauled commuter trains
• using second-hand train equipment, basic stations spaced several miles apart
• existing all-Norfolk Southern tracks, terminating in Cleveland at either the West Boulevard Rapid station or at North Coast Harbor/Amtrak station area (latter requires more track work)
• Nashville is using a similar model, which cost $40 million for their 33-mile line
• Diesel/electric light-rail trains
• new train equipment, more elaborate stations spaced a mile or two apart
• mix of existing NS/GCRTA tracks, terminating in Cleveland at Tower City Center
• New Jersey RiverLINE, Oceanside-Escondido (Calif.) are using similar models, use station-area development to help finance rail construction
• High-capacity buses
• bus-rapid transit/express buses
• utilize existing street or freeway rights of way
• Euclid Corridor is using a similar model
• Transportation System Management — more efficient use of existing roads/highways
• No build/do nothing — provides a baseline of information

Funding issues

David Vozzolo of HDR and former deputy associate administrator of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) gave some facts of life when it comes to transit funding. Federal funding for building transit, such as in the West Shore Corridor, would come from the FTA's New Starts program, funded at $1.5 billion.

The amount keeps increasing each year, yet demand far exceeds that amount. Decision-making over the total funding amount is in the hands of Congress. Cost-sharing for transit projects was 80 percent federal, 20 percent local, but demand has forced down the federal share to about 50 percent and may go even lower.

Federal funding has gotten more complicated, as the FTA's level of scrutiny of proposed projects has increased. More project applicants are taking a step back to see whether federal funds are desirable.

Avoiding the planning process required to receive federal funds typically saves 1-2 years and 20-30 percent of project cost. People want to see projects happen in their commuting lifetime and elected officials want to see them happen in their political lifetime.

On the positive side when it comes to federal funding, the West Shore Corridor could build on the momentum of the Euclid Corridor project. A successful transit precedent raises confidence from the FTA, Congress and others that additional funding for more transit improvements will be well-spent.

Also, complications involving federal funding have led more communities to look at private financing for transit projects. Bonding retired by revenues from station-area real-estate developments or pure private financing from a long-term revenue stream can fund anywhere from 30-50 percent of a project's start-up costs. Large investment firms are looking at those options and may be the future of transit funding. The same thing is happening on the highway side as well. It is not too early to think about how the West Shore Corridor could be funded as those ideas will steer the project in the right direction, Vozzolo concluded.

Sislak, of All Aboard Ohio, gave examples of the complications involved in securing funding for transit projects. The Euclid Corridor project took 20 years to progress through the federally required planning process. In Nashville, planning for their first commuter rail line took 10 years, despite being exempt from the federal New Starts project rating and evaluation process and having a low start-up cost ($40 million). Nashville's new commuter rail service will begin operations in September 2006. By comparison, GCRTA's $77 million Waterfront Line used no federal funds and it was completed in just two years.

NS agreements

Sislak of All Aboard Ohio, read into the record an e-mailed statement from former Cleveland Planning Director Hunter Morrison who was unable to attend. A brief of his letter notes that Cleveland's agreement with NS has these features:

• Cleveland's main concern was freight trains blocking crossings which would cut communities in half (at the meeting, All Aboard Ohio provided two graphics which can also be e-mailed upon request; one is a bar-chart that shows a freight train blocks a crossing for an average of 220 seconds while a commuter train blocks a crossing for just 40 seconds; the other graphic shows a pie chart as to how many commuter trains per day [77] it takes to block a crossing for as many seconds as do 14 daily freight trains).
• Commuter rail was never discussed in negotiations with Norfolk Southern. The agreements were silent on commuter or other passenger rail.
• Local communities cannot limit freight train traffic, which is interstate commerce. The agreement only provides communities with compensation if train traffic exceeds certain levels.
• NS provided $10 million to be deposited into a city fund for mitigating noise impacts on neighborhoods from increased freight train traffic.
• If, within eight years, freight traffic exceeded 26 trains per day, NS would contribute $2.6 million for additional mitigation.
• NS would pay to grade-separate West 117th Street if rail traffic increased above stated levels.

Ebert of Bay Village noted that Cleveland's agreement with NS is separate and different from that of the West Shore suburbs (Bay, Rocky River & Lakewood). Some issues in the West Shore agreement are germane to commuter rail and some are not.

West Shore communities' were concerned with the number of trains and blocked crossing, and how it would impact response times of emergency vehicles, as well as noise, vibration and dust. Mitigation from NS for communities kicks in if traffic levels exceed 14 trains per day. How would commuter rail impact the agreement? Our concern is that commuter rail would cause NS to void the agreement.

Prendergast said that, after the July 19 stakeholders meeting in Westlake, NS Vice President Craig Lewis said to him, RTA's Enty and Ohio Rail Development Commission's Don Damron that NS would be willing to discuss amending the agreement to add commuter rail to it while keeping freight train traffic at existing levels. Since no NS representative was present at today's meeting, Prendergast suggested that law directors from the West Shore communities, Hunter Morrison and other affected parties meet with NS to discuss the matter.

Ebert agreed to head up a group of West Shore law directors to meet with NS, as he is the remaining West Shore law director who was present during the negotiations with NS in the late-1990s.

Other issues

Nicholson of the ORDC said NS has told his agency "don't count us out of running passenger trains." He also gave information about how communities can seek funding for implementing Quiet Zones so that locomotive horns can be safely silenced at road-rail crossings.

The application process starts at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to access state/federal funds for adding four-quadrant gates, cameras (may depend on pending court cases), median barriers and grade separations (overpasses or underpasses). North Carolina is implementing what it calls a "sealed corridor" to seal off passenger and freight trains from other vehicular and pedestrian traffic as the trains pass through communities.

Calabrese of GCRTA asked what the demand was for regional rail. He noted an example of potential demand, which he witnessed that morning at the Westlake Park-and-Ride. A full Lorain County Transit bus arrived and its passengers transferred from there to an RTA express bus for downtown Cleveland. (NOTE: the travel time from Lorain to Cleveland by bus is 77 minutes, and yet the buses were full). He said consideration should be given to a direct Lorain-Cleveland commuter bus service to test the market.

Eckerle of Century 21/HomeStar said Transit Oriented Development should be a key issue for the West Shore Corridor. NS has a large amount of property in Avon, which could be developed with TOD and tax-increment financing from it used to help pay for commuter rail. The stakeholders should identify developable land.

Maier of NOACA said a key issue in the 2001 NEORail study was development around stations.

Prendergast said that, unlike development along I-90, transit-oriented development is more compact, and would lock up some aspects of the real estate market, including demand and financing, for smart-growth rather than for sprawl. Redevelopment of existing communities should be a priority.

Parry of Westlake suggested setting up subcommittee of the stakeholders group, have it be comprised of planners in each community, and identify sites for stations/station-area development. He agreed to head up the subcommittee and to contact persons to serve on it. Prendergast provided to Parry the stakeholders e-mail database.

Calabrese also noted the need for stakeholders to contact their state elected officials to seek a boost in state funding for transit. Ohio has cut transit funding by 60 percent since 2001 while neighboring states like Michigan and Pennsylvania have boosted transit funding.

Sislak agreed, noting that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania provides more transit funding for Pittsburgh than the state of Ohio provides for the entire state.

Next meetings

Commissioner Blair arranged the next stakeholders meeting in conjunction with the Lorain County Community Alliance at 9 a.m. Friday Oct. 20 at the Spitzer Conference Center at Lorain County Community College, 1005 North Abbe Road.

Directions: Exit I-90 at Detroit Road, turn east on Detroit. The next light east of I-90 is Abbe Road. Turn right (south) on North Abbe. The driveway to the Spitzer Conference Center is on the south side of the LCCC campus. An agenda for the stakeholders meeting will be sent in the coming weeks. In the meantime, please mark your calendars.

Separately, a fundraiser to benefit All Aboard Ohio's West Shore Corridor advocacy efforts, will be held starting at 4 p.m. Nov. 18 at the Black River Landing Transportation Center in downtown Lorain. All Aboard Ohio is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization, for which contributions may be tax-deductible. A social hour, dinner, dancing and auction of local railroad/transit memorabilia will be held.

The keynote speaker at the fundraiser will be Pete Aadland, Director, Communications and Business Development, North San Diego County Transit District. The NCTD operates Coaster commuter trains on a 42-mile route, Breeze express buses on 50 routes and is building a 22-mile diesel light-rail service called Sprinter that is scheduled to open in December 2007.