The Oct. 20 meeting of the West Shore Corridor Regional Rail stakeholders meeting was held at Lorain County Community College. It was a very productive meeting with a large crowd (more than 100 people) since it was held jointly with the Lorain County Community Alliance's seventh annual summit.

The law directors of Bay Village, Lakewood and Rocky River reported that they had met about a week ago. They said their bosses (the mayors) want to pursue commuter rail and want their communities' joint agreement with Norfolk Southern (which limits freight train traffic through their cities) to be protected. They are now scheduling a meeting with NS to determine how commuter rail can be accomplished within the framework of the existing agreement while keeping freight rail traffic levels where they are. The most recent update from NS is that a daily of five trains per day are using NS's West Shore line. NS has not only expressed in commuter trains using their line, but also in operating the commuter trains themselves.

We also had a good presentation from a Chicago-based real estate consultant, Stephen Friedman, who showed us how and why Chicago communities are achieving transit-oriented development and how it can be used as a financing mechanism for adding or expanding rail transit service. This was the next logical progression of our West Shore discussion, as we learned at our last stakeholders meeting in Cleveland that federal capital funds are extremely difficult to obtain for new transit projects. There was some good discussion, and for many folks, it was their first exposure to the idea of transit oriented development, let alone using it as a capital funding mechanism. And it's always good to learn from those in other cities how they do things.

We also had a vice president of the United Transportation Union in attendance (he flew in from Philadelphia). If that labor name rings a bell, it's a major national union headquartered in downtown Lakewood, in the Lakewood Center North building. The building's back door opens up to the rail line and a favored station site. While the increased number of union jobs from the commuter service is important to the UTU, an equally large benefit to them is that their headquarters would gain a station site. The UTU believes it will be a huge benefit to have people come in from out of town, take the Red Line from the airport and transfer to the commuter rail service to downtown Lakewood and their back door.

And it's also a matter of pride... The UTU would be able to say their headquarters is served by trains run by their people. And the UTU has a lot of political clout—especially with state and federal legislators. We will need a small amount of federal funds (perhaps $1 million) for an alternatives analysis to measure the environmental impacts and have a significant amount of public input in this process.

I would encourage all readers to contact their Congress persons to ask them to support federal funding for an alternatives analysis of the West Shore Corridor commuter rail service, linking Cleveland to Lorain and Erie counties.

And, please join us at 6 p.m. Nov. 18 for the Fall Rail Cocktail & Buffet at the Black River Transportation Center in downtown Lorain. This is a fundraiser for All Aboard Ohio's West Shore Corridor advocacy efforts. Our keynote speaker for this event is Pete Aadland of the North County Transportation District in Oceanside, Calif. NCTD runs two types of commuter train equipment—either one of which might be suitable for our own West Shore Corridor. For details and registration information, download the following materials:

http://members.cox.net/neotrans/Invite.pdf
http://members.cox.net/neotrans/Registration.pdf

Ken Prendergast
Director, Research & Communications
All Aboard Ohio!