RSS
Home
Pro rail, anti-rail supporters rail at each other over whether rail issue ballot good or bad
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Tubular Rail, a futuristic train that needs no rails, was featured at a forum held this October at the Transportation
Research Center at the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.
(Photo/Tubular Rail Inc.)
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The one vote next Tuesday that would slow down the pace of an already very slow train that Ohio rail officials want to run between Cincinnati and Cleveland and pay for with more than a half-billion dollars in federal rail funding would be for Issue 9 -- the controversial plan on the ballot in Cincinnati next week that would prohibit any rail transportation from entering the city unless approved by a public vote -- to be approved by Cincinnati voters on Election Day.
If the controversial measure passes, it would throw a rather large monkey wrench into the plans of Ohio rail bosses, whose current plan is to have the 3-C corridor train end its six and one-half hour run from Cleveland by Lake Erie in northeast Ohio at Lumpkin Field, a little used facility in eastern Cincinnati. Such a vote would move the end of the line out of Cincinnati, northward to Sharonville, a Hamilton County suburb.
With only three days left until Election Day, the dust up that's been brewing in Cincinnati between pro progress supporters, who say voting Yes on 9 will result in red tape, job loss and a bad attitude going forward, and Issue 9 supporters, who say the city has its priorities mixed up and that a public vote is needed to keep the city on track for good decision making, is just getting dustier.
An example of the community friction that's flaring over a proposal to pursue building a streetcar system, that supporters say will spur economic development and keep Cincinnati progressing but critics say could cost as much as $185 million at a time when Cincinnati's city budget is starring at deficits and reducing staff to make ends meet, was captured on this YouTube video:
Other spots use humor to play on the sales pitch that voting No on 9 is will keep good governance in tact. Supporters of Issue 9 say special interests have gotten to these elected leaders, convincing them to spend tens of millions on a streetcar system they say would bust the bank, be spent on other more important projects and reduce riders of the bus system:
While another spot zeroes in on the campaign talking point that Issue 9 is intentionally worded vague, so people will be mislead into voting Yes on 9. A pro-progress group fact sheet points to a statement by the conservative hometown newspaper, The Cincinnati Enquirer, that called the wording "...a classic example of lawyerly weasel-wording” and “deceptive in its language and intent.”
The city where Hustler creator Larry Flynt got his start, that made controversial photographer Robert Mapplethorpe famous when local leaders and anti-pornography groups threatened to withdraw funding from the organization displaying his pictures if fit didn't stop the exhibition and where conservative politics is always in fashion, is now introducing the specter of Left Coast politics into the picture.
Their cry? "We don't want California-style government in Cincinnati." If Issue 9 passes, pro growth advocates say Cincinnati will have an "endless stream of referendums and initiatives, funded by special interests that want to work outside the legislative system to get their measures passed." Taking away power away from their elected representatives and making them less effective is a curious argument for a community whose ideology is, generally, to be wary of government. Pro anti-rail supporters say a vote of the public is good for democracy.
For Gov. Ted Strickland, who along with his director of transportation has been pushing plowing over 500 million dollars into a train that will only average 39 mph on a trip from Cincinnati to Cleveland that will last six and one-half hours, the drop in his approval ratings could bleed over into the support state officials say Ohioans have for this passenger train, that may or may not be able to enter Cincinnati, depending on how the vote next Tuesday goes.
Transportation Director Jolene Molitoris' comments on Nov. 14 to the fall meeting of All Aboard Ohio on how funding for the 3-C rail corridor project is going will definitely be dampened if Yes on 9 wins. A major focus of her talk will be about her agency, The Ohio Department of Transportation, providing "Ohioans with greater transportation choices."
But greater transportation choices are here, if she would pursue them instead of pursuing old, slow trains whose very slowness will not attract riders and should not be allowed to chug into Ohio's future.
What Molitoris should be working on is the kind of forum on advanced train transportation technology that the University of Nevada at Las Vegas held on October 19th. Three futuristic train plans were explained by their inventors. The Las Vegas Sun covered the event.
So while this dust up in the Queen City will rub some nerves raw, the larger issue on Ohio's plans for re-establishing passenger rail is not about whether passenger trains should return or not but about the kind of train technology being considered.
Follow me on Twitter @ohionewsbureau. Read more stories on people, politics and government in Ohio here.
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
