The future of Ohio's cities is at stake
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — March 23, 2011
Contact:
Ken Prendergast, All Aboard Ohio, kenprendergast@allaboardohio.org (216) 288-4883
Ohio Department of Transportation Director Jerry Wray recommended to the Transportation Review Advisory Council today that the state's top-ranked project should bear the brunt of "fiscal balancing." TRAC will vote on the recommendations April 12.
In addition to removing $35 million in federal construction funds for the Cincinnati Streetcar in 2012, the TRAC committee was urged by Wray's staff to rescind $15 million in federal dollars awarded last year to the streetcar.
Instead, Wray's staff urged TRAC to give $35 million to the $3 billion Brent Spence Bridge replacement which is sponsored by Kentucky. Yet Kentucky congresspersons said the funding gap for this project is nearly $1 billion and won't start construction until at least 2014. The Cincinnati Streetcar is due to start construction this year and is projected to create more long-term job growth than the Brent Spence Bridge replacement.
TRAC rated this bridge project a 44 on its scoring criteria that measures a project's potential to promote economic development, more jobs, cost-effectiveness, safety, and environmental stewardship. Meanwhile the streetcar rated an 84.
And, $14 million of the $15 million awarded last year to the streetcar was recommended by Wray's staff to be shifted to the Mahoning Road transit corridor in Canton. That project was rated a more robust 77.5 by TRAC, but still lower than the electric streetcar.
However, several TRAC members said they had concerns about the state's top-ranked transportation project taking the brunt of ODOT's proposed "fiscal balancing" to address reductions in federal funds.
To preserve the integrity of the TRAC scoring process, and to affirm its unanimous December vote in support of the streetcar, All Aboard Ohio urges the TRAC to reject the recommendations by ODOT staff.
"Until leaders in Kentucky, as the lead sponsor of the Brent Spence Bridge, decide they want to seek their fair share for this bridge, there is no reason why Ohio should sacrifice a higher-ranking project for it," said All Aboard Ohio Executive Director Ken Prendergast. "And while the Canton transit project has its merits, it still has a lower ranking than the streetcar. If the TRAC ignores its own scoring process, then I'm not sure why Director Wray urged the TRAC's creation in 1997 as a useful way to limit political influence on selecting transportation projects for funding."
It should be noted that the Cincinnati Streetcar would be powered by electricity and travel on steel rails which require less energy to move on than rubber tires and pavement. By comparison, petroleum-powered vehicles traveling on petroleum-based asphalt is only getting more expensive to maintain by the day. These also make our nation more dependent on imported oil and vulnerable to oil-price spikes. According to the Pentagon's 2010 Joint Operating Environment report, global oil supplies by 2015 will fall short of demand at rates more than double that of the brief geo-political shortage in 1973.
"Ohio should be building electric rail transit in all of Ohio's largest cities to save our economy in the coming years," Prendergast warned. "If the TRAC accepts Wray's recommendation on April 12, Ohio may lose its best chance at building an attractive alternative example to a future of high gas prices, stretched family budgets, and gasoline shortages."
NOTE: also see next press release on the Cincinnati Streetcar.
END
