This Isn't Your Daddy's Train

The promo spot for the Ohio Hub project has been posted at OARP.

It's bit cheesy if you ask me, but it lays out the basic argument: Fast, travel, Ohio, business.

I'm a big fan of Ohio Hub for a number of reasons, but primary is this: It puts Cleveland at the middle of high-speed rail network between the East Coast and Midwest. This isn't a euphemistic "middle," it's geographical one. Cleveland will connect Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. in the east to Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis and Minneapolis in to the west.

X-Marks the Sopt:

Cleveland is hurting and needs a long-term solution. The Hub Plan can go a long way to helping Cleveland help itself out of the hole. Where Chicago's geography allowed it become the freight train capital, Cleveland's geography can make it the fast train capital - and that's a place for people. The more people that pass through Cleveland, the more money Cleveland makes.

Long term, the Hub Plan has the potential to add many jobs to the Cleveland economy from manufacturing and repairing railroad equipment to service jobs at burger joints. And that's just inter-state travel. Adding commuter rail in northeast Ohio will draw more people back to the city center as well.

The City should consider the Ohio Hub as nothing less than bringing a major new industry to Cleveland and should pursue it as much.