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Rob Pitingolo · Can Cleveland’s Amtrak station be salvaged?
May 15th, 2009
On Wednesday I wrote about potential alignments for future passenger and high-speed rail service in Cleveland. My fear is that any rail alignment that uses Amtrak’s Lakefront station as the primary connection to downtown Cleveland will severely impair the ability for rail service to be implemented successfully.
By my calculation, the Lakefront station suffers from a number of problems, including (but not limited to):
- Weird location near Browns Stadium.
- Difficult to drive or walk to the terminal from anywhere in the city.
- Disconnected from most RTA service.
The question is: can anything be done to improve Amtrak’s Lakefront station? Can Cleveland have decent passenger rail service if it is centered around that station?
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3 Responses to “Can Cleveland’s Amtrak station be salvaged?”
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May 15th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Totally agreed. Of course Amtrak should run through Tower City. I can’t imagine a more obvious (and logical) place.
May 17th, 2009 at 9:45 am
the current amtrak station is directly north of the current convention center. why is the city/county not applying for funding to construct a new amtrak station + RTA rapid station on the northern end of the soon to re-made convention center as was part of the original burnham mall plan > http://groupplan.dhellison.com/buildings.php?ss=TrainStation
June 16th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Before considering a high speed commuter line it would be good to look at all rail-lines in the county.
The rail are they often redundant, they are owned by private companies and they do not share routes. A comprehensive review of rail service and tracks should be conducted.
It would require changing the systems, making the tracks government owned and then leased instead of local municipalities collecting property tax on the land. Do that and defining the tracks in a optimum functionality could open land and also create alternative paths for commuter lines.
The current site of the Amtrak station could be combined with the RTA station and linked into convention center. A transfer could be made there to get to tower city or for that mater any other station on the local commuter line.
As it is it would seem best to have the high speed station in the terminal, but ideally all the RTA stations should be commercial hubs. All the RTA stations should be optimally developed. They all should rent small fuel efficient cars as well as have hotels and stores and restaurants.
The largest cost of rail expansion is land acquisition, if the commercial rail is looked at as well as commuter lines that it all could be developed comprehensively. What is the purpose of linking to other cities with high speed rail if that does link into a very functional local commuter line. Some of the commercial track are obsolete and many are redundant. They could be managed much like airlines are with logistic and scheduling done through a local agency. Leases for use and scheduled routes for privately owned equipment. Not for commuters trains but for the freight trains, that could open up tracks for commuter expansion and or other ventures, maybe greenways?
As it is the high speed rail may never get much use, people are not that rail oriented. A high speed hub needs to be better linked into a more dynamic local system.