Why Rick Fights for Great Trains
Join me in fighting for vibrant, healthy communities
Two recent trips to Elyria, OH reminded me of why I’m in the fight for great trains.
Elyria is so typical of so many American cities.
A great public square, many of the great, human scale buildings still intact, and, surrounded by solid walkable communities. Unfortunately, much of the city’s building stock was sacrificed for parking lots, forcing everyone to drive and leaving the sidewalks empty.
But, like so many American cities I have visited, I can imagine the missing teeth filled in with walkable stores, people bumping into each other, and vibrant healthy neighborhoods.
Frequent, all-day service to Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago would be the catalyst.
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The First United Methodist Church is framed by two Lorain County Court buildings.
What’s especially painful—and hopeful—about Elyria is that it has wonderful, untapped assets that could be the foundation for transforming the town and the surrounding region.
For starters, it has a great train station—built in 1925 and recently rebuilt—with Greyhound and local bus-line service.
Lorain County and Norfolk Southern haven’t come to terms on building new platforms, so you can’t catch a train there. Amtrak serves a bare-bones station a mile away with just two daily roundtrips to Chicago, Cleveland, and New York, in the middle of the night.
Lorain County rebuilt the 1925 train station as a transit hub with local and Greyhound buses. Amtrak could serve the station if new platforms were built.
Like many train stations across America, Elyria’s unused station has immense potential.
It’s right in the city center, on a railroad right-of-way that could easily fit four tracks—two for passenger trains and two for freight trains.
It sits on the main line between Cleveland and Toledo, where services to Chicago and Detroit would diverge.
Travel demand could easily support hourly service from Cleveland to Detroit, as well as hourly service from Cleveland to Chicago. Together, that would mean service every half hour between Elyria and Cleveland.
Great trains would become the catalyst for transforming not just Elyria, but Lorain and the surrounding region.
And, Elyria would be the gateway linking Oberlin College – just 10 miles away – to the world.
Three truths
I’m in this fight because I genuinely believe three things about Elyria—and about so many communities like it across America.
First, I believe there’s a viable path for Elyria to have great trains. It will mean pushing the Ohio Rail Development Commission to take the Cleveland-Detroit and Cleveland-Chicago corridors seriously, and it will mean pushing the state legislature to fund the necessary track, signals, and rolling stock.
Second, I believe great trains—combined with people-focused street design and a repeal of parking minimums—will revitalize Elyria’s downtown and boost the regional economy.
Third, I believe that—by working together—we have the power to make it happen.
In short, real change is possible; it will have transformative regional, and eventually national, impacts; and we have the power to push it through.
That’s what I believe. And that’s why I’m in this fight for great trains. I hope you’ll join me.
