The latest draft of House Bill 96, the biennial state budget, has proponents of expanded passenger rail concerned.
Ohio Senate lawmakers again removed two $25,000 earmarks for the state to join the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission (MIPRC), included in the House’s version of HB 96, because of leaders’ concerns about whether Ohio would surrender some legislative authority by joining.
“I wouldn’t say that we’re anti-passenger rail, necessarily, but we’re also not going to hand over state authority to a third party that we really are kind of unfamiliar with,” Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) said last week.
In 2013, the state relinquished its MIPRC member status under Republican former Gov. John Kasich, and according to a news release from the Democratic caucus at the time, didn’t settle member fee debt for some time after. The decision came after Kasich turned down $400 million in federal grants for an Amtrak line running from Cleveland to Cincinnati.
Additionally, HB 96 would reorganize the Ohio Rail Development Commission (ORDC) by eliminating the passenger rail representative’s seat, which has sat vacant for some time, and replacing it with a second freight rail representative. The freight representatives would not have to live in Ohio.
John Esterly, chairman of the State Legislative Board of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said in an interview Friday that he’s not against additional perspective from freight rail interests. He believes it shouldn’t come at this cost.
“Federal dollars are going to continue to get more and more competitive,” Esterly said. “We’ve been told by our federal partners that one of the things that they’re going to look at is how prepared the state is to support expansion of passenger rail and we kind of see this as a step in the opposite direction.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation has been studying four new Amtrak routes with Ohio service since 2024.
Two potential state-sponsored projects—one connecting Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati, called the 3C&D, and another connecting Cleveland to Detroit through Toledo—were among those in the first phase of the corridor identification program. The Ohio Rail Development Commission will pull the second phase of state funds from its budget.
