All Aboard Ohio is pleased to see the Dayton-based Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission and the Cincinnati-based Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Metro Planning Organization join their Ohio counterparts in filing Expressions of Interest for the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor ID Program.

In doing so they have nominated the Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati (3C&D) Corridor and the Cincinnati-Indianapolis-Chicago (CIC) Corridor to be an official part of the corridor planning program and (thus) eligible for future funding for detailed environmental and engineering planning. Such planning would lead to future funding of these corridors for the development of fast, frequent passenger rail service under other FRA grant programs.

This program came about as a direct result of the Bi-Partisan Infrastructure Act by Congress earlier this year, which made over $66.3-Billion dollars available for intercity passenger rail development.

“We applaud the leadership at MVRPC and OKI for taking this bold step and joining their counterparts in Toledo (TMACOG), Cleveland (NOACA), Mansfield (RCRPC), and Columbus (MORPC) as well as the bi-partisan coalition of Mayors of every station stop city on the proposed 3C&D Corridor”, says All Aboard Ohio Executive Director Stu Nicholson.

“We hope this shows Governor Mike DeWine there is strong and significant support for the “Amtrak Connects US” plans for Ohio, and that he will step up publicly to direct state transportation officials to partner with the MPOs and Mayors and work aggressively to make sure that grant funding is secured to make Ohio a more connected state both within and beyond its borders.”