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Moving Ohio into a Prosperous New World

December 2008

Ohios 21st Century Transportation Priorities Task Force Moving Ohio into a Prosperous New World

Ohios 21st Century Transportation Priorities Task Force Moving Ohio into a Prosperous New World

Table of Contents2

Table of Contents3

Ohios 21st Century Transportation Priorities Task Force Moving Ohio into a Prosperous New World

Listen to the Transportation Conversation and Imagine4

Introduction5

The Task Force Charge5

Seven Guiding Principles6

Ohios 21st Century Transportation Priorities Task Force Moving Ohio into a Prosperous New World

(Listen to the Transportation Conversation and ImagineImagine a transportation system that is diverse and reduces congestion on Ohios highway and rail systems.If every UPS drivers is delayed for five minutes each day, the cost to UPS would be approximately $100 million per year. Kay Townsend, UPS Vice President & Task Force Member, Economic Development subcommittee Imagine a transportation system that gives Ohioans better and more affordable options for getting where they want to go. People are making very tough decisions. People who are gainfully employed are making decisions about whether to buy gasoline or groceries. Rick, Athens Regional Meeting, June 2008Imagine expanding transportation services to better connect workers to the places where they work, resulting in job creation, economic growth and prosperity. appreciate how our transportation infrastructure contributes to job creation. The investments we make are critical to generating long-term, living-wage jobs with benefits.Mark, St. Clairsville Regional Meeting, June 2008Employers ask if a job candidate has transportation to the worksite; and if the answer is no, the candidate is overlooked. Lynn, Workforce Development Officer, Economic Developmentsubcommittee meetingImagine a reliable transit system that allows people with disabilities or low incomes, and senior citizens, to be independent, productive, contributing members of society.I am blind and couldnt do anything without public transit. I would lose influence in my job. People need transit to live.Marty, Cleveland Regional Meeting, June 2008I use Laketran for work, church and volunteering. I could do none of this without Laketran. I live in a rural area, the only place I could use federal loans for housing, so I cant use any other types of transit. I cant get people to drive to where I live to take care of me because of the increase in gas prices. Public transit is vital.Maria, Cleveland Regional Meeting, June 2008.Imagine creating the transportation systemOhioans have been talking about!)

Moving Ohio into a Prosperous New World

IntroductionThe Task Force Charge

At the 21st Century Transportation Priorities Task Force inaugural meeting, Governor Strickland sent a clear message to the 21st Century Transportation Priorities Task Force members: envision and champion the optimum transportation system for Ohios future and recommend the resources and financial tools needed to build and sustain it. We were to be constrained only by the limits of our imagination and by the power of our collective thinking to identify creative, innovative responses to Ohios 21st-century transportation challenges.

Such a directive could hardly have been more appropriate because no single means of transportation no way of getting from here to there is as reliable, as adaptable and as cost-effective as the fast lane of human imagination The fundamental challenge we faced was how to think big, consider the harsh realities of extensive transportation gaps and make recommendations for investing in what matters while living with our means.

We believe we have met this challenge understanding that failure to think big and act boldly will make the transportation of people and goods more difficult and costly in our state. Thinking and acting small would restrict mobility and access to essential services, make Ohio less attractive as a location for business investment and expansion, and diminish the quality of Ohioans lives. Clearly, these outcomes simply are not acceptable for the citizens and businesses of our great state.

To get underway, we first assigned ourselves the task of understanding the states transportation gaps, and the role transportation plays in moving Ohios economy forward. At the same time, we reached out to the public, hosting seven public meetings throughout the state and seeking additional feedback through web, phone and mail comments.

Our 61 members transit agency leaders, travelers, transportation experts, business leaders, public officials and laymen spent six months listening and learning from Ohios citizens, examining our assets and shortfalls, learning from other states and exploring how best to move forward. Our 61 members participated in dozens of subcommittee meetings and five full task force meetings. Over the course of these six months, our vision emerged:

Moving Ohio into a prosperous new world

We recognized this as more than our transportation vision. Rather, it is Ohios destiny but only if we are able to muster, individually and collectively, the imagination, the energy and the will to convert what should be done and what could be done into what will be done!

The Task Force used its vision as a springboard for establishing the goal for its work:

Make Ohio a leader in the national and global economies by creating afully-integrated, well-managed transportation system that drives business growth and prosperity, creates good jobs, makes our communities placespeople are proud to call home, and allows Ohioans to get where theywant to go safely and in an environmentally sound way.

(Seven Guiding PrinciplesKeeping Ohio competitive in the global and national economies must be Priority Number One.Transportation must be aligned with economic development, environmental and land use policies and practices.Transportation planning and development should be focused on one system not on the interests of a single mode or the need for individual projects.Transportation is a shared responsibility for state government and local communities, with synchronized public policies and public-private collaboration.Transportation policies should balance the preservation and maintenance of existing assets with strategic investments in new capacity.The mobility of all Ohioans, including those who are transit dependent (e.g., senior citizens and persons with disabilities,) needs to be improved.Transportation funding must be reliable, sustainable and adaptive to changing environmental factors.)During May and June 2008, Task Force members conducted a series of public meeting across the state and launched the Transportation Conversation via our website. They heard from several thousand Ohioans who made it clear that they want more than highway solutions to their transportation needs. In response, Task Force members pondered how communities can be planned so Ohioans dont need a car to get around. How transportation investments could be used to promote thriving communities and healthy lifestyles. How new transportation choices will help reduce our carbon footprint and dependence on foreign oil.

Task Force members want Ohios leaders to connect transportation with economic development initiatives, and to make it easy to get the right transportation projects done faster. They want to see more coordination, more partnerships and more innovative thinking. In addition, Task Force members want to see more transportation choices for businesses and citizens because it means more competitive transportation costs and growth in industry as well as unfettered access to jobs, education, health care and all of the things they need to live and improve their lives.

Through these and other conversations, Task Force members discovered that Ohio has entered a whole new world that the 21st-century world is changing rapidly and Ohio has to change with it again, rapidly. In The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman tell us that the flattening of the globe requires that all of us must run faster simply to stay in place. He writes that the world has gotten too small and too fast for people, businesses and their political systems to adapt in traditional, stable ways.

Ohios 21st Century Transportation Priorities Task Force Moving Ohio into a Prosperous New World

Ohios 21st Century Transportation Priorities Task Force Moving Ohio into a Prosperous New World

6Introduction

Introduction5