Can You Say Intermodal?

There have to be a fair number of you out there saying, "What in the hell in Intermodal?" Well if you will give me more than one line in a posting, I'll explain it to you. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, Intermodal is simply defined as: being or involving transportation by more than one form of carrier during a single journey  

Now for those of you not keeping up with your world economics lately, what this really means is this: 

1. We are more and more living in a global economy, where goods are not just shipped across the country, but around the world. 
2. In order to participate in this kind of business, every kind of transportation is involved (air, rail, ship, and truck) to get products from the point of manufacture to the final point of distribution. 
3. Strategically located points of transfer are required to make such a system work. 

"This is all very interesting Tim" you say, "but why are you posting about it?" Asking such a question would imply that you do not understand much about the town that I live in, Toledo, Ohio (or that you do, and are simply too caught up in feeling sorry for me to think this through). 

Toledo has a port on the Great Lakes, straddles the Ohio Turnpike going east-west and I-75 going north-south, has an airport that while not much used for passenger travel is ideal for freight, and is at the crossroads of a number of rail lines (both through the US and Canada). Perhaps now you are beginning to get the picture. Toledo would be an ideal location for an Intermodal transportation hub. 

Having recognized this in the 2 minutes that has taken to read all of this, you have to ask why no one has tried to build one here? In fact, a group has tried to. Many years back, it was pointed out to a few investors that land directly across from the Toledo Express Airport, close to an Ohio Turnpike entrance and to I-75, and only a few miles from the Port of Toledo would eventually be ideal for such a thing. These investors, being good businessmen, purchased the land, and waited for such an investment to bear fruit. Two years ago they began to put the final pieces together required to begin to break ground for this Intermodal transportation hub. 

They ran into a stumbling block however. Access to water was 40 yards away, and extension of that water line required city approval. Now let me explain at this point, that Toledo has the highest unemployment in the state, currently at about 9.3%. Businesses have been moving out of the city regularly and taking their jobs with them. Residents have been leaving the city because there are no jobs to work. So you would think that the opportunity to get such a job magnet as this Intermodal hub would gain immediate support from the city of Toledo. 

Would it then surprise you to learn that even though the investors have offered to pay the city for the water line extension, that the city (or more accurately, the Mayor of Toledo) has been sitting with the request for this extension in his desk for 2 years? Should I also point out that this same mayor is the self-appointed director of economic development in the city? Does this sound like any rational way to run local government?

It is time for everyone to contact the Mayor, the City Council, and the County Commissioners to get this water line extended the length of 1/2 of a football field so that this development can get off of the ground. To paraphrase a more formal contract, if any one of these people can show reason why this boon to the local economy should not move forward, let them speak now, or forever hold their peace. 

 It has been tough times for the city and county that I live in and it is likely that their are tougher times ahead. It is past time that government gets out of the way of one of the few opportunities that this region has. If our local leaders want to do their job, if they want to bring money and jobs to an area that desperately needs it, if they want to serve the people that elected them, they will do everything in their power to see this water line extended and this project moved forward.