Impact of Spatial Filtering on the Least Cost Path Method: Selecting a High-Speed Rail Route for Ohio's 3-C Corridor

In the face of renewed interest in High-Speed Rail (HSR) projects, Ohio is one of several states seeking federal funding to relieve pressure on aging, overburdened highway infrastructure by constructing passenger rail routes between major cities. This paper evaluates the creation of a new rail route in Ohio’s 3-C Corridor utilizing GIS. The authors consider two primary cost factors in construction, slope and land cover, to generate alternative least-cost paths. To assess the importance of the cost factors, two separate paths are created using two different weighting methods for the land cover layer. The land cover is weighted first by difficulty of construction, and second by relative acquisition costs. These two paths are then compared against a path selected by the Ohio Hub Project which uses existing track lines, advantages and disadvantages of each are discussed.