trucking at heart of Butler County hub plan

[Staff]

Work is under way to bring a 1,000-acre transportation hub to Butler County that could combine railroad and trucking services.

A study by the Butler County Port Authority and the Ohio Kentucky Indiana Regional Council of Governments has identified 14 potential sites for the hub clustered mainly around the Butler County Regional Airport, the border area between Middletown and Monroe, and the area from Trenton to New Miami, Authority Secretary John Fonner said Tuesday.

The county already is home to two major rail lines that connect the Cincinnati market to Columbus, Toledo, Chicago and Indianapolis. The study found the market's trucking distribution companies are nearly all clustered around southeastern Butler County, Fonner said, making the mating of rail and over-the-road freight transportation feasible.

"What we've done to date, we hope, is to provide enough policy-level information to show there is a potential market in Butler County to support this," he said. "But, the policy question of whether we want it or not has to be made."

The hub would gather international and domestic freight coming in on trains, then break it down for shipment by truck from the center. Fonner said the market study showed a county hub could serve an area from Lexington and Louisville north toward Lima and east into parts of eastern Indiana.

Using an Alliance, Texas, hub as a model, the study determined that 130 to 150 acres would be needed for the hub with about 1,000 acres surrounding it for the development of support businesses, Fonner said.

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