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Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman attended a news conference this morning in Virgina along with several other mayors and governors to hear President-Elect Barack Obama’s proposed stimulus plan to boost the nation’s economy.
Coleman has recently written a letter to Obama seeking federal funding dollars for a variety of economic development projects in Central Ohio, including:
- $32 million for development in RiverSouth
- $26 million in Targeted Industry Cluster Job Creation
- $63.9 million in LEED Certified Infrastructure Development
- $12.6 million in Carbon Footprint Reduction
and………
- $200 million for the development of a new Regional Rail Project
The brief overview of the new regional rail project describes it as a combination of the “best elements” from both the previous North Corridor Light Rail Proposal and the more recent Downtown Streetcar Proposal. The new passenger rail system is being proposed to run northward from Downtown to the Delaware County Line with a combination of on-street rail grades and right-of-way railroad tracks.
The city has already partnered with MORPC and COTA on the preliminary work for this project, and it is being called the new “first step” towards a more comprehensive regional passenger rail network.
More details will be posted as soon as we get them. Stay tuned.
Awesome news! I’m thrilled. But don’t forget about us folks just south of downtown who sure would like to ride those trains too!
thanks Central City Recording for providing some fodder to raise my blood pressure 20 pts. i can’t believe that out of all those posted comments there were only two who were at all supportive of the proposal for the light rail line. our community is doomed. do they actually think they are just going to hand out the money if it isn’t spent on projects like this? i’m dying a little inside.
oh, i wasn’t accusing you of agreeing with them…thanks for sharing the link
If you’re worried about blood pressure don’t head over to rants and raves. I’m doing my best to be level headed.
It’s amazing that a lot of people in Columbus cannot see the benefits of something like this – even if they don’t live next to the trains. We won’t convince these people that it will work until AFTER we build it. Then when gas prices go back up to $4 or $5/gallon (and they will!!!) they will see it.
On the flip side, it’s great to see all the hate against the streetcars/light rail. It means they are ignoring the money requested to complete the Alum Creek Trail.
Now where are those emoticons…
Unfortunately these funds are supposed to be for stimulus/shovel-ready projects; a light-rail project is no less than 5 years out. There is no way his administration could pull something together within the timeline these funds are intended to be used. Let’s face it, he’s been in office ten years and look at the Northland Mall site!!
If it were Gov Strickland lobbying on behalf of this rail project, I’d pay more attention to it, but a letter from the mayor of a relatively well-off city won’t have too much influence on Congress. Thats why I have hope for the 3C project, but not this rail project.
Even the Mayor doesnt really believe this project will get stimulus funds, hence why he said “If the light-rail proposal isn’t part of a new stimulus package…local officials hope the new administration will be more receptive to federal funding through other means.” Everyone in Congress will be scrambling to secure those funds for their constituencies, and Coleman will have little influence. His green building proposals may get a 2nd look since Obama explicitly calls for the creation of a “green” economy.
The fact is that the overwhelming majority of federal funds destined for commuter rail (which may be none at all) would certainly go to densely populated cities where rail systems are both crumbling and horrendously inadequate (like Baltimore, Boston, Philly… the last of which uses 40 year old subway cars to service stations that leak when it rains), or to cities where rail needs to be expanded (San Fran, LA, Chicago).
Plus, lets not assume that the citizenry of this town would be thrilled at federal money going towards rail projects – they’d almost certainly prefer it to go towards road/sewer works and school repairs, which no matter how you put it, are more important to the average resident than a rail line to Polaris. I doubt they’d care that high density residential development tend to follow rail lines, but even that case would be hard to argue in this economic climate and housing slump.
For the greater good, I’d rather see the proposed money directed towards cities that badly need it. Sure, rail would generate economic activity, but that activity really is needed more badly elsewhere (not to mention that the “returns” may be greater in a bigger city anyways). If we get any federal funds for this project, I don’t think it would happen before Obama’s 2nd term, and even then, it will probably be a 50/50 sort of deal. Moral of the story: Don’t get your hopes up for this one.
I understand the reasons against it. I just feel that we’ll keep pushing these projects aside for the greater good until we really need them. Then what?
Well, when we really need them, we’ll get them – I doubt that Columbus will truly NEED a commuter rail system for quite sometime. Not many American metro regions with less than 2.5 million people have a post WW2 commuter rail system because there just isn’t the population base to support it. Plus, our city spreads out in all directions, unlike a city like SLC, which doesn’t do any favors for commuter rail.
I’ll come back and ask the question again when gas goes back to $4. It takes too long to build up a system to keep pushing it back. Adding buses or bus lines to existing service is a bit different and much quicker, but only provides a quick and dirty solution.
We’ve put our eggs in too few baskets for far too long-either through the continued sprawl and development or by short changing the existing transit system. Buses only work so well and given the current treatment in Columbus, COTA is making the best of a bad situation. I hope we get a basic rail service, as it does work in a wide variety of cities.
If our ridership numbers were down, which they aren’t, it would be another story. But considering the stretch that will (may) become our first passenger rail corridor, it’s probably the best solution to alleviate the common problems: head-ways/commute times and capacity.
Great if it happens, but the problem with light-rail can be seen in cities that have them where they reach sprawling burbs. While they are used by commuters in the burbs, they’re not going to be taking the train to the strip malls, drive-thrus, etc.Tthey’ll be car-dependent for everything else. Just look at DC.
I’d prefer using all that money to provide a comprehensive streetcar network for our urban core, making it really easy to minimize trips by car and provide an asset not just for residents, but those from the suburbs and visitors. In short, streetcars encourage a comprehensive urban environment, while light-rail only gets sporadic urbanization around each station. Still, if this does go forward and is well-implemented, I’m certain we’ll see support for more light rail and streetcars alike.
As amazing as it would be to have a rail system in Columbus and as excited as this article made me when I first read it after a lot of thought I cannot help but think that if the City of Columbus and the metro area really wants a rail system shouldn’t we be the ones to pay for it and run it? If we rely on the federal government to pay for everything that we want isn’t that sort of passing the buck. I think it would be much better if it was a plan that was funded by a ballot proposal thereby getting the approval of the citizens and giving them a stake in its success. That course may take a lot more work for advocates of rail but aren’t most things that take a lot of work better in the long run for it? If it doesn’t pass and when have a crisis whereupon we truly need this type of transit (ie: $5+ gas) then the citizens wouldn’t have anybody to blame (including the federal government) but themselves. But then again those are just my thoughts, so who knows?
We tried it. It failed. And people conveniently forgot.
I don’t have any problem with this just being done. Screw the citizens and take the same approach we do with all of our roadway projects-take federal and state tax revenues, have little to no discussion and just do it for the greater good.
“It takes too long to build up a system to keep pushing it back. Adding buses or bus lines to existing service is a bit different and much quicker, but only provides a quick and dirty solution.”
Well, it may take too long to build to keep pushing it back, but you can easily argue that it is too costly to undertake until it really is needed. As for buses, clean fuel buses would eliminate the dirtiness factor – and a quick solution that is adequate is a better solution than a slow and expensive one.
“But considering the stretch that will (may) become our first passenger rail corridor, it’s probably the best solution to alleviate the common problems: head-ways/commute times and capacity.”
Rail is the best solution to those problems you mentioned, but Columbus doesnt have those problems, and nor will it likely for a very long time – there can be no best solution for a problem which does not exist. 71 would have be to jammed up for more than a couple hours a day for it to really warrant capacity concerns. And if it ever gets too bad, commuters will simply drive over to 315, or down 270 to 670.
Commute time isn’t an issue for drivers in Columbus either. And honestly, light rail doesn’t really shorten commutes by much if the distance traveled is only a few miles when capacity isn’t a huge issue, and no express service is run. You have to factor it the time it takes to get to the station, train frequencies, number of stops, and distance to destination from the final stop. Public transit for that short of a distance could actually be quite a bit longer than just driving.
I honestly think that the most important factor in those cities where people commute to work is the cost of parking downtown. Drivers would need more than a 15 min shave off their commute to sacrifice the convenience and comfort of their cars to wait on cold platforms in order to share crowded trains with a bunch of strangers. In Cbus, parking is so simple than people don’t have much of a real incentive to take a train. Combined with the fact that we have 6 freeways leading downtown also means that it will be decades before capacity and commute times really become an issue.
I would argue the same thing with any new large highway that isn’t truly interstate (something like 270, 315) it just seems like part, or actually pretty much the entire reason we are in the recession is because the responsibility was taken away from people. “Hey! We can get a loan for a $200,000 but we make $30,000 a year! No Interest, No Payments, No Responsibility.” The federal government, and state government for that matter, thought they knew what was best for all of us stupid citizens when they encouraged banks and Freddie and Fannie give out unbelievability risky loans. Maybe its time to rebuild a culture of accountability and pay for stuff ourselves instead of relying on bureaucrats in Washington to decided if we get our rail system or not. Instead of “Screw the citizens” why do we all start a campaign to “educate the citizens.”
“I don’t have any problem with this just being done. Screw the citizens and take the same approach we do with all of our roadway projects-take federal and state tax revenues, have little to no discussion and just do it for the greater good.”
Freeways take like 15 years to build, and require tons of discussion, and funding petitions – in fact I think 670 took like 30 years to build. Further, they’re too expensive to build in areas that don’t really need them yet, so there is actually careful oversight on what gets built and where.
Also, its not screwing the citizens, because the majority of citizens support highway construction. If there is substantial resistance to a highway, it takes years and years to resolve.
I’m not even talking about cars and commute times and capacity. I’m talking about COTA and why buses don’t work in a city this size and a service area as large as they cover.
Raise your hand if you have taken COTA in the last 6 months and had an issue with a packed bus at peak hours.
I can tell you from experience that there are issues on the main lines regarding capacity. It’s the reason COTA has been working to bring higher capacity buses to Columbus. The reason why they’ve been working to add more buses over the last year and specifically addressed the issues with the #2 in their last round, 1/5/09, of service improvements.
Maybe you don’t view parking downtown as a problem, but don’t you see what parking garages do to the urban landscape? How can you have a vibrant downtown area when a parking garage takes up a whole city block? If we continue to neglect any comprehensive rail system, more and more parking garages will be built and downtown Columbus will slowly die.
As for previous discussions that a city like Columbus is too spread out to support light rail, look no further than Charlotte as a model. You have to start somewhere, have some success and build from there. At first there will be density sprouting up near the stops on the first line, but as those stops become more desirable, new lines will be built and the city can progress again with each new line. A city like Columbus cannot and should not expect to be completely independent of the automobile for decades, but this is a good start towards density.
Not to mention allowing people who are working the minimum wage jobs, living pay check to pay check and at the poverty line make their own decisions and have a reasonable, reliable and efficient option to access jobs and education. Building up a system dependent on car travel leaves a number of people behind. It creates a bias where potential employers are leery to hire individuals solely based on method of travel.