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Rail road
By John Ross
May 22, 2008
Modern streetcars are similar in spirit — though not in appearance or functionality — to the trolleys that lined Columbus streets before being ripped up starting in 1933.
Of the 15 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, only Columbus, San Antonio and Indianapolis lack some system of rail-based transit, according to Alive research.
Benefits, proponents say, are many: decreased dependence on cars, increased commercial development along routes, a boost in tourism, and a better image projected to companies and young professionals the city strives to attract.
“The subway system in New York started with one line,” said Walker Evans, founder of ColumbusUnderground.com and a leading civic advocate for streetcars. “By starting small and using this unique funding package, it could get the ball rolling without increasing taxes. I think once people get a taste of streetcars, they’ll be more likely to support something regional.”
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Thanks for posting this.
I trust you were quoted accurately.
The streetcar on high street would be a nice start. Though I would love to see a line going east to west and north to south more though. In each direction going 270 to 270. :x
Nice article John.
Yeah, i surprised at how accurate the quoting was, actually. I tend to ramble pretty quickly when it comes to Streetcars, and I think the quote you used was exactly what I said. You must have some great speed-typing skills to be able to keep up. ;)
I think it was very well written and balanced.
Kudos to John Ross.
Yep, very impressed with the article. It was cool reading something when I actually knew the writer’s opinion on the topic beforehand…and still couldn’t tell a bit from the article itself.
Agreed……it was nice to have an article that pretty much just put the facts out there. The problem with getting public opinion now is most of the time they dont know the facts so of course most people will shoot it down.
The problem with your opinion is that once again you are not giving opposers of the plan credit for being educated on it….Just because someone is opposed doesn’t mean they are not educated on this…
I’ve yet to see anyone gather data on or write about the financial impact of construction on business who are in the direct vicinity of construction, which an example of in this case would be the SN.
I can’t confirm this information yet, but I’m told most businesses went out of business during/ after the construction of Portland’s first line. As Portland has added additional lines businesses impacted have received financial subsidies during construction.
I’m guessing this wasn’t thought of in the plan of the first Columbus line and isn’t part of the 103 Million dollar package. Thus, the point continues to be avoided.
Jon, did you see this?
http://www.columbusunderground.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13890
http://www.columbusunderground.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13890
I did. No offense but in my head, it’s like Haliburton writing a memo on the government’s behalf and promising that oil revenues will pay for their work. The memo lacks sincerity.
The memo didn’t answer the key question. In other cities how many businesses went out of business as a result of construction? What percentage? What other types of businesses filled their places? How have other cities addressed this issue?
I said “most” didn’t I? Of course the people on here know about it and a good amount of people downtown do too, but I work up around Polaris and not one person I talked to had any idea about any of the specifics. Every single person thought it was going to look like the ones in San Fran. So I think I’ll stick with my opinion that most people who are opposed to it do not know enough about it yet.[/i]
I (obviously) disagree that the article was unbiased. I was actually really surprised by that, given Johns opinions on here in the past.
Business interests were not even mentioned in the negatives. And if you want to talk about suggestive journalism, I think it’s safe to assume that most alive readers aren’t going to read” _______________’ an opinion formed by a conservative think tank,” and agree with it.
I just had an “aha moment”. What about gambling street cars? You’re rolling down high street in a cushy street car with purple velvet interiors, gold leaf around the windows gettin your gamble on. The gambling revenues would pay for the operation and expansion of the street cars.
I just had an “aha moment”. What about gambling street cars? You’re rolling down high street in a cushy street car with purple velvet interiors, gold leaf around the windows gettin your gamble on. The gambling revenues would pay for the operation and expansion of the street cars.
If they could find a way to put a craps table on there, I would probably be paying for whole blocks of the damn thing.
I hear what you’re saying, but I think we’re going to be hard pressed to find a research group willing to shed some pure unbiased (yet professional) light on this. The three-to-four week construction period for segments is the main thing I was happy to read out of all of that. That should keep impact on affected communities mimialized.
I really think these are harder questions to answer than we might believe. If it’s up to the individual business owners to provide their reasoning for closing doors, there’s usually multiple factors if effect, and it’s hard to pin those types of business-ending decisions on one key factor. I’d be willing to bet that if a three-to-four-week construction window were to close any of the businesses in the Short North, then they were bound to close soon anyway. Next time a gentle breeze came though, they would have folded and cited something else as the reason.
Similarly, I’ve heard the same arguments against “rising rents” in areas like the Short North being faulted for closing businesses. Rent prices generally don’t jump 50% overnight, so it’s usually more of a gradual change where there’s more than one factor at play. The rent prices might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it’s usually not the one and only thing gone wrong.
Ultimately, while I think the city should do what they can to help businesses AND residents who will be negatively affected by construction, it should be up to those individuals to let the city know what is needed, which I’ve heard very little on. Do they need a marketing campaign? Do they need subsidized rent? Do they need free meter parking as an offset? We can sit here and complain about a problem all day, but until people start talking about solutions, nothing is going to happen.
And as a last resort, if a business or a resident doesn’t want to be located along the Streetcar line, they’ve still got several years to consider moving. ;)
I’m so tired of you giving that same four week bit of data and never mentioning anything about the data that has been presented on here several times stating that the effects will be much greater than the four weeks the construction happens to be in front of our doors.
It’s not as if there is just another short north for us to move to. We’re dependent on a delicate balance of residential, restaurants, and most of all, other like stores to survive. We cannot just move Tigertree to Grandview or Clintonville and expect to continue on as if nothing changed. It took 20 years for this neighborhood to reach a point to sustain businesses like ours. There isn’t anywhere else in the city that is there yet. I can also speak on how expensive a move just around the block is.
You can just move is a terrible argument.
It was a joke. :P
Let me know what I can do to help you out. I’m ready to act. I’ve just not heard of any action being planned.
You can’t just sit back and complain and expect other people to step up to the plate for you.
I’ve said all along it’s not the “3 – 4 weeks” per block that concerns me. It’s the year it would take to build out a district that is the concern.
In fact continuing to position the construction in that fashion (3 – 4 weeks per block) is delusional and deceptive in my opinion. It’s like buying some crappy exercise machine in an infomercial for 10 installments of $30 bucks. Let’s get real about what the costs really are here. Again, it’s the 8 – 12 months it would take to complete construction in a district. I know of few businesses in this neighborhood that could survive a year in the red. There is plenty of data out there (including data from respective Chambers of Commerce) that could address that issue. The problem of course is that it doesn’t shine a rosy light on construction. The issue has already been addressed and remedied in other cities, Seattle being on of them.
The city’s pattern of development follows a predictable path because some of the key influencers tend to be developers. That path is MALLify, DULLify and GHETTOfy. Rinse and repeat. I guess the good news is that Easton will have reached the Ghetto Tipping point if and when the time the street car is completed.
We can just bring Easton downtown and to the Short North thankfully. Thus, bringing another sterile, contrived environment to an area that had a shade semblance of urbanism and was already on a growth swing with our without a street car. Then of course, this area will get dull and it will be time to build another line.
I’ve said all along it’s not the “3 – 4 weeks” per block that concerns me. It’s the year it would take to build out a district that is the concern.
In fact continuing to position the construction in that fashion (3 – 4 weeks per block) is delusional and deceptive in my opinion. It’s like buying some crappy exercise machine in an infomercial for 10 installments of $30 bucks. Let’s get real about what the costs really are here. Again, it’s the 8 – 12 months it would take to complete construction in a district. I know of few businesses in this neighborhood that could survive a year in the red. There is plenty of data out there (including data from respective Chambers of Commerce) that could address that issue. The problem of course is that it doesn’t shine a rosy light on construction. The issue has already been addressed and remedied in other cities, Seattle being on of them.
The city’s pattern of development follows a predictable path because some of the key influencers tend to be developers. That path is MALLify, DULLify and GHETTOfy. Rinse and repeat. I guess the good news is that Easton will have reached the Ghetto Tipping point if and when the time the street car is completed. We can just bring Easton downtown and to the Short North thankfully. Thus, bringing another sterile, contrived environment to an area that had a shade semblance of urbanism and was already on a growth swing with our without a street car. Then of course, this area will get dull and it will be time to build another line.
Man, when people say things like that, it makes me just want to give up on the city in general.