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The Dispatch wrote
COTA gets aboard streetcar planning
Thursday, April 24, 2008
BY TIM DOULIN
COTA will contribute up to $50,000 toward a feasibility study for a Downtown streetcar line, but one member of its board questioned whether supporters have objectively studied the demand for such a system.
“Projections on ridership may be more wishful thinking than realistic thinking,” Robert Weiler said after the Central Ohio Transit Authority board meeting yesterday.
He questioned the need for “putting a rail down the middle of High Street when we already have buses on either side that are not full during the middle of the day.”
Comments
- itinerantfoodie: Not one mention of Huntington Park or their sparse advertising. (Seriously
- Liz Samuelson: Why can't they just pay someone to do it versus a contest? I really like t
- RichLauro: Awesome! Good for Justin and best wishes!!
- Liz Samuelson: @jpizzow – Thank you for the compliment, yes lots of potential and lots o
- Taz Devil: Oh, and it should be finished soon considering that they work late into the
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COTA gets aboard streetcar planning with $50,000
By: Walker
Related Posts:
So, I guess to play devils advocate, why do we need a streetcar when we have the COTA buses that like the article says, are already running up and down high st, not full?
Because buses are for transporting apples and streetcars are for transporting oranges.
But what if you are more of a pear? :P Sorry, Walker.
Just great, COTA is wasting $50,000 for a stuipd project. COTA could spend that $50,000 on something else what? New bus SIGNS!!!!
To decouple the cost of human transport from the cost of diesel fuel and couple it to something else we might have a better ability to manage.
There are other positive effects, as many cities have discovered.
Because the number 2 bus hasn’t done anything to change the 36 underdeveloped acres along the streetcar line.
Because ridership on streetcars has proven time and time again to be higher and more diverse than buses.
Because the number 2 bus isn’t expected to provide any increase to convention business, let alone 90,000 new visitors per year.
Because the number 2 bus isn’t expected to provide any increase to convention business, let alone 90,000 new visitors per year.
because the number 2 bus is stuck in traffic. LOL
Because the number 2 bus isn’t expected to provide any increase to convention business, let alone 90,000 new visitors per year.
because the number 2 bus is stuck in traffic. LOL
The streetcar could also get stuck in traffic though.
Because the number 2 bus isn’t expected to provide any increase to convention business, let alone 90,000 new visitors per year.
because the number 2 bus is stuck in traffic. LOL
The streetcar could also get stuck in traffic though.
I was mostly making a (bad) joke, since I used to take the #2 every day and hated the way cars would seemingly deliberatly try to screw it. Some of those drivers had to be pretty agressive cutting back into trafic from the stops at the curb! It was sometimes comic, sometimes just irritating.
but since I’m here…
Towns with streetcars tend to implement laws saying cars must get out of the way or, even better, design features of the track to prevent cars from getting in the way.
submitted from san-fran (where the system works pretty well) just by way of example:
http://www.municode.com/content/4201/14143/HTML/ch006.html
In Vancouver and Dayton, where the streetcars are really just electric buses I’ve noticed this really is more of a problem and I sincerely hope whoever works out the details of our system will not follow that model.
The reason the number two is so slow isn’t due to traffic, it’s due to frequent stops. I’ve been riding several different lines lately and the the number two by far has the most people getting off and on at every single stop. Other routes can blow by stops where no on needs picked up and no one requests off.
If the Streetcar can service that high-volume frequent stop stretch between downtown and campus then a modified number two could act as a speedier shuttle between the north side and downtown making only one or two stops through the Streetcar zone.
I was mostly making a (bad) joke, since I used to take the #2 every day and hated the way cars would seemingly deliberatly try to screw it. Some of those drivers had to be pretty agressive cutting back into trafic from the stops at the curb! It was sometimes comic, sometimes just irritating.
but since I’m here…
Towns with streetcars tend to implement laws saying cars must get out of the way or, even better, design features of the track to prevent cars from getting in the way.
submitted from san-fran (where the system works pretty well) just by way of example:
http://www.municode.com/content/4201/14143/HTML/ch006.html
In Vancouver and Dayton, where the streetcars are really just electric buses I’ve noticed this really is more of a problem and I sincerely hope whoever works out the details of our system will not follow that model.
Interesting. New laws aside, I expect cars will be reluctant to drive on the tracks, partly due to the mental barrier of driving on railroad tracks and partly because it won’t be as comfortable. In engineer-speak, this will decrease the lane utilization factor for High Street, which will be good for the streetcar except in the worst of conditions when cars can’t get out of the way even if they wanted to.
The reason the number two is so slow isn’t due to traffic, it’s due to frequent stops. I’ve been riding several different lines lately and the the number two by far has the most people getting off and on at every single stop. Other routes can blow by stops where no on needs picked up and no one requests off.
If the Streetcar can service that high-volume frequent stop stretch between downtown and campus then a modified number two could act as a speedier shuttle between the north side and downtown making only one or two stops through the Streetcar zone.
+1, but I still hope the streetcar doesn’t stop on every block like the #2. Maybe every other block would be acceptable.
If the Streetcar can service that high-volume frequent stop stretch between downtown and campus then a modified number two could act as a speedier shuttle between the north side and downtown making only one or two stops through the Streetcar zone.
+1, but I still hope the streetcar doesn’t stop on every block like the #2. Maybe every other block would be acceptable.
+2. i agree with these posts
Because the board members argument is a straw man. He said “middle of the day” which to me means between 11:00-3:00 when most people who use the bus for work are at work. I am a lifetime COTA patron and believe me in the morning and early evening the buses running up N. High (#2, #8 ) become uncomfortably full.
This is also true of the #10 (both east and west during peak hours) as well as the #1 (both north and south, pretty much all day).