RSS
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
The Dispatch wrote
Bus system planning to expand routes, stops
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
By Debbie Gebolys
As COTA gains riders, the bus system plans to add two Park & Ride locations next month and expand service in several areas. The Central Ohio Transit Authority will make changes to 28 routes on Jan. 5. In nearly all cases, service is expanding.
The last time COTA added a Park & Ride was in 2003, shortly after the system began facing financial troubles that led to several years of route cuts. Now, the system is gaining riders and sales tax revenue.
COTA officials will explain the changes at noon Wednesday at the Rhodes Tower, 30 E. Broad St., and at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Linden Transit Center, 1390 Cleveland Ave. Route details are available at cota.com.
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
Top Stories
- Grandview Yard Seeks Retail Anchors for Next Phase of Development33
- Studio 35 Re-Opening is a Revelation17
- Attn: Columbus Creatives!14
- Philanthropy Friday: Bicentennial Towers 14
- More Downtown Public Artwork Coming to Scioto Mile11
- Liberty Place Adding Over 200 New Apartment Units to The Brewery District11
- Columbus Ranks #22 on List of Best Large Cities for Jobs in 201210
- The Short North's Summer of Construction10
- The Hudson Street Market Renovates, Faces Construction Woes10
- Challenge: Could You Go Five Days Using Alternative Transportation?8
COTA planning to expand routes and stops
By: lifeontwowheels
Related Posts:
• Nos. 7, 18, 83 — The daily No. 7 Neil Ave. route will drop its loop through Thurber Village in favor of extending the route north from University Village Shopping Center to Riverside Methodist Hospital. The
Wonderful news! That loop is an infuriating waste of time! This will be a much quicker link between downtown and campus.
• Nos. 7, 18, 83 — The daily No. 7 Neil Ave. route will drop its loop through Thurber Village in favor of extending the route north from University Village Shopping Center to Riverside Methodist Hospital.
Wonderful news! That loop is an infuriating waste of time! This will be a much quicker link between downtown and campus.
I agree. Plus it felt like the bus windows might shatter at any point due to the nasty asphalt on that Thurber loop. Northbound I’d usually just get off at Buttles pre-loop and walk up Neil to 3rd. This news honestly made my day.
Good to see added buses on the #2, as buses have been crowded even in off-peak hours.
Really? The only time they’ve been crowded for me is when I ride at 5:00pm.
Really? The only time they’ve been crowded for me is when I ride at 5:00pm.
They were often standing-room-only when I was taking them in early-mid afternoons from campus back to my office. Usually in the mornings too. But I havn’t been doing that since about 2001, so maybe its less crowded lately.
I’ve been on a few #2s in the past few months between 10am and 1pm that have been standing room only, but that’s not always the case.
My primary rides back and forth to downtown are the 6, 11, and 16, none of which are getting upgrades. They seem really hit or miss on the passenger volume during non-peak hours. One day I’ll be the only person on, the next day it will be standing room only. Very strange.
I’d love to see some new shelters (with maps and timetables) on the near east side though. I’m glad they finally installed one on Long Street near CSCC. I was tired of always seeing the newspaper boxes turned over on their sides to work as makeshift benches.
I’ve boarded #2 buses during mid-mornings, noon hours and mid-afternoons…all so-called off-peak hours and they’ve either full or SRO for most or all of the run.
But where I think the added buses will help the most, besides alleviating crowding, is to make the headways more consistent. I went to the bus stop near Tulane & High around 7:00-7:15 A-M a couple of times in recent weeks and waited 20 minutes for a bus. That’s supposed to be “rush hour”. Other mornings, the headways were more like 10 minutes, which is more typical.
One route that I was a little surprised isn’t getting at least a peak hour upgrade is the #4. It’s a great alternative to riding the #2, as it makes fewer stops and generally gets me back to Clintonville anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes fatser than the #2.
All that said, I hope many of you will go to the public meetings and make your voices heard…both about the pro’s and con’s of the changes. COTA does listen to and uses these comments to adjust or add services.
That is good news about the 7.
An actual improvement for a 2nd tier route, wow. Now if only the #3 were halfway decent. And don’t forget to put up timetables and a map at each stop, although the one across from Kroger on High was covered with ghetto graffiti. Looks like Weinland Park needs a graffiti cleaning crew where the city supplies members within the community with supplies to clean this stuff up.
Rode the 7 for the first time today, it’ll be good to have that loop gone.
Took the 2 back from the Giant Eagle in Clintonville. Wasn’t bad getting on, but progressively crowded to standing room only by the time we hit central campus. Passed one bus going north with a “Next Bus Please” sign on.
Whoo-hoo! I’m all about improving the COTA, and by providing more routes hopefully people will stop calling it “unreliable” and everything else they hurl at it. :-)
Ha! Check out this new and improved COTA bus stop… ;)
December 1, 2008
Passers-by near the corner of 15th and High may have noticed (how could you not), the latest in our promotional campaign for the Warhol exhibition here at the Wexner Center, this time an 8 x 10 x 4-foot bus shelter, draped in Warhol’s Cow wallpaper and painted—crossbeam to footer—in hot pink. As much as one might think this was a simple case of running to Lowe’s, grabbing few gallons and knocking it out, it was a little more intricate a project, spearheaded by Wexner Center designer Todd Timney and COTA’s Director of Marketing, Edward McGinnis. Along with help from Color Text (vinyl wallpaper), and folks from Chop Chop Gallery here in Columbus (painting and prep), the shelter came together over the course of the last month. Once a suitable shelter was secured by COTA, we were allowed access to a large, climate-controlled workspace (COTA’s Fields Avenue warehouse) for the transformation to take place.
READ MORE
What a great idea! Wouldn’t it be cool for COTA to enlist local art schools and designers to re-do bus stops as part of a competition…. even with corporate sponsors. Have them re-do bus stops in all kinds of settings: from downtown to the burbs.
Who doesn’t like a little video:
Wexner Center/COTA/Warhol Bus Shelter from Wexner Center on Vimeo.
That’s very cute!
I like those shelters a LOT. They’re really good for keeping out of the wind while waiting at the stop, except the wind still gets your ankles a bit. Those cold winter mornings waiting down on high and nationwide would have been unbearable without the shelter there!
Making them look funky is a good way of putting the icing on the cake.
As much as I love COTA and feel they are headed in a good direction, I think those labels are deserved at times.
With Broad and High as a major transfer point, why aren’t their maps and timetables on the east side Statehouse sidewalk area?
The bus I rode today from Bexley didn’t have the sound system working. Is there a microphone the drivers could use as a backup to call the stops?
These are just little things on the way home today, but they can add up to make the service unattractive enough the push someone away.
Even more changes:
[color=darkblue:b3279647c4]COTA to revise more routes, add more Park & Ride lots
Thursday, December 4, 2008 5:57 AM
By Debbie Gebolys
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Even before COTA makes its latest bus route changes, the transit authority is preparing to expand again in spring 2009.
The Central Ohio Transit Authority will tweak 28 of its 54 routes and open two Park & Ride facilities Jan. 5 in a continuing effort to rebuild a bus system that had been whittled to the bone earlier in the decade.
At a public hearing yesterday, COTA officials went over changes announced earlier and mentioned a few more.
The overcrowded No. 2 E. Main Street line will double its service between James Road and Downtown, and service on the heavily traveled No. 10 Broad Street line will increase in May.
The bus authority also is looking into other route changes for 2009.
Ohio State University students have asked for express service from the Hilliard area to campus, and from campus to Easton Town Center and the Arena District, said Ginny Barry, COTA scheduling director. COTA has begun studying the Hilliard and Easton lines but is in the early stages of considering the Arena District, she said.
The No. 18 Kenny Road local could be extended up Sawmill Road to connect with university offices at Don Scott Airport. Service could be doubled to 30-minute intervals between buses from the present 60 minutes.
After adding the first new Park & Rides in five years next month, COTA wants to add two more later next year, in Canal Winchester and at Polaris, for a total of 27.
Read more at:
http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/12/04/COTAexpress.ART_ART_12-04-08_B3_1TC4H7C.html?sid=101
[/b]
• Nos. 7, 18, 83 — The daily No. 7 Neil Ave. route will drop its loop through Thurber Village in favor of extending the route north from University Village Shopping Center to Riverside Methodist Hospital.
Wonderful news! That loop is an infuriating waste of time! This will be a much quicker link between downtown and campus.
I agree. Plus it felt like the bus windows might shatter at any point due to the nasty asphalt on that Thurber loop. Northbound I’d usually just get off at Buttles pre-loop and walk up Neil to 3rd. This news honestly made my day.
It’s nice to see that COTA ended this experiment with that loop and returned it to what it was 5 years ago.
You should try wearing pants.
You should try wearing pants.
:shock:
WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?!