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The Dispatch wrote
COTA’s president to retire in 2010
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
William Lhota plans to step down as president and chief executive officer of the Central Ohio Transit Authority in two years. The COTA board of trustees is expected to approve a new contract Wednesday for Lhota that will expire June 30, 2010. It’s expected his base salary will remain at $136,590.
Lhota, 68, has led COTA since 2004. On Lhota’s watch, the authority’s finances have improved. Its budget has operated in the black the past three years, and voters approved a 10-year, 0.25 percent tax levy in 2006.
Comments
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- 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 President William Lhota to retire in 2010
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If you read the article, he seems to have begun the turn around. Evidenced by threads here, COTA for the most part is doing better. Of course the levy just took effect, so any massive change will only just now get started.
It would be great to bring someone in who can run with the good work already started and massively improve the system in place.
Good, that’s what I thought. Was trying to understand why several people seemed put off by this gentleman.
Probably the biggest bone I have to pick with COTA is their general attitude expressed in the Alive:
“Just from talking to people, they want the service personalized — but this is a huge city,” said Liggett, noting that COTA increases its fleet each year by about 12 buses. “It’s a risk to increase service. We want to make sure we’re spending the taxpayers’ dollars wisely.”
I am sure it is a risk for McDonalds to roll out a new burger every now and then. Guess what, they do it. If it fails to take off, it’s taken off the menu and the company learns from the marketing test. COTA, in theory, could begin a Thursday-Sunday late night service in the downtown area, maybe run a weekend only line to Polaris or Easton. Since Bus service stops already at a designated hour, extending hours for a small section wouldn’t cripple them since the other 70% of the fleet is already parked at that hour. Personal to drive the buses becomes an issue, but it can be handled.
Do that for a 2-3 month test run. If it fails, it fails, but you at least answer the critics calling for later hour. If ridership exceeds expectations, well you might find it easier to pass another levy to keep that service and expand it even further.
This 22 year wait for something that seems to be in high demand is nuts.
When minimum wage went up, several industries were restricted from being affected positively by the wage increase. At the same our elected officials received a pay raise. Strickland went from a previous Governors salary under Taft of 130k to 144 and change.
In Strickland’s defense, he did turn down his last pay raise:
http://www.columbusunderground.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11246
When minimum wage went up, several industries were restricted from being affected positively by the wage increase. At the same our elected officials received a pay raise. Strickland went from a previous Governors salary under Taft of 130k to 144 and change.
In Strickland’s defense, he did turn down his last pay raise:
http://www.columbusunderground.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11246
Strickland is a great guy and someone we have needed in Ohio for a long time at the helm. My basic point, maybe one that is hard to get across on a message board, is that our ideas on “public service” have changed so drastically it creates a disconnect between top and bottom. The people we have in office do work hard and do work, at times, in our best interest. But I would love to see even 1 try to live for a month or two like many Ohioans do. One of the biggest reasons I support greater ballot access to get more diverse candidates out there. Let’s have someone that really knows what is like to move your family of 5 into a small 2 bedroom apartment when the plant shuts down and the bank forecloses. Lets have someone who know what its like to rely on a bus systems for transit when you have to sell the car to get by through the winter.
If we are going to compare men like Strickland and Lhota to private sector CEO’s to justify their salary, then lets act like stockholders and demand accountability. As I stated in an earlier post here, COTA is on a good track. Let’s not let it slip when a new president comes in.
[/soapbox]
So what would others like to see in the new president?
So what would others like to see in the new president?
1. Someone who rides transit regularly
2. Someone with a vision and a goal for transit in the region
3. A willingness to try new ideas
4. A desire to plan some New Starts
5. The ability to make unpopular decisions if necessary
Libertarian? A true libertarian would be in favor of eliminating COTA entirely and waiting until a fully privately-funded system were willing to come in (at which point said libertarian would say that that system should be able to just set up and start running, with no permitting necessary from City Council).
Actually Gram, I would love to see a private entity come in and say “screw it, we’ll negotiate, we’ll finance, we’ll have the light rail up and running”.
Like any political affiliation there is always variation. I think infrastructure-roadways, transit, bikeways etc. can be handled by the government. Private entities wouldn’t be bad and maybe we would late night runs if COTA was trying to turn a profit.
John, good list. Someone at least recognizes that I am trying to shut up and move this back to where it should be.
It would be nice to see COTA take public input on the selection, hear what the public wants out of a new leader.
I think there’s a pretty big difference between riding the bus and managing a regional transit system. There are ways to listen to the concerns of the bus riders without putting them in charge of the bus system.
That being said, I think Lhota’s done a pretty good job thus far.
That was related to my other tangent.
I do agree with John that whoever is the next in charge is someone who utilizes transit regularly, though. Just like I feel the person who designs pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure should have some amount of personal knowledge in what it takes. Its kind of nice that one of the leading proponents on council for bicycling and complete streets is O’Shaughnessy, who regularly commutes by bike.
Lhota was the right guy to clean up the financial and ethical mess left behind by former CEO Ron Barnes. He’s had to make some unpopular decisions like service cuts, but he also was in charge for a successful levy campaign that will restore most of those cuts and begin to add service.
My only quarrel is that he took COTA’s light rail plans completely off the table at a time when it should have been kept alive. If an agressive levy campaign would have included LRT, we’d probably be in the construction phase of light rail as I write this.
But to his credit, Lhota is again talking about light rail. perhaps due to the push by Mayor Coleman for the Downtown Streetcar. I doubt COTA wants to look like luddites when the city is advancing the streetcar. Lohota has been very supportive of the streetcar effort and for that he should be applauded.
“Just from talking to people, they want the service personalized — but this is a huge city,” said Liggett, noting that COTA increases its fleet each year by about 12 buses. “It’s a risk to increase service. We want to make sure we’re spending the taxpayers’ dollars wisely.”
I am sure it is a risk for McDonalds to roll out a new burger every now and then. Guess what, they do it. If it fails to take off, it’s taken off the menu and the company learns from the marketing test. COTA, in theory, could begin a Thursday-Sunday late night service in the downtown area, maybe run a weekend only line to Polaris or Easton. Since Bus service stops already at a designated hour, extending hours for a small section wouldn’t cripple them since the other 70% of the fleet is already parked at that hour. Personal to drive the buses becomes an issue, but it can be handled.
Do that for a 2-3 month test run. If it fails, it fails, but you at least answer the critics calling for later hour. If ridership exceeds expectations, well you might find it easier to pass another levy to keep that service and expand it even further.
This 22 year wait for something that seems to be in high demand is nuts.
Didn’t they already do this? There was a line that ran late nights from OSU to the Brewery District that I believe was cut because there weren’t enough people riding it.
“Just from talking to people, they want the service personalized — but this is a huge city,” said Liggett, noting that COTA increases its fleet each year by about 12 buses. “It’s a risk to increase service. We want to make sure we’re spending the taxpayers’ dollars wisely.”
I am sure it is a risk for McDonalds to roll out a new burger every now and then. Guess what, they do it. If it fails to take off, it’s taken off the menu and the company learns from the marketing test. COTA, in theory, could begin a Thursday-Sunday late night service in the downtown area, maybe run a weekend only line to Polaris or Easton. Since Bus service stops already at a designated hour, extending hours for a small section wouldn’t cripple them since the other 70% of the fleet is already parked at that hour. Personal to drive the buses becomes an issue, but it can be handled.
Do that for a 2-3 month test run. If it fails, it fails, but you at least answer the critics calling for later hour. If ridership exceeds expectations, well you might find it easier to pass another levy to keep that service and expand it even further.
This 22 year wait for something that seems to be in high demand is nuts.
Didn’t they already do this? There was a line that ran late nights from OSU to the Brewery District that I believe was cut because there weren’t enough people riding it.
Yes it was called the #20, probably because it ran on a portion of the #2 with 0 people riding it.
That’s the optimistic scenario. However, I think it’s easier to talk about things like this when you don’t bear responsibility for any failures, just like people will play far more aggressive with poker chips when there’s no real money behind them.
We might be in the construction stage of light rail right now had Lhota “aggressively” pushed another levy campaign. On the other hand, such a campaign might have engendered equally “aggressive” resistance, or simply carried too much additional baggage for voters to accept (they’ve rejected it already once before), and we could not only be looking at no light rail but no expanded COTA bus service, either.
You can’t just look at the upside. You’ll take insane risks if you do.
As an OSU student and someone who works downtown during the week, I sometimes rely on the COTA for transportation. It has been a few weeks since I’ve ridden with COTA, but given the continual rise in gas prices, I opted to take the bus to work today.
I arrived downtown with no trouble this morning, but was denied entry on the COTA just less than an hour ago because the picture on my BuckID was too blurry. I offered to show the driver my driver’s license to verify my identity, but he refused and even falsely claimed that he had previously told me of this policy. My feeling is that I had no trouble this morning because I took the #4, but ran into problems just now because I was trying to take the #2. Given that the #2 likely has the most student riders of any bus, it is likely that this problem has occured many times before–just not to me.
As a result, I’m missing my class (the civic engagement class which was written about in the Dispatch and posted here on CU last week) and faced with a long walk back to campus. Thankfully, it’s a nice day outside.
I would like to conclude my post by reminding everyone of a major issue facing Columbus; the damaged (if nonexistent) relationship between the students at Ohio State and downtown Columbus. What kind of perception would any given student form about this city if they encountered a problem like this each time they tried to explore Columbus? I’m a local boy, and although I am upset with COTA right now, I’ll get over it. I just can’t stand an issue as trivial as this being a potential roadblock for OSU students who wish to get around and see Columbus.
I encountered a similar issue with a driver, however I was using a cota transfer pass. (which I’d just received from the sullivant bus – just exited In front of him as he watched me walk to his bus).
For some reason it didn’t swipe and he looked at it and badgered me for a minute like I freakin stole it or something? I told him I just got it and you saw me just get off the bus in front of you. He mumbled something and said have a seat.
Pissed me off for a second then I remembered he didn’t kick me off.
But what will the tourist think?
Hey, welcome to the site, and thanks for sharing your story. That sucks that you had to miss the bus. I’ve never had a problem that bad, but it does seem like the courteousness of the divers varies greatly from one bus to the next.
Did you walk the whole way back, or just wait for the next bus? You probably had another #4, #7, or #8 coming along shortly afterwards. You may have even had better luck with a different #2 driver.
“Just from talking to people, they want the service personalized — but this is a huge city,” said Liggett, noting that COTA increases its fleet each year by about 12 buses. “It’s a risk to increase service. We want to make sure we’re spending the taxpayers’ dollars wisely.”
I am sure it is a risk for McDonalds to roll out a new burger every now and then. Guess what, they do it. If it fails to take off, it’s taken off the menu and the company learns from the marketing test. COTA, in theory, could begin a Thursday-Sunday late night service in the downtown area, maybe run a weekend only line to Polaris or Easton. Since Bus service stops already at a designated hour, extending hours for a small section wouldn’t cripple them since the other 70% of the fleet is already parked at that hour. Personal to drive the buses becomes an issue, but it can be handled.
Do that for a 2-3 month test run. If it fails, it fails, but you at least answer the critics calling for later hour. If ridership exceeds expectations, well you might find it easier to pass another levy to keep that service and expand it even further.
This 22 year wait for something that seems to be in high demand is nuts.
Didn’t they already do this? There was a line that ran late nights from OSU to the Brewery District that I believe was cut because there weren’t enough people riding it.
Yes it was called the #20, probably because it ran on a portion of the #2 with 0 people riding it.
Guess what? I found this!!
http://web.archive.org/web/20010128145600/cota.com/how/f-maps.htm
It shows OLD COTA schedules in 2001
WOW
Oh shit .. #20 ran till 330a
wow i love the internet machine lets me see old schedules!!
I saw they used had eatston link, graceland link etc, its there
Newark Express was featured in 1999 you can see it here
http://web.archive.org/web/19980522232904/www.cota.com/text/serv/newark.htm