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Several weeks ago, The Central Ohio Transit Authority announced that they had big plans for expansion in 2011, which includes expanded service hours and bus frequency on existing lines, plus the possibility of new lines including a “hospital shuttle” circulating between various health centers, and the development of an improved rapid transit line along Cleveland Avenue.
An article in today’s Dispatch provides more detail on the study that COTA is conducting on a Cleveland Avenue BRT system, the type of development it could bring, and the routes that this service might take.
The study is scheduled to take 16 months, so this service won’t be rolling out in the immediate future. Until then, there are a few things up for debate:
- Should a BRT line on Cleveland Avenue run on dedicated bus-only lanes, or mix with other traffic?
- Should the BRT line terminate in Westerville or at Easton?
- Should BRT riders board from the sidewalk or from a median platform in the middle of the street?
- What other type of infrastructure is appropriate for the various neighborhoods located along Cleveland Avenue?
Some additional food for thought comes from the similar project recently completed in Cleveland, Ohio, along Euclid Avenue. Dubbed “The HealthLine”, this Bus Rapid Transit system opened in October 2008, and has many of the types of features being explored for a BRT system here in Columbus. Below is a user-made video about the HealthLine:
Wow. This would be great. I hope they can connect to both Easton and Westerville (though the shopping at Easton would be a nice lure). It could do alot to help rejuvenate parts of Cleveland Ave.
very interesting,
My favorite part of this video is when the narrator says he’s “amazed… at all the investment in a part of town that looks like it could really use it.”
That of course true in large part because almost every business along Euclid Ave. was forced to close as a years long construction was under way to put in the new “Health Line.”
Stealing a line from Homer Simpson you might say that the Health Line was cause of and solution to all of Euclid Avenues problems.
I still hope that in the end the Health Line will be a good thing. I read an article that it saves three minutes over the bus route that it replaced (http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/07/frustrations_mount_over_euclid.html)…
It’s just very sad to look at the state of Euclid Ave today. Almost every business is gone and that wasn’t the case just a few years ago before the start of construction.
Cleveland Ave? Only if it does go to Easton AND Westerville if not then not much better plan than the trolly from Flint Rd to Downtown proposed many years ago.
Can’t be limited to people who don’t ride mass transit
My initial reaction is that this could be a very positive thing both for COTA and for the corridor along Cleveland Avenue. BRT done right can have some very positive economic development factors along the lines of what light rail and streetcar systems can provide, and this is a corridor with two large destinations on each end (Downtown and Westerville/Easton) with a whole lot of opportunity for improvement in between.
MrBrenton raises some good points about construction timelines and their potentially harmful effects. This was something brought up numerous times during High Street Streetcar discussions of the past, and I imagine the impact for BRT on Cleveland could be something less impactful, partly because there’s less already there to disrupt (except on the ends) and because BRT shouldn’t require as much reconstruction as a Streetcar line would.
Personally, I don’t have a whole lot of experience riding the #1 that already serves Cleveland Avenue, except for the leg that jogs through Downtown that I occasionally ride. According to the current timetable (PDF), it looks like it’s roughly a 34 minute trip from High & Broad to Cleveland & Morse (assuming the bus is on time). That’s 7.7 miles and google’s average drive time is 18 minutes. I don’t know how much time they’d be able to shave off with a BRT line, but I’d guesstimate that shaving 10 minutes of time off the route would be pushing it. Still, time is only one factor (albeit an important one) and there is plenty of opportunity to improve the quality of service, the neighborhoods, and the aesthetic of the transit through here.
As far as those original bullet points up top goes, my personal response (at this point) is:
1. I think dedicated lanes would be a waste of space, a hindrance to bike infrastructure possibilities, and a hindrance to on-street parking opportunities for retail through this corridor.
2. Preferably, both. A BRT1w and BRT1e could alternate pretty easily and probably serve the majority of riders between Downtown and Morse Road anyway before branching off.
3. Middle. I don’t have any stats or analysis to point to, but for the BRT to feel like something special, it has to be built with special infrastructure. Keep the sidewalks for the businesses and pedestrians, and line Cleveland Avenue with a median the whole way. Decorative in non-bus stop locations, and shelters and fare machines where the stops are located.
4. Totally not sure on this one. I drive up and down Cleveland Avenue from time to time and it’s really a mixed bag. Downtown it’s nice, South Linden has that one pocket of new infrastructure, and north of 161 is nice. The rest doesn’t appear to have been updated in decades and could probably use all new traffic signals, signage, lighting, bike racks, newspaper boxes, street trees, flower containers, trash and recycling cans, and everything else. I’d be interested to see if the City of Columbus would belly up to partner with COTA on this and sink some money into the corridor for improvements.
Oh, and one last thought… there’s some decommissioned (I think) railroad tracks that run sort of parallel to Cleveland Ave from the Arena District to Westerville. A group called THE WAD has been pushing for this to be converted into an express bikeway. I wonder if there is an opportunity instead to use it as a shared BRT/Bikeway? That completely throws out much of the opportunity for development along Cleveland Avenue itself, but just something else to throw on the table if the primarily goal is to move people back and forth quickly between these two locations.
Also worth noting is a design proposal for a portion of this corridor, near the Northern Lights shopping center. Last year, Franklin County worked with the community to propose a vision for an attractive, successful, multi-modal Cleveland Avenue.
It’s called Cleveland Avenue Streetscape 2020
http://www.franklincountyohio.gov/commissioners/edp/planning/cleveave/
I wouldn’t want to use those railroad tracks instead of cleveland avenue. you don’t get many of the benefits that you would with brt if its not on the road.
if they do this i think it would be smart to do it as a complete rethinking of cleveland avenue by adding those bike lanes called for in that cleveland avenue streetscape plan.
As to construction really hurting the businesses there…are there many businesses there? i really don’t even know. there are definitely opportunities to grow along that corridor. it is already highly travelled, so its a good place to start. and it will get columbus looking at a corridor often forgotten. and it would be great to get a transit system in place that is a little forward thinking so we can think about doing more in the future.
cbustransit Says: As to construction really hurting the businesses there…are there many businesses there? i really don’t even know.
Downtown: Yes. Around Morse Road: Yes. Westerville & Easton: Yes.
The area in between (Linden & more): Not quite in the same capacity as High Street, but still a significant number of businesses that would be impacted in some way. Not sure if it’s unheard of to set aside funding for businesses along the corridor to offset lost customer traffic, but something to consider…
Im just curious, but does anyone know what’s going in place at 5th avenue and Cleveland Avenue? Its just a huge empty worn out lot( or it was the last time I saw it.)
The former Timken site? I don’t believe anything is going on there right now.
I do remember the construction on North High in Clintonville being fairly damaging to a few long time businesses. Hopefully this impact will be addressed in the study.
Some details on what you can expect from a BRT line:
http://xingcolumbus.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/cleveland-avenue-brt/
“I wouldn’t want to use those railroad tracks instead of cleveland avenue. you don’t get many of the benefits that you would with brt if its not on the road.”
@cbustransit,
I get what you’re saying, but if it were a light rail line, would you say the same thing? Why not try to operate the BRT line as much like an LRT line as possible?
In my opinion if they don’t do dedicated lanes, they are missing out for 2 reasons:
1. It won’t reach the speed capacity it could have (although pre-pay fare systems and Transit Singal Priority will help speed up the process somewhat)
2. Part of the concept of using transit to generate demand is that the infrastructure investment stimulates more investment. This is not 100% true all the time, but as a general rule I would say the more you can invest in rebuilding Cleveland Avenue, including dedicated lanes for buses and bikes, the more it will help that neighborhood.
I have thought that Columbus should try to do a “trolley-light” sort of circulator BRT system downtown (see the 16th Street Mallbus in Denver for a great example) on a trial basis. What if the City took a lane on High Street running north and a lane on 3rd Street running south, put up some temporary bollards to restrict traffic to the circulator buses, put in colorful stops and ran them every 10 minutes or so as a test to see if people would ride (they could charge a quarter or something nominal)? I think it could demonstrate demand for some sort of downtown circulator for the following reasons:
1. It has a dedicated lane and well-defined stops-very visual-I think this is one of the main reasons why streetcars are more successful than buses. You know where they are going, and you get a visual reminder every day that it’s there.
2. Low cost for riders would help generate demand.
I think our downtown desperately needs some way to circulate pedestrians that’s not an expensive streetcar system-at least on a trial basis to prove demand.
What do folks think?
^I think this is a bit off-topic, but I like the idea of a free route like Denver’s MallRide to encourage short trips by transit and to provide connections from central transit hubs (High & Broad, City Center Terminal, North Terminal at Spring/Long) to other nearby areas.
I’m not sure about the actual alignment you chose though. I think there could be too many impacts to the existing buses (expecially on High) if you try to barricade off a lane for your proposed route.
Even more off-topic, how about a free fare zone downtown instead? I realize that this lacks the visual element you are seeking, but it could provide more comprehensive coverage of the entire area bounded by the innerbelt.
George – I agree that the more the system invests in infrastructure improvements to the neighborhood, the better it will be for TOD that follows. But I’m not sold on the dedicated lane concept. Many streetcar systems share lanes with traffic, and Cleveland Avenue isn’t all that wide to begin with.
Right now we’re seriously talking about removing the dedicated bus lanes from High Street in order to be able to restore on-street parking to help with retail vacancies. I would hate to see on-street parking along Cleveland Avenue take a back seat to a dedicated BRT lane if it means that businesses along the corridor end up getting pinched for customer parking spaces.
It will be interesting to see what the results of the study reveal, but I’m willing to guess that Cleveland Avenue isn’t wide enough to be able to have everything.
does Cleveland Ave allow street parking right now? Looking at streeview it seems like most of the on street parking is a no stopping zone.
While in Vegas this past week I had the chance to ride their BRT system (ACE Gold Line). For the dense areas on the strip is was shared (5 or 6 lanes in each direction!), then in between main strip and downtown it went dedicated on secondary roads.
http://thetraveldoctor.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/ace-gold-beats-the-deuce-bus-on-the-las-vegas-strip/
Are there any secondary roads around Cleveland Ave that could at least partially handle a dedicated BRT line? I’m not too familiar with the area.
This can be a huge bonus to Columbus. I live downtown and recently worked at Easton and used the #16 Long Street bus route to get to and back from work, maybe 1 or 2 times per week. It was relaxing to read on the way. The bus was pretty active with other riders at all times of day with workers going to Easton, mainly. Naturally, we picked more workers up along the way too. I’m considering another job at Easton and hope the RTA connection to Easton is a new reality. I sometimes ride my bike to Easotn for exercise and like the idea of riding the RTA back downtown when work runs over after dark, or weather is not too good.
I bet the transit time will increase too and that is a big plus. My guess Easton stores will be a big supporter of this too.
RTA connection? You must be from Cleveland.