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The Dispatch wrote
Council brakes on streetcar, cameras
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
By Robert Vitale
Is the Columbus City Council still relevant?
Some council members say they feel overlooked by Mayor Michael B. Coleman, who is asking them to approve money for a streetcar line and neighborhood surveillance cameras before they’ve passed judgment on the merits of either idea.
“These are huge dollars we’re talking about to be obligated by the city of Columbus,” Councilwoman Charleta B. Tavares said of the mayor’s requests. He is asking for $2 million on design and engineering for a streetcar line and $1.45 million to study how the Division of Police should deploy the cameras.
“These are taxpayer dollars,” Tavares said. “I would think we’d want the public’s input on it.”
The two requests were included in a $1.1 billion capital budget that Coleman submitted yesterday to pay for roadwork, sewer improvements, building renovations and other long-term improvements he wants started this year.
Story from this morning’s Columbus Dispatch.
It is absurd for the City Council to say there hasn’t been sufficient public input on the proposed Downtown Streetcar. Where have Boyce & Tavares been for the last year and half?
Sure is strange that they would single out those highly publicized $2 million out of the grand total $1,100,000,000. :roll:
I knew I should not have gotten my hopes up.
finally the legislative branch wakes up and does its job. I would not say there has been a lot of discussion about the street cars in other than friendly forums full of cheerleaders.
The council ought to have hearings and if the idea is so boffo it can stand on its merits and convince the skeptical. What I found shocking in the article was the aggressive quotes from the mayors folks, more signs that the mayor doesn’t get it and his folks are more interested in CYA and being cheerleaders, patronage has its pratfalls, I feel one approaching…clang clang clang goes the trolley (sorry, streetcar)
4 million bucks to fix up a 100 foot stretch of Henderson Road…no problem.
Half that to engineer the streetcar…big problem.
makes perfect sense to me.
The council ought to have hearings and if the idea is so boffo it can stand on its merits and convince the skeptical. What I found shocking in the article was the aggressive quotes from the mayors folks, more signs that the mayor doesn’t get it and his folks are more interested in CYA and being cheerleaders, patronage has its pratfalls, I feel one approaching…clang clang clang goes the trolley (sorry, streetcar)
I am hardly a cheerleader for the mayor. I never voted for him, and if he ran again i probably would not vote for him. That does not mean that I don’t want a streetcar.
The council ought to have hearings and if the idea is so boffo it can stand on its merits and convince the skeptical. What I found shocking in the article was the aggressive quotes from the mayors folks, more signs that the mayor doesn’t get it and his folks are more interested in CYA and being cheerleaders, patronage has its pratfalls, I feel one approaching…clang clang clang goes the trolley (sorry, streetcar)
I agree.
People evangelizing for streetcars don’t want to hear any detraction. If you’re not 100 percent for the plan, you’re seen as simple-minded, small and backwards.
Class, cost and other issues around the streetcar plan haven’t come to the table regularly enough in my opinion.
Half that to engineer the streetcar…big problem.
makes perfect sense to me.
I’m not saying that other priorities shouldn’t be analyzed or questioned — only that it’s good the Council is doing so for what would be a major public-works project.
Class, cost and other issues around the streetcar plan haven’t come to the table regularly enough in my opinion.
I haven’t heard any detraction I’d consider legitimate. “Just because it worked in other cities (ALL the other cities) doesn’t mean it will work here” just doesn’t hold much water with me. “I don’t believe the development will follow the streetcar (despite it happening in all of the 20+ cases that show otherwise)” doesn’t seem like a strong argument. “It’s just a yuppie trolley for convention go’ers and a bar shuttle for college students” (even though this still contributes in a huge way to the economy), I’m not seeing the downside of new visitors and moving people to spend more money. “It’s not a complete transit system and doesn’t serve everyone”, I don’t drive on Henderson Road but I am not bitching that they spent 4 million bucks on a 100 foot strip of it.
Now, if someone can bring me some evidence that their claims of “no one will ride it” or “no development will happen” or “it just won’t work in Columbus” other than “this is what I think, and my evidence exists between my ears”…I’m listening.
Half that to engineer the streetcar…big problem.
makes perfect sense to me.
true, but it is a very messed up section of road, it needs to be widened, new pavement and the areas around 315 and Whetstone high laid out in a more rational manner…ever get stuck on that section of road around rush hour? what a nightmare!
Nope.
So I don’t want to pay for it.
see how that works?
I’ll chalk that up to my frustration with trying to change the status quo. Sorry.
In Europe and other parts of the developed world, rail transportation is seen in the same light as sewers, roads and other vital infrastructure. It’s an alien concept here though. Nobody bats an eye when ODOT spends $10 million on highway sound barriers, or $200 million on reconstructing a freeway interchange so commuters from bordering counties can cut 3 minutes off of their commute times. It’s frustrating to watch…that’s all.
Class, cost and other issues around the streetcar plan haven’t come to the table regularly enough in my opinion.
I haven’t heard any detraction I’d consider legitimate. “Just because it worked in other cities (ALL the other cities) doesn’t mean it will work here” just doesn’t hold much water with me. “I don’t believe the development will follow the streetcar (despite it happening in all of the 20+ cases that show otherwise)” doesn’t seem like a strong argument. “It’s just a yuppie trolley for convention go’ers and a bar shuttle for college students” (even though this still contributes in a huge way to the economy), I’m not seeing the downside of new visitors and moving people to spend more money. “It’s not a complete transit system and doesn’t serve everyone”, I don’t drive on Henderson Road but I am not bitching that they spent 4 million bucks on a 100 foot strip of it.
Now, if someone can bring me some evidence that their claims of “no one will ride it” or “no development will happen” or “it just won’t work in Columbus” other than “this is what I think, and my evidence exists between my ears”…I’m listening.
The Henderson project is from High St. to 315 as I understand it, a lot more than 100 feet, but still very expensive….to offer proof of the future shortcomings and possible failures of a speculative venture is like proving the negative…all we really have to go on is the past efforts of our city leaders, say it with me in unison…city center, ameriflora, son of heaven, columbus 500, santa maria…another feel good, putting on the ritz approach to civic planning(pride) that may or may not be functional….
Question: what was the economic development forcast for the above boondoggles…wasn’t city center expected to rescue downtown business, how did that work out…..what about the LA subway or the monorail in Miami(?)… the build it and they will come approach to urban planning really is a field of dreams
I’ll chalk that up to my frustration with trying to change the status quo. Sorry.
In Europe and other parts of the developed world, rail transportation is seen in the same light as sewers, roads and other vital infrastructure. It’s an alien concept here though. Nobody bats an eye when ODOT spends $10 million on highway sound barriers, or $200 million on reconstructing a freeway interchange so commuters from bordering counties can cut 3 minutes off of their commute times. It’s frustrating to watch…that’s all.
Well, I don’t think a good way to change the status quo is to ridicule people who don’t agree with concepts that might be foreign here.
By the way, I wasn’t referencing you personally. I had a rather unpleasant discussion last night with a light-rail advocate who was pretty insulting when I brought up short-term solutions to mass transit.
I’ll chalk that up to my frustration with trying to change the status quo. Sorry.
In Europe and other parts of the developed world, rail transportation is seen in the same light as sewers, roads and other vital infrastructure. It’s an alien concept here though. Nobody bats an eye when ODOT spends $10 million on highway sound barriers, or $200 million on reconstructing a freeway interchange so commuters from bordering counties can cut 3 minutes off of their commute times. It’s frustrating to watch…that’s all.
I do. I either wish they would stop spending that money, and privitize the roads charging a free to drive on them, or start heavily subsidizing rail transporation.
Question: what was the economic development forcast for the above boondoggles…wasn’t city center expected to rescue downtown business, how did that work out…..what about the LA subway or the monorail in Miami(?)… the build it and they will come approach to urban planning really is a field of dreams
City Center was a huge success for many years, probably around a decade. Considering their 2 anchors went bankrupt, and I doubt City Council or the mayor’s office had much of a role to play in the finances of Jacobsen’s or Lazarus, “shit happens”
There’s nothing “putting on the ritz” about building a streetcar. I don’t think Little Rock or Kenosha are all that “ritzy” and yet they’ve seen tremendous success from their lines, of about the same distance as Columbus’. The L.A. Subway is the 9th busiest heavy rail system in the U.S. with ridership of over 100,000 per day. Considering there’s also 4 other lines apart from the subway, I’d consider that pretty strong. As far as Miami, you’re not making much of a point since the Metromover is a fantastic system that provides free public transit…in addition to their light rail system, btw.
Now, if there were a bunch of cities who had done floral shows or Chinese antiquities or downtown auto races or built giant wood boats and all saw huge success from that and Columbus then failed at it, your point might have merit.
As it is…it just doesn’t.
BTW, you can continue to slam Columbus for attempting various vehicles for growth and recognition…and yet the numbers show that we climb up the list of largest US cities every year, we are the only city in Ohio that has positive growth of population and economy, and have outpaced a good portion of the U.S. in the last 20 years.
We’re now the largest US City with busing as our only transit option.
We’re now the largest US City with busing as our only transit option.
our growth is due mainly to a policy of aggressive annexation, hasn’t the central city continued to lose population? as the city grows outward the CBD and the core neighborhoods often suffer from lack of investment, at least Coleman was able to get this trend turned around….why are developers the largest contributors to local political candidates’s campaigns? Is the county engineer still the #1 receipent of campaign funds? John Circle had that distinction for many years, though he was never seriously challenged in any election…hmmm
Sounds awfully conspiratorial to me…
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/04/16/MORPCREPORT.ART_ART_04-16-08_A1_3R9UL7R.html?sid=101
Aggressive annexation is a reactionary policy brought about by decisions made by ODOT, cheap gas, local tract home developers, and the concept of suburbia. The City of Columbus did it’s best to keep it’s tax base by redrawing the lines as highway lanes were added and interchanges were upgraded.
Waitaminit … that might make sense as an explanation if it were still happening now, but most of Columbus’ aggressive annexation phase was 20 years ago, and has proven to be remarkably prescient. The Ohio cities that did not aggressively annex and have now been completely landlocked by other incorporated municipalities have all fared far worse.
I’m pretty sure that Ameriflora, Son of Heaven (whatever that was), Columbus 500 (whatever that was), and the Santa Maria weren’t put out there as permanent economic development initiatives. The Santa Maria was a lame attempt at getting a recognizable landmark or sight. AmeriFlora was a one-shot deal. As Core already mentioned, City Center did work for a long time, though I’ll concede not long enough to make it worthwhile in the end (and whether that was due to market forces or not is irrelevant … of course market forces played a role, they couldn’t not play a role, and the city displayed no small imprevision in designing something that couldn’t adapt well to changing times).
The better evidence for the streetcar isn’t the history of “Columbus projects” but the history of streetcars.
However, for the moment, I’ll just hope that City Council doesn’t hold up the works forever. If they want to slow things down just long enough to coordinate message or assuage legitimate (but resolvable) doubts, that’s fine. If this is meant to be a “delay until death” maneuver (i.e., pigeonholing), I’m going to have some serious problems.