Former COTA CEO Prepares to Launch Light Rail In Phoenix

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Former COTA CEO Prepares to Launch Light Rail In Phoenix

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Started 3 years ago by noozer
Latest reply from lifeontwowheels

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noozer
Columbus, Ohio
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Note that the transit official interviewed in this article is the former CEO of the Central Ohio Transit Authority who tried to get light rail rolling in Columbus back in the 90's. Would that the community would have listened to him back then...
CEO prepares to launch light rail system
Public-transit trains to debut amid high hopes for success
11 commentsby Casey Newton - Dec. 22, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
After more than 35 years in public transit, Rick Simonetta is preparing to tackle a job he has never done before: Manage the launch of a transit system he built from scratch.
As CEO of Metro light rail, Simonetta has overseen every aspect of the system's construction. On the eve of the light-rail opening, we asked him about the system.
More: http://www.azcentral.com/news/traffic/lightrail/articles/2008/12/22/20081222lrail-simonetta1222.html

Posted 3 years ago #
lifeontwowheels
Highland West
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D'oh!
:?

Posted 3 years ago #
roy
Downtown
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COTA, business/civic leaders and the City/County governments should be sitting down with Bill Habig to ask him to manage a fresh new campaign for modern transit.
Until voters approve a non-bus transit levy, Columbus won't be able to bond against it, and we won't be eligible for federal funds either.
Habig is the one guy who could pull this off.

Posted 3 years ago #
michaelcoyote
!seabus
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I have to wonder if the Dispatch has any coverage of this, seeing as he used to be the COTA CEO.

Posted 3 years ago #
lifeontwowheels
Highland West
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roy wrote COTA, business/civic leaders and the City/County governments should be sitting down with Bill Habig to ask him to manage a fresh new campaign for modern transit.
Until voters approve a non-bus transit levy, Columbus won't be able to bond against it, and we won't be eligible for federal funds either.
Habig is the one guy who could pull this off.
The problem is the voters are like a bunch of heroin addicts-they want their fix now which is why we will probably never see one single passenger rail line in Columbus. Any rail project is going to be met with the NIMBY arguments-people either arguing they personally wouldn't use it and it is therefore a waste or the folks arguing they would and why it isn't serving them first.
What we need is someone who is willing to look at the cities who are using buses and looking at them as an alternative to rail. Multiple examples in South America, Paris and other areas. BRT service would be great here and I know John has posted (here and at Xing) several great ideas.
We need bus projects that would begin the transition of mindset, make this town more transit friendly and that could be rolled out pretty quickly. I hope that over the last 8 years COTA had the foresight to see that there wouldn't always be an anti-transit party at the national helm, that there wouldn't always be such a shortage and inequality in federal funding. And with that hope, I hope that there are some well researched, ready to go plans for a better system here that just need to be dusted off and put through the proper channels.

Posted 3 years ago #

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