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Request for streetcar design is shelved
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
BY ROBERT VITALE
Bowing to criticism from council members who’ve complained about being left out of the debate and responding to concerns of residents and businesses, Mayor Michael B. Coleman removed a request to begin design of a High Street route and acknowledged he has more selling to do.
In a memo to Council President Michael C. Mentel pitching his $103 million idea as a catalyst for economic development, Coleman said, “While these issues are clear to me, our public needs more information.”
Council kept $2 million in the 2008 capital-spending plan that Coleman had requested for design and engineering of a 2.8-mile streetcar line from Downtown to Ohio State University. But it took the streetcar label off the money at the mayor’s request.
Councilman Kevin L. Boyce said last night’s decision to remove streetcar references from the $1.1 billion capital budget shouldn’t be interpreted as a rejection of the mayor’s plan. Leaving in $2 million without an earmark shouldn’t be interpreted as an endorsement, either, he said.
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Request for Streetcar design is put on hold
By: Walker
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I’m sure this has been posted once or 200 times…but it shares the road with traffic.
I understand this, but I guess I have a hard time wrapping my head around what you do when the streetcar is barreling down at you and you’re either trying to turn, waiting for someone else to turn or stopped due to traffic blockage.
…so the streetcar “barrels” now?
You do exactly the same thing you do when a bus is using the same lane as you.
I am not totally sure that longer impressions necessarily beats out number of impressions.
more traffic (which is why it would be slower) would be more impressions.
answer: “totally bad. High is our major road and traffic should flow.”
question: “wouldn’t more congestion on the roads lead a rational person to avoid driving there if they weren’t intending on stopping there? “
answer: “Moving traffic away from High Street could potentially cause problems for High Street business owners. That’s what front windows are for.”
Sorry, this reads to me as 100% contradictory. More, slower moving traffic is more likely to benefit the High Street business owners…after all, that’s what front windows are for…but you also state that more, slower moving traffic is bad in the first post.
Again, I read your posts as contrarian regardless of topic and defeatist like it’s an artform.
Well, life is not black and white and I guess I have to be more accurate in my posts, but I think the current traffic flow works for High. In the “Is more traffic bad” part, my focus was on the word “more”. Because the Speed limit is 30 or 35, whatever, it’s a slower moving traffic giving people time to look at the shops and maybe see in the windows, which I think attracts business for those stores (or maybe this is flawed reasoning about the windows, but it works for me. Maybe I need to pay more attention to my driving).
Really? Seems like we’ve been on the same side on almost every other topic in which we’ve both contributed except anything regarding the streetcar.
…so the streetcar “barrels” now?
You do exactly the same thing you do when a bus is using the same lane as you.
The bus can and does change lanes. Can the streetcar?
I am really not just being argumentative here.
There obviously will not be more vehicular traffic. It has already been stated that there will be less, they will avoid high and drive on third or neil. The argument, as I understood it, was that the remaining traffic will be going slower, thus having more time to take in our window displays.
I am saying, I am pretty sure that number of impressions way beats out length of impression.
I’m not asking if traffic should stop flowing. I’m asking if it would be detrimental if traffic moved a bit slower along High Street than it currently does. Is there any sort of study out there that says that certain problems would occur along a main drag like High Street if the average traffic speed dropped from 25mph to 20mph?
Some of the streets that I would consider the “major roads” through other urban areas in major cities are very slow moving because they’re densely populated.
Take Market Street in San Francisco for example (not as a comparison to Columbus, just as an example). One of their “major roads” through the heart of the city. It’s loaded with transit options and while I’ve never driven on it, it’s slow moving traffic. Would it be a better street if they focused entirely upon what’s best for the speed of the automobile and got it to where cars could zoom by at 35 mph?
Do you think that observation stands when you add in the oglers who are riding the streetcar on top of the car commuters?
I was reading about Dublin Ireland yesterday, and they have a streetcar system, it is only 2 lines right now, but it is rapidly expanding. They look really cool, and the tickets are sold by automated machines at every stop.
Do you think that observation stands when you add in the oglers who are riding the streetcar on top of the car commuters?
Well, I stand by my point that the college students aren’t going to effect my bottom line much. The ones that want to shop here do so already. I am not sure the downtown business lunchers are going to have time to stop in. I could see a future 10-15 years from now if the starter line actually spawns future lines. So, yes I think it does. I think the impressions I would loose are much more valuable than the ones I would gain.
Have you actually thought about what you just said?
Seriously. You’ve got a population of… 60,000?… students. Who may not have $$ to shop in your store currently but may be getting ready to graduate in two, three years. Who are going to need cool clothes for work. And are going to have some expendable cash once they land their first jobs.
And even if they don’t live in Columbus… they will certainly come back for football games, alumni events, weddings…
That’s a lot of people to just write off.
If they graduate and get said job with said disposable income, are into fashion and still live in Columbus, they’ll shop in the Short North. Assuming it says ahead and accessible.
If they aren’t currently into what we are doing then their current acknowledgment doesn’t mean anything because they have no reason to remember or think about us.
I am not writing off OSU. A lot of students shop here. I am just saying the ones that want to come here, come here already. It is a mile after all. The ones that don’t come here, just don’t want to come here. The fact that they are here for happy hours on the street car I don’t see doing much for me.
Do you think that observation stands when you add in the oglers who are riding the streetcar on top of the car commuters?
Well, I stand by my point that the college students aren’t going to effect my bottom line much. The ones that want to shop here do so already. I am not sure the downtown business lunchers are going to have time to stop in. I could see a future 10-15 years from now if the starter line actually spawns future lines. So, yes I think it does. I think the impressions I would loose are much more valuable than the ones I would gain.
Who do you think these people are that are doing all this driving on High Street? Most people I know, that don’t live in the area, avoid High Street like the plague.
If students and downtown lunchers aren’t your target I guess I don’t really know who your audience is?? Ideally, where are your customers coming from? What makes adding a streetcar to the mix change their mind about shopping in your store?
I can’t tell on the second picture, but that first one looks a lot more like a light rail train than a streetcar. It does look really cool though.
When I went out to lunch today, I did a side trip to peddle past your shop to confirm my thought. Let me tell you straight up – from the street, you get zero ( 0 ) impressions from a car or a bike. Part of it had to do with being located a one of several businesses in a rather bland facade. Right after you moved, I couldn’t find you despite knowing sort where you were.
The number one reason though : Parked cars along High Street block seeing your store from the street.
A.
I can’t tell on the second picture, but that first one looks a lot more like a light rail train than a streetcar. It does look really cool though.
What exactly is the difference in light rail, street car, and heavy rail?
When I went out to lunch today, I did a side trip to peddle past your shop to confirm my thought. Let me tell you straight up – from the street, you get zero ( 0 ) impressions from a car or a bike. Part of it had to do with being located a one of several businesses in a rather bland facade. Right after you moved, I couldn’t find you despite knowing sort where you were.
The number one reason though : Parked cars along High Street block seeing your store from the street.
A.
If you’re trying to make the point that the possibility of erasing metered parking will be a net gain for us, don’t.
If you guys get to use Portland to support every claim, I can too. According to the retail specialists on the Economic Development Commission of Portland; metered parking is now vital to all streetcar projects. They found when they build their first transit mall and removed most of the metered parking that all of the retail failed. The new transit mall they are building is linked to more metered parking than before. I have already stated another statistic I got from them on here. Every street level metered spot is worth 230-250 thousand dollars a year to retailers in the neighborhood.
When I went out to lunch today, I did a side trip to peddle past your shop to confirm my thought. Let me tell you straight up – from the street, you get zero ( 0 ) impressions from a car or a bike. Part of it had to do with being located a one of several businesses in a rather bland facade. Right after you moved, I couldn’t find you despite knowing sort where you were.
The number one reason though : Parked cars along High Street block seeing your store from the street.
A.
If you’re trying to make the point that the possibility of erasing metered parking will be a net gain for us, don’t.
.
I am not.
I am making a point about that the relationship between traffic flow and impressions is more complicated than surface assumptions and confounding factors like street parking or architecture play larger roles than average speed or density.
A.
My understanding is that heavy rail refers more to freight, Amtrak, and metro commuting systems like subways.
It looks like light rail is defined by being “lighter than heavy rail” which doesn’t help us much. It includes trams/ streetcars which run at street level, make frequent stops, and tend not to have dedicated stations. The term light rail also encompasses lines that have highly visible tracks and their own right of way. I don’t think streetcars fall into this second category. So I guess streetcars are a subset of light rail.
Please note that this info comes from Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_rail