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There was a presentation held earlier today regarding the long-discussed Columbus Streetcar concept. I personally wasn’t able to attend, but heard through the grapevine that there was communication about an official announcement that will be given in about six weeks. It was said that Mayor Coleman will give more details about the public meeting in which it will be announced. The first Streetcar line would run on High Street from OSU’s Campus down to the Brewery District. It will cost around $150 million and could be finished by 2012.
Can anyone confirm any of these details? Did anyone attend the meeting today?
This is awesome and I hope it’s true. BUT– I’ll be so old by the time it’s finished it’s kind of a kill-joy. I’ll have a cane. BUT (again) if it’s true and will actually be implemented, the wait will be worth it! :o
could be finished by 2012?
I figured this would be a 9 month long project… a year tops.
4 years? Really?
Moreover, has exchanging information with YPs been proven to be especially effective somehow? That is a serious question. Like… you can gather a group of YPs, disperse some information, and they are known to spring into action?
Has someone done a credible study or paper on why you might bother to do such a thing- exchange all kinds of information with YPs (one that might cite scholarly sources or something)? Is there a purpose?
Yep. But the good thing if it is built in four or five years is that I can buy my Depends undergarnments at the Brewery District Kroger and take them back to the SN on the Streetcar. And it will be ADA accessible for old geezers!!!!! That will be su-weet!
:lol: ta ha! :o
Oh, come now. You’re still quite the spring chicken. Besides, isn’t this really all about the children? ;)
Yeah, I don’t think the actual construction phase would take too awfully long. But I guess it all depends upon when ground is broken.
I guess it depends upon the individual YPs. I tend to spring into action pretty quickly when it’s a topic I care about and can rally behind. And I guess I’m technically a YP.
I think the purpose is to connect the younger crowd to the development of the city and get them immersed and involved. In my opinion it’s probably the best way to retain young talent in Columbus. Get them involved, get them connected to the city, and make them a part of the process. Give them a piece of the ownership. Listen to what they have to say and then deliver.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Far out.
When I covered the streetcar working group for The Lantern last year, many of the steering committee members expressed doubt in the short term practicality of the whole thing.
I’m glad they got over that hump.
Walker, thanks for calling me a spring chicken. You’ll find it amazing when you’re in your late 30s what a difference five years can make in all outlooks. Hell, I’ve been watching and waiting on Jeffrey Place for 6 or 8 years now, so I guess four’s not that much. But damn, why the hell does everything take so GD long to do shit in this place? Maybe it’s my impatience. And yes, you are so right, none of this is for me. It’s all for the children. L-O-!
I figured this would be a 9 month long project… a year tops.
4 years? Really?
Moreover, has exchanging information with YPs been proven to be especially effective somehow? That is a serious question. Like… you can gather a group of YPs, disperse some information, and they are known to spring into action?
Has someone done a credible study or paper on why you might bother to do such a thing- exchange all kinds of information with YPs (one that might cite scholarly sources or something)? Is there a purpose?
The purpose of the YP meeting with the Chamber today was not to get a group of kids rallied behind a cause. In the end, it is the Mayor and City Council that have the last word in this issue.
When I asked what the biggest obstacle was, the answer was MONEY first and foremost – and then education. The City wants to avoid tax increases at all costs and is exploring alternative “creative” options. The official decision will be announced about two weeks after the “State of The City” on March 13th. It will be announced at a public meeting, the details of which Mayor Coleman will release in his address.
The Streetcar Working Group is planning on having as many of these type of meetings as possible in the coming weeks. The goal is to educate people about exactly what they would be trying to achieve. BECAUSE if it does get passed, the only way it will succeed is if people are educated on its purpose and function.
There are many reasons it would take so long. First of, all of the engineering and planning is still needed. The actually raising and locating of the needed funding is also key. Then there is the question of who would control the project (essentially it would be the City’s baby – but COTA would most likely run it).
I have a lot of notes that in my office that I will type up in a blog tomorrow as well as post it on CU. It was actually a very informative meeting, very honest and straight-forward. Right now, the light rail (now known as the commuter rail) initiative is on the back burner. The first Streetcar plan would be a straight shot up High Street from Mound St to Campus. The plan is to have frequent stops with a decent turnover time — and that means more cars which would cost more.
Blah blah. I’ll talk more tomorrow. It is bed time. Night.
Wait a minute, does the extension to the BD mean the split will be scrapped? Dammit, there goes my hope of a Downtown circulating line which would have been a block from my house and a couple away from Walker’s. With all that special treatment he’s getting maybe he can get them to swing it over this way. :wink:
I hope the split will fall through, because $1 billion is a lot to maintain a car-dependent mode of transportation, namely highways (but we can call them “freeways” to make them at least sound cheap) that results in over 40,000 deaths every year (43,443 in 2005 and 42,836 in 2004 or a 9/11 every few weeks) which is the equivalent of a Miami getting wiped out every decade and that costs us approximately $231 billion every year. Why isn’t this common knowledge?
That makes perfect sense. Finding money + getting people “on board” takes time. And it dawned on me– 2012=Columbus’s birthday. Aha!
Hrm. I don’t think Jeffrey Place is a very good example to use here. There’s been plenty of other projects that have gotten up and running faster than that place, so I wouldn’t consider it the norm. But big projects take a lot of time in any city. It’s just that water takes forever to boil when you’re sitting there staring at the pot and counting the seconds. ;)
Oh. Dang. I thought we’d be getting an extended line over the split with the mention of the Brewery District. Mound isn’t quite there, but what we’ve already heard before. Still… could be added onto down the road, which is to be expected anyway with expansion lines.
Hey Debbie Downer. We’re talking about the Streetcar over here. Start a new thread if you want to bitch and moan about the split. :x
I was at the Columbus Chamber’s YP Exchange on the Streetcars today at the offices of the Columbus Dispatch and can confirm some of the points.
The Mayor’s Chief of Staff, Mike Reese, who gave the presentation said that the timeline for a definitive answer regarding the question on financing the proposed streetcar system would come out by “the end of March, early April.” The answer of yea or nea on the financial equation and how the system would be possibly funded would determine if the project was going forward at all.
If a “yes, we’ve got a hold on the financing of this system” comes down, then the city’s initiation into the design phase of the project would commence, meaning that the financial commitment to the streetcars would start at that point. If no, the project would be mothballed (although no one asked what would happen if the answer were no, so I’m reading between the lines).
If federal funding where currently available, it would be in the mix for sure, but the [url=http://www.fta.dot.gov/planning/newstarts/planning_environment_222.html]Federal Transit Administration’s “Small Starts” Program [/url]aimed at funding start-up rail transit intiatives across the country as part of the [url=http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/safetealu/summary.htm]Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU)[/url]. Bottom line, the federal funding program exists…but it hasn’t been funded. There are “zero dollars” out there right now, as Mike put it.
I am not sure if Columbus has applied for the federal funds or not at this point, or if we are planning on doing so. At the moment, we aren’t waiting in line for a handout (if and when it might come) and are seeking to fund it ourselves at this point. Of course if the “Small Starts” program is funded, I would assume we’d go for it, but we’d be in line with some 60 other cities across the country that are also looking to implement a streetcar system.
When asked by an audience member who’s decision it was, Mike responded that the ultimate decision on whether or not the city goes forward on the proposed streetcar system lies in the hands of Mayor Coleman and the Columbus City Council pending the results of the financial investigations.
The $150 million price (which was on the slide of the presentation) was for the system that ran from OSU to the Brewery District. However, Mike was clear to state that the leg of the proposed system going into German Village and the Brewery District would not be built in the first phase due to the 70/71 split realignment project that is still pending. Removing that branch of the system brought the estimated pricetag down to $105 million.
A question about COTA also came up, and Mike mentioned that he had had a meeting with COTA and some other major stakeholders earlier today to discuss more details about the project. Mike said that at this point in the process, the city is leaning towards a management system in which COTA would be running the streetcars.
Other cities with streetcar systems typically have 1 of 3 options for system management: 1) have a Transit Authority run the system, 2) have the city run the system, or 3) such as is the case in Portland, have a non-profit organization run the system. Again, at this point, the city sees COTA as the most logical path for managing the system should we go forward in early Spring.
Analysis of the possibility of parts of the streetcar system being compatible with an eventual light rail system are also still in the mix, although making modifications for that type of compatibility would be costly.
If everything goes ahead and the streetcar project gets the greenlight, it would still potentially 3 or 4 years before the system was up and running.
There is still quite a bit of work to be done and there is no way the city can answer questions about how the system will run down the street (along the curb, in the center, in-and-out) or how power cables will jive with the Short North arches. All of the details will be worked out in the design phase which would be the next step in the process.
I’ve been waiting a long-time to do my own expose on the streetcar system and what it means to all of Columbus and why it is so fundamentally important this initiative goes forward…so you can guess what this week’s upcoming editorial on RetroMetro is going to be about :)
I for one am now ready to push my own “unofficial” efforts forward at starting a process of communicating, educating and engaging folks on the streetcar system from this point forward…even though the official yes or no does comes down for a couple of months.
My confidence in the city’s approach is pretty rock solid, so I too am ready to do what I can to work towards the end of seeing a streetcar system come to Columbus.
Thanks for posting all of that insight Paul. Good to hear.
So this means it’s time to really hammer the Mayor and City Council with emails, phone calls, and letters to show support for this thing, right? ;)
Ah. Thanks for clearing that up. Sounds perfect.
I think the show of support is always a good idea, but if I was in Mayor Coleman’s shoes, I would have been preparing a long time ago to make this decision…which in my opinion he has been prepared to do for a long time now, as communicated through his words and actions.
Some decisions are so complex and difficult to explain to the masses that a political leader has to step out and put his name (and sometimes career) on the line to do what he feels is the right thing for the city. The mayor has been clear that, as any business would say, the numbers have to work. In otherwords, it has to be a viable business model.
The mayor has been saying all along that “we won’t do it if the numbers don’t make sense.” Although it hasn’t been quite stated this way, take his “we won’t do it if” statement and turn it into the positive of the same sentence. “We are going to do this if the numbers make sense.”
Of course I’m putting words in his mouth there, but you get the idea.
In my mind, the streetcar system has been a go since day one and we’ve just been looking for the reasons that would stop us from doing it from a business perspective. So far, we haven’t found any, and that’s a good thing.
Oh alright. Save a life; ride a streetcar!
And check this out:
Now that’s TOD (and what it can make Downtown can look like, albeit less European).
well, i think this is great news and it’s nice to see the mayor get an idea rolling in a small amount of time!
Walker- you bring up an interesting issue. You say technically you are a YP… like you don’t really have a choice in this matter. Is that so? Is YP like the term ‘elderly man’ (you just are if you are) as opposed to ‘war supporter’ or such (your actions willfully make you something). Interesting… I had never considered that this was a label from outside rather than a choice from within.
Coleman seems like a hero in this to me. Paul, I’m with you on liking bold, decisive actions- but I think Mike has worked this one beautifully by building a tension and anticipation… letting it hang in the balance… maintaining interest and investment (even among some pretty jaded audience) and… wooosh! swooping in to save the day. Masterful- and a good thing at the end of the day.
I’m excited to have a streetcar. Even if we were getting one all along (and we were).
I hope the split will fall through, because $1 billion is a lot to maintain a car-dependent mode of transportation, namely highways (but we can call them “freeways” to make them at least sound cheap) that results in over 40,000 deaths every year (43,443 in 2005 and 42,836 in 2004 or a 9/11 every few weeks) which is the equivalent of a Miami getting wiped out every decade and that costs us approximately $231 billion every year. Why isn’t this common knowledge?
I think people remember Amtrak disasters more readlily than mentally compiling car accident stats.
But hooray for streetcars! I’d like to see these run along Broad Street as well, to spur some much needed development.
Way to go Mayor Mike!!!
OSU to the Brewery District too!!! This made my month!
It’s nice to see the seriousness of this, and that it could be really happening. Surely in a pool of 60 applicants, the 15th largest city will easily win the money since some big cities already have their rail transit.