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The Dispatch wrote
Shops ready for 2-way traffic
Monday, November 5, 2007
By Tim Doulin
There will be a grand “reopening” of Gay Street on Wednesday. No fanfare is planned, and the street never was officially closed, but tell that to merchants who have struggled to attract customers during the six months it’s taken to convert Gay from a one-way street.
There will be landscaped medians, trees, plants, bike racks, decorative planters, brick crosswalks and new streetlights and traffic signals. Some of that work won’t be completed until next year.
That should help slow traffic. One-way traffic tends to zip through town, efficiently getting in and out of the central city, but buzzing past shops and restaurants vying for attention. Gay Street merchants, particularly those in the stretch between 3rd and High streets, are just happy to see fewer orange barrels and construction equipment out their front windows.
“All the businesses on this street are very eager to get this cleared up and have a good, functional street again,” said Geoffrey Binkley, owner of Sign-A-Rama.
The Gay Street conversion to two-way is only one of several the city has planned. The conversion of Front Street from Broad to the I-70/71 corridor is scheduled to begin next year, starting with the stretch between Broad and Rich streets.
Related Stories:
- Two-Way Gay Street Almost Finished… Who’s Next?
When I want to park in the Short North or German Village at night on the weekends, it is awfully tough to find a parking spot near where I want to be. I don’t think that driving is this über-easy task that Tigertree seems to think it is.
Regardless of how much midwesterners love their cars, and how much citizens in Columbus love their cars, mass transit will save dollars, sense, air, and the city in the long run. Would people complain as much about the lack of a downtown grocery store if they could reach one on a streetcar?
If businesses are afraid about what the construction of the streetcar would do for them in 6-8 months, then they’re not really in it for the long haul. Any business in town, especially small businesses, should be able to weather any storm for that length of time and still come out ready for sales. While it would be difficult to drive business in a construction zone, at the end of the project sales would only increase.
Wanting to park near where you are going is the issue.
We’re so used to drive up stores with vast parking lots that it seems ridiculous to consider parking on Neil Avenue to visit Tigertree. I would do this in a heartbeat. When I lived on Russel and High I walked to the Giant Eagle on Neil. It was a nice walk in the park.
Is it really that ridiculous to consider walking 2 tenths of a mile (that’s like 1000 feet) to shop in the short north with parking ease just about any day of the year including Gallery Hop nights (which may increase your walking distance to 4 tenths of a mile).
I used to live right by here on Neil and there is always parking unless it is Comfest weekend.
I have to say Tigertree brings up a very valid concern here, one that is much more real than I think people who aren’t in small retail realize.
You have to keep in mind customers are creatures of habit and convenience. When your street is under significant construction for a significant length of time it wouldn’t be uncommon to lose 10-30% of your foot traffic (depending on length of construction and size) and for many small single store retailers that may very well be the difference between being profitable and not being able to pay the bills.
Additionally it often takes anywhere it can as much a year or even two for your foot traffic to return (once the construction is finished) to pre-construction levels. The last time our store had sidewalk construction in front of it (which took nearly 9 months), it took us nearly 18 months to recover to pre-construction sales/traffic levels. Granted depending on your type of retail and how skillful you are at promotion you can shorten this recovery time. Nevertheless it can be hard to overcome.
So I wouldn’t say it’s a matter of not “being in it for the long haul”, because if you can’t pay your bills due to impaired customer flow (and thus reduced sales) your creditors (landlord, utilities, wholesalers, etc) aren’t going to wait for your business to recover on the promise of improved business prospects. This concern goes double for you if you are a young business like Tigertree and may have not had time to build up a rainy day fund.
Foot traffic is the reason why good location is the foundation of any successful retail business. If your foot traffic goes away for a significant period of time any retailer worth his/her salt will weigh his/her options.
That’s just the reality of small single store retail.
That being said I do think this city could really benefit from additional mass transit options. I’m not 100% sold yet on the streetcar being the best way to address that but I think it’s worth exploring.
Also would the streetcar project really tear up all of high street for 6 months though? I would think the city would do it sections and if that’s is how the construction would proceed, the detrimental effect on the local businesses would be significantly less.
edited: misused a prefix
Tigertree has a very valid point. I fully support the street cars but if the construction is not done right it could have a very detrimental impact on businesses. My mom grew up in Memphis and she said when the rebuilt a few of their lines starting in the 90s many of the business along the way shut down because they could not weather the construction. Here is an article for a proposed extension of the Memphis line:
Friday, April 25, 2003
It is going to put pressure on us.
Bill Papagerogeon, manager of Jones Tool Service at 1314 Madison, said trolley line construction has badly hurt business.
Most of the stores customers ask if the store is going to shut down or relocate as two neighboring stores have done, he said.
Complaints about bumpy stretches of road along Madison and a decrease in parking spots due to trolley line construction have discouraged customers from coming into the store, he said.
READ MORE
I don’t think Memphis and Columbus are quite the same, the Main Street in Memphis was already in decline when they built the trolley, one could argue the trolley helped bring long term stability to the area (along with a beautiful minor league baseball stadium, renovation of Beale Street, and the conversion of a warehouse district to lofts). I’m sure the construction would bring a short term impact to the immediate area, but I think as long as the construction is handled quickly the whole line would bounce back very quickly. Tigertree, what impact did the recent construction of the short north arches have on your business? That was sort of a mini test of what construction would be like for the street cars.
I just don’t see a one year or less pain to be a reason to stop the project. After all, we’re talking High Street, it has been the city’s backbone for 200 years and I doubt a year long construction project would stop the momentum of the Arena District, Short North, and Campus area or diminish the overall geographic importance of that street to the city.
I know Mike addressed it already, but the “I can’t find parking near my destination” is what I am getting at. I will admit frustration from two angles on this point. The first is, I think we as the Short North need to work harder on getting people to see our neighborhood as a destination, right now I think it’s just a cluster of places you want to go at different times. But even more is the idea that a street car will take care of the problem. First off, we need to stop thinking of neighborhoods as straight lines, they aren’t. And I am not only saying this because I happen to have a store on a side-street. Rail systems are meant to get people from one AREA of town to another AREA of town. I know, Walker, I.E. from German Village to the Short North. Once you get off of the train you, generally, have to walk a number of blocks to where you are going.
I used to live a block away from a redline stop in Hollywood. I took the train, maybe, 5 times in the entire time I lived in LA because it doesn’t go anywhere. LA is a city that is living with a traffic and parking crisis, but it is so inconvenient to take one of 5 lines of rail transportation, that it is faster and easier to sit on the freeway not moving.
The Streetcar isn’t going to fix anything. It’s a novelty that we’ll put on our marketing aimed at luring tourists. If we are, sincerely, looking at rail transportation at a tool for economic and city growth then we should be figuring out a way to make the city more accessible to the suburbs, rather than shuffling the few of us who happen to live and work and spend our free time (and with rare exception don’t have a lot of expendable income) around the city.
All of that said, I do see some perks of the Street Car. I am not all gloom. I could be won over with some innovative ways to keep us afloat during the construction. Some subsidies or at least access to low or no interest loans for advertising or satellite locations. I think it could be do-able. I am just saying, city of columbus, don’t use our neighborhood in your speeches about who this street car is going to help and avoid looking at the possibility to you are shutting the neighborhood down.
I just don’t see a one year or less pain to be a reason to stop the project. After all, we’re talking High Street, it has been the city’s backbone for 200 years and I doubt a year long construction project would stop the momentum of the Arena District, Short North, and Campus area or diminish the overall geographic importance of that street to the city.
I apologize for two back to back posts. I wrote the other post and more (including this point) before and stupid Rhapsody crashed my browser.
I am glad you brought that up though. Not the arches, specifically, but the six week straight marathon of Short North construction hurt us all badly. That was when I got so anti-streetcar actually. As ZHC brought up, the fall out lasts longer than the actually construction phase. We lost customers for longer than the 6 weeks of construction. In fact, we have weekly regulars that still haven’t come back since then. Now, I know I cannot blame all of that on construction. Maybe they came in weekly in the beginning because we were getting more frequent shipments, maybe they just never found anything they like here so their stops will become more sporadic. But for a couple of weeks after the meters lost their bags the district was still dead. People who used to come to the area daily or weekly have to find a new routine and sometimes they like that routine equally or more so they change it. Think of flipping channels and not realizing until the end of the hour that you missed the ending of the show you were watching.
I park on Gay St and anywhere on High for free. While people are circling around looking for parking I’m just locking up my bike and it’s never a far walk to where I want to go. Earlier this year I never thought I’d actually be biking, let alone in traffic. It really is a great alternative and for me renders COTA totally useless. Anywhere worth going in Columbus is within reach of downtown and is not far (subjective of course), except for north campus. Now with my bike, would I use the streetcar? Sure, especially if they can get the east Green/Z loop that goes down Washington, I could just walk a block over there and in any case it would save me from biking uphill on High past Nationwide. Biking basically just ties the city together so well, those parking lots aren’t so bad when you can just whiz by them. I’m surprised more people haven’t taken advantage because Columbus is ideal for bikes. It’s just the lack of infrastructure for bikes. I’d like to see Gay St get lots of use by cyclists because with the medians cars have to stay behind bikes and they help keep traffic moving slower which is safer for those of us on bikes. So yes, I’m glad Gay St is now a two way, I hated going down to Broad.
I don’t think anyone wants to stop our transit plans upon completion of a single streetcar line. COTA proposed a much more lofty light rail system with 8 lines that would reach pretty much every suburban area in central Ohio. They put up a levy for it. And it failed because people are afraid of investing over a billion dollars in something that a lot of people don’t think they’ll ride with any frequency. Most folks in Central Ohio have a right to be skeptical because they don’t know what having a rail transit alternative is like. Instead, we need to start small with a $100 million project like a single streetcar line, give people a taste, and progress out to the suburbs from there. I think once suburban areas see the type of economic development that comes from having a rail line, they’ll start jumping on board and want to be connected to the grid. Should be a snowball rolling downhill from there.
So while I agree with you that a suburban light rail system to connect the entire region could have an overall greater impact than a single downtown streetcar line, it’s highly unlikely that we’d ever be able to start off with something that big.
Start small. Start soon. Grow quickly.
I think its going to loose steam pretty quickly once everyone is being asked to contribute to growing something (i.e. another levy) they don’t use. It’s not going to matter to the people outside of the High St. neighborhoods that it exists.
Streetcars will bring development, which is sorely needed on High downtown. That huge surface lot north of Gay needs to go. This is going be the 1st in a transit system that will render COTA obsolete. What COTA needs to do now is just serve the burbs. They’ll ride COTA then because, well, not going to pick up any bums between Dublin and Westerville. The line willl serve residents, such as myself. Tigertree, I love your store, but you knew this was coming and should have taken that into account.
Knew what was coming? The street car? Well, I didn’t and I still don’t know for sure that it’s coming. And If I had a pretty good idea it was coming, I would still be fighting it. Again, I am not 100% opposed to it’s installation, but I think some options to not put 100 or so local businesses out of business should be discussed.
People in suburbs don’t ride the bus.
Sorry I hijacked this thread, Walker.
they have been dicussing light rail in columbus since buckys days in office. its not happened yet and i bet it will be some time before we do, if we do. there is a certain stigma about the bus and i honestly cant see suburban families riding the train to downtown and back at least not in the next 15 years. gas is becoming more expensive, but like my self people love there cars and the last thing im gonna do is wait in the dark in the cold up on campus at night for the cota bus. why do that when i can drive. of course there are people who dont drive but this city was planned heavily around the automobile in the past,oh i dont know 70 years or so. its a shame really. i told myself last spring that this summer i was gonna ride the bike more often and maybe buy a scooter, but no, i droped a new engine in my sports car. faster louder and worse on gas than my one ton work truck!! and in some disgusting twist of fate, i demolished the car a few weeks ago. what my point was i forgot but as americans we need to really be thinking of alternative transit even in columbus ohio.
one thing i do remember about the rail option in the past was that it were to run or follow 4th st from downtown untill clintonville. if that were revisited as an option that would eliminate the fear of more infrastructure construction on or near high st. that could create new corridors to high st and other neighborhoods north. i could see warren becoming 2 way. as for the s. campus gateway 11th amd those streets could become extentions of the gateway itself all the way to 4th st. as 4th goes more north it does get further away from high st but it could also service those northern neighborhoods.
one thing and a big thing i forgot was that there are a @#$ load of people that commute to downtown cols from not only surrounding suburbs but towns and counties. the rail would be a huge plus for them and all of us. i remember having to take to cota when i was a kid. i grew up just north of downtown in short north area and seeing the number of people taking it to work now that i think of it was amazing. im sure there are still people who do take the bus who live in worthington and the northern areas. but the train would be better and cooler..lol
Are you trying to say that suburbanites don’t come downtown and won’t use a streetcar?
Yes. At least not in any sort of fashion that will make it really matter to them one way or another that it’s there. They aren’t going to drive in from Dublin, park their car in German village and ride to campus. It doesn’t make sense. Maybe on game days, and maybe just to ride it once because its there. It isn’t going to be transportation for them though.
What about the millions of visitors we have staying in our downtown hotels each year? What about during downtown festivals, blue jackets games, or OSU games?
I also think you’re discounting the transformative effect of rail transit on it’s surroundings.
Again Tigertree, I don’t think you’re seeing the big picture at all with transit. You’re an individual store owner and you’ve got a different take. I’m sure you’d rather have a 20 car parking lot in front of your store because it will help you today rather than 10 years from now.
You’re exactly right. That example you gave doesn’t make sense.
I’ve been following Cleveland’s Euclid Corridor project from afar for awhile. Although there are many differences, they did some good things, and quite a few bads that I hope Columbus can learn from.
Here’s a Plain Dealer article that chronicles the ups and downs for local business during the project.
For Wright-Ally, the last straw came on a morning this past May when a cement truck blocked a crosswalk leading to her business. She protested, refused to move away from the truck and was arrested for disorderly conduct.
“Believe me, I’m not in the habit of breaking the law,” she said. “I’m not a hot head, I’m a businesswoman.”
Through it all, Café Ah Roma survived. But other businesses haven’t…
I’ve read other articles and panel discussions on the matter. My feelings are that nobody (biz or govt) seemed to have this sort of dialog prior to the project. You get the feeling that Cleveland put the importance of the project above all else, that the good of Euclid Ave. was more important than individual businesses. These acts of goodwill by the city for low-interest loans, etc. seemed to appear only after some places had gone under.
So in the case of Cleveland, Euclid Ave. was broken – here we’re trying to upgrade our most successful street. Just seems the right thing to do in this case is start having these biz-govt conversations as early as possible. Discuss now what sort of financing the city can offer to get businesses thru rough patches, talk now about how to minimize the effect on foot traffic, etc.
My gut says government works better here than it does in Cleveland. Just can’t imagine a Coleman-led initiative that doesn’t do all it can to minimize the impact on businesses of such a project, anticipating problems instead of reacting to them.
Are small businesses speaking to the Streetcar commission? Has anyone approached them yet? This is still in the planning phase, so I’d say they’re probably pretty open to hearing what the locals have to say.
Okay i think this is an excellent thread…
If someone needs proof that there will not be a benifit to a streetcar line look at Toronto.
They have a long distance mass transit system
subway
Columbus could use light rail
However, once people get from point A-suburb
to Point B-downtown
They will not have a car, and most likely not a bike. So there needs to be a system to take the person from their point where they get off the subway or train to where they want to go next.
Therefor, for long linear commercial strips, it is good to have a dependable, regular mode of transportation. In Toronto the streetcar arrives at each stop no more than 5minutes apart.
Say you are at the cap or the north market, and you would like to visit Tigertree, okay you will walk.
BUT then you want to go to American Apparel, that is not a very quick walk, people have schedules and lives, to avoid having to get back into the car you take a mode of transportation, THE streetcar.
I also agree that the construction of the line should be arranged to not harm small business.
However, many small business are being harmed more now by the lack of mass transit options.
After living in Columbus and observing the number of small business that make it but also the number that do not, I can tell you that many do not because of a lack of foot traffic volumes (Coldstone)
Many chains and larger retail have an overhead that’s too large for the foot traffic that exists with car only transportation.
For Columbus to ever become the thriving city it can be we need mass transit that meets these two requirements:
This is for short distance on one linear main street; High St. for example
1}arrives atleast every few minutes, thus needing no schedule.
2}travels the shorter distances on a main strip to allow one to move quickly up the street just a few blocks, easily.
Then after we have these more localized ways of transit you add in the long distance transit. I think that at this point in time, in Columbus, if it was done the opposite way, you would have a lot of people taking light rail to downtown with then no way of moving about once they get there.
Our downtown, Short North, German Village, and Campus are all too linear to work without localized mass transit.
Another example, me, I live right off High St. At the Gateway. I all the time want to just go down to the Short North, or even Skullys, and if a bus is coming great I take it, but if one is not then I end up walking, and sometimes having to drive just for a few blocks. We need localized mass transit on High St. from LANE all the way to GERMAN VILLAGE
That’s my two cents.