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- Rmoiii: Where are the photo's of the current construction going on in the short nor
- cheap: i highly recommend the Millersport sweet corn festival of course,the cor
- Jimmy Mak: Thanks for the write-up! Just to clarify - this is the third year we've do
- Briana Henry: Well, eventually they plan to add more bands from the region...gotta start
- bucki12: I like the business model, but the internet sales part seems like something
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Great website, but I have to look at it in IE 6 at work, and it isn’t so pretty there. Just an FYI.
+1
The sidebars get sent to the bottom of the page.
You guys should upgrade to IE 7!
Great site, easy to navigate and digest the information.
Paul, you did a really nice job of consolidating an awful lot of info into an easy-to-read and follow website. :-)
I wonder if having this kind of total access to “all we know about the Columbus streetcar” in one site sooner would have eased the negative support from last monday’s town hall meeting?
Being an avid reader of RetroMetro for many years now, I am not suprised by the quality of his new site. Great work Paul!
Thanks for all the compliments folks. I did get a little carried away with the design…
The purpose for the site is to sift out all the facts that are floating out there and aggregate them all in one place in an easy to access site (with the exception of IE6 :) but I’m working on that). There is still a lot of work to be done though and I’ll be upgrading and adding pieces as I go along.
You’ll also notice a lack of discussion. CU has that covered and I’m working with Walker to start connecting to them for folks who want to join the debate. I personally want more facts to satisfy my own curiousity and they can some time get lost or skewed in the conversation, especially with the amount of passion going into the debate.
Dawon: I don’t think having a site up sooner would have helped really. Most folks I run into have been pretty catalyzed one way or another and both sides are shooting from the hip when it comes to their pros and cons.
There has been limited fact finding from the support side. I’m not talking about the city and their studies thus far, they’ve been doing their due dilliegence along the way appropriate to the phase of the project in my opinion. I’m refering to the folks fighting for it.
Folks say it’s helped “dozens”or even “many” of cities develop economically (including myself) but I have yet to see the list, Portland aside, hence the reason I am trying to create a place to start gathering tangible evidence.
If we want to sway folks, passion is not the path. But if you can line up 10 cities who bit the bullet for streetcar and light rail and deliver a little report…then you have irrefutable supporting facts.
So if we really want to support the streetcar, let’s all get to work and start finding the facts and building a solid case. Post em here or send them to me via columbus-streetcars.com or retrometro.
We’ve got a bigger picture to address from my perspective and that is going to take a bigger, comprehensive, consistent and fact-filled story.
Folks say it’s helped “dozens”or even “many” of cities develop economically (including myself) but I have yet to see the list, Portland aside, hence the reason I am trying to create a place to start gathering tangible evidence.
If we want to sway folks, passion is not the path. But if you can line up 10 cities who bit the bullet for streetcar and light rail and deliver a little report…then you have irrefutable supporting facts.
I agree 100%. The people you need to convince are the type of people who do not place much value in emotional arguments or pleas. In order for the streetcar to happen one of the big developers in town is probably going to have to publicly back it. Facts and professionalism is your best course of action to changing one of their minds.
Really dig the site Paul. I would really like to see info on how the cities funded their projects if you got the time to research it…I’ve had a hard finding good info on the matter outside of about 4 cities.
Here are some FAQ’s already from the city.
http://www.columbusunderground.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13873
More “facts and proof” will help the cause.
Great Job Paul!
I would love riding a system similar in look to that shown in Portland just as much as I would love riding in a new white BMW 1 series coupe. Gosh I hope we get this thing going here…
Or Firefox!! Seriously — as website design gets easier and easier (i.e., even my own modest HTML skills are rendered irrelevant by drag-and-drop programs), more and more web designers will be simply incapable of designing websites that will work for both IE and the rest of the browserverse. As a result, Microsoft’s stubborn insistence on saddling its users with the IE rendering engine and its own version of HTML “compliance” will leave those users worse and worse off. Firefox is free, secure, standards compliant, plays well with others, all sorts of good karma.
Well the Streetcars are not needed in C-Bus. The reasons C-Bus already have a public transportation system, COTA. True COTA needs to be run better. Give half the money to COTA to improve service and half of to build a comprehensive bike path. It would be a logistic nightmare to install and create huge traffic nightmare. Can we say the Big Dig of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority? It is not needed. Plus it would harm local business who would be affected by the surgecharges that would come if they are going to build the damn thing. I like paying $6.50 for a matinée movie ticket. It is not needed. Waste of taxpayers money.
If the funding proposal doesn’t go through for the Streetcar these funds aren’t going to be magically available for other projects. Also, COTA is collecting money from their levy that passed in 2006, so they’re making some improvements this year.
Please read this memo:
http://www.columbusunderground.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13890
Not applicable.
$6.50 movie tickets would still cost $6.50. The funding proposal has been stated that it wouldn’t apply to low cost charges. Your Hanna Montana tickets might cost a bit more, but if you’re already paying $100 to go see her at the Arena, what’s an extra $4?
The funding proposal uses a very limited amount of taxpayer money. The bulk of this project will be paid for by minor (4%) increases to parking and major events in the area immediately surrounding the Streetcar line. There is no general income or property tax increase to pay for this project.
Sigh…
COTA is already scheduled to get more money and has recently just started receiving additional funds appropriated in 2006. Money for the streetcars would not have taken anything away from COTA.
I love your comparison of the Columbus 100 million dollar streetcar plan to the originally estimated 10 BILLION dollar Big Dig. Are we on the same planet?
The Big Dig is the most expensive highway project in U.S. history
how in the hell do you compare that to a 100 million dollar streetcar exactly???
Maybe we can throw that in with Chinese antiquities and floral shows in our explanations of why the streetcar is destined to fail…
:roll:
I´m surprised only the neighborhood association listed among those publicly supporting this is only Downtown, what about VV and IV just for starters? I also thought OSU was on board, so I wonder why they´re not there either.
Columbusite,
The organizations I have listed are the ones that have issued an official statement in support of the streetcar initiative. If you click on any of them, you’ll come to their statement of support.
If you you come across any other organizations, please let me know.
For example, COTA is not up their because, even despite their contribution of $50k to the effort of further study, their board members clearly stated that the money did not signify COTA’s endorsement:
…”This is in no way saying we are endorsing the streetcar concept,” board member David Norstrom said. “We are simply putting money into the planning.”…
In the coming weeks I plan on sending out a request for support statements but in the mean time, if anyone comes across any, or if I have missed any, please let me know.
I’ve finally added the RSS feed to the site for those of use with Feed Readers:
[url]http://feeds.feedburner.com/UnofficialCitizenSupportSiteForTheColumbusStreetcars[/url]
Right now the feed only shows the articles I add to the site under MEDIA COVERAGE but I’ll be tying in individual updates into the the feed for when I update streetcar systems in other cities in the NATIONAL SCENE section and when I add files, such as case studies, presentations, etc. to the site (a feature that is almost ready to go.)
The main focus of the site is to act as a gathering point for all the info I get my hands on regarding streetcars systems across the country. It’s going to be quiet in Columbus on the topic, at least for a little while, which makes it a perfect time to go see what our competition is up to…
I’ve gotten fairly regular about adding and researching stories so there is usually something to look at every day or so.
There is still plenty more to come…time willing of course.