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Word on the street
by Melissa Starker
During January’s Gallery Hop, we asked a random sampling of people living in the Columbus area what the city could use to make it a better place to live.
“I think Columbus needs light rail and better distribution of its Section 8 housing.”
“A better transit system, like light rail.”
“For a large city, I think it’s important for them to have good public transportation.”
“Better COTA service.”
“The thing Columbus needs more of, especially in this area, is better public transportation.”
“Better public transportation for sure.”
Comments
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- bucki12: I like the business model, but the internet sales part seems like something
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Word on the street – What would make Columbus better?
By: Walker
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My response is how many of these people really use the COTA system. You can get anywhere by COTA bus in this city and on most lines a bus runs every 15 minutes. The buses tend to be far cleaner than in most cities with a bus system. The fares are cheap if not standard. Where does anyone think a light rail system is going to get them that COTA busses don’t already?. Now if you have a train that connects Columbus, Indianopolis, Pittsburg, Cleveland, and Cinncinnati then you have a worth while project.
Seems like there would be other needful things for this city.
As for having a light rail system… I agree if it could connect from Cincy up to Cleveland that may be a bit more beneficial. In Florida, there is a tri-rail system in place that connects from Miami up to Palm Beach. [url]http://www.tri-rail.com/[/url] It is good for business associates, students, club goers, etc.
Now the roadways in Florida are a whole other issue :roll: :lol:
Probably very few.
Yeah, I agree. COTA is actually a pretty decent bussing system we have here. But Joe Average is more likely to ride light rail or a streetcar than a bus. And development companies flock to rail instead of busses.
I’m sure most people who visit New York look forward to riding the subway, but not the busses. Rail has sex appeal. Take it for what it’s worth.
Hell yes. I’d love to see a giant high-speed rail commuter network running through the midwest with Columbus serving as a crossroads. But we’re now talking about something a thousand times more expensive to build. We might as well be talking about building a train to take us to the moon.
I think we’ll get to that point eventually, but it’s going to take some babysteps first. And a streetcar is the perfect small-scale project that can be up and running quick and whet the public’s appetite for more forms of mass transit.
Hell yes. I’d love to see a giant high-speed rail commuter network running through the midwest with Columbus serving as a crossroads. But we’re now talking about something a thousand times more expensive to build. We might as well be talking about building a train to take us to the moon.
There are so many unused train lines that run through the USA currently. That it really isn’t that far fetched to accomplish. WHen it poses a benefit to all of the cities involved the resource pool grows as well. It’s not like amtrack is still a dream. There are so many cities that you can reach in california alone by amtrack. not to mention they also have subways, busses, taxi’s, and other more common transportation in place. Everything is possible when a city or individual looks into other possibilities insteed of being stuck to one.
Amtrak has not been economically self-sufficient for years, and I’m not currently confident that a mass-transit rail line even from Cincy to Columbus to Cleveland would be either. Would I personally love to see it happen? YES. Are there unused existing railroads that we could use for the project? YES. Would it make enough money to cover the operating costs? Doubtful. Would it provide a service worthwhile for average consumers to consider it a transportation option? Not today.
I’ve done some (not a ton, but some) homework on mass transit options and I think if we ever want to get to the level of those other cities that have a multitude of options (subway, amtrak, streetcars, busses, etc) like you mentioned, then we have to start somewhere, and Phase I of the Streetcar project sounds like about the safest and most economically viable place to get the ball rolling. You can’t make an avalanche happen without getting that tiny ball rolling first, can you?
I’d love to see some high-speed heavy rail going through the area. It seems to make so much sense to. You could have a line going from St. Louis to the east coast that would pass through; Indianapolis, Dayton, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and then onto where ever. You could also have a track connecting Nashville to Buffalo that would pass through; Bowling Green, Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Akron, Cleveland and Erie. I think the first route probably has more potential people-wise, but the second one wouldn’t be too far behind. And as said, you know there are existing rail or easements that could be used, so although there would still be a huge cost, you’d at least have some of the infrastructure already in place.
Hell, I might have to commute to Dayton for the next four years, and I’d sure love a line going there.
The question then becomes…what the hell do you do when you get to your destination? Try to comprehend a bus map? Pay for a taxi? Rent a car?
It would be infinitely more convenient to hop on a streetcar or light rail line and go to your final destination.
In order to get to this multi-modal utopia, we’ve got to start small, and that’s just what the streetcar proposal is attempting to do. When you add two more streetcar lines through downtown, light rail lines to the ‘burbs, and high speed intercity rail to Cleveland, Indy, Cincy, St. Louis, Chicago, etc… well…then we’ve made it. But you’ve got to start somewhere.
We had commuter rail for over a hundred years in Columbus, and we’re actually coming up on the 30th anniversary of when it shut down in 1977. With the widespread adaption of the automobile, rail became underutilized here and was no longer economically justifiable.
The real question is… are we ready for that again? If service launched tomorrow, would it last? Or are their other steps in our transportation system that we need to address first before that really becomes something to consider reinstating?
Amen to that. Couldn’t have said that better myself.
Being on the outskirts of Columbus proper, this certainly isn’t the case for me. I understand that there are probably economics involved in its sparsity, but public transportation barely exists near the outerbelt. All we have are Express routes, and they don’t run on weekends for almost half the year, all but necessitating the ownership and constant use of a car.
Granted, streetcars won’t allow me to sell my personal vehicle, but any step toward viable mass transit city-wide is a step with which I’ll fall in line.
The fact is that *no* fixed intercity transit routes have existed in the modern era absent massive federal funding. If we spent as much on rail as we did on highways, the transit landscape would look very different. We didn’t, however.
I completely agree, and I would actually hold off on those intercity proposals for a long, long time. Columbus, land-wise, is a *much* bigger city than people appreciate. Even just getting streetcar lines into the inner suburbs and metro districts–Grandview, Upper Arlington, Clintonville, Bexley, Merion Village–could be a generational project, and light rail even as far as the beltway, even more long-term.
Intercity rail might never be viable, or might take several generational advances in technology over what we’ve got. Not that that wouldn’t be promising research, but we don’t have it yet.
The real question is… are we ready for that again? If service launched tomorrow, would it last? Or are their other steps in our transportation system that we need to address first before that really becomes something to consider reinstating?
I think in the past 10 years, although more noticeably in the last 5, we’ve had a shift in the mindset of commuters. With rising fuel costs, the apparent effects of global warming and other factors, there is a change in the way people see driving. We see people buying fuel efficient/hybrid vehicles and paying attention to what kind of gas mileage their car gets. The 60′s through 80′s was a time of large gas guzzlers wolfing down cheap gas. That’s not where we are today, however.
So, in short, I think that if it’s reasonably affordable and accessible, mass transit on a regional scale would work today.
The 60′s through 80′s was a time of large gas guzzlers wolfing down cheap gas. That’s not where we are today, however.
So, in short, I think that if it’s reasonably affordable and accessible, mass transit on a regional scale would work today.
What, we ran out of gas in 73′, we’ve been down this road before…just no-one listened.
[color=red:1cdedc817a]1973 Oil Crisis
Being on the outskirts of Columbus proper, this certainly isn’t the case for me. I understand that there are probably economics involved in its sparsity, but public transportation barely exists near the outerbelt. All we have are Express routes, and they don’t run on weekends for almost half the year, all but necessitating the ownership and constant use of a car.
Granted, streetcars won’t allow me to sell my personal vehicle, but any step toward viable mass transit city-wide is a step with which I’ll fall in line.
I’m sure on the outskirts is where very few people ever ride the busses they do have less lines running I would say that this largely depends on where in the outskirts you live. If you travel east and west toward 270 there are several lines that run full time. However in each of the respected corners nw,sw,se,and ne you will find very few. This is related in my mind to the levels of income in those areas. The far east and west are much poorer than new albany, dublin, grove shity, and so on. So if you live in one of the more stable communities and want the buses to run. I would suggest that you talk your neighbors into your dreams of riding the cota bus as well. I wouldn’t dedicate a line of my transit company to a area of town that rarely ever gets a patron or I guess you could just move to the hilltop!
I think it has more to do with sprawl than with income levels. It’s harder to keep a busline worth the money if you have to take fewer people longer distances to get them to where they are going.
There are more regular busses running through Grandview, Bexley, and German Village, and those are also areas where the income level is higher. Those are much denser communities though, and have fewer isolated subdivisions than the outerlying areas mentioned.
And let’s face it. There are plenty of lower-income pockets out in Dublin, Grove City, Hilliard, etc where bus lines are essential, but the sprawl keeps them from being worthwhile for COTA to be able to fund. The suburbs are no longer for the wealthy only. There are more poor people living in suburbs than in the cities.
I guess that my point was that in the corners of the city the people with money have cars and thus don’t need the public transit. However on the east and west points people have far less money and alot of the time no car. SO the bus doesn’t become an option, but more of a needed resource. So of course cota would send more busses to the point of demand. If there are more “poor people” in the suburbs then my guess is that they may be poor, but not so poor that transportation is out of reach. Becouse the demand outside of 270 for Cota isn’t large enough for them to add units to those routes.
I’m not sure that the ability to purchase and maintain a car should necessarily qualify someone as “wealthy”, anyway. The first car I purchased cost me $500, which was almost all of my savings at the time. When I moved to Columbus, I brought with me two roommates who didn’t have cars, and we just happened to end up in the North West, where I’ve remained due to proximity to my job. My then-roommates would have killed for a more frequent bus schedule and ended up taking cabs if they really needed to go somewhere to which they couldn’t walk and I wasn’t available to drive them.
One of the stops close to where I live is right next to a Park & Ride, and there are always people there. I wonder if those same people wouldn’t take the bus to other places aside from downtown if there were more options, at least.
I don’t disagree that extended routes in my area probably aren’t economically viable, but I wonder when that viability was assessed, or if it will be assessed again. Gas prices alone might be enough to get some of the folks up here to ride the bus more often with proper publicity and availability.
I completely agree, and I would actually hold off on those intercity proposals for a long, long time. Columbus, land-wise, is a *much* bigger city than people appreciate. Even just getting streetcar lines into the inner suburbs and metro districts–Grandview, Upper Arlington, Clintonville, Bexley, Merion Village–could be a generational project, and light rail even as far as the beltway, even more long-term.
Intercity rail might never be viable, or might take several generational advances in technology over what we’ve got. Not that that wouldn’t be promising research, but we don’t have it yet.
The fact is that *no* fixed intercity transit routes have existed in the modern era absent massive federal funding.
THANK YOU no one ever speaks about this. EVER
i am pro streetcar for what it is worth, what about monorail? would the logistics not work? I have no idea about any of this i would just think a monorail could be cool. also why is columbus the only large city in ohio with no amtrak? before southwest amtrak to chicago from toledo was great. but it would have been better if it was from columbus.
I’d like to see the data on this. I would wager that very few of even the poorer residents of the city have no car at all. Owning a car is all but a necessity in this town, even for people that use public transit where they can. They might not be driving BMWs or Audis (though the occasionally Cadillac Escalade can nevertheless be seen rumbling through the East Side …), but they can get a car if they want, save for the very bottom. Even most South Side and West Side people don’t fall into that group.