Streetcar Meeting?
From:
Josh Vittie
Date:
May 06 04:41 UTC
Short link
I have to express my agreement with Mr. C. Moore on a number of issues he
brings up. As a student at The Ohio State University who currently lives in
Columbus (north of 270) I have a great number of issues with the street car
proposal in general.
1. Mr. Moore's point of keeping already established bus transportation where
it exists (High St. in particular) seems especially valid to me. He also
brings up an interesting point that it would be inefficient to tear up parts of
High street for this project. Furthermore, High St. is a 5 lane road (2 NB
lanes, 2 SB and a central turn lane) that's not really a good example of a 5
lane road... In parts of the Short North it is legal to park on High in the
right most lane - limiting traffic to 1 travel lane in that direction. South
of Nationwide, during peak hours, the rightmost lane is only open to COTA and
Taxi traffic - limiting High St. to one travel lane in each direction. Where
is the street car lane going to be? Are they going to ride in the rightmost
lane with COTA and Taxis causing the buses and cabs to weave in and out of car
traffic to pass street cars as necessary or will buses and taxis be banned from
running in lanes with street cars? Are we going to widen High Street and take
away what precious little sidewalk space we have?
2. As a student at OSU, my tuition statement includes a line for $9/quarter
that we are charged for "COTA Fee" - will this fee increase as a result of the
University contributing funds to this project? Will student's be able to ride
the Street Cars for free (As we can with COTA buses now) if this fee increases?
3. Considering that all parking fees - meters, garages, surface lots - will
increase to raise revenue to pay for this project it will make parking downtown
a less attractive option. (Which if I understand correctly is the point... we
raise prices so people won't want to park downtown and should encourage them to
use the streetcar.) If the streetcar is only going from the University to
German Village - where are people from the suburbs supposed to park? There's
already a shortage of parking near campus, and you have to have a permit to
park on campus. My point here is - there's no efficient means of brining
people from the suburbs to downtown to utilize the streetcars, further, if they
already have to ride into downtown to catch a streetcar, why not drive the
extra couple of miles to the Arena, especially since there's no where to park
(at least at the Northern Terminus of the streetcar)?
4. Back to a point by Mr. Moore - you're connecting two middle-class
neighborhoods where most own cars; he also suggests Broad Street as an
alternative for the pilot project. This sounds like a great idea - why not
connect the Hilltop and the East side, where there is a far greater number of
low SES individuals without effective transportation options and bring them
downtown where there are more options for them to make their purchases (even
more options if City Center can be re-developed and more businesses can be
brought back to downtown)?
5. I've seen a cost of $103M to build the 2.8 mile route (cited at
http://www.nbc4i.com/midwest/cmh/news.apx.-content-articles-CMH-2008-04-29-0019.html
)- from what I know from a position driving bus, a transit bus can cost
$200,000 to $250,000, if COTA could negotiate a price of $200,000 per bus -
that money could bring 500 new buses to the area. That could replace many of
the older buses and be used to establish new routes to connect the outlying
suburbs to downtown.
6. Mr. J. Coe - addresses the point I was going to make now pretty well.
7. Funding for projects for transportation is already scarce - MORPC reported
on page 5 of the summary of the State of the Region report that "future
transportation needs identified by MORPC total $31B, where as funding is
estimated to be $15B". While people argue that this 2.8 mile section is just
the beginning of a far larger project - where is the money for the rest of the
project going to come from? According to the above quote - our region is
already needing to plan for a $16B deficit IN TRANSPORTATION ALONE! Are we
going to raise prices to park everywhere the route goes and continue to add a
surcharge on events at venues near the route?
I have a number of other questions - but this is already pretty long winded...
I just want to add a disclaimer - I'm not against streetcars in general, I just
think they need to have a certain type of community to support them. The
European models of streetcars relies on a very high population density
surrounding the routes with that population either not owning personal vehicles
or feeling that using their vehicle for daily transportation is too costly
compared to the alternative - I just don't see those conditions as existing in
Columbus, Ohio...
Regards,
Josh Vittie, MPA '10