COTA proposes higher fares

Fares on the bus go up and up
COTA board to consider raising rates by as much as 26 percent in 2010
Monday, October 19, 2009 3:05 AM
By Dean Narciso
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

us riders will need more change for the coin box in January if a plan to increase fares as much as 26 percent is approved by the Central Ohio Transit Authority.

The proposed jump would take effect on Jan. 1, pending approval by the COTA board as early as its Nov. 17 meeting, said Marty Stutz, authority spokesman.

Riders would see local, one-way fares jump from $1.50 to $1.75, or 17 percent, and express fares rise from $2 to $2.50, or 25 percent. Monthly express fares would increase the most, from $62 to $78, or 26 percent.

Riders 6 to 12 years old would get the smallest increase, from 75 cents to 85 cents, or 13 percent.

The increases would raise $2.1 million a year, Stutz said.

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Parking Meter Rates to Increase

More for the parking meter
Businesses want input on plan to raise rates
Saturday, October 17, 2009 3:18 AM
By Robert Vitale
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Start hording change: Columbus is considering a 50 percent increase in parking-meter rates.

The extra nickels, dimes and quarters would bring in an additional $1.5 million a year from people who park on streets Downtown and in the Short North, the Arena District, German Village and other neighborhoods, one city official said.

An increase, the first citywide since 1998, would take effect on Jan. 1.

“It’s a market adjustment,” said Public Service Director Mark Kelsey, whose department has begun briefing city commissions and council members.

…According to Kelsey, money from the increase would be used to swap out Columbus’ aging parking meters with modern, credit-card-friendly replacements.

Multispace meters proved unpopular and unreliable during a 2007 test, but Public Service officials have been impressed with a set of solar-powered meters tested along a Downtown stretch of Gay Street earlier this year.

First, however, the city would take $1.4 million collected from the higher parking rates to help guarantee bonds for a new Short North hotel planned across N. High Street from the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

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I don’t want to comment too critically without having more details, but I would like to caution against the concept of uniformly increasing rates.  Every neighborhood, every street, and even every block has a different demand for on-street parking.  I would encourage the city to take inventory of the parking occupancy on each block and tinker with the rates until the meters are well-used, but not fully occupied.  The goal should be to allow a driver a reasonable expectation to find a parking spot, but to also keep the rates low enough to encourage many people (e.g. customers for local businesses) to use the spaces.  You can read more about this concept here.

I am concerned about the end of the article though.  Why would the city be spending $1.4 Million on a hotel?  This doesn’t make sense to me.  I expect that the city actually intends to spend the money on infrastructure upgrades to accommodate the hotel.  This is still questionable, but would be a lot less shady than just handing $1.4 Million to a developer to build something that the market wouldn’t support otherwise.  If anyone has more info about this transaction, please comment below.

UPDATE – The hotel is being built by the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority.  I’m not sure the government should be in the hotel business.  More here.

CMH Adds Southwest Flights & Best Buy Express

Two different bits of news emerged from Port Columbus today. First, Southwest Airlines announced on their blog that they are now booking flights for Spring 2010, which adds extra daily flights to Baltimore, Chicago Midway, and Tampa, as well as new Saturday flights to Tampa and Orlando. The second bit of news came by way of a CMH press release which announced that Port Columbus will be adding new retail options in the form of two kiosks branded as a Best Buy Express ZoomShop and a Rosetta Stone ZoomShop. The Best Buy kiosk will sell everything from iPods to digital cameras to headphones to handheld video games for travelers on the go.

Three-Foot Passing Bill Introduced in Ohio

From ConsiderBiking.org:

3-Foot Passing Bill Introduced
By Jeff Stephens

Ohio is on its way to to joining 15 other states that have a three-foot passing law. Senator Teresa Fedor of Toledo introduced Ohio Senate Bill 174 on Monday, September 28.  It looks like we’ve found a much-needed champion for cycling-specific causes in the Statehouse. Hurray!

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North Campus High Street Construction Wraps Up

An email update from PavingTheWay.org reveals that the North Campus High Street Construction project is in the final stages of completion. The final paving and road markings began today and should be finished in roughly two weeks (weather permitting). The paving will take place daily between 7 am and 7pm, so expect delays during those hours.

The project began in June 2008 and was initiated to separate the neighborhood sewer and stormwater lines, as mandated by the EPA. The development also includes new sidewalks for the area, the burial of overhead power lines, a widened intersection at Hudson and High, and additional street improvements, some of which may not be completely wrapped up with the end of the paving in two weeks.

More info on Columbus roadway projects can be found at PavingTheWay.org.

PARK(ing) Day and Car Free Day

It’s no secret that Columbus is an auto-centric city. Many commuters drive their cars to every destination they visit every single day. Several local organizations are challenging citizens to see if they can try rethinking their commute. On Friday, September 18th, Columbus will take part once again in the national PARK(ing) Day event, that transforms parking spaces for other uses for a day. Also, Tuesday, September 22nd marks the world-wide Car Free Day, which encourages everyone to utilize alternative modes of transportation.

I interviewed Laura Koprowski, the Director of Public & Government Affairs at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) to learn more about these two events. You can read the full interview here: Two Opportunities to Ditch The Car This Week.

Scooters out of Style?

It’s not surprising that scooter sales are lower now that gas prices are as well, but a 67% year-over-year nationwide drop in sales is higher than I would have expected.

Scooters aren’t as hip since gas prices dipped
Sales set a record last year, but they’re tumbling
Monday, September 14, 2009 3:08 AM
By Erin Dostal
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

A record 220,000 Americans bought scooters in 2008, and for a moment, it seemed like the zippy two-wheelers weren’t just for hipsters and Europeans anymore.

But Aaron Saez, manager of the Speed Factory on High Street, thinks that after the scooter sales boom last summer, people aren’t riding them or have lost interest.

“A couple thousand scooters that sold (in Columbus) should be on the road, and I’m not seeing them,” he said. “On my block, I see five or 10 people with scooters just sitting in their garages.”

Mike Allen, owner of Motohio, a dealership on Scarborough Boulevard, said his scooter sales are down about 50 percent from last year.

…Because of demand from riders, Columbus created 25 corrals for scooter and motorcycle riders Downtown, in German Village and in the Short North. Collectively, they have space for about 280 two-wheelers.

But only 142 permits have been sold since the city began requiring them in March. The permit costs $50 per year.

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Updates on the 3C Corridor Passenger Rail Project

Earlier today, a new Amtrak study on the 3C Corridor “Quick Start” Passenger Rail project was released with several new figures, most impressively a researched estimate of 478,000 annual passengers riding between Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland.

The study was conducted over the past nine months and will be used as part of Ohio’s federal stimulus funding application that will be filed on October 2nd.

The ridership estimates are based on conditions of passenger rail service as if it were operating today. Studies show that ridership would grow to nearly 600,000 annual passengers after five years of continuous non-upgraded service. The findings by Amtrak would mean that the “3C Quick Start” line would be the 12th largest generator of passenger rail traffic in the country.

The study also places the current total cost estimates of the 3C project at $342.6 million, which includes infrastructure, track and signal upgrades as well as maintenance facilities. The annual revenue from ticket sales is projected to be over $12 million per year based on the 2009 ridership estimates, and would grow as ridership increases.

A summary of the Amtrak study can be found here on ODOT’s website.

This evening, ODOT and the Ohio Rail Development Commission held an open house public meeting at the King Arts Complex to provide more information on the project, as well as answer questions and concerns. Several of the most informative slides from the powerpoint presentation are below, and the entire presentation can be viewed here (PDF).

Google Reporting Traffic on Arterial Streets

I just noticed last week that Google now has traffic information for a handful of arterial streets.  Here is what Columbus’ central area looks like as I write this at approximately 9:20 PM EDT on Thursday, September 10, 2009.

Here’s some more information from Google’s Blog:

Google Maps will now show you live traffic conditions on arterial roads in selected cities. Just zoom-in on the city you’re interested in, and click the “Traffic” button in the upper-right corner of the map. As you zoom in closer to an area of interest, we’ll color the arterial roads, in addition to the highways, to show current traffic conditions. Just as with the highways, the colors correspond to the speed of traffic (relative to the speed limit of the road): green is free sailing, yellow is medium congestion, red is heavy congestion, and red/black is stop-and-go traffic.

This is pretty cool, but I’m not 100% sure it’s all that accurate.  Does Cleveland Avenue really have that much traffic congestion at 9:20 PM on a weeknight?  I doubt it.  I think the problem lies in Google’s calculation.  They say they are showing traffic speeds relative to the speed limit of the road.  However, over a corridor like High Street or Cleveland Avenue, you are bound to hit a few lights, so your average speed will always be less than the speed limit of the road.  This will make the traffic show up yellow or red, even though it’s moving just as well as you would expect it to.

What I would suggest instead is that Google reference what traffic engineers call the free flow speed of the road instead of the speed limit.  Free flow speed is what happens when there’s almost nobody else out on the road.  It’s the best you can do when congestino isn’t a factor.  I think it would be fairly easy for Google to aggregate the data for the best travel times on a corridor – probably late at night/early morning – over the course of a week or a month, and then reference that as the average speed.

Port Columbus Denied Stimulus Funds

Stimulus aid lands at other airports
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 3:07 AM
By Doug Caruso
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Port Columbus has been shut out of a $1.1 billion federal stimulus program that has been criticized for sending funds to smaller, noncommercial airports.

The Columbus Regional Airport Authority, which oversees the Port Columbus, Rickenbacker and Bolton Field airports, applied to the Federal Aviation Administration for more than $20 million for six projects.

The largest sought $12 million to help pay for moving the south runway at Port Columbus to accommodate simultaneous takeoffs and landings, said Angie Tabor, a spokeswoman for the airport authority. The project, planned since 2006, would double the airport’s capacity and make room for a new terminal.

The FAA approved the south runway project on Friday but promised no money. The authority has submitted a proposal to the government for nonstimulus funds.

None of the authority’s stimulus proposals was accepted, Tabor said.

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