You may not have realized it, but you have just one week left to comment on MORPC’s CapitalWays Regional Transportation Plan. What is this plan? You can read about it below, but basically it programs how the region’s transportation money will be used until 2030, and will therefore affect the way you live and travel well beyond 2030. I would argue that commenting on the plan could be more important than voting. Politicians come and go. Transportation infrastructure sticks around for a very, very long time. Plus, so few people comment that your voice is very likely to be heard. You should definitely send comments. Read on:
The CapitalWays Regional Transportation Plan is a forward-looking plan, anticipating the needs of Central Ohio through the year 2030. Predicting how busy roads will likely be, how much people will travel, and where people will be going, a Regional Transportation Plan pinpoints where we will need new roads, repairs to old roads, expanded transit service, and more bikeways.
The CapitalWays Plan entails many components: safety, freight, roads, bikeways, pedestrian services, public transit, transportation maintenance, transportation security, the Intelligent Transportation System (which includes computerized message boards), analysis for air quality, and the forecasting of future land use.
MORPC develops its regional transportation plan over the course of four years. First, transportation planners analyze land use and development data and establish the region’s future situation in terms of the numbers and locations of people and jobs. Then, they work with local governments, transit agencies, state agencies, and members of the private sector that have a role in transportation to identify viable transportation projects. Finally, they devise strategies to meet the transportation needs of the people studied in the original analysis.
…Comments and questions may be submitted by email or sent to Robert E. Lawler, Director of Transportation, 111 Liberty Street, Suite 100, Columbus, OH 43215. Comments must be received by 5:00 p.m. on April 11, 2008. A resolution adopting the CapitalWays Regional Transportation Plan will be submitted to the MORPC Policy Committee on May 8. MORPC’s Citizen Advisory Committee will take action on this resolution at 5:30 p.m. on April 28, 2008.
The MORPC page contains links to the project report, a list of the evaluated projects, non-evaluated projects, a bunch of very cool GIS maps in .PDF form, and a couple of broken links to the mystical “Detailed Project Evaluation Information.”
Much like the NCAA tournament, approximately 600 projects (teams) were considered for the 2030 transportation plan (tournament), but they can’t all be funded (seeded). Projects with committed funding and significant ODOT projects (won conference tournament) are included as non-evaluated projects. Projects not receiving an automatic bid are evaluated by MORPC (the selection committee) based on “vision, goals, and objectives.” Goals include transportation efficiency (wins), multi-modalism (quality wins), and quality (strength of schedule), and are measured with things like peak travel delay reduction per capita, level of service (LOS) improvement, safety, fuel consumption reduction, etc… Most of the teams evaluated by MORPC don’t get an at-large bid to the Big Dance, but end up on a list of projects that could go to MORPC’s version of the NIT tournament if more funding becomes available in the future, and there’s no shame in that 
Reading/skimming through, I shouldn’t be surprised that nearly all the projects receiving top scores in the first few pages all involved widening a road way or redoing an interchange-to accommodate more traffic.
The only “multi-modal” and “efficent” project anywhere in that first 4-5 pages is the street car proposal.
I love Columbus; born, raised, still here and considering raising my (future) family here; which has a great small town-big city thing going for it, but we cling too much to that small town feeling. Apparently our goals for the next 20 odd years are to make our rush hour times comparable to LA, NY, DC and Boston.
Page 16- COTA light rail north corridor scores: 0 140 150, total of 290
Same page and same scoring for a multi-modal transit facility downtown
The goals are weighted as follows:
Transportation Efficiency = 320 points max
Multi-Modal = 230 points max
Quality = 450 points max
The highest weighted measures of effectiveness within the goals are:
Air quality = x10
Fuel consumption reduced = x10
Travel demand management (TDM) = x9
Improvement in LOS by 2015 = x8
Efficiency improvements for existing infrastructure = x7
Service to intermodal facility = x6
ect…
I don’t feel like the weights are biased against transit or bikes in any way. They may even be in favor. I do feel like there are very few transit and bike projects as line items.
All the COTA stuff gets lumped together in four line items in the non-evaluated project list for a total of $3.73 Billion by 2030, not including the streetcar. I haven’t done the math on how much roads got, but that’s a lot of COTA money. Thank you voters.
Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) improvements received $4.23 Billion, also non-evaluated. That’s a nice chunk of change not related to expanding existing roads, just improving efficiency. ITS could also include signal priority for transit vehicles, which essentially means more transit money.
Regional bikeway improvements “not included in other projects” only received $70 Million. What’s not clear is how much bikeways are included in other projects. Sidewalks are included in every “new roadway” and “major widening” project. I think bike lanes (or maybe sidepaths on some roads) should be too, but I doubt that they are. Nevertheless, with the Columbus Bikeways Plan, Mayor Coleman has put Columbus down a path to more bike-friendliness.
I don’t disagree that Columbus is not making efforts at alternates. It just seems a minor contradiction at the surface when you see the weightings and scorings of said projects include these ideas:
Air quality = x10
Fuel consumption reduced = x10
Service to inter-modal facility = x6
and yet a vast majority of the projects would seemingly put more single occupancy vehicles on the road, increase issues with air and noise pollution, increase fuel consumption; not to mention the urban sprawl that will continue and the impact on the local economy. How many homes will be lost to improvements and eminent domain? How many local owned businesses will be lost when improved road ways increase traffic to the big box stores? I am not anti-car by any means. Some of these projects will do great amounts of good for Columbus.
I am interested to see what happens with COTA, though, and the street cars and how Columbus will adapt to bicycles and pedestrians. Thankfully Columbus leadership, in the Mayor and City Council amongst many others, can recognize fairly forward thinking ideas and work as leaders in the city to promote and develop said ideas. I wish our state leadership would follow suit.
Hi - What you are doing looks to me like “regional community.” A link to this post will be in the April 9, 2008 issue of Regional Community Development News. It will be on-line April 10 at http://regional-communities.blogspot.com/ Please visit, check the tools and consider a link. Tom
One has to ask what good are all of these road projects if gasoline goes much higher and the overall cost of owning and maintaining a motor vehicle makes driving enough of a financial drain as to begin limiting the amount of driving? Are these road improvements then really necessary?
So why not recommend greater emphasis on rail & transit projects, as well as bikeway improvements that create more options to being forced to drive?
One has to ask that to MORPC
tplan@morpc.org
You’ve still got a few days! Take a few minutes and let them know that we don’t need all of those roads.
What I would really like to see is the institutionalization of a complete streets policy. I want bikes and peds accommodated in every project practical. I would also like to see zoning overhauled, but that’s outside of MORPC’s control. Local governments need to make that change. I think zoning codes would have a better chance at change if we had the regional transit necessary to support denser, walkable neighborhoods. The expansion of COTA, which is provided in the RTP, is a good start, but I would really like to see some regional commuter rail alternatives evaluated in the next ranking cycle (2012).
[...] 18, 2008 by johnwirtz If you missed your opportunity to comment on the MORPC CapitalWays Regional Transportation Plan, you just got another chance to voice your opinions. ODOT wants to hear your ideas and opinions [...]
I know I missed the spring deadline, but I still wanted to submit this request. (I just noticed it today. I also sent the text to morpc)
I wanted to make a suggestion of a small project that could really help complete a transportation channel. Location: Far North Columbus, Franklin County, North of Hard Road.
On my walk today, I noticed how difficult it is to access the COTA #30 bus stop on Smoky Row Road at Summit View. The distance between Hamrock and Summit Row is a small ravine and overgrown grass. My only option was to walk along busy Smoky Row. The distance between the 2 streets is small, but the lack of clear passage is a huge limitation.
Address of location nearest the stop.
8615 Smoky Row Rd, Powell, OH 43065
Do you know if there is any plan for some sort of connection or improvement there?
Thank you for the work that you do. This is a very exciting time in Central Ohio!
Jody,
I grew up in Olde Sawmill, so I feel your pain.
The MORPC project map does not show any future improvements on Smoky Row Rd, but it is shown as a road with future bike lanes in the recently-approved Bicentennial Bikeways Master Plan. If they are truly going to add bike lanes, I suspect they will have to widen the road. If they do that, I would hope that sidewalks will be included with the project.
So when will that happen? The bikeways plan is programmed for implementation over the next 20 years. I hope it gets done sooner rather than later. A neighborhood shouldn’t have to wait 43 years (Olde Sawmill was built roughly in 1985) for sidewalks on a major road with a bus route.
From my experience in city government, I’ve found that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So bug the council members. If that doesn’t work, get your neighbors together with a few hundred bags of crushed gravel and build your own sidewalk. Well…that could get ridiculous, but it might send a message.