This story made my day. In my opinion, multi-modal transportation is exactly what Ohio needs to provide affordable transportation, healthier communities, attract an educated, creative work force, and create economic development. Okay, maybe as a transportation engineer/planner I’m being a little too idealistic about what transportation can do, but I really think it’s critical to creating a bright future for Ohio.
Transportation-policy group sees trains, bikes, boats in Ohio’s future
Thursday, May 8, 2008 3:12 AM
By James Nash
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCHCars still may be king in Ohio, but James Beasley says that needs to change.
Beasley, the director of the Ohio Department of Transportation since March 2007, outlined a vision of a less car-centric state at a summit yesterday to plan Ohio’s transportation future.
Trains could carry more passengers and freight. Rivers aren’t used to their potential as conduits of goods. Even bikes ought to be seen as a means to commute rather than simply as recreation.
Those points were raised during the first meeting of the Ohio 21st Century Transportation Priorities Task Force, a 62-member panel that’s supposed to sketch the future of transportation in the state.
The buzzword was “multimodal” — a seamless web of roads, airports, rail lines, bus and bike routes, and even boats.
“I would definitely say it’s a big policy change,” Beasley said. “We’re talking multimodal. There are many choices toward moving people and freight.”About 250 people attended the summit at the Ohio Department of Transportation headquarters. They included local officials from throughout the state, economic-development leaders, building contractors, a handful of environmentalists and at least one Ohio resident.
The proceedings were shadowed by the high cost of gas and its one-two punch to transit planning in Ohio. Higher oil prices drive up the cost of construction — both to buy asphalt and to operate equipment — and discourage people from buying as much fuel. Gasoline is taxed by the gallon, not by price.
Those factors and others, such as Ohio’s sagging economy, make a case for broad changes to transportation planning rather than a few tweaks, said Ty Marsh, president of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the statewide transportation panel.
“We’re not talking about a better way to fix potholes,” he said. “We’re talking about a broad vision for our transportation system aligned for growth and prosperity.”
Beasley, with the support of Gov. Ted Strickland, has been nudging the state transportation agency toward a more rail-friendly future. Beasley appointed Jolene Molitoris, the chairwoman of the Ohio Rail Development Commission and a former federal railroad administrator, as his assistant director in March.
Strickland, speaking at yesterday’s summit, also suggested that big changes are afoot.
“This isn’t about doing a little more or a little less than what we’ve always done,” the governor said.
jnash@dispatch.com
[...] planning for bicycles and pedestrians may be to implement a Complete Streets policy. As noted in the story below this one, multi-modal transportation planning is looking more feasible than ever before in Ohio. Cycling [...]
I attended this initial Task Force meeting and it was a watershed moment in my estimation.
Consider the following:
1. There are 62 actuall members of the Task Force but over 250 people attended this first meeting. What does that tell you about the significant level of interest in creating more and better tranortation options.
2. Both ODOT Director Beasley and Governor Strickland repeatedly emphasized that this Task Force is NOT about more highways and/or maintaining the staus quo. They made it very clear that this Task Force will be an agent of change.
3. Moving more people and freight by rail repeatedly came up both in the opening speeches and in the afternoon commitee meetings. Improved mass transit, bikeways and walkable neighborhood also were mentioned frequently.
4. Changing the way we fund transportation projects was also a major topic on all three committees. Many comments were made that the current federal process for funding transportation projects is entirely too complicated and slow. Several participants also brought up the need to change Ohio’s motor vehicle fuels tax to allow revenues to be distributed for non-highway projects.
What I like about this Task Force the most is that they have been given a deadline of six months to issue a report and recommendations. It is not an open-ended process, so there can be no dawdling.
Public input will be crucial to this process, so I urge anyone reading this to visit the Task Force website and polan on attending the regional meetings and let your thoughts be known. If you can’t attend, e-mail your comments. Be direct and to the point. Don’t make a speech. Tell this task force what you think Ohio needs for transportation options.
Here’s some good thoughts to ponder as the Task Force moves ahead with it’s work: a very insightful column from Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Dick Feagler:
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/dick_feagler/index.ssf?/base/opinion-0/1211044559121880.xml&coll=2
Past is forgotten; future is stalled on the interstate
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Dick Feagler
Plain Dealer Columnist
I used to live in Brecksville, and I always rode the bus to work dur ing rush hour. It was the only sane thing to do.
I’d board the bus around Ohio 82, open a book and read it as we motored down to Grant Avenue. There we would stop and inch the rest of our way downtown. That’s when I would turn the pages again and read more James Bond. And finally, when I got off the bus, I felt relaxed.
I had a friend in those days who was a traffic helicopter reporter. He broadcast the bad news about traffic jams and snarls. He was the angel of urban sprawl. His was a beacon who told his listeners what they already knew.
I asked him once what happened on those cloudy days when he couldn’t fly in the traffic copter.
“I say the same thing,” he said. “Traffic is backed up all the way from Grant Avenue.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but how do you know?”
“Hell,” he said, “it’s backed up to Grant Avenue every morning.”
And so it was. And so it is. And here’s where the column starts.
There was a spur railroad line that ran from Cleveland toward Akron. This line paralleled Interstate 77. It could have easily carried light rail. Like commuter trains. The track bed was dug, the tracks were laid. It was the thought that was missing.
One day I noticed that the interrupted railroad track stopped at a missing trestle on Alexander Road. That train could have carried people next to that crowded freeway, but nobody thought of that. Or if they had thought of it, they threw it away, thinking it was useless.
Now we know we’ve abandoned things that we thought were useless. Maybe some of this was carelessness. Or maybe a misshapen idea that we had something better. Or maybe we just have been too cheap too long.
We sold our trolley cars to Toronto, thinking perhaps that we had progressed beyond the days of trolley cars. Now we wish we had them back. Toronto uses them as a valuable tourist attraction. Who would have thunk it?
I love this city. We soar when it comes to artistry. We have the best orchestras in the world, both classical and jazz, and one of the best art museums. But when it comes to public works, we have no vision.
The best example of no vision is the Euclid Corridor project. What imagination did we see there? Before it was built, we had a bus line from downtown to University Circle. When it is finished, we will have a bus line from downtown to University Circle. Why not a gleaming subway like Washington, D.C.? Or a high-speed monorail like Dallas? Why just a bus that confounds traffic and wiggles its hips? Is this the best we can do?
Once the United States had the best rail system in the world. We let that go to hell and cast our lot with airplanes. And now the planes are terrible and the trains are unreliable.
We live within a six-hour trip - by car - to Chicago, a seven-hour trip to Washington, and within two hours of Columbus and four hours of Cincinnati. That would be even faster if we had high-speed rail to get there.
Europe has such rails. Once we had the best in the world. But we threw them away.
Now when I fly to Chicago, I’m inserted into a seat like a sardine so I can’t move. When the stewardess comes around to ask me to please return my seatback to the full, upright position for landing, I ask her, “This thing’s only going to come up 1 inch. Is that going to save my life?”
Trains, which are more comfortable and better, are things that have been left behind, replaced by things that are far less comfortable and far more annoying.
Rail. Maybe this is just another example of how we are lost in the present and should find instruction from the past.
To reach Dick Feagler:
dfeagler@plaind.com, 216-999-6801