I was recently in Cleveland for two days for a Transportation Research Board workshop to view its new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line first-hand. I came away very impressed with what Cleveland has done, and I couldn’t help thinking about the similarities to what Columbus is trying to do with the streetcar.
Route
The $200 Million Euclid Corridor Health Line is approximately seven miles long, connecting Cleveland’s two largest job centers, downtown Cleveland and University Circle. The most important regional destinations are served, such as Terminal Tower, Playhouse Square, Cleveland State University, The Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and Case Western Reserve University.
Euclid Corridor Map
Streetcar Map
The 2.8 mile long, $103 Million, High Street Streetcar would connect Columbus’ two largest job centers, downtown and The Ohio State University, serving the Ohio Statehouse, the new County Courthouse, several theaters, Nationwide Arena, the Convention Center, the North Market, and the Short North Arts District along the way. Hopefully Columbus will also have it’s own version of Terminal Tower sometime soon to connect the streetcar to a regional rail network.
Infrastructure
Euclid has been reconstructed from building face to building face, including roadway and sidewalks. Overhead wires have been buried and utilities relocated. Two of the four lanes of traffic have been converted to dedicated bus lanes. Fifteen inch high rail-like bus stations have been built in the medians. New traffic signals with transit signal priority (TSP) have been installed. This all gives the project a sense of permanency.
I doubt Columbus will be doing as much total reconstruction as Cleveland did, but the installation of rail tracks in mixed traffic lanes and overhead catenary wires to power the vehicles will make it obvious that a large public investment has been made in High Street. Additional changes haven’t been determined, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a TSP system and nicer-looking stations with real-time vehicle arrival information.
Service Changes
One of the arguments against building the streetcar is that High Street is already served by the COTA #2, #8, and portions of several other bus routes. Well, Euclid Avenue is currently served by GCRTA #6 and #9 buses. The Health Line will replace the #6 route entirely with more frequent service on higher capacity, hybrid diesel-electric, articulated buses. Approximately half the stops along the route have been eliminated. Combined with TSP and dedicated bus lanes throughout much of the line, a 25% decrease in travel time is projected. Riders will purchase tickets off board in what is called a proof-of-payment system common on light rail lines. Dynamic message signs already are telling riders when the next bus will arrive.
While details of streetcar service remain to be determined, it is expected that the frequency of service would increase, especially during non-peak hours. It is likely that the streetcar would stop half as often as the existing #2 route, which should reduce travel times markedly. The larger vehicle would help to relieve the overcrowding that has become common on the #2, and could allow COTA to run the existing #2 as an express route between 12th Avenue and downtown, only stopping at major transfer points.
Rolling Stock
On the outside, Euclid Corridor Vehicles (they don’t like to call them buses) are sleek and futuristic looking, with doors on both sides like a train. It is probably the nicest non-electric bus I have ever ridden, but on the inside it still feels like a bus. The hybrid diesel-electric engine provides for a smoother ride than most buses, but the rubber tires still make the ride kind of bumpy compared to rail, even on brand new pavement. There is a docking arm on the bus that makes the steering wheel vibrate so the driver knows when the bus is in position, and the passengers can feel the vibration.
Modern streetcars, like those in Portland and Seattle, are very streamlined and spacious vehicles. My memory of the Portland Streetcar is a very smooth ride in high-capacity vehicles powered by the sweet hum of an electric motor. The streetcar beats even a fancy bus in comfort, and the drivers don’t need a docking arm in order to position it in the correct location relative to the curb.
Economic Development
This is where The Health Line really convinced me that it was worth the $200 Million investment. The BRT line, along with brand new sewers, sidewalks, signals, and more have given the region a focus for new urban development. If you’re going to build something in the City of Cleveland, you might as well do it on Euclid, because you know all the infrastructure is brand new.
Cleveland has already counted more than $4.3 Billion in investment along the Euclid Corridor, and the line hasn’t even opened yet. Even land values in the depressed mid-town/Fairfax neighborhood have doubled from $5 a square foot to $10. Another major development project was announced in the Plain Dealer last Tuesday while I was there. The amount of new development is especially impressive in a city that is losing population to the suburbs and a region that is losing population to other cities in Ohio and the rest of the USA. There are a number of tax and other financial incentives to developing in Cleveland, but the BRT line seems to have accelerated the process.
I am now convinced the streetcar could give High Street the same kind of boost that the Health Line is giving to Euclid Avenue in Cleveland. The healthier economy in Columbus and momentum of development in the Short North should make the development happen all that much easier. This shouldn’t be surprising, as many other cities have found the same results, but I had always been a bit skeptical. A streetcar is the kind of high-visibility infrastructure improvement that would gives developers a reason to focus on downtown and High Street.
Conclusion
As similar as Cleveland’s Health Line is to a streetcar, I came away feeling like a streetcar is a superior transit service in both quality and perception. If the goal is economic development, perception is what really matters here, not just travel times and number of passengers served. If the Euclid Corridor or the High Street Streetcar were only about improving transit service, articulated buses could solve the overcrowding problem at a fraction of the cost. Removing stops and installing transit signal priority could improve travel times. I still think COTA should take those smaller, incremental steps, but those improvements probably wouldn’t provide a significant change in the public perception of transit.
The streetcar is about changing attitudes and perceptions. In order to get public support for more ambitious regional transit projects in the future, the image of COTA has to change. I now believe the streetcar could be the stepping stone to that change. The vision still needs to be articulated and mapped out by the city’s leaders, but I think I now understand the vision, probably better in my head than I have described it here. I don’t know if you’ll find this post valuable or not, but I’m on board with the streetcar.
Great post, great info. Thanks
Glad to have you “on board” John! Great post!
Very informative; thanks John!
So a leg-up for streetcar in terms of economic development stimulator, huh? High St. starter line and suggested extensions to Arena and Discovery Districts, then, make a lot of sense to me.
What do you think, having seen the Cleveland BRT, are the best starter routes for BRT in Columbus? COTA is buying hybrid bendy buses, right? Can you think of a route (routes) that may be fit for BRT with these new buses?
Great post for comparison, John. I haven’t been up to Cleveland in awhile, so I haven’t seen the progress they’ve made on this lately. Great recap!
Thanks everyone for the positive feedback.
TK,
The great thing about BRT is its flexibility. You can go with a system like Cleveland’s, which is a lot like a long streetcar line without the tracks or electric power. Or you can spend far less money on something like LA’s Metrorapid or KC’s MAX.
I would advocate starting small on COTA’s busiest routes because it can be done right away without federal grants, maybe so small that some people wouldn’t even call it “BRT.”
My website outlines a proposed process for improving transit in Columbus. Step 4 has a link to a map that shows routes I think would be a good fit for some type of BRT service. The routes are the #2 High/Main, #1 Cleveland/Livingston, #10 Broad, #6 Sullivant/Mt. Vernon-Airport, and #16 South High/Long-Easton:
http://columbusbusplan.googlepages.com/FrequentServiceMap_Starter.pdf
I just ran this project by my Official Cleveland Focus Group (my dad).
Q: So what do you think about the new Euclid Corridor Project? Nice, huh?
A: I thought it was gonna be great. Then, I realized that it’s just a stinkin’ bus! A bus!! The renderings made it look like it was going to be another extension of the Rapid (Cleveland’s Light Rail), but then I found out that it’s just a fancy bus.
hip and cool!
Eric,
When I was in Cleveland around Easter, I expressed my desire to go look at the project. My father-in-law said something like, “You don’t have to go downtown to see it. Go dig a hole in the back yard. That’s what Euclid Avenue looks like.” I think he may have been a little annoyed that they tore up the area in front of his office at Euclid and E 9th for quite a while.
Anyway, I have also worried that maybe it’s only elected officials and transit people who are excited about this project. But the money invested by the institutions in the corridor and private developers seems to show that at least some other people think this is cool, even if our families don’t.
It is just a fancy bus, with fancy bus lanes, fancy signal systems, and fancy stations, but the travel times from Windemere (East Cleveland) to Terminal Tower are comparable via the Red Line Rapid (heavy rail) or the Health Line (BRT).
John,
“I am now convinced the streetcar could give High Street the same kind of boost that the Health Line is giving to Euclid Avenue in Cleveland”
Does High Street really need a boost? It occurs to me that Livingston Avenue, West Broad Street or Long Street could use more of a boost than High Street.
I am for streetcars but I am also for development of the inner ring core city – Franklinton, King-Lincoln and Driving Park.
Interesting read
Doug
Doug,
I see your point, and from what I understand, Portland’s first streetcar line(s?) were laid through some of the most run-down areas (warehouse areas) to stimulate the development.
Having said that, as Columbus is far more anti-rail than Portland ever was (correct me if I am wrong on this), I think it is also crucial for the starter line to have great ridership from get-go. For that goal, connecting three of the most popular/populated areas (DT, SN, OSU) in the city should be favored over other routes. DT-Franklin Park line on Broad would not be bad, but less promising than High St. line. (That would be my preferred second or third line, and John also included the Broad line as one of the future streetcar routes in his website).
Ideally, though, like most streetcar lines, the line should be a “loop,” running parallel only one or two blocks apart to spread the economic development; unfortunately, High St. does not have (I think) a street that closely parallels it (e.g., Neal is too far, Front, Pearl is not a thru way) though 3rd=Summit may be a possibility, and may create much needed economic development in Weinland Park.
TK,
Routes 10 Broad St. and 1 Cleveland/Livingston Ave would make the most sense, however there are issues on parts of the lines that would make BRT difficult to construct (mainly the width of the roads and the City is not willing to give COTA signal priority and the like at this time).
I also suggested Morse Rd. BRT as well as Rt. 161 as possible crosstown BRT’s to move people to retail centers. COTA is investigating the future of articulated hybrids within with in the system; however no promises can be made. Unfortunately the current economic and fuel issues have been squeezing COTA’s budget. If retail sales pick up in COTA’s service area then there will be more resources to justify BRT’s. So buy more stuff and live in denser areas!
In the next year I believe COTA will be making an important announcement about instituting higher speed public transit. It could be BRT, light rail, or something else completely different. It’s sad that the North Corridor project is sitting idle as a door stop.
Johnwirtz,
Implementing a BRT is actually more difficult than you led on in your post. First off signal priority is a major part of a BRT; working with the city as well as the county to gain signal priority can take a while. Coupled with this is the need for dedicated bus lanes, which, again, the city is not very keen on outside of downtown.
Secondly infrastructure improvements are also needed; especially on Route #1 Cleveland. Recently I drove this route with some other planners for the articulated hybrid bus grant we submitted and found a fair number of stops that would need to be modified.
This would mean going to each owner of the properties we have the stop on (either public or private) and amending our agreements. Without hiring expensive consultants this could take a while. I have no hard numbers but negotiations can spiral out of control quickly.
Other factors are involved, such as the fact that COTA lacks facilities to house and repair articulated buses. Also, COTA would have to find a manufacturer or another agency that already has a bus buy option to purchase buses that would nto take 14 months to build.
Finally the most important factor, but probably the easiest to solve, is Columbus has a ban on buses over 48′.
Sorry for the lengthy post, just want all the transit enthusiasts to know what is going down.
Elliott
Polis,
Wow, thanks for sharing the “insider” info. on COTA plans. I see the BRT implementation is a little more complex than I thought.
A little of topic, but is North Corridor light rail completely, unequivocally, out of picture? I vaguely remember that its route is b/w Polaris & DT (Mound), via freight rail, 14/15th sts, 3rd/4th, and, finally, High St. If the off-the-freight/on-the-street portion (say, south of 11/12th sts) of the rail is shared by High St. streetcar (assuming the Polaris-DT trains can run on both types of rail), it won’t be astronomically expensive as the failed proposal, will it?
TK,
I actually have not read the whole plan so I cannot comment accurately. I can tell you that if light rail is picked up again the study will be resurrected and modified. Hopefully a new study will not have to replace it and the model can be used with new data. MORPC is building a transportation model and COTA is assisting MORPC in conducting an on-board survey for bus ridership (Sept 2008). I am sure they will have something about light rail demand, maybe sometime next year.
As far as the street car goes, I believe that the street car can be built with a certain guage steel so that commuter rail can also run on it, but it will raise the price. If I had to guess I would say the price increase for the wider guage would be minor compared to the rest of the project. By how much I am not sure as COTA is not too involved with the streetcar project due to Lhota’s pledge to keep our funding separate if the 2006 levy passed.
Again I have no facts to back this up and am not privy to any information about the street car. If I were a betting man I would expect the price to spiral out of control fairly quickly since prices for Right of Way attainment sky rocket when projects, such as a light rail, hit the table. Now I understand that the street car ROW is on public land but if the council investigates light rail then ROW purchasing will be necessary. Speculation will begin and the estimated price will not be pretty.
Hope that helped.
Polis,
Thanks for the comments. It’s great to have someone from COTA reading this site and enlightening us on the organization’s inner workings.
As for the BRT, you’re thinking bigger than me. The complications of implementing BRT that you listed help demonstrate exactly why I recommended starting small, “maybe so small that some people wouldn’t even call it BRT.”
Solutions:
-If signal priority is difficult, don’t worry about it for the time being. Signal priority is most useful in congested areas and Columbus is not a very congested city.
-Same with exclusive bus lanes. They can be great to implement a true BRT system, but many cities have done BRT-Lite without them. Even Cleveland doesn’t have bus lanes on the entire Euclid Corridor.
-If the sizes of stops needs to be re-negotiated and maintenance facilities need to be updated, use standard 40′ buses until the details are worked out. Some agencies are going with standard sized buses anyway because they’re cheaper.
I have always argued that a huge travel time, labor, and fuel savings could be realized by simply straightening out the routes and removing a lot of stops. The guy in charge of MAX in KC agreed with me. So do that, brand the BRT-Lite lines with a new paint job, draw some maps, and market the service. Some smart cards or a proof-of-payment system would also really help cut back on dwell times. You can have most of the benefits of BRT without most the cost.
Johnwirtz,
Thank you for your input. About the BRT – Lite; after forgoing the signal priority and dedicated bus lanes what is left over functions, essentially, as an express route with multiple termini rather than just one (usually downtown). It is a great idea and is discussed from time to time. #31 Worthington Express functions in a similar fashion, many pick ups at one end of the route and a few on the way to downtown, then many downtown. Essentially it is a #2 Express as it covers very similar alignment.
I would argue that the benefits of the BRT are the ability to move quickly through the city. Without signal priority and dedicated lanes the bus would be bogged down. Unless a dedicated ROW exists, such as the one failed one in Detroit, the line would not function as a BRT. Take route #1 Cleveland/Livingston; it is very likely that a BRT vehicle would not move very rapidly down Cleveland. Even with lite traffic there are a plethora of signal lights on Cleveland Ave. The few stops that a BRT down Cleveland would make, I do not believe, would make up for the lack of dedicated lanes and signal priority.
It is my opinion and hunch that if COTA does do a true BRT it is going to go all out. The city and county have expressed more and more interest to improve the transit system in the region. A few years down the road I think there will be more integration between the governments and a true BRT may be more feasible.
As far as your comment about travel time, labor, and fuel savings. It is true that COTA could save a lot of money adjusting route alignments and removing low ridership stops. However, due to the past budget constraints COTA was forced to combine many routes, creating meanders that now have decent ridership. Coupled with that the feds require that routes serve certain areas. COTA is a public service and has to ensure that it serves the public, especially those that have no other option.
With that in mind COTA is starting to analyze routes and take out meanders with low ridership. Usually COTA does not eliminate low ridership stops since, well, the bus hardly stops there and it requires minimal maintenance at those stops but still provides an option for people in the area and street presence. Usually it is easier to keep them in for future use and, on occasion, removing them can create an avalanche of requests to keep it. The issues lies with correcting the past, figuring out the Public Interest, and balancing efficiency with public service.
Polis
Polis,
I agree with all that you said. I’m all for a big “all-out” BRT project, but I’d rather see a short-term improvement like the #31 running all day than no improvement at all. I would change the route name to the 2X to show that it is an express version of the #2.
Even without signal priority, I think there could be significant travel time savings with a 1X, 2X, et cetera type of system. According to Google Transit, the #31 trip leaving High Street & SR-161 in downtown Worthington at 7:32 AM arrives at High & Broad at 8:06 (34 minute travel time). The #2 time table leaving the same location at 8:03 AM arrives at High & Broad at 8:47 AM (44 minutes). That’s a 23% difference in travel time, without signal priority or express lanes. I think ridership would respond to a ten-minute travel time improvement. And as you agreed, it would also save a lot of money too compared to standard #2 service. A route that can run 23% faster needs 23% fewer buses to maintain the same service headway, which also means 23% fewer drivers, less fuel, less maintenance, etc…
Polis and JohnWirtz -
I think this post on StreetsBlog lines up perfectly with this conversation on the various levels of BRT…
http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/08/06/are-american-cities-building-top-notch-brt-or-light-rail-lite/
Thanks for the link Eric.
I saw Alan Hoffman (the Quickway guy) speak at a BRT conference in the Minneapolis area a couple of years ago. He was a very dynamic, engaging, and inspirational speaker. He made a convincing argument that there are some things BRT (namely Quickways) can do that Light Rail cannot. His speech helped me to realize the full potential of BRT, and inspired my Freeway BRT proposal (which is not a Quickway, but kind of similar).
His comment at the end of the Streetsblog link you posted concisely explains the main reason I argue for removing bus stops.
“when a round trip that took two hours now takes less than 40 minutes, you can operate three round trips with the same bus that previously made only one), vastly improving productivity and ACTUALLY PUSHING MANY TRANSIT ROUTES INTO THE BLACK.”
I don’t have any dreams of halving travel times on any COTA routes, but I think saving even ten minutes on a route like the #2/#31 as I mentioned above would dramatically improve productivity and ridership.
Hi everyone. I have not been on this site in some time…where does the time go? Anyway, I found a lot of interesting thoughts on this thread and thought I’d chime in.
In particular, I want to comment on something TK Said:
“Ideally, though, like most streetcar lines, the line should be a “loop,” running parallel only one or two blocks apart to spread the economic development; unfortunately, High St. does not have (I think) a street that closely parallels it (e.g., Neal is too far, Front, Pearl is not a thru way) though 3rd=Summit may be a possibility, and may create much needed economic development in Weinland Park.”
I could not agree more. Let’s say we get the initial streetcar line running on High Street and it does well. I think a loop pattern should be given strong consideration.
How about this:
Keep running north up High St, to either Hudson or Arcadia (which was on a streetcar line, hence its wide ROW), turn east and go to the Hudson/Summit/4th St. area. From there, the line could turn south and run all the way back downtown to German Village, where it could turn west on Livingstion and then back north on High.
We could end up with a very quick running time from Hudson to Downtown on Summit/4th and we would spread the impcat of the streetcar system.
In addition, the Hudson/Summit area could be redeveloped into a transit-friendly neighborhood, with maybe a small public square, ringed by three and four story buildings containing condos, offices and shops.
Finally, such a loop system would provide a springboard for extensions into outlying areas.
Yeak, I know…it’s a dream, but a nice one!
Good article, but note the comment about passenger rail by GCRTA’s Joe Calabrese. What part of Ohio having a greater population density than France does he not understand?
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080812/NEWS16/78160778
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Article published August 12, 2008
$860,000 hybrid vehicle one of Cleveland’s public transit’s revivals
By MATTHEW EISEN
BLADE STAFF WRITER
CLEVELAND — Emmett Fryer maneuvers the futuristic rapid transit vehicle around a corner of Cleveland’s Public Square.
The sleek 63-foot machine appears part bus and part train. It elegantly bends in the middle, its backside returning in line as it completes the turn with a pack of sidewalk onlookers watching. It moves swiftly toward Euclid Avenue, the city’s main downtown thoroughfare.
The $860,000 hybrid vehicle, and 20 others like it, serve as the centerpiece of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s new bus rapid transit project, a nearly $170 million undertaking expected to generate a hefty $4.3 billion worth of downtown economic development and demonstrate the city’s commitment to public transportation.
As many of the nation’s urban centers continue to experience resurgence, and as Americans choose to drive less in the face of increasing gas prices, cities across the country are re-examining how people move from place to place, gauging the demand for new forms of public transportation including light rail and rubber-wheel systems.
“Transit systems are behind the times and inadequate,” said Douglas Kelbaugh, dean of the University of Michigan school of architecture and urban planning. “This country is so invested in the automobile and the road, we’re not going to be able to instantly provide transit.”
Cleveland’s bus rapid transit line, set to launch in October along a 9.4-mile loop of retooled roadways and stations, had been discussed in various forms by community leaders for decades before the city secured federal funding in 2004.
Joe Marinucci, president of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, said the city struggled with deciding which technology would best connect the city’s two business districts — downtown and University Circle, home to Case Western University and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
“We were the guinea pigs in some ways for a major urban center to consider something like this,” he said. “We were really able to put some definition to the project and push it forward.”
While bus rapid transit has recently sneaked onto the American radar, for many years the system has operated in other parts of the world, including Curitiba, Brazil, which was a model for the Cleveland project.
A rail-like approach
Bus rapid transit retains rubber tires but sheds the more cumbersome aspects of traditional bus travel. The specialized vehicles have eliminated steps and widened doors for easy platform loading.
Fare collection is prior to boarding and load times are reduced. The buses run on dedicated lanes.
Cleveland transit officials expect to cut commute time by more than 20 percent along the Euclid Avenue corridor once the bus rapid transit system supersedes the current No. 6 buses that service the system’s most popular line — used by just over 10,000 riders a day.
Transit officials project that 22,000 riders every weekday will use the new bus rapid transit version of the No. 6.
The silvery rapid transit vehicle in Cleveland, tattooed with logos of the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, stretches 23 feet longer than a traditional bus and features rear wheels partially covered by the vehicle’s frame.
It runs on an electric motor powered by ultra-low-sulfur diesel that in the future may be enhanced with hydrogen. A small electronic display inside flashes the next stop in bright red accompanied by a similar reminder from the driver over an intercom.
“Our system has almost every attribute of rail except rail,” said Joe Calabrese, chief executive of the Cleveland transit authority. “If you operate a system that is perceived to be simple to use, has great frequency, is safe, and is clean, you will attract new riders. I am confident we will attract new riders.”
Local possibilities
Mr. Calabrese, who credits former Cleveland Mayor George Voinovich for championing the project as mayor, governor, and now U.S. senator, said the scalability of bus rapid transit makes it a viable option for cities the size of Toledo. He calls the system “BRT Light” when cities pick and choose the elements that gel best with their existing infrastructure.
Toledo and other similarly populated cities could take advantage of the Federal Transit Administration’s recently overhauled “Small Starts” and “Very Small Starts” programs, which offer up to $75 million in funding for small bus, rail, or ferry projects.
James Gee, general manager of the Toledo Area Regional Transportation Authority, which operates more than 40 bus routes a day in the city and most of its suburbs, agreed bus rapid transit could work in northwest Ohio.
“Even if we start small and build a smaller line here in Toledo, we could see the resulting increases in private development,” he said. “It does take a leap of faith, but as other cities have demonstrated if you do take that leap with public dollars, private dollars will follow.”
Bus rapid transit proponents argue a well-established line and permanent transit stations will instill confidence in real estate investors.
The spending along Euclid Avenue in Cleveland between Public Square and University Circle — a street Mark Twain once called the most beautiful in America — includes private development in restaurants and condominiums, educational institutions, and health facilities.
Advertisements throughout Cleveland’s downtown promulgate the coming bus rapid transit line employing the slogan, “pumping new life into Cleveland,” an unintentional verb choice eliciting thoughts of gas pump pains that are driving many back to public transit.
Along for the ride
While bus ridership in both Toledo and Cleveland has grown in recent months, diesel costs have ballooned. And those fuel bills threaten the revenue and viability of busing systems across the country.
“Many systems around the state, instead of adding service when demand is at an all-time high, are probably going to be cutting service,” Mr. Calabrese said.
“My diesel bill went from $5 million in 2003, to $12 million last year, to $21 million this year, and it should be about $24 million next year.”
In Toledo, TARTA will cut its bus service by 7 percent on Aug. 24, a decision that has caused outcries from local riders.
Aside from rising fuel prices affecting expansion possibilities, Neil Reid, director of the University of Toledo Urban Affairs Center, warned transit officials to consider the American comfort level with buses.
“Most people in Toledo, people say under 50, probably have never ridden a bus before or only on sporadic occasion,” he said. “People probably just don’t consider that an option.”
The issues may cut deeper than simple unfamiliarity.
Busing systems in many cities have been painted as ferries for the poor.
Alan Plattus, director of the Yale Urban Design Center in New Haven, Conn., said dismantling a classist attitude — as has been done in many European countries — may be as important to the success of buses in America as the routes they follow.
“The bus system has gotten to be a class system,” he said. “Middle class people who might use the bus instead of taking a car trip don’t do it.”
For many urban planners, busing systems also have become the figurative poor man’s light rail, a shot below the mark for cities focusing on asphalt instead of track and relying on tenuous data promising real estate development around buses.
John Norquist, president of the Congress for the New Urbanism in Chicago, agreed developers are more likely to be attracted to areas along rail stations or lines where the city has signaled its intention to make large, nearly indelible investments.
“Light rail is good because it’s permanent,” he said. “People say with buses they’re good because they’re flexible, but they could disappear at any moment.”
Light rail — the term applied to streetcar systems such as trolleys — is nothing new.
The Richmond Union Passenger Railway came online as the first large electric street railway system in 1888, displacing horse drawn buggies.
Many cities, including Toledo, decommissioned their streetcar systems in the 1950s as the country began its migration to the suburbs and the automobile industry flourished.
Finding the right path
James Seney, former executive director of the Ohio Rail Development Commission, said old streetcar lines in Toledo fit the layout of the community and may be a guide for rail revampment.
“What makes urban rail work is when you create transit routes that have clusters of neighborhoods on them,” said Mr. Seney, the former mayor of Sylvania. “You should design [routes] based on your existing neighborhoods and tie that into the growth of downtown businesses, rather than trying to capture a larger area.”
Though Mr. Seney said new tracks would be needed if Toledo decided to move forward with a rail plan, he admitted “the old guys logistically were correct.”
The push toward rail is being seen in other U.S. cities.
About 100 years after its invention, light rail experienced a heavy resurgence. Most of the United States’ busiest light rail systems today were built or intensely renovated in the last two decades, including lines in Los Angeles; Portland, Ore.; St. Louis; Denver, and Dallas.
Even smaller cities such as Little Rock, Tacoma, and Galveston, Texas, have invested in light rail systems since the turn of the century.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston shuttles over a quarter million people per day on its green and red lines, making it by far the largest light-rail operation in the country.
Falling behind
Despite these steps toward greater public transit, some urban planners remain incensed that American cities have been lapped by international cities.
On Spain’s southern border, the city of Malaga recently began construction on the Malaga Metro, a below ground transit system that covers more than 20 miles.
The undertaking — more expensive and laborious than even light rail — comes from a city with a population only twice as large as Toledo’s.
Mr. Calabrese acknowledged Cleveland could have been well served by a light-rail system bringing additional speed, carrying capacity, and pollution abatement to the city, but that the project would have been too expensive.
“The projects are getting more and more difficult to get funded,” he said. “[Rail] is very expensive to build and very expensive to maintain.”
The transportation veteran said rail can cost as much as $100 million per mile.
The Sound Transit’s Central Link light rail line in Seattle, which will connect Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to the downtown, is expected to open in late 2009 at a cost of $150 million or more per mile because of extensive tunneling and elevated structures in the West Coast terrain.
In Columbus, costs have smothered attempts by Mayor Michael Coleman to engineer an electric streetcar running on a 2.8-mile stretch between the Ohio State University campus and downtown.
The $103 million price met resistance from members of Columbus City Council, who wanted to gather more community input, though the council allotted $300,000 on July 29 to continue studying the system.
Destination points
Cleveland has North America’s oldest rapid transit service to an international airport: the Red Line train service, started in 1968. But like light rail, it faces a major obstacle: population density in the city.
Mr. Reid of the University of Toledo Urban Affairs Center said efficient public transit is a product of high-density points.
“Lots of people have to want to go from A to B and B to C,” he said. “In Toledo, we quite simply don’t have those destination points.”
Cities may not have to immediately pit bus rapid transit against rail. Some experts have suggested cities start with buses and follow ridership trends.
Bus rapid transit lines can be designated and more buses can be tacked on if the service starts to grow. If the volume grows to a point, then some of these vehicles can be linked together. And then tracks can be laid.
Suddenly a bus system has become a fully fledged light rail system.
Cleveland’s Mr. Calabrese said he believes volume and density affect the viability of train lines between cities as well.
“If you look at the intercity rail that has been the most successful, it’s the northeast corridor. One reason is you have a lot of people, a lot of density,” he said. “We don’t have the density to make rail be cost effective.”
Intercity rail
While the future of rail travel within many cities remains hazy, the future of rail from city to city could be brighter.
Mr. Gee of TARTA said Toledoans could someday see train lines running from Chicago to Cleveland and Detroit to Columbus, both of which would intersect in Toledo.
“It would be much easier and more convenient to take a train to Columbus than driving a personal vehicle,” he said.
Mr. Gee explained that a train could provide a happy medium between long-distance flights and short-distance drives.
Others hold the belief that more local train lines — to Bowling Green, Ann Arbor, or the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport — might someday best serve Toledo.
The city’s potential as a crossroads between bigger brothers in the region would be a return to transportation prominence it once enjoyed.
Ted Ligibel, a professor of historic preservation at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Mich., and a prominent Toledo historian, said rail and river were once Toledo’s bread and butter.
“The [Maumee] river was the I-75 of its day because that connected the Great Lakes with the rest of the country” he said. “It was always a place of high commerce.”
Mr . Ligibel said rail followed hot on the heels of Toledo’s well-established water transport and soon trucking muscled in.
“Toledo’s location has always served its well,” he said. “It has always been a transportation hub.”
Contact Matthew Eisen at:meisen@theblade.comor 419-724-6077.
What is Calabrese talking about? Streetcars are much less expensive to build than conventional light rail and as the cost of diesel fuel goes up, so does the cost of operating a bus fleet.
Calabrese is starting to look like an obstacle.
Presentations from the TRB Euclid Corridor BRT workshop are now online for anyone interested:
http://www.nbrti.org/Clevelandwrkshp.html
The BRT line opens today:
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/10/euc.html
[...] Rails provide a smoother rides than even state-of-the art buses that I have ridden. [...]