A post about the new $41 Million airport interchange generated more comments than I would have expected. Bruce Rawson, one of our frequent commenters, noted that it is difficult to get to downtown from the airport using COTA. He also took the time to send me information about transit service to a little over 40 other cities in the US. I decided to pare down that list and take a more detailed look at how COTA’s service to CMH compares to its peer cities.
First we have to define our “peer cities.” Ideally, this should be based on airport passenger volumes. I couldn’t find a quick and easy data source for this information, so I am assuming that the number of air passengers is roughly correlated with metropolitan size. This may not be true in cities with a lot of tourist traffic like Orlando and Las Vegas. I am also assuming that transit service between the airport and downtown should be roughly correlated to the number of passengers at an airport. Again, this could vary depending on the proportion of regional jobs and destinations located in the central business district (CBD). Nevertheless, this approach should give us enough cities that are worth comparing to Columbus. The ten metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) above and below Columbus on the 2008 population estimate from US Census Bureau are as follows:
Peer Cities
National Ranking | Metropolitan statistical area | Population Estimate (7/1/2008) |
22 | Pittsburgh, PA | 2,351,192 |
23 | Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA | 2,207,462 |
24 | Cincinnati-Middletown, OH-KY-IN | 2,155,137 |
25 | Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville, CA | 2,109,832 |
26 | Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH | 2,088,291 |
27 | Orlando-Kissimmee, FL | 2,054,574 |
28 | San Antonio, TX | 2,031,445 |
29 | Kansas City, MO-KS | 2,002,047 |
30 | Las Vegas-Paradise, NV | 1,865,746 |
31 | San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 1,819,198 |
32 | Columbus, OH | 1,773,120 |
33 | Indianapolis-Carmel, IN | 1,715,459 |
34 | Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, NC-SC | 1,701,799 |
35 | Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC | 1,658,292 |
36 | Austin-Round Rock, TX | 1,652,602 |
37 | Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, RI-MA | 1,596,611 |
38 | Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin, TN | 1,550,733 |
39 | Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI | 1,549,308 |
40 | Jacksonville, FL | 1,313,228 |
41 | Memphis, TN-MS-AR | 1,285,732 |
42 | Louisville/Jefferson County, KY-IN | 1,244,696 |
COTA Service to CMH
There is one regular COTA route that serves Port Columbus International Airport. It is the #92 James Road, which connects the airport to Eastland, a slowly dying mall on the southeast side of the city. You can see a Google Map of the #92 route here. There is also an express route (#52) from OSU to the airport, but it only runs certain days that correspond with the beginning and end of quarters, so I’m not considering it here.
To get downtown, a transfer is required, most likely to the #6 Mt. Vernon Avenue, #10 East Broad Street, or #2 East Main Sreet route. These are three of COTA’s best routes, generally running frequently for most of the day on weekdays. The #6 is slightly less frequent than the #10 or #2. The problem is that the total travel time, at roughly an hour in the best of conditions, is way too long compared to the 15 minute drive time (longer if you have to park and take a shuttle). By the time you get off the #92 to transfer, you could have been downtown checking into your hotel already.
Peer City Service Characteristics
I looked up transit information for each of these cities on the appropriate agency’s website. The following list is sorted by the number of trips per weekday from the city’s major airport to its CBD. I only included routes that run directly between the two destinations with one notable exception. In Columbus’ case, I included the service characteristics for the #92 even though a transfer is required to get downtown:
MSA | Service Type | Trips/Day (M-F) | Hours (M-F) | Peak Headway (M-F) |
Las Vegas | Buses (#108, 109A) | 118 | 24 Hrs | 15 |
Indianapolis | Buses (#8, Green Line) | 81 | 4:57A – 10:51P | 20 |
Portland | Train (Red Line MAX) | 72 | 4:58A – 11:58P | 15 |
Cleveland | Train (Red Line Rapid) | 72 | 4:29A – 1:13A | 15 |
San Jose | Free Shuttle (#10) to Trains (LRT and Caltrain) | 69 | 4:38A – 11:29P | 15 |
Milwaukee | Bus (#80) | 53 | 4:53A – 12:40A | 10 |
Orlando | Buses (#11, 51) | 50 | 5:38A – 11:57P | 30 |
Providence | Buses (#14, 20) | 49 | 5:44A – 11:03P | 20 |
Charlotte | Bus (Sprinter) | 48 | 5:50A – 12:02A | 20 |
Pittsburgh | Bus (#28X) | 42 | 5:55A – 12:05A | 20 |
San Antonio | Bus (#5) | 31 | 5:38A – 9:39P | 20 |
Cincinnati | Bus (#2X) | 28 | 5:41A – 12:16A | 30 |
Columbus | Indirect Bus (#92) |
28 | 6:32A – 10:04P | 30 |
Austin | Bus (#100) | 28 | 5:20A – 11:20P | 40 |
Louisville | Bus (#2) | 26 | 5:12A – 11:07P | 30 |
Kansas City | Bus (#129) | 22 | 5:32A – 6:26P | 15 |
Sacramento | Bus (#42A) | 18 | 5:31A – 10:22P | 60 |
Nashville | Bus (#18) | 16 | 6:53A – 9:45P | 60 |
Jacksonville | Bus (#CT3) | 16 | 6:25A – 9:25P | 60 |
Memphis | Bus (#2A) | 10 | 6:45A – 5:33P | 72 |
Norfolk, etc. | None | 0 | None | N/A |
You can see that the number of trips per day from Port Columbus would rank 13th out of the 21 cities if it ran from the airport directly to downtown. If I had applied the same requirement to Columbus as I did to all the other cities, it would have been 20th, right above Norfolk, which doesn’t have any transit to its main airport. To be fair, the Newport News, VA airport does have transit service, but it doesn’t go to any of the regional downtowns in the Hampton Roads area either.
Las Vegas has far and away the best service from its airport to downtown, running at frequent intervals, 24 hours a day, every day. This shouldn’t be surprising given the large number of tourists and conventions in Las Vegas, and the importance of providing a positive customer experience to Las Vegas’ overall success.
Indianapolis – which I consider to be more like Columbus than any other city – has a surprisingly great level of bus service to the airport. There are two routes, a local route that takes 43 minutes to get to downtown at a cost of $1.75 and an express bus that runs every 20 minutes from 5 AM to 9 PM every day and takes just 15 minutes to get to downtown. The express bus is a special service that costs $7 per trip. This type of premium service might be a good option for COTA. However, they tried something similar called the Capital City Flyer in 2000 or 2001 if my memory is correct, and it was cancelled due to low ridership. It would be interesting to know how successful the IndyGo Green Line has been in attracting passengers.
The next three cities on the list – Portland, Cleveland, and San Jose – all have train service to the airport, so it’s no surprise that service levels are high. Milwaukee, which has very good airport bus service, also has several trips a day to General Mitchell Airport via Amtrak, but I didn’t include those in the totals. Orlando has five bus routes to the airport, but the stats above only count the two that go downtown. Pittsburgh has a nice express route, but there really wasn’t anything too notable for the rest of the cities on the list. Some are providing reasonable service levels and hours and others are just sort of wearing the minimum pieces of flair.
Fares
Last, I thought it might be interesting to see how fares compare across the regions. I used COTA’s new fare that will be in effect as of January, 2010. I don’t have any real comments here, except that COTA’s fares are at the median of the list.
MSA | Fare |
Pittsburgh, PA | $2.60 |
Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville, CA | $2.50 |
Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA | $2.30 |
Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH | $2.25 |
Orlando-Kissimmee, FL | $2.00 |
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | $2.00 |
Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI | $2.00 |
Cincinnati-Middletown, OH-KY-IN | $1.75 |
Las Vegas-Paradise, NV | $1.75 |
Columbus, OH | $1.75 |
Indianapolis-Carmel, IN | $1.75, $7 Express |
Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, RI-MA | $1.75 |
Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin, TN | $1.60 |
Kansas City, MO-KS | $1.50 |
Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, NC-SC | $1.50 |
Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC | $1.50 |
Memphis, TN-MS-AR | $1.50 |
Louisville/Jefferson County, KY-IN | $1.50 |
San Antonio, TX | $1.10 |
Jacksonville, FL | $1.00 |
Austin-Round Rock, TX | $0.75 |
Summary
Although the frequency of service to Port Columbus could certainly be improved, I think the bigger problem is the indirect service. Columbus is the only city on the list other than Norfolk, VA that lacks direct transit service from its airport to the CBD. For a visitor coming to a new city, trying to use the local transit for the first time is confusing enough without having to transfer routes along the way. For a local, the long travel times, which are paritally due to the transfer requirement, are enough to disincentivize taking the bus to the airport.
It shouldn’t be surprising then that $41 Million was needed to fix the interchange of Stelzer Road and International Gateway since everyone drives. In the future you can expect to see major investments in new parking lots and rental car facilities to help people drive to and from the airport.
My preferred solution is still to re-route the #6 Mt. Vernon route to terminate at the airport. This would provide 34 trips per weekday to the airport at 15 to 30 minute headways for most of the hours between 5:30 AM to 11:30 PM. The total travel time is still a little long at 40 to 45 minutes, but it’s better. Removing excess stops and straightening out the route to look more like this could reduce travel times.
It would also be worth investigating the potential for an airport flyer on I-670 like the one in Indianapolis that I mentioned. Such a route would require a considerable marketing and branding effort via the media and signage at downtown stops. The downtown hotels and convention center should also be involved.
My work location is moving to near the airport. I live in Clintonville and have several bus options, but I couldn’t figure out a way to get to the airport area on the bus in under an hour. Since it will only take me 15 minutes to drive, I guess that’s what I’ll be doing. I would have been happy to spend up to 35 minutes on the bus if I didn’t have to drive, but no dice!
Thanks for the thoughtful analysis and your time in bringing this information together. I always learn something new here 🙂 I’m an occasional lurker and first time poster to your site.
I live in the Short North area of Columbus and occasionally take “driving holidays” (I see how long I can go without getting behind the wheel). Nine days is my current record.
Having a simple public transportation route to/from CMH is something I could make use of it six or more times per year. Although, I would hesitate to tell my visiting colleagues coming here from places like Chicago or NYC to skip the car rental and rely on public trans and taxis, especially if they are staying downtown. I have found that my colleagues prefer places like Easton, Polaris and Dublin just as much as downtown/Short North and a car is the quickest way to get to those places.
[…] https://xingcolumbus.wordpress.com/2009/12/12/should-port-columbus-cmh-have-more-transit-service/However, they tried something similar called the Capital City Flyer in 2000 or 2001 if my memory is correct, and it was cancelled due to low ridership. It would be interesting to know how successful the IndyGo Green Line has been in … […]
Thank you for the very informative analysis. I think the point is well made that Columbus public transit to downtown is lacking. To further level the playing field, one could look at the miles/distance of the airports to the central city. A comparison of the auto drive time with the public transit time might work. Some of these cities have airports pretty far from their center.
This was some really neat research, and an excellent post, thanks for sharing. One thing that might augment these statistics (a tiny bit, probably not a lot) is the the OSU CABS bus service has (or had, I graduated last year and have since moved) a direct connection from OSU campus to Port Columbus.
This is strictly anecdotal–but everyone I know in Pittsburgh around the University areas doesn’t think twice about taking the 28X (which connects the major Universities and downtown to the airport). I’ve had a few friends visit in town recetly, and it has been so convenient to say “just hop on the bus” after they arrive in the airport.
I am always taking my dad to the airport from Dublin and try to take the bus to the Short North or Olde Town East as much as possible, but the bus service in Dublin is unbelievably terrible. If I wanted to head out to the airport, it would take around two hours, versus the 20-25 minutes via car.
I can’t stand cars and I can’t stand Columbus’ driving culture. Columbus is the largest city in the United States of America without some sort of light rail system. We need to start pushing for a light rail direct from CMH to downtown.
Steve,
I believe Detroit is actually the largest city and region without an urban rail transit system. I think Columbus is the largest without any kind of rail, since we don’t have Amtrak and Detroit does.
I’m in favor of light rail from downtown to the airport, but I think we should start with a bus to demonstrate that there is demand first.
Edited to add: Detroit does have that downtown people mover thing, but I don’t really count that.
I stand corrected.
The reason that the bus failed first is because once you’re downtown, it’s still hard to get around or out of downtown. There needs to be a network for it to start gaining any speed; how would I get back to Dublin once I’m downtown? I may have to wait dowtown for four hours or more.
Steve,
I agree that service to the outlying areas like Dublin are very limited. You’re basically limited to rush hour express routes. To me that seems like a topic for another post, but your point that network improvements build on each other is well taken.
Good information John. Getting to Port Columbus without a car is a complete pain! COTA once ran a non-stop shuttle service between the airport and downtown, but didn’t do much to promote the service.
Any city’s airport is a source of employment and in this case, Columbus residents are stuck having to use automobiles to access the facility.
Jeff added a good post about this on his site:
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Aaron M. Renn, Andrew J Faulkner. Andrew J Faulkner said: RT @urbanophile mid-sized metro areas and airport transit accessibility. http://is.gd/5mgJZ STL not on list, wonder what MSA def used? […]
Thanks John, Great job. I suspect the lack of will is purely political because improved service would potentially conflict with existing services at and around the airport. However to make COTA more user friendly with seamless metro service might allow more of us to keep more dollars. Thanks again.
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by urbanophile: Transit service at airport for various US cities – http://is.gd/5mgJZ (interesting data from Columbus, Ohio) @IndyGoBus…
When I moved here in 1986, nothing went to Port Columbus which seemed incredible. They tried #16 Long for a while if I remember correctly, then #96 Fifth Av., then #92 James. I believe their long range plan has express service from downtown.
Great post, John!
One other thing to keep in mind… if you’re headed to the airport with a small child (or two or three) in tow, it’s a huge pain in the ass to install a car seat temporarily in the back of a cab. Taking the bus would be a MUCH more family-friendly option.
Very true. There are a number of situations where the bus can be more convenient than driving to the airport, especially considering the high cost of parking. I don’t think the bus has to be as fast as a car, just faster than it is now.
in response to the question about how the ridership is doing on the green line in Indianapolis — there was an article in this morning’s Indianapolis Star about it.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009912150319
The ridership numbers have been increasing significantly since the early days of the service. When the service started in 2007 – not too many people knew about it — and ridership averaged only about “300 – 400” passengers per month. Most recently, it attracted 3,868 riders in October 2009.
It seems with time, more people are learning about it — and there is more information available at the airport about it – so people will know to take it. The route circles around the downtown area – hitting most of the large hotels. I frequently see people waiting at the green line “bus stops” with their luggage, waiting to catch a ride to the airport.
Thanks Tom.
By my count, there were 1,934 Green Line trips in October, 2009, half in each direction. (I can explain how I get that number if necessary). That means there were an average of 2.0 passengers per trip. To me, that doesn’t really seem so great.
If there are are full buses at some times as the article describes, that means there are a lot of empty buses at other times. I would think that it might make sense to look at the passenger demands by time of day and shift some of the off-peak service to the peak hours. Of course, they may be using special buses for the service. If they only have three buses, then they can’t add more service, but they may want to reduce it in the off-peak periods. I guess it’s not a big deal when you’re using other people’s (federal) money though.
The Indianapolis experience is instructive. Their Green Line and the route #8 both serve the airport to downtown. One for local and another for business. (Columbus could easily add the airport to an east west cross-town which travels its perimeter hourly much like the north south route.) As regards additional parking at “Port Columbus International Airport” and the swooning $41M intersection, the next civic improvement needed at that cornfield is a sheltered long term bicycle rack.
I recently moved to Columbus and am from Denver and am disappointed in the overall transit system, especially service to the airport and weekend service in general. In Denver we had SkyRide express service on five routes from all over the city to the airport, which was 25 miles from downtown and about a 40 minute drive. These ran about 21 hours a day and were generally hourly. In my experience it was usually 50/50 airport employees and travelers and they were always well used. These were all premium fare routes, based on distance, from $8-12. Of course DEN has about seven times as many passengers (though a majority are connecting) as CMH, but has probably 15 or 20 times as much bus service. The current rail plan for Denver will also have rail into the terminal by 2017. It is also frustrating that Sunday service stops before 7 PM while flights keep coming in until after midnight. This can really be said for any night of the week as service on the 92 stops before 9 on weekdays.
Las Vegas is interesting in that it has 24-hour service but is not marketed toward or used by travelers. In my experience, it is mainly used by airport employees or locals traveling from one side of the airport to the other. While both routes do go Downtown, the Strip is the main destination in Las Vegas. The routes run 1-2 miles east of the main part of the Strip and you can connect to routes that cross the Strip or transfer at one of the terminals to a Strip bus. The times I have ridden the 109 I have been the only individual with a travel bag on an otherwise packed bus. This is still much more convenient than Columbus, and actually quite convenient if you know your way around. The sheer number of hotels and tourists on the Strip is probably the reason why there is not a bus from the airport directly to the Strip as all those people with bags would cause all kinds of problems for a transit system and would be way to slow with stops.
Just my $0.02.
Even with the service changes in January, service to CMH will not be extended later on Sunday even though many of the local routes are having their service extended to 9 PM on Sunday.
A previous comment stated:
“..Having a simple public transportation route to/from CMH is something I could make use of it six or more times per year”
Therin lies the problem. How can you posiibly expect all day service from downtown t oPort Columbus to be successful if this (6 times a year) is any indication of how often it would be used? Wouldn’t you think that it is a higher priority for COTA to use its limited funding to serve a site that will be well utilized everyday?
One thing missing from all these posts is the issue of money, i.e., the money available to operate more and more service, and (B), is COTA’s cost per hour reasonable, i.e., are they managed well. When you compare their cost per our to the cities you include in your airport analysis, COTA rates poorly, i.e., their costs are high. This issue needs to be addressed so that more money is available to put into service.
Also, I have read that San Antonio is the largest city without rail. More importantly, this seems like a weak argument for building rail. I mean where do you stop? Let’s say Columbus builds rail. Does this automatically justify rail being built in the next largest city without rail, and so on, and so on. I mean pretty soon, Circleville will end up being the largest city without rail.
Rail simply won’t work here until people start riding the bus. People won’t ride the bus until it is convenient, or gas prices are way too high. Neither of these conditions exist.
I must add however, that a couple new hotels downtown will certainly have a positive impact on the need to get from downtown to CMH. Unfortunately, the service COTA operated previously (non stop shuttle service), did extremely poor. It was marketed heavily, even using specially painted/marked vehicles exclusively for the airport shuttle service. No one rode it.
Especially hard to make it work when all the downtown hotels offer free shuttle service to the airport for guests.
I think you have some excellent points Ben. The first is about the market for transit service to Port Columbus. I see three potential groups:
1. Visitors to the city going from the airport to downtown for business, conventions, sporting events, and hotels
2. Airport employees
3. Locals who travel occasionally.
There are two ways to serve these groups, a local route or an express route. I think an express route would be tough to make work. It could serve group 1 well, but would have to compete with airport shuttles as you noted. I agree that it would probably not work for enough people in groups 2 or 3 to make the service worthwhile.
A local route might not work as well for group 1, but I think it could work well for groups 2 and 3. The beauty of the local route solution is that it doesn’t only serve the airport to downtown market. It serves everyone getting on or off the bus along that corridor. So extending a route like the #6 doesn’t really add much cost to the existing service, and serving a major destination like the airport could increase ridership. Now maybe there truly are more potential transit users going to the VA Clinic than the airport, but I find that hard to believe.
Your second point is about costs. I doubt COTA’s costs are really that high, but you have provided me fodder to investigate for a future post.
Lastly, I agree with you about the fallacy of bigness justifying rail. Rail should be built if it meets a specific need, not just to build rail. Sometimes it’s the best option and somtime’s it’s not.
John,
Thanks for the post and I do agree with your comments. The more I think about it, the more a limited stop local makes ssense, I’m just not thrilled with the idea of the #6 being the answer.
The #6 travels way too much through the city, including many bad parts of town. You can imediately wipe the business traveler off the customer list. The business traveler will gladly accept the travel expense reimbursement (rental car/taxi) from their company instead of this route.
A thought just crossed my mind about a limited stop local (but not express) route that uses a major corridor like E. Broad St. Routing along Broad St. to James/Stelzer seems like this would serve the market you described in your post where you capture the airport travelers and workers as well as the local rider traveling to an origin/destination point along Broad St. This could be implemented by pulling some of the resources from the existing Broad St. line, or converting some trips (maybe once an hour) on the #10 to serve the airport.
I will be interested to see if you are able to put something together regarding COTA’s costs. I mentioned it only because I remember during their 1999 or 2000 ballot initiative, both the Dispatch (before they became friendly to COTA/Lhota) and the Buckeye Institute ripping COTA for their high costs. I belive upon taking the helm, Lhota mentioned this was going to be a big challenge. COTA operators were (and possibly still are) the highest paid in the state, and ranked very high nationally, all the while being one of the lowest funded agencies. For example, Cleveland has a 1% sales tax while COTA at the time had a 1/4% sales tax – one-fourth the funding of Cleveland, yet, higher operator wages (per hour) than Cleveland. That problem rests soley with management, and will be very difficult to unwind.
Anyway, thanks for your insights!
I can see how Stelzer/James to E Broad would be a more desirable route for many people because of the surrounding neighborhoods. Seems like a good idea worth investigating.
Here’s another. Why not try a route that runs on I-670, but makes a couple of stops at off-ramps? I call this concept Freeway Bus Rapid Transit and previously proposed it for SR-315 here. On I-670, stations could be created at the existing diamond interchanges for E 5th Ave and Leonard Avenue with relatively low costs. Then people could transfer from the local system (#6 and #96) to the Freeway BRT system. I would also suggest that there is space to create a park and ride adjacent to the Leonard Avenue station that could be used by people going to downtown or the airport.
[…] 29, 2009 by John In my post about transit service to Port Columbus (CMH), Ben commented that he thinks COTA’s operating costs are a problem: One thing missing from all these posts is […]
[…] Columbus crunched some numbers to develop a list of transit trips per day to various airports in peer cities to Columbus, Ohio. Note, this is bus or rail. Here are how some […]
I think everyone is overlooking the possibility of the creation of a private transit option to the airport. I was recently in Thailand and the airport there had a private van service that ferried passengers from the airport the central city. I have no evidence on this, and no business background but i think that this kind of service could possibly work with one stop at Broad and High (law makers and others heading to the State House) the convention center (which would service downtown residents and convention goers) as well as one stop at Ohio State. Using I-670 this service would be quick and convenient and simple enough for people who are out of towners to use. Any opinions?
Shure, quite a few cities have private express service to their airports. They usually use smaller vehicles, maybe an extended van, and might stop at university hospital and downtown hotels (as collecting points). This would serve the student, business and professional class. It’s probably the best way.
Aren’t taxis already pretty much filling that role from the private sector? Some local taxi services have vans in their fleet to service larger groups.
Taxi service is available but a dedicated airport shuttle service has fixed scheduled pick-ups at about 1/4 the cost. That qualifies as seamless public transit. Vans in taxi fleets for ‘larger groups’ doesn’t speak to ‘personal mobility’ becase it requires a common schedule and coordination. A Columbus resident, if they were lucky enough to avoid car ownership in their daily life (saving 20-25% of their monies), could justify either a taxi ride or a shuttle one hundred times a year. I moved to Grandview Heights on a COTA line to downtown and within walking distance to restaraunts, entertainment, and grocery, as a matter of personal choice. But those who maintain an automobile for their daily existence (the cajoled majority) might be induced to consider public transit even if only on occasion were more reasonable and convenient (scheduled). It’s a matter of providing an array of incremental options for incremental change and while COTA should undoubtedly add local routes to the airport for terminal employees and urban residents, it will best fulfill its stated mandate through small improvements for all of the ecomonic spectrum.
The last time in Columbus sans the rigors of Greyhound, I had opportunity to use COTA from airport to Grandview. Terminal overhead instructions were good, and the ground level airport COTA shelter had schedules available, but the empty weatherproof schedule frames should’ve had diagrammed connections to downtown or OSU/Battelle (per Ben). Alas, the taxi drivers gazed upwards towards $20 rides of Ohio respectability, and the bus driver explained in detail how it was that rail connections to Cinncinnati and Cleveland would result in countless personal injuries (?), I survived the $1.75 ride in less than one hour.
You got from the airport to Grandview in an hour on the bus? That seems quick, especially with two transfers. Google says it should take at least an 1 hr 11 min, but there is some transfer time in there. Maybe you did it at a time with shorter transfers? Well done.
Well, to Byrne’s Pub! Maybe I didn’t keep such good time.
[…] Drawbacks – Clearly the coverage could improve. The east side has good service, as do the two main spines on the north side, but there’s nothing going south or northwest and frequent coverage doesn’t get very far outside of the city. I’d love to add the #6 and the #16 to the map as the next steps, and send the #6 to the airport. […]
A very nice article and comment. Thanks to John for posting it here. If #92 crosstown were timed to wait for the #6 at the veterans hospital then you’d have access to a downtown local with good frequency at a good sheltered transfer location.
[…] Should Port Columbus (CMH) have more Transit Service? « Xing Columbus […]
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