The Dispatch has some more details, including potential alignments, on the Cleveland Avenue transit study being undertaken by COTA.
COTA to study option of rapid-transit buses
Sunday, January 9, 2011 02:58 AM
By Robert Vitale
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCHThe Central Ohio Transit Authority wants to study something called “bus rapid transit” – a dedicated lane on Cleveland Avenue that could accommodate bigger, better buses.
The souped-up bus resembles a toned-down light-rail train and would be designed to get people to their destinations faster than traditional buses but would cost far less than rail.
The COTA line would run between Downtown and either Rt. 161 or Westerville. Officials say there are frequent requests for more service in that corridor.
“The whole objective is to reduce travel time and make it more user-friendly,” said William J. Lhota, COTA’s president and chief executive.
The authority will use $300,000 from the Federal Transit Administration and $100,000 of its own money to study bus rapid transit and other potential improvements along Cleveland Avenue. Costs and timetables for implementation depend on what officials decide to do. The study is to take 16 months.
Based on the study cost, I’m guessing this will fall into the FTA’s “Very Small Starts” category, but it could be “Small Start” if the total project costs exceed $50 million or $3 million per mile (excluding vehicle costs). Knowing this tells us a few things about the design of the project because Small Starts and Very Small Starts projects are required to have the following components to be eligible for Section 5309 funding:
- Substantial Transit Stations - At a minimum this will mean a nice shelter with seating, route and system maps, probably some kind of real-time information displays, and possibly ticket vending machines.
- Signal Priority/Pre-emption – This will allow buses to extend green lights or call an early green to reduce delays, but not necessarily at every signalized intersection.
- Low-Floor Vehicles or Level Boarding - Low floor vehicles are pretty much standard now, so this isn’t a hard requirement to meet. Nevertheless, level boarding can reduce boarding delays markedly, so higher curbs at stations and a bus docking system should be considered.
- Branding of the Proposed Service - The buses will probably have a nice wrap to look different from the regular buses. There will be a consistent design to the stations and passenger information displays. They will also have to name it something different than the #1 to distinguish it from the standard bus service. It could be a colored line, or some new acronym like Metro Area Express (MAX). Cleveland branded their Euclid Corridor route as the Silver Line before selling the naming rights to area hospitals for $12 million to call it the Health Line. That’s a good funding technique that COTA should consider.
- Frequent Service - Service has to run at least every 10 minutes in the peak and 15 minutes in the off-peak for 14 hours per weekday. This is similar to the existing service levels on the #1, which operates this definition of frequent service for 12-14 hours per day, but only up to Northern Lights shopping center at Innis Road. This is a big deal though. Frequency is what allows people to rely on transit and think about giving up a car. I believe there is a 20-year commitment required for this service level with financial proof of the ability to operate it.
As for alignments, I think it might make sense to branch off to Westerville (Option 2) AND Easton (Option 3). Also, if you’re going all the way to Westerville, consider getting the route into Uptown instead of ending at St. Ann’s Hospital. This would really help turn Westerville into the region’s premier suburban downtown. Lastly, if a major objective is to reduce travel time as Mr. Lhota said in the article, then they should consider using the Mt. Vernon Secondary right-of-way for a Northeast Busway as one alternative. This would likely be much more expensive though, so it’s probably not a likely option.
I’m guessing that unlike the Euclid corridor that the vacaqncy rate for businesses is much higher in the urban Linden strtch of this proposed line.
I have no idea why dedicated lanes are even being brought up. In fact, not even High St warrants a special bus lane, so they really have no place Columbus, at all. Every time I’ve been up Cleveland it’s like a ghost town with only a handful of cars here and there to break up the stillness of the streetscape. It seems like the only decent amount of traffic is at 11th & Hudson (feeding highway traffic), but the point of a dedicated bus lane is to allow a high volume of traffic to pass by, in which case I have to ask, what traffic? They could easily make the right hand lanes official bus-bike lanes and what little traffic there is will still be able to speed along at 45 MPH like they do now, thanks to a very small number of traffic signals.
The solution is the same as always: remove several bus stops. I’ve ridden the #1 up and down Cleveland and it suffers from that same major problem as the other main routes. It’s funny that the only time COTA is considering this is with a BRT route, as though removing stops now would be an impossibility. Once the numerous extraneous bus stops are weeded out, which are likely the ones consisting of a numbered stick in the ground, then they should overhaul the remaining bus stops for the 21st century complete with real time info, etc.
It’s funny that they held three meetings and finalized this in June and that I of all people never heard of this til now. It’s a shame that it’ll take them a year before they even implement what we already know needs to be done and at $400,000 no less.
As you know, I’m all for speeding up service by removing stops, but a study like this is required to apply for certain funding sources. That funding could buy other time-savings measures like transit signal priority, larger buses, stations with level boarding, and also the 21st century bus stops with real-time info displays that you suggested. I would also note that it’s only $100,000 of COTA money out of the $400,000. I think this is a good investment.
It absolutely should be done, but I wouldn’t think it would take a whole year to plan it, especially when compared to current poorly though out routes.
Yeah, these things take longer than you would expect. I find that most of the delay is going back and forth with comments on documents and waiting for meetings to occur.
First, you have to agree on a scope of services. Then there’s fee negotiation. After that, you can actually start planning. There’s a purpose and need statement, which has to be developed before you can decide what alternatives should be advanced that meet the purpose and need. That involves meetings with elected officials. Then you can get into alternatives analysis and environmental impacts (a Small Start BRT line should be exempt from much of this). They’ll probably have to coordinate with MORPC for ridership forecasts. Then there will be public meetings. Everybody involved in the project has to comment on meeting minutes and agree they’re okay. There’s official waiting periods between the notice of a public meeting and the actual meeting and then time for the public to comment on the project after meetings. Just tons of BS that COTA wouldn’t necessarily have to do if they didn’t want federal money. Basically though, time flies, especially when everyone involved with the project has more stuff going on than just this one project.