Transportation officials readying stance on streetcars
Portland Streetcar
Business Courier – by Dan Monk
Date: Thursday, February 17, 2011, 11:35am EST – Last Modified: Thursday, February 17, 2011, 1:59pm ESTThe Ohio Department of Transportation is developing a statewide policy on streetcars, a document that is likely to influence future funding decisions on urban circulators in Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland.
“We’re going to begin working on the policy soon,” said Greg Murphy, assistant chief of staff for ODOT Director Jerry Wray. “Maybe in 45 days, six weeks or so, we’ll release something on what our stance is on streetcars.”
Murphy said ODOT will evaluate published research from a half-dozen Ohio cities now considering streetcar improvements along with national data to determine how effectively streetcars promote economic development and create jobs.
Read more: Transportation officials readying stance on streetcars | Business Courier
This policy will impact funding decisions statewide. Given the recent transit funding recision, I really doubt the policy will be pro-streetcars. Anyone else care to speculate on what ODOT’s policy will be?
Streetcars don’t pay for themselves and don’t even ask us to apply the same criticism to roads.
Hmm, let me give this a try:
“ODOT opposes streetcars because they are socialist, communist, un-American, and gay. The end.”
I’m sure there’ll be something in there about how real Ohioans prefer interment in their compacted automobiles.
I’m sure the justification process will be an order of magnitude harder to meet than adding a lane of paved roadway.
Hats off to Denton, Texas with the announcement that they are 60% finished and on schedule to open their 21 mile A-Train in June 2011. The system has purchased 11 new (Stadler gtw 2-6) railcars each with capacity of 96 passengers. “Since construction began last summer, workers have cleared vegetation from the right of way, completed more than nine new railroad crossings, installed a 1400′ sound wall barrier, and began work on three pedestrian bridges… Miles of old rail have been removed and replaced with new rail that meets the Federal standard for passenger trains…with improved drainage and grading… Work has also started in the construction of three of the five stations.” That’s about the same distance, say, as Grove City to Worthington, and Hilliard to Port Columbus Airport. Do you see any unused ROWs between those places? Financially, “80% of the project funds are part of the Regional Toll Revenue Funding Initiative. The remainder of the project is funded through local sales tax revenues…” “Trains will have estimated waits of 25 minutes at grade separate speeds. Incidentally the population density of Denton TX, home of universities is 1,309/mi sq while Franklin County OH is 1980 persons/mi sq according to 2000 census. Kind of hurts, don’t it?
Thanks for the info. I didn’t know about this project. Interested readers can see more here:
http://www.mya-train.com/about-the-a-train
It looks like it goes from downtown Denton (pop. 120,000) to an outlying DART light rail station. This is kind of like the equivalent of running a commuter rail train from downtown Delaware to the Crosswoods, if Delaware were four times larger, Columbus were twice as big, and Columbus had light rail running from downtown to the Crosswoods.
I’m a bit skeptical of commuter rail projects that don’t serve a major downtown. Portland has had very disappointing ridership on its WES line. It will be interesting to see how this works out for Denton/Dallas.
Yes, no doubt Dallas-Fort Worth is a much larger metropolis, but I thought the recycling of minimum use (by a simple FRA variance of part 211 title #79) and abandoned ROWs was commendable as a inexpensive venue for grade separate alternative transit. The thing that’s probably more interesting for deficit laden central Ohio with a newly installed Fox-Network-Republican governor, is the source of funding: the North Texas Tollway Authority. Utilizing various tolls scattered throughout the region (ie the Dallas North Tollway, President George Bush Turnpike, Sam Rayburn Tollway, Addison Airport Toll Tunnel, and Mountain Creek Toll Bridge) they have funded massive highway construction projects frequently without oversight into matters far beyond transport. In such a scheme we would certainly get a new tollway to Pittsburg and other strategically placed shakedowns (while others pay for upkeep of I-70) and in return get tossed the bone, in dollars amounts, of mass transit from one well-favoured development to another. A veritable dance with the devil where our only money bet is the use (support) of COTA canyons of frequent service . But pretty trains, yes?