Hybrid cars save on gas, but they cost more, too

Hybrid cars save on gas, but they cost more, too
Sunday,  June 22, 2008
BY ANDY HIRSCH
WBNS-10TV

George Leonard wanted a Toyota Prius. “I’m trying to save some money on gas,” the Worthington resident said, clearly excited by the prospect of owning a vehicle that, according to Consumer Reports, gets 44 miles per gallon.

“With the gas prices being what they are, we’re looking for ways to save money.” And then there’s the fact that Consumer Reports just rated the gas/electric hybrid the best vehicle in the magazine’s so-called green category — for the fifth year in a row.

For Leonard, there was just one problem: He wasn’t alone in his thinking. “The gas price hit $3.50 a gallon, and it was just people coming in waves,” said Eric Lewis, a salesman at Tansky Sawmill Toyota in Dublin. At some Toyota dealerships in central Ohio, the wait for a Prius can be up to six months.

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Segway owners glide without gas in Columbus

The Dispatch
Segway owners glide without gas
Sunday, June 22, 2008
BY DOUG WHITEMAN

When the Segway Personal Transporter came out in 2001, inventor Dean Kamen said the self-balancing vehicle would revolutionize short-distance travel. At first, however, they appealed mostly to police, mall security crews and airport personnel.

With gas prices escalating, sales are growing. Jared Cavalier, the Columbus Segway dealer, said the increased interest has allowed him to open stores in Toledo and Cincinnati this year.

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Bikeways Plan Mapplet

As requested here, I have overlaid the Bikeways Plan maps on a Google map. The image quality isn’t quite as good as the COTA System Mapplet, but it’s a start. Follow these instructions:

1. Sign in to Google if you’re not already logged in. It appears that this may have to be a gmail address to work correctly. If you don’t already have a gmail address, you may have to get one.

2. Go to the Google Maps user-created content directory

3. Click on the “Add by URL” link to the right of the search box

4. Copy and paste this address:

http://columbusbusplan.googlepages.com/Mapplet_ColumbusBikewaysMasterPlan.xml

5. Click “Add”

6. Click “<< Back to Google Maps” in the upper left corner of the screen.

Delta Cuts CMH Flights to Fort Myers

Delta cuts some Southwest Florida nonstop flights
Two months of flights slashed amid cost-cutting
BY LAURA RUANE • lruane@news-press.com • June 19, 2008

Delta Air Lines won’t provide nonstop service from Southwest Florida International Airport to Boston and Columbus, Ohio, for September and October.

Those cancellations might not be the last.

In a regulatory filing announced Wednesday, the airline said it will cut domestic capacity by 13 percent during the second half of the year, an increase from the 10 percent reduction announced in March.

…Delta previously offered four nonstop flights a week to Boston and Columbus, Ohio, during September and October. These are months when demand from tourists and winter residents is not great, Moreland noted.

Besides Delta, JetBlue provides local nonstops to Boston; AirTran serves Boston with connecting flights. It’s possible Columbus will have no local nonstops in September and October of this year, Moreland said.

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COTA Running Full

Packed COTA buses passing by waiting riders
More people using public transit amid higher gas prices
Wednesday, June 18, 2008 10:52 PM
By Tim Doulin
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

“That happens to me all the time,” said Laverne Morris, a longtime COTA rider from Gahanna who works at Nationwide Children’s Hospital as a secretary.She said the No. 1 Cleveland Avenue bus regularly passes her by, including one morning last week at 5th Avenue, where she was waiting to transfer.

“I had to wait for the next bus,” she said. “They run every 10 minutes, but it made me late for work.”

High gasoline prices are leading more people to use COTA, which four years ago was in financial trouble and soon began to cut its budget and services.

William Lhota, Central Oho Transit Authority president and chief executive, said buses sometimes have to pass by passengers.

“The big local lines — the Cleveland Avenue, the High Street, the East and West Broad Street, the Livingston Avenue and Main Street — at the peak time, it is just a matter of more customers than we have capacity on the bus,” Lhota said.

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It will be interesting to see what COTA comes up with for its September service changes after the new buses arrive this summer. When ridership is up 17.5%, there are plenty of needs and a lot of options to grow. It’s definitely an exciting time for the transit industry.

Where do you want a bike rack?

Go to this Columbus Underground thread and post your detailed suggestion for bike rack locations.  Since Mayor Coleman is asking for suggestions, it will have to be within City of Columbus city limits.  From Walker’s post:

Advice is needed specifically for areas in and around Downtown, including the Short North, the University District, Brewery District, Near East Side, and Franklinton.

I hope these get installed quickly, it is great to see public suggestions are being taken. (hat tip to Walker Evans.)

Congress Votes to Fund Rail “Dreams”

Hat tip to Noozer who pointed us to a Cleveland Plain Dealer article that has a nice summary of the recent passage of SB-6003, and what it means to Ohioans. I’ll just say this about the title…If $4.00 gasoline is a “nightmare”, then I suppose high-speed rail in Ohio qualifies as a “dream”. I can’t wait until it’s the “norm”, and folks start questioning the highway network we keep expanding.

Congress revives high-speed rail dream for Ohio
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Sarah Hollander, Plain Dealer Reporter

If the state could write its own ticket, trains traveling 110 miles an hour would whisk passengers between major and minor cities throughout Ohio.

But at billions of dollars, an extensive high-speed rail network always seemed ambitious at best, unrealistic at worst. Until now.

Legislation working its way through Congress - the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act - has local rail advocates almost giddy with excitement.

The act proposes an up to 80 percent match to help states create or improve passenger rail service.

It also provides $350 million per year in competitive grants for states and Amtrak, specifically for high-speed rail projects.

“This is a huge step,” said Stu Nicholson of the Ohio Rail Development Commission. “A bill like this could make the difference between a plan and a project.”

With gasoline prices soaring, the time is right for rail alternatives, he said.

The legislation, if it stands, signals a landmark shift in national policy toward supporting rail, said Rep. Steven LaTourette.

The act proposes a federal-state partnership that’s more commonly associated with highway projects, he said.

LaTourette, a Bainbridge Township Republican, foresees focusing on one route, possibly a line through Cleveland and northern Ohio, first. Providing clean, fast, convenient service could drag more people out of their cars and encourage further rail investments, he said.

“Imagine if [rail] becomes as popular as it is in Europe and Asia,” he said.

Ohio began working on the hub plan more than a decade ago with a mission to improve both passenger and freight rail service.

The plan includes more than 1,200 miles of track and 46 stations. The seven corridors would connect to planned or existing networks in neighboring states and southern Ontario.

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COTA System Mapplet

I have recently started experimenting with writing Google Mapplets. I wanted to do something simple for my first one, so I overlaid images of the official COTA system maps on a Google map. This doesn’t improve the quality of the COTA map, but it does combine the system map, downtown map, and OSU map into one, let’s you search for addresses in relation to the COTA system map, and possibly makes scrolling and zooming a little easier than the .pdf versions. Eventually, Google Transit directions might work on it too.

Follow these instructions to see my Mapplet:

1. Sign in to Google if you’re not already logged in. It appears that this may have to be a gmail address to work correctly.  If you don’t already have a gmail address, you may have to get one.

2. Go to the Google Maps user-created content directory

3. Click on the “Add by URL” link to the right of the search box

4. Copy and paste this address:

http://columbusbusplan.googlepages.com/COTAGroundOverlayMaplet.xml

5. Click “Add”

6. Click “<< Back to Google Maps” in the upper left corner of the screen.

Let me know if you have any problems getting this to work.

Choose Your Future: Smart Growth or Sprawl

According to the bar chart below, 209,000 additional households are projected in the Central Ohio region by 2030. Where will they go? More importantly, how will they relate to the rest of the urban environment around them?

Scenario 1: Mixed-use, compact, walkable communities with neighborhood business districts
Scenario 2: Half-acre lots on cul-de-sacs in sub-divisions with hundreds of other identical houses, and strip malls on former country roads

Smart growth or sprawl? Conservation or consumption? Walking or driving? Diversity or segregation? In all likelihood, we’ll see some of both scenarios. I certainly hope for more of the former, but I wouldn’t be surprised if technology overcomes energy costs in a few years and it’s back to the status quo. I guess we’ll see. The best thing you can do is vote with your feet and let ODOT, MORPC, and your local elected representatives know what you want.

The outward urge

Planners’ challenge: weighing price of gasoline vs. magnetism of suburbia
Sunday, June 15, 2008 3:33 AM
By Mark Ferenchik
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Soaring gas prices are prompting potential home buyers to look closer to the central city to save money, say those promoting “smart growth” for Columbus.

They want people to buy in urban neighborhoods where they can walk to the store and bike to work.

But planners and developers say the slowdown in central Ohio’s outward growth is temporary. A regional planning agency says central Ohio’s population is expected to grow by 500,000 by 2030, and 60 percent of that growth will be in unincorporated land, much of it outside Franklin County.

Planners say families still will want a house with a good-size yard in an outer-ring suburb or township where they expect to find good services and reputable schools.

Those conflicting views are making it tough on people whose job it is to project where you’ll live and work.

“It definitely presents a huge challenge for communities planning at any level,” said Matt LaMantia, a regional development coordinator for the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission.

MORPC used census data for the 2030 population projection, which covers 12 counties — from Marion to Ross and Madison to Licking, LaMantia said.

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Are Golf Carts the New Mode of Transportation?

I guess it makes sense to drive a small electric vehicle for local trips, but golf carts seem somewhat less practical than a bicycle, which is smaller and easier to store, or a scooter which can go much faster on more roads.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see golf carts on the rise though, especially in planned golf course or retirement communities. I remember a story a few years ago about some guy at Buckeye Lake fighting for the right to use his golf cart on the neighborhood streets and this article says that a resort on South Bass Island is renting golf carts for free on Sunday nights. I was also looking at Google Streetview for Clebration, Florida a few weeks ago and noticed that there were several golf carts parked in the business districts.

Proceed with caution
Research suggests golf carts more dangerous than meets the eye
By MICHELLE GEORGE
The Eagle-Gazette Staff
mgeorge@nncogannett.com

FAIRFIELD COUNTY - They are small, sporty and - in times of high gas prices - becoming a more cost-efficient and popular mode of transportation.

But research from two new studies shows traveling by golf cart might not be the safest way to navigate the roads in your community.

The research - compiled through studies from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus and the University of Alabama at Birmingham - reveals nearly 50,000 people were hurt in accidents involving golf carts during a four-year period.

About half of the injuries occurred on golf courses or in other sports venues, according to the reports results. The other half were on streets or residential property.