Business First
Traffic, parking top streetcar questions
Friday, April 18, 2008
by Jeff Bell
A big believer in mass transit, PM Gallery owner Maria Galloway doesn’t have a problem with the idea that streetcars may someday hum just yards from her Short North shop’s front door. She hopes the electric streetcar line proposed for High Street will be the precursor for a light rail system she thinks is overdue in Columbus.
But Galloway, who has operated her art and fine crafts gallery for 28 years, isn’t ready to jump on the bandwagon for the 2.8-mile line that would connect downtown Columbus with Ohio State University. Like other business operators along High Street, she needs answers about the project’s effects on parking and traffic before offering her endorsement.
“The consensus,” she said, “is we like the idea but … questions, questions, questions.”
City officials are working on answers, including whether the streetcar line would run down the center of High Street or in the curb lanes headed north and south, said Mark Kelsey, Columbus’ public service director. An engineering study needs to be completed to address that issue and others involving traffic flow, he said.
Over $100 million for a 2.8 mile street car line that will do nothing but add congestion to the short north. It will look good and be a torist attraction for a few years but a fiscal loser in the end.
Better to invest in Light Rail. Use the Conrail Line from Polaris to the Convention Center. Very little would have to be done to the tracks at this time. You would need to build a slight expansion from the Conrail Lines to Polaris but that is very little. Use Diesel Cars until proven (no Electrification required initially).
The big capital items would be the Light Rail Cars and the Light Rail Stations (Park & Rides). Place one at Polaris, one around Route 161, one in Clintonville Area, one at the Fairgrounds and one at the Convention Center. This would be 5 stations (more could be added later if successful).
One could go all the way from Polaris to Downtown in a short time period. If successful, you could Electrify the line. Then move your Diesel Cars to another test line (East, Southeast, Northwest).
Light Rail for commuter purposes shows more promise given oil/gas prices.
The line, as currently designed, offers the best chance at success and ridership than an expanded light rail system. It remains to be seen how it will work with existing traffic patterns and how COTA will be routed. These are the questions I am anxious to hear answered or expanded on.
If anything, this is hopefully a starter line and will see a great deal of expansion as the years go on.
APS, I think we’re going to have to wait for the engineering study before we know whether or not the Streetcar will add or reduce congestion. If they end up removing High Street parking meters (which is a possibility) it would probably actually improve traffic flow through the more narrow portions in the Short North.
Personally, I’d rather see increased congestion. Times Square in New York is a very congested area, and that’s a good thing. It’s filled with people and activity. If they decided to reduce the sidewalk size there and level buildings in favor of making it quicker to drive through then it would become worthless.
Our downtown neighborhoods don’t need to be places to get through quickly. They need to be places people stop and spend time in. If you want quick access, take the highway.
And I don’t think anyone on this blog is anti-light-rail. It’s been proposed twice in recent history and sadly shot down twice. I don’t know if it would stand a chance if it were to go up again even with slightly increased support due to climbing gas prices.
The Streetcar is something that can easily become a reality due to the unique funding. If it’s something that can get up and running for a cheap $100 million, then people can get a taste for rail and we can start adding regional light rail into the mix for the heftier billion dollar pricetag and perhaps the taxpayers will want to pay for it.
Besides. If we build light rail from Polaris to the Convention Center, how will people get around downtown once they arrive? I’m not sure how many people will want to transfer to a bus line to get to OSU or the Short North or the southern end of Downtown. A multi-modal rail network is what we need. Let’s get it all built one piece at a time.
I would also like to see a more regional rail line instead of a 2.8 mile streetcar line, but Walker’s totally right about the unique funding situation. Perhaps with the exception of the $20 Million from MORPC, the $100 Million for the streetcar isn’t fungible. The benefit zone approach wouldn’t apply to a line from downtown to Polaris. Federal funding would probably be required. That avenue has been attempted before, on the same line. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue it again, but the streetcar funding isn’t exchangeable with any other transit project. The streetcar should be evaluated in comparison to other transportation alternatives/modes within the same alignment, not in comparison to completely separate corridors.