Do you think a light rail will be built in Columbus? (Cleveland: apartment, transfer)

[Muffy1]

Do you think that a light rail will be built in Columbus? I hope that the plan goes through. It seems like they have bern talking about this for a while.

[ohioaninsc]

I hope it gets a system in place...their should be a line from downtown out to the airport...from downtown up north through campus and on up to Worthington....and another line out to Dublin (to Bridge Park?)...maybe a line out west to the casino and on to Hilliard too.

[Redgrasshat]

Originally Posted by Muffy1

Do you think that a light rail will be built in Columbus? I hope that the plan goes through. It seems like they have bern talking about this for a while.

It would certainly make great sense, but most people in Columbus have this childish moronic attachment to their automobiles, in addition to their strong desire to park one foot away from their destination, so I tend to think that this light rail business is quite a few years off. Further, the enemies of light rail have been successful at pushing this foolish notion that if light rail does not immediately earn 1 trillion dollars, it should be viewed as a total failure.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by Redgrasshat

It would certainly make great sense, but most people in Columbus have this childish moronic attachment to their automobiles, in addition to their strong desire to park one foot away from their destination, so I tend to think that this light rail business is quite a few years off. Further, the enemies of light rail have been successful at pushing this foolish notion that if light rail does not immediately earn 1 trillion dollars, it should be viewed as a total failure.

That's not entirely true, at least about the level of support for rail in the city. Every past proposal had majority citizen report. There's just been many cases of really bad timing combined with weak previous leadership.

That said, the city's final first-line rail recommendations should be out any day now.

[unfocused]

We dont have a chlidish moronic attachment to cars. We NEED them. Because long ago in the 40s thru the 70s and on thru today, city planners - and the people alive during that time who voted with their wallets - decided we didnt need transit, or new dense neighborhoods. So we built subdivisions, sprawl, and roads for cars, and gave little to no thought to walking or biking let alone transit.

Other than a rather pathetic bus sytem. When I moved here in the 80s there was a bus stop right outside my apartment on the NE Side, also one right outside my office on Reed Rd. To take the bus I would have to ride all the way downtown, transfer, and ride out to Reed. Now that was moronic - it took 15 min to drive but would likely take one to 1.5 hours one way on the bus.

Now, I live near Westerville and commute to Marysville. Is there a rail proposal to go up Rt 33? Id consider using that. But Ive never heard of such a proposal. All I have heard is a line from maybe Worthington to Downtown. Great for a few thousand commuters, and going to OSU games, or a concert or event Downtown. Not so great for suburb to suburb commuters.

Sure it would be cool to have light rail, subway, monorail, or trolleys. Ive used and enjoyed those in many cities I have visited. But for the majority of commuters it would not be utiliized.

[Mplsite]

Majority citizen support? Then why did the levy to raise taxes for LRT get rejected in 1999? If there was a majority supporting LRT it would have been built: same goes for the streetcar, and the streetcar-LRT hybrid. In fact, when you look at mass transit and other car-alternatives for transportation the city has failed to get anything meaningful operable even in the mid-aughts: where is this majority that supports quality mass transit? You can't support rail and not support a quality bus system to operate in tandem. And that is further exacerbated by the lack of safe bikeways to major mass transit stops to serve residents outside of walking distance and not surprisingly the lack of support for all of these can be experienced by anyone trying to rely on any car-alternative to get around much of the city.

Even in cities with expansive rail lines with high-frequencies they wouldn't have nearly as much ridership without buses that also offer high-frequency service to bring people to the rail lines on the dozens and dozens of routes outside of range of the rail lines. If Columbus had built LRT running 24/7 with 10 min intervals from the airport to Downtown its potential would be stunted by the low number of bus routes which run on a similarly reliable and convenient schedule to funnel potential users to/from the LRT from around the city. It's telling when one of the most popular topics of local transportation is still about finding parking spaces in the Short North. In all likelihood I'll be 40 before LRT is operable in Columbus: 2021.

[Mplsite]

Originally Posted by unfocused

Sure it would be cool to have light rail, subway, monorail, or trolleys. Ive used and enjoyed those in many cities I have visited. But for the majority of commuters it would not be utiliized.

So don't focus on commuters then: they'd only use it for commuting a couple times a day and the suburbs simply don't have the population density to support LRT. Instead, build it for people who use it for daily and nightly outings: to go shopping for groceries, to a friend's house, to the bar, etc in the most densely populated areas of the city . Those are the people who use mass transit the most: not only those commuting from one end of a line all the way to the other. I'm car-free and use the LRT and high frequency buses daily: I almost never ride any of these routes for their entire length and doubt very many do.

[ohioaninsc]

I know up in the Cleveland, my mother and Stepfather who live out in the Eastern Suburb of Pepper Pike drive 5 minutes to the Park Ride at the end of the Green Line and ride into downtown every mornign to work (unless she has to go drive to see a client in the burbs or down in Akron or Canton, which is about once a week). Many east siders do that same thing that work in Downtown Cleveland. They also take it down to events downtown. I do feel a lot commuters that live in the Burbs and work downtown or now maybe live in the Short North or German Village and work out in the Suburbs would utilize it if it's set up right.

[ohioaninsc]

Of course suburb to suburb commuters wouldn't but it would still be a very beneficial transportation option for many who work in the downtown or work in larger surburban office parks like Easton or Polaris or here in Dublin.

[Redgrasshat]

Originally Posted by jbcmh81

That's not entirely true, at least about the level of support for rail in the city. Every past proposal had majority citizen report. There's just been many cases of really bad timing combined with weak previous leadership.

That said, the city's final first-line rail recommendations should be out any day now.

I certainly hope what you claim in regards to the level of public support for light rail in Columbus is accurate, but the enemies of light rail are willing to do anything to stop the project from occurring, because it seems they are very scared that this sort of thing will catch on and do great damage to the car culture.