Streetcars Coming to Downtown?
January 23, 2007
Like many cities in the United States, Columbus is not well prepared for an energy constrained future. This year SustainLane did an evaluation of the 50 largest cities in the US and Columbus ranked last.
With the passage of the COTA levy and eventual expansion of bus service, this ranking will probably rise. But will downtown streetcars do much to reduce Columbus’ dependence on foreign oil?
I read recently where 5,000 riders a day are projected on a streetcar "system" made up of a High St. line, Broad St. line and others.
From my COTA riding days, I know COTA expects its buses to get 20 riders an hour and that their heavily-used routes (like Broad and High) get significantly more. Let’s say 30 riders an hour to be conservative.
Their heavily-used routes operate about 20 hours a day, but again I will be conservative and base my calculations on 15 hours a day.
30 riders an hour times 15 hours a day means that conservatively one COTA bus gets 450 riders a day. Times ten and that’s basically what this streetcar system is projected to get.
Spend over $100 million on a system that gets the equivalent of ten COTA buses? Is this really the answer?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for REAL transit. High speed rail connecting cities with light rail between downtown, suburban areas, and the airport. But I would think some extra buses circulating downtown would be a much more effective use of $100 million dollars.
