There’s an article in today’s Lantern that highlights the revised streetcar project that I mentioned in print here and on video here. The original streetcar concept wasn’t planned to reach all the way up to OSU during Phase 1, but thankfully it sounds like that’s getting reversed.
City’s streetcar line might expand to campus area
Michael Paull
Issue date: 10/15/07The Ohio State campus will be connected to downtown Columbus by streetcar in the first phase of construction, if the Downtown Streetcar Project is approved.
Previous versions of the streetcar plan were under development by Mayor Michael B. Coleman and a 42-member working group included a 3.6 mile line to the OSU campus as an optional addition to the main line. The primary line will run 2.9 miles along High Street from Mound Street downtown to Buttles Avenue in the Short North. The primary line has also run south to Frankfort Avenue in German Village in previous revisions.
Coleman announced the plan had been revised to include the OSU campus during the first phase of construction.
At an invitation-only meeting with Columbus area bloggers Oct. 6, the mayor discussed changes to the streetcar plan in response to a question about why OSU was being left out of the phase-one plan by Walker Evans, a blogger and founder of the Columbus Underground Web site.
Evans has speculated on his blog, The Walker Evans Effect, why the first phase of the streetcar plan only went north of downtown as far as Buttles Avenue. He was pleased to hear the mayor say this part of the plan had been changed.