My comments on the Streetcar to Columbus City Council

Last week I spoke to Columbus City Council on the topic of the Columbus Streetcar proposal. Yesterday a few dozen other people came out to speak at the public hearing. I guess that makes me a trendsetter, eh? Seriously though, here’s a rough transcript of my address to City Council:

Council Members, thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Walker Evans and my wife and 7-month-old son and I just bought our first home in the King Lincoln District in January. While it’s much more popular for a young family to plant roots in the suburbs, we chose to stay in the central city. My wife and I are very civic-minded people and to use a cliche, we want to “be the change” that we hope to see in our neighborhood. There is a lot of potential in Columbus and we want to be a part of shaping the future of our community.

This is also why we both support the Streetcar proposal. The starter line is the beginning of what can become an all-encompassing transit system that would serve the entire Central Ohio region directly and help to grow our community. The starter line will not be running close enough to our new home for us to benefit directly but we still see the potential that lies in it for our community at large. Public transit is a bigger concept than any single individual, and yet can still have other types of indirect impact on riders non-riders alike.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from people who are against the Streetcar proposal is that the money could be spent on better things such as our education system, or improved safety. Typically people don’t realize that that funding proposal is fee-based and not coming out of general budget dollars, so this money isn’t going to be spent on anything if not on the Streetcar. If it was possible to spend on something else though, would dumping cash into our schools or onto our police officers actually help? No matter what the issue is, you can’t just dump money on a problem and expect it to go away.

The great thing about public transit is that it can have a positive indirect impact on these other issues. More people riding public transit means more people on the streets. And more people on the streets mean more honest eyeballs on the streets. Which leads to a safer environment without the need for an increased police force. Additionally, with the economic development brought on by public rail transit systems comes an increased property tax base that can help fund our public schools. And more importantly, with an increased density of inner-city homeowners comes an increased density of people concerned with how well their neighborhood schools are performing, which ultimately is the problem with our flailing school system.

In conclusion, please be sure to take all factors into consideration when examining the benefits that improved alternative transportation can bring to the city of Columbus. Transportation may primarily be about moving people from point A to point B, but there is a lot more that comes along with it. Thank you.