Andrew Hall wrote up a great piece on the status of the Columbus Streetcar proposal and posted it on CU tonight. Below is just a few snippets. Be sure to read the whole thing here.
Streetcar : So where are we now?
Assuming Council is happy with their little beatdown on the Mayor and goes forward with allocating up to 300K$ for research and outreach, there is still some hope for this project. I have some questions :
- Part of that 300K$ is ‘traffic and parking impact study.’ I know what the impetus of some of this. (We miss you, Josh. Come home. All is forgiven.) But I am very confused here. Is there some potential impact on traffic and/or parking that would be sufficient to nix a streetcar? If so, shouldn’t that have been uncovered in the initial study? And wouldn’t this impact study have logically been part of the engineering study which was shot down?
- Outreach and education to whom? Are we still in need of selling the streetcar? Trick question – I know there is a need. I do have to ask if that need would have been significantly less if parties like Council had partnered up with the Mayor and been positive from the start. Or if the Mayor had partnered w/ Council earlier and equally. Either way, we are now in a position where the division and petty antics have created a public relations issue in need of resolving. Not good to be spending money to solve problems you created.
- Then what? Shouldn’t there be a timetable? Consultants love a nice open-ended paycheck, btw. Shouldn’t Council have the courage to make some objective benchmarks? Like if the cost to businesses is > X$, then we are not a go. I think at minimum, Council should set a deadline by which they force themselves to yeah or nay this. Better to stand forth, vote it down and face the consequences than let it die a death of a thousand cuts and avoid any responsibility. That cowardly way is what the politicians on Council want and it is our job – more than any advocacy – to not let them.