There’s another Young Professionals Commission Meeting next week and Doug Moore, COTA’s Vice President of Planning and Customer Service, is the scheduled speaker. He’ll be discussing COTA’s Long-Range Transit Plan, which includes expanding fixed-route bus service and planning for future transit investments. I’m guessing there will be an angle on this of how it will affect the younger demographic as well.
So this is my question to all of you in advance… what do you want out of COTA?
There was an informal poll on ColumbusUnderground in June (Must be logged into the site to view it) about how often people personally ride on COTA and a whopping 50% of the results came in the “Rarely to Never” category. I’m guessing there’s a lot of reasons people don’t ride it, but is there any easy solution for this problem?
And lastly, are there any good questions you’d like me to ask Doug? The Q&A time may be limited, but I’ll do my best to ask as many as I can.
I’d like Doug and the top brass at COTA to understand that transit can and should lead development…not the other way around. Just because our congestion doesn’t merit alternative modes of transit, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be investing in it.
We should be investing in it to provide other living options (transit oriented development), cost savings to residents (by drastically reducing the second largest item on our budgets), enhanced marketability of our city, improved air quality, and economic development. They need to be at the forefront of that sales pitch.
In short, COTA needs to stop being a follower in the growth and development of our city and realize that they’re in the “drivers seat”.
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