LinkUS Columbus Mobility Initiative

[Music] the columbus metropolitan club was founded in 1976 by 13 women leaders who wanted to be included in the community conversation i am sally bloomfield and i was one of those 13 women having been left out of men's clubs that focused on community issues it was a priority for us to make the club 100 inclusive today cmc presents public policy forums every wednesday at lunch with average attendance of more than 200 people i'm tony bell and i frequently attend forums which are open to everyone and present relevant current and newsworthy topics i'm grateful that cmc is nonpartisan and presents many perspectives on every topic i'm jane scott president and ceo of the columbus metropolitan club cmc's open to everyone we invite you to explore the personal and professional benefits awaiting you at the metropolitan club welcome to cmc welcome to cmc welcome to cmc welcome to cnc good afternoon and welcome to the columbus metropolitan club founded in 1976 by 13 visionary women leaders cmc's mission is to connect people and ideas through community conversation from the start cmc has been open to everyone i'm kristin easterday i serve as the director of communications and public affairs with the columbus regional airport authority and i'm a member of the cmc board of trustees thanks thank you it's truly my pleasure to welcome you here today and thank you to today's forum sponsors aarp ohio and hntb today's cmc live streaming is presented by the emergency response fund of the columbus foundation in partnership with the columbus dispatch and pnc so thank you all i'd like to share a few comments from our presenting sponsor aarp ohio aarp ohio is committed to making columbus and communities across the state more livable for people of all ages that includes efforts to address transportation challenges and enhance mobility which is why aarp ohio is pleased to support today's forum there are 14 cities and counties in ohio including columbus and franklin county that are part of aarp's network of age friendly states and communities aarp ohio offers specialized support around livability issues including housing transportation and economic development aarp ohio encourages you to find out more about the network of age friendly states and communities through their livable communities e-newsletter which is created for community influencers leaders and policy makers and information can be found on the postcard at your table aarp ohio is proud of what age-friendly partners in columbus are doing to enhance livability for all and for more information please contact aarp ohio and now on behalf of aarp ohio it's my privilege to introduce today's topic and speakers in fewer than three decades central ohio is projected to be home to 3 million people covering just 40 square miles in 1950 the city now stretches over 225 square miles just how all these residents will move throughout this vast space is just part of the challenge facing the link us mobility initiative and today columbus mayor andrew j ginther and our panel will discuss link us and mobility in central ohio so let's please welcome christy angel who will be joining us in just a few moments who is president and ceo of the ywca columbus shannon g hardin our president of the columbus city council monica jones chief equity officer with the central ohio transit authority william murdoch executive director of the mid-ohio regional planning commission and our host mike thompson chief content director of news and public affairs with wosu public media before we hear from our panel it is cmc's great honor to invite columbus mayor andrew j ginther to the podium to share his perspective on link us mayor ginther the podium is yours [Applause] thank you so much kristen and great to be with you all back here again at the metropolitan club another very exciting topic really appreciate everyone's engagement in attendance as we talked about our efforts would celebrate one just a few weeks ago and another great opportunity for discussion engagement here today around link us and really fortunate to have the panel that we have and to have mike facilitating that conversation link us is a collective and collaborative effort to for us to realize the potential full potential of our neighborhoods and surrounding areas the city of columbus coda franklin county warpsy have come together as partners to launch link us with the help of many of our residents and some of the folks here in the room today we announced this effort in june of 2020 with the goal of changing how we build systems of mobility in transit in our region and more broadly how we manage growth in the coming decades this is a regional issue and needs to be tackled regionally and so so grateful that the mayor margaret of whitehall and i saw city manager shoni from upper arlington here as well and so many great leaders in our region because this is something that we need to do together to do it successfully this mobility and growth initiative has six critical priorities equity workforce advancement economic development affordability innovation and sustainability we have the opportunity to proactively define our vision for columbus and central ohio and take bold steps to build a region that will help address future growth and expand upon a system of corridors throughout the region that includes a focus on high capacity advanced bust rapid transit bicycle and pedestrian connections safety improvements new affordable housing and a focus on workforce development and job opportunities link us will provide a consistent and equitable approach to implement transit and multimodal transportation improvements it will link our neighborhoods and provide opportunity to the region's residents of today and that are coming tomorrow we got here today by building upon key foundational planning efforts that drive the road map for implementing change in our region we believe that link us builds upon previous regional planning studies including warpsy's insight 2050 and the 2050 quarter concept study as well as coda's next gen study i'm sure you'll hear more about that from william murdock in a moment currently there are two projects in the planning phase of the corridor efforts the northwest corridor along olentangy river road in the east-west corridors which includes the west broad brt corridor and the east main brt corridor with more to come i'm also pleased to share that we kicked off our link us leadership coalition last month being led by president ceo of the partnership alex fisher president hardin and commissioner john o'grady with a group of diverse community business and civic leaders who will provide insight and direction to the link us mobility prosperity and growth initiative we're grateful for their collaboration and leadership it's critical to the success of our work there's a document at your table that gives you an overview of link us and our panelists have quite a bit to share with you today to explain more so i will turn it over to our moderator for today's discussion from wosu public media please welcome mike thompson [Applause] let me change the name tag so i don't get the complaints about the mask mandate good afternoon everybody this is an exciting project if you have tried to run or ride a bike on the olympia trail on a nice afternoon about five o'clock you will see it is packed with people a lot of commuters riding their bikes home from work so it's obvious that many of our neighbors are looking for alternate ways of getting to and from work in their car so let's get right into it uh mr murdoch let me start with you we've had a lot of transportation studies and initiatives over the past decade or so that the mayor mentioned a couple of insight 2050 next gen connect columbus insight 2050 corridor concepts smart columbus what will link us do that these projects did not or what makes this project different well thanks mike and thanks everybody for being here it's exciting because we're building on so many efforts and so many efforts of individuals communities people demanding more today and lincus is just that next step i think it's important when you you think about your question mike to realize that central ohio is not the same region it was even 10 years ago yes our character's still strong the quality of life is still strong but we're growing and we're growing quickly and that means that we need to be thinking not about just today we need to be thinking about 10 20 years down the road and so one of our roles at warp c we we think of ourselves as a future focused local government partnership so we're we're trying to help communities get ready for growth get ready for the transportation system that we need and one of the big projects that we did that kind of set the ball rolling was something we called insight 2050. this was a partnership with uli i know our former chair yarmour steiner is here the whole question there was could we maintain our quality of life if we grow could we make the investments we need today to get in front of that growth and to provide people more options and to do those things that we care about sustainability inclusivity housing and what insight 2050 taught us was that we have different choices about how we can grow and we have different things we have to contemplate with whether it's demographics or technology or development patterns and link us builds on that analysis of what we found we dug a little deeper in something we called corridor concepts and what that did is that showed us that one of the ways we can accomplish the type of growth we want to accomplish is by looking at corridors that are underutilized underutilized for development underutilized in terms of transportation options and really hone in on how could we do this different so this this project comes out of that analysis about how could we grow better how could we grow more inclusively and at the core of that is mass transit and as a region i've been here most of my life i'm not sure about the rest of you but we're a lot bigger than we used to be and we have to stop thinking about our mass transit needs that we had 20 or 30 years ago we're big enough to demand and expect options and what lincus looks at is how mass transit can be invested in these corridors not just transit for transit sake but transit that drives development and drives jobs and drives sustainability and link us knits all that together in a way that could move us forward as a region pretty quickly and and get us ready for growth so we're you can tell we're pretty excited about how this sets us up uh for the next few decades yeah real quick so we can because many of us many of you probably haven't seen the website haven't seen the pictures just really quickly william what would our transportation look like in those 10 or 20 years down the road bike bike paths rapid transit buses what what would folks see yeah so lincus contemplates all of those things but it fits really neatly into the other things that we need let me let me tell you this if we don't do something now we will experience congestion like we have not seen before we we can see our future of inaction if we look at some of the other regions around the country growing a little faster than us if it's car dependent that kind of congestion could just swallow us swallow our growth what we're talking about with things like rapid five and central ohio greenways is bike trails and multi-modal options and connecting neighborhoods transit we're looking at fast frequent reliable service so transit that's faster than taking your car we're looking at pedestrian amenities that fit into that this is a vision for transportation that is not some imaginary concept this is done in some communities well and it's something that we can do now that we're growing bigger and lincus connects all these plans so it's not just about mass transit it's about mobility and sustainability and bike trails and we're going to work on that olympia trail mike we've been working on it so maybe widen it a little bit now absolutely absolutely um you know the cmc was not around when this happened but back in the 60s and 50s there probably was a meeting such as this praising a transportation project that was going to transform the region that was all good the construction of i-71 but president hardin your family and many others felt the unintended consequences perhaps they they knew they were coming but didn't people didn't care of how that neighborhood shut off a good portion of the city from jobs and things like that how do how do we make sure we don't make those same mistakes again yeah thank you mike and thank you to the cmc for hosting this really important conversation which is really about our region's growth strategy uh as uh william said we do have choices to make because one thing that the pandemic has changed a lot of things in our lives but the one thing it has not changed for our region is our growth projections we are still going to grow we're still going to add folks and the decisions that we make today uh and in the near future we'll determine what that growth looks like and who that is for i it was just a few years ago that i went over to our friends at mksk and i've always knew the story hearing from my grandmother who lived on lexington avenue on the near east side that when the freeway system came through that it displaced them they had to move well i always thought that was a story of a block or a few houses that had to move and you know for the good of the the public uh that that maybe that was okay but when i went to mksk and they did the overlay to show what really happened when the freeway system came through it showed that over 400 homes were displaced and we have to remember that in in the 50s and 60s the houses on the near east side didn't just house two or three folks that house ten folks in those those big homes so really we displaced thousands of african-american folks also we displaced eight to ten black owned doctors and um dentist offices in that space right there uh on the near east side and so the decisions that we make um uh with our infrastructure directly impact uh the quality of life for our community and so what link us does for us is allow us to lean into a growth strategy that prioritizes equity that prioritizes uh housing and some of our biggest crisis one of our largest crises there uh mobility uh and our environment and it allows us to in the columbus way stack hands uh and align all the different planning that has been happening over uh many years uh to really uh again meet this uh critical decision point uh we're gonna grow we're gonna add 500 000 to a million people in the near future and i say to friends all the time to william's point if you think that parking was bad in the short north if we don't do something about focused growth then that type of issue is coming to a neighborhood near you and so we have a critical decision point to make about what kind of city that we want to live in and how that it will be a growth strategy that serves all of our residents monica 82 percent of columbus residents commute by car and they're the only ones in the car they're commuting alone uh if this plan comes to fruition what's that number going to be i don't know if i have the answer to that question but what i can tell you is that uh one of the reasons i was excited to come to code is that i see transportation as a social justice issue with an equity solution and so i think at the core transportation is a leverage to bring us together and to lift us up and to quote quota's mission to remove every life forward and so i think you know a part of this is that we've got to look at access to mobility means access to jobs in health care and education and other things have been mentioned before i think conversely though transportation can be used to divide us and to hold us back and historically that has happened here as mentioned by shannon and so we have to be very mindful that um when we talk about the impact of those highways and how they separated neighborhoods um that caused the deterioration of those areas and so i think that um as we are moving forward and we decide to reconnect the community we must be intentional with that and so lincus allows us to be intentional about that reconnection i mean the past code has engaged in solitary efforts to relocate services to where people are link is a collaborative effort it's the partners here today that are trying to be intentional and very direct we are trying to build communities including affordable housing employment around transportation corridors so i think it's a very intentional approach to transportation to you i mean it's hard to get out of our cars it's very convenient yeah we have to we're backed up on 3 15 or 70 71 in the morning but if we have a noon meeting we can just jump in our car and go how do you lower that number will this plan lower that number below that 82 percent mark well yeah but you're targeting is it 70 is it 60 getting out of their cars well i know we we have goals that we're we're working towards but when we think of link us we think the goal should be higher our expectations should be higher and you know mike part of what we're talking about with link us here to answer that question is to put transit and code has done a great job with this but put transit in a place where it's easy for folks to use where it connects people to jobs lincus also builds on that by building in amenities connecting existing workforce centers so that the easiest option becomes getting on transit instead of getting in your car so that's that's part of the the philosophy shift that we're making here there's a lot of work to be done but that's that's a big part of it you don't have any goal as to whether it's going to be seventy percent in their car alone or sixty percent sixty five point three percent i'll have to double check i'll continue but i'll have to double check yeah christie this is about getting people to good jobs um transportation will get folks to there but if they get to a job that's not paying a livable wage that they yeah they have they ride in a nice bus to get to this job but they still have enough money to pay their rent and their medical bills can transportation do that alone can a transportation system do that all by itself no um absolutely not but this is not just about getting people to jobs uh this is also about you know connecting housing uh you know along those transportation along the corridors it's also about other amenities that we all want right in our community whether it's parks and uh you know entertainment and restaurants and all of those things um and and jobs and you know let's think about it you know transportation the way it was designed before is all about getting people out and in out and in right um and you know now we have to think about transportation in a different way but also if you think about where the jobs are and where some of the great the best jobs are quite frankly look at the buildable land in the region it's far out and so you know we can all talk about we don't want sprawl and we don't want to see you know we don't want to see jobs go to this county or that county or adjacent county or or what have you but we are we do have to take a regional approach the time is here we've already seen the census numbers we've already seen the growth people are coming here they're going to keep coming here and when you're talking about getting someone who chooses to live perhaps in the core city but needs to get to a job in aetna or uh you know down in grove port or further along regardless of what the job pays if they don't have to pay a transportation a big transportation bill you know that that feeds into the overall cost of their living so when we look at housing at ywca columbus it's not just about the cost of the house and the amount of money that the person makes but it's what what are the transportation costs that go along with it that's where you start to look at what a household you know affordability and household income and you know i will the the other thing i will say mike is is i want to thank mayor ginther and the lincus team and coda and and warpsy for having organizations like ywca columbus and the columbus urban league and impact and many of the large organizations you know but but even the small nonprofit human service organizations that are serving you know kind of the underserved population and having us at the table now because most of the time the the the design is done without us at the table and we get brought to the table afterwards and it's like how is this going to work for your client how is this going to work for your customer it's like it's not but it's already designed so we we are brought in at a very early stage now and and i so appreciate the true partnership that we are experiencing in this community as it relates to to transportation and mobility getting folks to and from getting folks to and from jobs is is is a key part of this and right now coda is designed as sort of the hub is downtown and the buses all converge here then you transfer for the most part you transfer to other other routes and it can take sometimes an hour and a half for someone to get to a to a pretty low wage job we've profiled folks who work at home health care and they drive they ride the bus 90 minutes each way president hardin this plan still kind of has all of the corridors converging downtown when there are folks who live in westerville and want to get to rickenbacker to work on those jobs there one who live in dublin and want to go to easton can you satisfy those folks what's the theory behind having all of this coming downtown again well mike i want to tie a couple of things that we've talked about in the last few minutes together one we talk about um the folks uh riding cars because of in the time that it it that it takes uh one one of the reasons that folks choose cars is because there's not the choice to have an alternative uh transit that moves folks quicker and faster to not just work but to their daycare and to those in healthcare to the other critical things that our families need one of the important things that we need to know in terms of what ms monaco was saying regarding social justice is that our current code of ridership right now uh more than 50 percent are african-american more than around 50 percent make less than 25 000 dollars a year and so if we are talking about how we move folks and move them more efficiently it does become a social justice issue about making sure that it doesn't take them two hours to get home and take care of their family every evening one of the things that makes uh uh link us different in terms of of what we're doing now are we talking about dedicated lanes we're talking about moving people quicker on lanes and corridors that gets them to their job centers to their healthcare to their child care and back home in a more efficient way and then as we think about what this means to affordability in our community uh christie was 100 right it's not just uh the the uh adding the option it's that we know that um the cost of having a car and needing a car to move around as around 8 500 a year to a family and if we're talking about affordability we're talking about affordable housing one of the best ways to make it uh more accessible to everyone is take away that necessity uh to get around and get around more efficiently and so uh by having these focused corridors by having the growth by having dedicated lanes by having uh making it easier to move around we think that we actually will move folks uh more efficiently uh and uh and help the environment in the way on the way mr murdock there's no light rail in your plan we've talked about light rail since i moved here 25 years ago but there's no light rail why not so we have to think about our goals and if our goals are to get ready for growth and to deliver on what we're trying to do quickly we have to not think about the specific type that that we might think light rail or passenger rail or whatever is really great we have to think about what moves people efficiently what is going to be an efficient quick investment and is this going to help us accomplish sustainability and strengthening neighborhoods and i know that's a roundabout way to answer your question but bus rapid transit is a way to do that when we look at the passenger experience well done best rapid transit is about the same as light rail it feels quick it's easy access it moves faster than the car so if that's an option we also know it's significantly more affordable than a light rail investment and this is this is the key point here so when we're thinking about the region over the next 20 to 30 years if if we could make an investment in more bus rapid transit and accomplish what we need now for all of these goals we want to accomplish then why wouldn't we choose that that sets us up to meet the passenger forecast we have over the coming decades it also means we could touch more neighborhoods more quickly and in a way that to the the average rider it's going to feel as good if not better for those of you who haven't seen what this looks like they look like light rail trains on the road they're long they're in a separate lane sometimes the lanes are separated by curbs with stations similar to what you would have at a light rail station at another city perhaps you've been to one of the and it also allows you correct flexibility if this line's not working you can move it but one of the thrusts of your plan is you want to encourage development along the lines and if i'm a developer i would prefer light rail to not going to go anywhere in 10 years to build a company or a housing project or an apartment building along that light rail line we've seen that in other cities does this hurt you in encouraging developers to make a long-term investment along one of these lines if there are not tracks on the street anyone can answer well if this was just about uh uh just about a transit system then then maybe that's the conversation but this is about land use policies we're talking about a zoning rewrite that will encourage focus development along the corridor and so i think that that by making this a full mobility a full growth strategy uh and making sure that uh that there are with our with this uh with the light rail with our with the brt uh fixed infrastructure that will go in we will there will be fixed infrastructure to make sure that there are uh level boarding uh and so you will know where the growth strategy we've identified as part of the insight 2050 the corridors that we know for sure like you talked about rickenbacker we know that that is an inland port we know that there will be job growth and so by focusing our growth by focusing these corridors by focusing transit and then the land use uh changes the zoning policy changes i think it will develo it will encourage development on those corridors and pulling folks so that they're able to live work and play next to reliable transit add on to what council president hardin said to your question i i think that's not exactly what we've seen in other communities when we look at bus rapid transit people sometimes get fixed on the word bus which buses are great we love coda they have a lot of flexibility but bus rapid transit done in a high quality fashion like we're talking about it is a fixed investment it is a fixed corridor and when we've seen communities around the country in install brt corridors developers investment are very much attracted to that because of that predictability and what the council president was talking about is aligning land use policy around that at the same time which just further strengthens that case talk about the scope of this project as we've heard it's it's much more than transportation it's zoning building facades open space are we biting off more than we can chew with this this is a transit at heart it's getting people around the city around the community when you're getting into facades and what the building should look like along these corridors do you open yourselves up to for people to say this isn't going to work and they'll shoot it down uh you know i don't think so i like to think big and that's just me but i think we as a city have to think big you know because of the growth that we're experiencing here and because you know our residents i think our residents really want us to be thinking bigger you know how many times have people said i wish we had that like chicago has it or i wish we had that like cleveland has it or what have you and um you know it's time to stop talking about i wish or could we and really start to think about what it can be now what does that mean it's not just uh the city or coda's responsibility to help build all of that out we've talked about developers we can talk about the arts community we can talk about you know our metro park and our rec and park systems and so forth so i think there's a role for many uh including you know the human service uh organizations uh to participate in that and you know i want to go back a little bit to just this this notion of developers kind of responding to the investment and you know we've been talk we've talked a lot just in this first half hour about um you know getting people to you know good jobs people maybe not making you know jobs that are um allowing them to you know earn a livable wage and those kinds of things but transit is for everyone transit is not just for people who you know don't make a certain amount of money and can't afford a car transit is for everyone i mean i live i live in a now i say i live in a one person one car household my husband says it's a two-car household but i don't drive right in his car so it's really a one-car household don't tell him that but you know it but you know what do we do when i have the car and he has to get somewhere he's like i'll just take the bus right i'll take the bus um he frequently has to go out to cleveland avenue i can he knows how you know it's reliable it's uh a system that he knows he can get on he knows how to use it it gets him out to the cleveland avenue corridor to go to huntington or you know wherever whatever business he has to to visit and i think more of us as executives or professionals or you know urban uh we live in the suburban communities et cetera we have to think about using transit in our everyday lives too it's not just for people who can't afford a car but it also is it's our new alternative and how many of us have gone to another community and ridden their bus or their rail line i know i have you know gone on vacation and bought day week passes and the whole nine yards and been you know fearless about it right other than you know is it the blue line or the orleans line or what have you and we have to embrace that in our community and so i think it is going to take all of these different sectors to make this work and it has to be a long view and a long vision it's not going to happen overnight it is cmc's tradition to take questions from the audience so we will take questions in just a moment there's a microphone right there so if you'd like to ask a question please uh make your way to the microphone while we wait for folks to gather let me ask a question lots of numbers on your website lots of numbers in your document things like 18 million square foot of recent or planned development in the northwest corridor three billion dollars in investment but there's one number that's missing how much is this going to cost and who's going to pay for it mr murdock how about you [Laughter] thanks mike you know as as we think about it and i'll get to your your question the cost of doing nothing now will be much more expensive 20 or 30 years from now when we're suffering and we need to keep that front and center you know the lincus effort is now at that phase where we are getting to those costs and what i mean by that is this is not a concept this is real last week the mid-ohio regional planning commission included several lincus corridors and what was our long-term funding strategy which means they are now in line to receive federal funding when when that project is ready to go we have a steering committee and a leadership committee diving in to make sure we have the system we want and the system we need so in some ways throwing out a specific number right now gets in front of that process and i know that's not what you want to hear but that's the truth we want to make sure we have the system that the community needs that said when we look around other regions in the country who are looking at solutions like we're looking at these inclusive mass transit but include bike trails and housing and sustainability and everything else they're investing significant resources and if you look at indianapolis they've done that the voters in austin just did that and those are those are good models when we look at how do we how do we find how to fund this what a package looks like and maybe the last thing i'll say and this is not insignificant is the bipartisan infrastructure bill that's before congress right now both ohio senators led on this senator portman was one of the key leaders of it this package provides significant funding for a lot of things in infrastructure but specifically inclusive infrastructure mass transit rail those type of things this could open that window of opportunity for our region to move quickly and if we we do it right we'll be poised to take advantage of some of these things not going to give up on trying to get a number president hardin on page 85 of the 90-page report in the northwest corridor you cite two federal government funding programs one is for projects under 300 million dollars one is for projects over 300 million dollars there are different requirements um so which one would this be under 300 million or over 300 million and is that just for the northwest corridor is that for the entire project well to my good friend williams point uh we are approaching a critical decision point uh the one thing that we that is our saving grace as a community is that our growth is the goldilock effect uh it's not too slow it's not too fast if we look at our peer cities like charlotte like austin like nashville it got ahead of them and so we have this opportu not just an opportunity we have a really responsibility to act and act now so we have a a critical decision coming before our community about what kind of city we want to look like in 20 and 25 years and that will take investment but as william said uh by the way that we are partnering the way that we're working with our regional partners in gahanna and and westerville and um and in whitehall we're really uh looking to and going to the federal government saying we have a regional plan uh that will will help us move ahead and help us grow our region in a in a sustainable way so uh we can't i think the answer is we don't know yet but that's why the critical work is being done right now today uh so that we can come up with that and present a plan that uh that all folks can see their see themselves in not even a ballpark number all right let's go to the questions go ahead well we have some questions for people online and those of you are in the room please come up and we'll do every other one so if you have questions just come on up and and we'll get you in uh trevor trevin flickinger asks for daily transit riders it's hard to get excited about an initiative i.e bus rapid transit that won't get implemented for five to ten years what is the city of columbus encoded doing to make the bus faster more frequent and more reliable right now has there been any discussion on piloting pop-up bus lanes similar to boston in 2016 to 2018 and in the meantime to show the benefits of bus rapid transit well i can take the last part for sure uh one of the ways that uh boston moved forward with their their planning process was to do pop-up lanes and over the last two years uh the city of columbus working with the mayor we've piloted pop-up lanes on several corridors and what we found is that it moved folks faster that folks found it more reliable that folks enjoyed it and so i think it's all of our responsibility to to move and move now and that's why i think this conversation is really important today we don't have a moment to waste as we continue to grow a reminder please say your name and where you're from and please keep your questions brief and to the point yeah i'm jarmier steiner from chillicothe ohio and i am the chair for mission advancement of the uli the chili gothic was a joke president hardin thank you for mentioning that this transit approach is not just about moving people but also will come with a package you know regarding zoning and we also understand the benefits for the families you know living or working and saving the 8 500 a year per car but we also to understand for everyone that when these transit corridors get created the zoning requirements will change you know as you don't need a car you don't need that many parking in the buildings so the developers like myself you know will benefit from that as well so are you planning to use that benefit for the developers uh to alleviate some other issues in our community like inclusion of housing for example affordable housing workforce housing requirements as part of this effort yeah thank you uh thank you armor for that that question i think that the zoning rewrite that's being led out of our building and zoning services is uh considering all of those options one of the the amazing things about or one of the great opportunities that we have with link us is that it brings together uh many different initiatives to solve several different uh issues that we're facing uh mainly being affordable housing we know that the zoning code as it states right now does not allow us to to build and to grow in a way that will incorporate those uh 15 000 jobs that we're creating each year uh we know that we're building 5 000 houses a year and so if we just uh project out we know that we're going to just continue to have that that dearth of housing if we don't uh use uh this initiative and others uh to move us forward and so uh that's why we're really excited about this being a multi-layered and multi-um a multi-approach to several different issues that we're facing so there are several questions that are sort of in the same vein kathy fox asked what is the status of the corridor planning and how soon will the shovels go in the ground how will these development projects be different than what we have done today when will the shuffle go in the ground well to the second part of the question how is this different than before i think that's a really critical question because what we're talking about here is a type of mass transit that central ohio does not have right now we're talking about high quality bus rapid transit that looks and feels uh like an amenity you should expect if you're in a world-class city and that's something that we deserve that's something we can expect and that's very different it's also very different because lincus is not just about mass transit so this is this is a new concept where we are not just building a road or building a bus lane we're incorporating how our bike and pedestrian network fits into this we're looking at how housing and development ties to this so this is fundamentally different than how we viewed our ability to grow and maintain and improve that quality of life so i think that's really important as far as the shovels and things well we've got to have the engineering and we've got to get funded these projects take a couple years but i would think not to over commit us but i think it's reasonable to expect it in this decade so i think that's really reasonable can you explain the follow-up to the how you there are six or seven of these corridors the northwest corridor is the most fleshed out right now the east-west is not far behind how do you decide which one goes first i i can jump in or uh yeah so i would say that along the east west corridor um it coda envisions that vehicles will be traveling on west broad and main street i will not only trigger green traffic lights but so there's gonna be special platforms dedicated uh signals to keep them moving they will have their own um center lanes for uh the quarters in addition to transit stops we'll have race platforms so you can bring your bicycles and wheelchair so i think again it's just really planning for what we're going to need when it comes to me the needs of people and again i think we have to really stress that this is a future focused plan knowing what we're going into and being mindful of you know if housing is tied directly to transportation and so how do we a plan to ensure that we are providing access to as many people as possible for the quality of life not that those of us in this room are experienced but for those who are not in this room and so we've got to always be thinking in terms of how do we ensure that those who are at the table are part of the decision-making process the northwest one basically goes along on changing river road from bethel road to downtown that's where the rapid bus line would be why is that first on the list in the east west second and then the other ones to follow that how was the priority made well well one of the uh added benefits to talking about brt is that and one of the unique things that we're doing here in central ohio that other communities have rarely done is talk about doing more than one corridor at the same time and so what we are trying to do is have an equitable approach to how we build out this system so that it touches multiple neighborhoods and serves multiple issues in our in our community and so i think the northwest corridor and the east-west corridor speaks to job growth speaks to moving folks in and out of our in our community speaks to health care making sure they're connected to a large health care center east and east and west broad street to job centers to where people live so we have a real opportunity to do something that no other city really has done which is to tackle this all in a comprehensive way in moving more than one corridor at the same time that's another reason why light rail is a disadvantage that's a that's a much bigger project and it's hard to do a north-south rail and an east-west rail simultaneously am i wrong there no it's much more expensive much more much more expensive and and when you you're talking about which corridors go first to build on council president's point we looked at what quarters would have the most impact you know potential development what communities could benefit by connections to jobs we looked at travel times we looked at environmental impacts and mike you started us off really well by focusing us on the olympia trail which is the busiest trail and so this is looking at improvements not just to that mass transit but where do we see traffic patterns that we could improve reinforce and there's been a lot of thought by i see about a dozen staff members in the room who've really looked at everything from equity to sustainability to make sure we're starting with the corridors that have the most impact it will make us the most competitive when we go to the federal government to apply for those grants buses are still buses and don't have the same cachet as other mass transits such as light rail and modern street cars what is in the plan to change people's perception of buses i think we have to show folks actually what we're talking about i think that in columbus we might have a vision of what brt is but what we're really talking about is uh to mike's point these dedicated lanes something that we've not seen before with these raised platforms where you can walk in these things do not look like traditional buses which are fine and which move people around but what folks really want is not what it looks like and what it feels like but how it actually makes them how it affects their daily lives and what we're talking about is a brt system that will drastically change the quality of life for our residents and i think that folks will get very excited when they see it but more so when they experience what our brt system would bring to columbus and to our region the other question is the last mile and the last mile the first mile mile to get to the to the stop on this line how do we how are we going to do that to folks who live outside of these direct corridors within say a quarter mile or a half mile anyone how do we solve that problem that's a huge problem especially in the winter time and it's raining and snowing and it is it is a very big issue and i know that coda and a number of the communities not just columbus have been very thoughtfully looking at how to do that the the system that we're talking about with link us the mass transit party even the trails this is the hub of a regional system so coda's network will if i can say this we'll feed into this and continue to get better our trail network will continue to feed into this but when we think about that that last first mile last mile that's really important if you think about the experience of the people who need transit because if there's no sidewalk if it's dark if it's uncomfortable sometimes you don't have a choice and we owe it to our community to provide the type of experience the type of way to get around our community that people have dignity and have the ability to access places without having to to get off of a transit stop and walk a half a mile through mud to work at a job and that's something that is really core to our work at morphy we've done a lot of thought on this i know coda and the city and others are thinking about how to build those stops and and ensure that that's part of what we're thinking and linka specifically does that along those corridors sir mark conti with the capital crossroads and discovery special improvement districts downtown with the increasing alarms going off with wildfires intense storms hurricanes what other thoughts do you have about getting even more aggressive on sustainability with regard whether it's with transit or other efforts including the recent efforts with the city trying to get more trees which is fantastic thanks no mark thank you for that question one of the the cornerstones of the lincus initiative is helping to solve our global issue which is the climate change and the effects on the environment we know that the greatest impact to emissions on in our community and around the country our uh is transportation we also know that in central ohio that 80 percent of our workforce takes single occupancy vehicles to and from um work every day if we are going to add uh you know 500 000 to a million people we cannot afford our children cannot afford uh to have those added emissions into our communities so we see that this as a layered approach uh on top of everything else that the city of columbus is doing uh in terms of moving us forward on our environmental plans you know if i can add the idea that we coda has gone from compressed natural gas to electric vehicles so this is all in the plan and so again it's just trying to be very intentional and ensuring that we shrink the size of our thumbprint in our community and so that's the plan chris you want to get a little bit more on how if folks can afford to live along one of these lines um are there systems in place in your plan to make sure that affordable housing is built along the illinois corridor along that east-west corridor along the corridor that goes out to the airport what kind of guarantees can the folks who can't afford these rents now have that they're going to be able to afford an apartment along this line well they're at this point i would say there are no no plans in this particular in the link us plan but that's my other job that'll do for mayor ginther we're working on a recovery resiliency plan that uh you know you'll hear about later but contemplates uh some very specific affordable housing initiatives some master planning and discussion around you know warehousing how we get more affordable housing where housing should go and then you know the city has hired a new assistant director of housing aaron prosser uh you know and and aaron uh you know working with her i'm sure you know that there will be uh discussion about where housing should go that then links no pun intended to link us and then lastly i'll say it can't just be a city of columbus responsibility um you know housing the housing affordable housing all the types of housing um you know we mentioned our brothers and sisters in whitehall reynoldsburg um you know arlington um because i've seen my former colleague over there um westerville et cetera right they have to build out as well the and be thinking about their types of how types of housing they build and how does it connect into the system so again you know not an all-in-one kind of a plan but a plan that should connect into larger and other initiatives mike i would go a step further than that though i think transit oriented development done right does make affordability the cornerstone of it because we have to remember who we're trying to serve and how we move people and so the only way that we're going to build affordable housing on these corridors is by having a real conversation around density and land use policies so the building prices are not going down the labor costs are not going down so the one thing that we have on our precious resource which is uh land is to to make sure that we're developing it right and transit-oriented development uh is a way to do it and so i think it is actually a cornerstone of the link us plan and we won't move forward unless uh there is a portability built into it into mr steiner's uh point you know he he mentioned you know you know developers who build along this and then you know some return right on um you know how whatever that looks like but right the return on the investment of a developer who decides to be a part of this plan and to make affordability actually affordable to build okay it's hard to build affordable housing because of the zoning policy and the land use policies and all those things so there's a lot of change that has to occur and we also we as neighbors have to be ready to embrace this type of housing in our community housing that doesn't have a three-car garage housing housing that doesn't have um apartments that don't have two spaces per unit or whatever the you know two and a half spaces which you've never seen a half of a car but okay um you know we we as neighbors have to do our part and we have to embrace this change and we have to stop saying no to every single development that comes into our community because it doesn't have you know this kind of setback and these kind of side yards and this kind of garage and all those things that we can't afford to keep doing that in our community you have time for one more question go ahead john which leads right into this question um talk more about how transportation can actually incentivize the development along the corridors without the zoning changes and without the new zoning plan which comes first the chicken or the egg i mean they're congruent we're in the middle of our zoning rewrite as we speak is uh we have not had a zoning rate mayor in 50 60 years and so we are in the middle of that right now and so we see these processes moving in concert we can't do one without the other if we really are going to solve the bigger issues william no i think you hit it yeah bob weiler well-known developer i think i'm not sure he's still on the quota board or not um he advocates no fares for coda buses how about no fares for the bus rapid transit currently fair management a policy change and so we are trying to address that i mean the bottom line is we want to be equitable and so we want to ensure that uh we are not allowing those the most vulnerable who uh we're not requiring them to pay the most of their resources so the new system will actually be fair capping and so once you hit the maximum amount you'll pay no additional fees for it so we're not it free but we are addressing it so that we can ensure equitable transportation from access for all and we're being intentional about that maybe 25 30 years from now it'll be a different conversation but right now we want to make sure that everybody is able to ride on coda well thank you [Applause] thanks to our panelists thanks to you all for listening there's a lot to this project we had a very short time i urge you all to check out the website learn as much as you can read that 95 page report and make up your own mind and watch this as it goes forward because it is pretty exciting but thank you all [Applause] i hope everyone found today's forum to be very insightful and to mike's point you do have a brochure on your table that you can find the link to read that 90-plus page report and learn more please make plans now to join us at our next wednesday cmc where we'll be presenting columbus downtown development corporation review and our thanks to today's forum sponsors aarp ohio hntb and to the emergency response fund of the columbus foundation for presenting our live stream in partnership with the columbus dispatch and pnc and thank you to our online virtual seat patrons and of course a special thanks and appreciation to all of today's speakers mayor andrew j ginther christy angel council president shannon hardin monica jones william murdoch and of course mike thompson thank you so much last but not least we cannot do this without you so we look forward to seeing you next wednesday as the cmc presents another community conversation thank you [Music] you

Channel: Metro Club

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Length: 56min 36sec (3396 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021