Comments on: Columbus Looks Ahead to Light Rail

By: Ocean Railroader

Ocean Railroader — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:01:16 +0000

I don’t see why they can’t dust off the old blue prints of the old streetcar system and build the tracks in the exact space in the streets where the old ones ran. Most of the water mains and other things would most likely be set up with the old streetcars in mind in the older parts of town. There were streetcars out there in the 1930′s that could go 90 miles on hour.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:00:12 +0000

This would have been a wonderful thing for the city of Columbus, had it worked out; for such a large city to have virtually no public transit (COTA doesn’t count), is a very sad thing. Unfortunately for the city, it’s also a brain drain. I’m leaving for Chicago as soon as I graduate in June, just as my brother did.

By: Yonah Freemark

Yonah Freemark — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:30:54 +0000

Right, that’s true, and in fact, most of the long timetables on these projects are more bureaucratic than anything else. After all, the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis fell down, was redesigned, and rebuilt in thirteen months. And now that I’m looking into it, it looks like the contract was awarded exactly 364 days before the bridge reopened to the public. That’s what you call a stimulus. If we can make projects all around the country act like that, we could do a lot more…

By: The Overhead Wire

The Overhead Wire — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:24:05 +0000

But doesn’t that mean you can start the project with a design build contract, and by the time you get to the extra design that might be needed for existing ROW you would have it done? I imagine that a gross estimation on basic engineering could be done in a year…

By: Yonah Freemark

Yonah Freemark — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:45:09 +0000

You’re right – you could put the tracks into the street fairly quickly. And the design component of that is not too complicated. But the section of this line extending out on the existing freight tracks is going to take more to design… and it certainly won’t fit in the 90-days to 1-year timeline that Oberstar is proposing for these infra projects.

By: The Overhead Wire

The Overhead Wire — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:10:33 +0000

I don’t know if not being designed is a big problem. It would actually be a good chance to see if design build for new light rail projects could be done. Also, it really shouldn’t take long to insert tracks on a street. It’s a surface line, so i see less problems than one might think. Remember the Seattle streetcar went from idea to running in 5 years. I think this could go faster.