The city will team up with the business community to finance a $250,000
feasibility study for a proposed downtown circulator streetcar. However,
said Mayor Michael B. Coleman in his annual State of the City speech on Feb.
23, trolleys “…must be affordable to build and operate without a citywide
tax increase.” Coleman is hoping the federal government will pay for much
of the project, if it’s eventually approved, through the new Small Starts
program, which is limited to schemes costing less than $250 million. “What
Coleman is saying is we’re going to seize the day,” Lawrence Fisher,
president of the Columbus Downtown Development Corp., told The Columbus
Dispatch. “We want to be one of the first in line.” Preliminary details
concerning routes, ridership and capital costs would be developed by the
study; a line from Ohio State University to downtown could be a high
priority. Among the firms contributing to the analysis are two major
insurance companies, a health care organization and the Dispatch. Coleman
is also appointing members of a government-business committee to determine
if streetcars are a viable option for Columbus and whether rail
transportation will help spur redevelopment and boost the economy. Central
Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) President and Chief Executive Officer William
Lhota says his agency favors the trolley concept but will continue to
develop its own rail proposals. COTA has been working on a light rail line
linking downtown with suburban Polaris for a decade but has been unable to
get local voters to approve a sales tax increase that would cover the local
share of construction costs. The agency plans to try again on the November
ballot.
