Rethinking Transportation in Metro Columbus: Run Out of Town on a Rail

Over the past few years going to school in Columbus, I’ve always been a little confused by the lack of a useful public transit system. Highways like the 270, 315, and 71 are the major ways people get around, and the only people that use COTA are those unfortunate enough to have no other choice. In 2016, to have access to all of Columbus, you need to own a car. For a city that likes to brag about its status at the 15th largest in the nation, the effective lack of useful public transportation is an embarrassment. An analysis by fivethirtyeight.com two years ago ranked Columbus as the 122nd out of 290 cities for public transportation. This is 107 spots below its population ranking, and a full 100 spots below rival college town Ann Arbor, Michigan, which came it at #20 on the list. Come on, Columbus. You can do better than this.

Because I come from Orange County, a community that is a giant self-contained suburb with a bus system that doesn’t come near my neighborhood, I always thought that driving and dealing with traffic was how the world had to be. I was amazed when I started to travel by how easy it is to move around cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco on their public transit systems. Columbus is already built up with highways and virtually no transit, and I’ve spent the last three years wondering if it would make sense for the city to build a rail system to replace the streetcars that used to run through the city.

One of the most hoped-for systems in the city is a light rail system. It seems that ever since Columbus replaced its streetcar system with buses, residents have been whispering and hoping for rail’s return. A streetcar may not work anymore, but what about subways, or commuter rail? While subways are more popular in theory, and conveniently self-contained underground, they are probably not the ideal solution for a city that has flooding risk. Elevated commuter rail would stay out of the reach of floodwaters while still providing quick transport around town.

The main purpose of a rail system should be getting residents to the places they want and need to go, so I decided to use a map of population density in the Columbus Metro area as the basis for a theoretical rail system.

• Green — city loop connecting outer ring neighborhoods to all other lines with 11 stations on 57 miles of track, following highway 270
• Scarlet — Powell, Upper Arlington, the University, Downtown, and Grove City with 6 stations on 21.5 miles of track, following highway 315
• Grey — New Albany, Easton, the airport, Downtown, and New Rome with 6 stations on 22 miles of track, following highway 40, 670, and 270
• Blue — Downtown, Clintonville, Worthington, and Alum Creek Lake area with 4 stations on 16.5 miles of track, following highway 71
• Yellow — connects Hilliard, Downtown, Bexley, Blacklick Estates, and Canal Winchester, with 5 stations on 21 miles of track, following highway 33

With twenty stations on five lines covering 132 total miles of track, this system would enable cross-town commuting and follow the already-popular routes of existing highways. It would provide most residents with faster and more convenient access to downtown, the Short North arts district, major shopping areas such as Easton, most main neighborhoods, the airport, and the university district. Bus systems could be re-organized to serve local communities surrounding rail stations, eliminating slow and inefficient routes across long distances. This will drive increased ridership of buses, as they become more practical for residents who currently prefer their cars.

The city has worked on proposals like this before, but they have been derailed (sorry for the pun) every time. Arguably the most important issue keeping Columbus from building light rail or streetcar projects has been difficulties finding enough funding. While local stakeholders are excited (a survey of downtown residents and students found that 73% would ride a streetcar if it was built) there is still opposition by residents outside downtown to tax increases or fees that they feel are unfair. In fact, when a downtown streetcar was proposed by Mayor Michael Coleman in 2006, funding proposals were arranged in a way that used taxes in the core “benefit zone” of the line as its main funding source.

This was done to placate residents who did not live near this zone, as it would supposedly have no impact on their property or income taxes. Event tickets and off-street parking in the area would have been taxed an additional 4%, parking meter rates would have increased at $0.75 each, the university would have pitched in $12.5 million, and various federal grants would have also supported the line. However, this was not enough, and there was no final funding agreement. The project has been on indefinite hold since 2009.

Given how difficult it was to find funding sources that residents would accept, it might be more reasonable to estimate the total costs and incomes the city would receive as a check on feasibility of the project. Costs of a rail system on this scale can be roughly estimated from a report published by Reconnecting America, a national nonprofit aimed at advising cities on transportation and community development issues, and usually both.

Heavy transit is not feasible given the uncertainty of ridership and the massive upfront costs for such a large system. Light rail is similarly expensive, and more likely to be used for an urban core line than a metro area commuter system. Commuter rail transit is the best option for Columbus, given these circumstances. Based on these cost estimates (1), and the estimated distances of each line, we can arrive at cost for each line and the system as a whole:

Because of the building density and narrow streets of most of the area within the dashed zone, there is a chance that subway tunnels may be better than elevated or street-level tracks (2) . Additionally, this area would be a prime target for a future subway system to serve the core of Columbus and make car-free downtown living more practical.

Now that we have a total cost, coming in at $1.12 billion, we can begin looking for sources of funding. These can come from train fares, taxes on local events, increased parking costs, gasoline taxes, parking fees at rail stations, food and beverage sales on trains, local and federal government grants, and investments by local businesses. Savings from decreased maintenance spending on road infrastructure can also be diverted to fund the rail system, as roads and highways will be used less frequently. Similarly, as bus routes become more localized and shorter, fewer buses and less maintenance will generate savings that can be diverted to fund rail construction and maintenance.

Let’s look at the most visible source of funding: ride fares. Assuming that an extensive commuter system such as we are proposing will drive transit ridership per capita up significantly, we will average the trips per capita of the four cities with populations closest to Columbus’ metro area population. These cities, as shown below, are: Charlotte, NC; Milwaukee, WI; Virginia Beach,VA; and Austin, TX.

The average of their trips per capita comes out at 22.3 trips per capita. Now, let’s try and find a reasonable value for fares. Given that as of this summer, a COTA ticket with the option of one transfer costs $2.00, it should not be unreasonable to assume a slightly-more-than-doubled fare of $4.50 for our transit system. Increased speed, frequency of stops, and shorter, less circuitous routes, and free time gained should allow the rail to at *least* double its fares compared to COTA. Below is an estimate of total fares collected yearly, based on Columbus’ metropolitan area population of 1.4 million people, estimated trips per capita at 22.3, and a $4.50 average fare (3). Because “trips per capita” also includes non-rail public transport, we will assume that only 75% of trips will occur on rail.

These calculations bring us to find that total yearly income from fares will be around $105 million per year, if our assumptions hold true. In reality, it is likely to start with ridership much closer to the initial trips per capita of 12.5 and work its way up to 22.3 over the first few years of operation. Because we don’t know how long it will take to reach our goal of 22.3 yearly rides per capita, it would be reasonable to assume that we will need to pay our first few year’s maintenance from the low estimates of our fares, and possibly also use federal or state grants to provide some cushion. Our initial fares on the system will likely come out to around $59 million.

If the rail authority tasked with building this project issues bonds for $1.25 billion, to be paid over 30 years, with a 1% APR (5), the amortization table should look something like this:

The rail company will need about $52 million per year to repay bonds, which should be raised from the estimated first year’s $59 million in fares. Future years should have higher ridership and fare income, making it even easier to pay off debt, and even expand the rail system to include a downtown subway or elevated train.

Maintenance should be payable with the measures that Mayor Coleman suggested: a 4% tax increase on events in the Columbus metro area, a $0.75 increase in parking meter hourly rates, a 4% tax increase on off-street parking lots and garages. Savings from decreased spending on highways and bus routes can also be diverted into rail maintenance as needed. I’m not going to look into the sums on these items, because it looks like the fares will pay for maintenance and bond repayments. Especially as maintenance will be low in the first few years of operation, these extra taxes should cover the costs.

Costs of maintenance, funding from taxes and fees, diversion of highway and bus savings, as well as consumers’ willingness to pay for commuter rail are all things that would be interesting to look into, if there was more time. However, from this preliminary look, it seems that a commuter rail system in Columbus is definitely within the realm of possibility. If funding from the state, federal government, or a unilateral bond issue as discussed here could be secured, a rail system would be a reasonable project to take up in order to make more of Columbus more accessible to more of its residents. Long-term, profits from commuter rail could be returned to residents as lowered taxes, or as the funding for a downtown subway system, branch lines to nearby towns such as Newark, London, or Marysville.

My ruling: commuter rail would improve Columbus and is feasible on a long-term basis.

Footnotes:

1. Based on research from Michael Tyznik, it is reasonable to assume that some lines can be run through unused freight lines. However, because the rail systems surveyed by Connecting America may have included acquisition or use rights fees for pre-built lines, no discounts will be applied to our hypothetical rail system.

2. Costs of building in this core would be significantly higher than in other areas, but as with acquisition of pre-built tracks, we will not increase our estimate, as increased costs may be already included.

3. Fares could be set at $4.50 for any route, or there could be a $4.00 base charge for no line switches with a $0.50 to switch lines.

4. Interest rates for Columbus’ municipal debt are just below 2% for 30-year bonds, and will probably go lower before they get higher, as rates around the world continue to fall.

Sources:

1. Columbus Streetcar, Wikpedia

2. Transit Technologies Worksheet, Reconnecting America

3. USA Population Density Map in 2012, ArcGIS

4. Amortization Table for Municipal Debt, Calculator.net

by Chris Kateyiannis