Photo Credit: Wild Goose, CC BY-SA 3.0
I recently wrote a couple of articles dinging Columbus, Ohio for its branding and marketing. So today I want to highlight where they are getting it right: transport innovation.
You may have seen that Columbus recently became the first city in America to provide a free bus pass to every downtown worker, one that can be used anytime (not just for commuting) and is available to everyone regardless of who they work for. It appears to be funded by the local business improvement district equivalent.
This recently got a nice writeup in the Guardian, which is about as good as it gets in terms of press. The program was also written up in City Lab, Slate, Streetsblog, Next City, and Fast Company.
This is great for Columbus. Why did the city get such excellent press? As the Guardian put it, “Columbus is the first major US city…” They were first.
Doing something new and different made Columbus stand out from the crowd and drew in national spotlight.
We saw the same thing with Columbus winning the DOT smart cities challenge grant. That was another big win in the transport space. (This free bus pass initiative appears to be separate).
These wins point at an opportunity space for Columbus: transport innovation. All of the focus on transport ideas comes from usual suspect cities on the coasts. But things like light rail are a bad fit for a low density, polycentric metropolis like Columbus that grew up in the automobile area. That’s much more then norm of American cities than San Francisco is.
If Columbus can continue to come up with new, different, and innovative ways to create 21st century transport solutions for its profile of city, that could be a way it sets itself apart in the marketplace. It’s already something that’s paying dividends for them.
I’ve always thought Columbus was very good at getting positive PR. Being described as a “major US city” is quite an achievement when you’re actually the 33rd largest metro by population in the U.S. and on par with Cincinnati, Las Vegas, and Kansas City; none of which will EVER be called ‘major US” cities by any publication, no matter what they accomplish. How does Columbus pull that off? However they do it, it’s clear evidence of the marketing savvy of Columbus’ economic and political leadership. Fake it ’til you make it seems to be working for Columbus.
Matt, when I was growing up on the east cost, I basically thought of cities like Cincinnati and KC as major US cities. Maybe because they had sports teams. I recall driving into Indianapolis for the first time with some friends. As we drove into downtown one of them exclaimed “Wow this is SMALL”. Not that it’s really that small, but it certainly wasn’t as big as any of us expected. I believe I’ve seen examples of all those cities called major at one point. Maybe not world class… that’s different.
Aaron, the free bus passes are not directly connected to the Smart Cities program. Basically the City found that office vacancy has been a persistent problem downtown, particularly for the 80’s vintage hi rises. One of the issues is that these buildings probably need a refresh, and some of them have fairly small floorplates, which doesn’t jive with the current style of more open offices.
However, many companies have provided feedback that the cost/availability of parking is a big issue when considering locating downtown. This may sound silly for a city with a lot of surface parking, However Columbus has one of the least developed systems and lowest public transit riderships in the nation. Additionally the recent boom in downtown infill development has taken many of the surface lots offline. I can personally attest that it’s much harder to find a space today than just 2 years ago.
The free bus pass program is designed to free up a few thousand spaces downtown. The hope is this will make downtown a more competitive location with the suburbs while allowing the development boom to continue. We will see how well it works.
Light rail may not be the total package commuter transit solution for Columbus, but there’s no denying that the city would benefit at the very least from a commuter line connecting its airport and convention center. On top of the fact that the I-670 Innerbelt is reliably a mess during rush hour, the lack of rail in this specific instance was actually cited as one of the primary reasons why Columbus was passed over as a host site for the DNC in 2016. If Columbus is positioning itself to be a choice destination for major conventions and events, which it seems to be doing with the recent addition of more hotel space and the renovation of its convention center, to be successful, they can’t expect visitors to be impressed or even satisfied with an experience that relies on rental cars and Uber.
Yet Indianapolis does better than Columbus in the convention game, even without airport-line transit (and with worse bus service overall).
I don’t think it’s a necessity. Somehow Orlando, Las Vegas, and New Orleans attract conventions and visitors without airport transit.
The issue for light rail in Columbus is the same as Indianapolis, in that right now their relatively low population densities are a challenge in implementing it. I find it interesting that while Indianapolis went (nearly) whole hog in combining city and county, Columbus also absorbed suburbs, but in a different way: it required any area wanting water hookup to become part of the city, which resulted in explosive land growth from the 1950s to the 1970s. In theory Columbus can keep expanding, because in Ohio, unlike Indiana, a city can annex land across county lines. (Please correct me if I’m wrong on that point.) http://teachingcleveland.org/annexation-and-mayor-sensenbrenner-the-story-of-how-columbus-grew-to-be-the-largest-city-in-ohio-by-alexander-tebbens/
In Indiana, I believe it’s still allowed if a city is expanding territory it already had in the second county prior to a 1982 law change. It also requires permission of the non-home county commissioners. No new crossover is allowed.
Indiana has lots of multi-county municipalities. Mostly very tiny ones though. Indianapolis is specifically prohibited by the Unigov statue from annexing outside of Marion County.
Thanks for the clarification!
Sure this is a branding win for Columbus, but as George Mattei explains above, Columbus isn’t implementing this policy to garner attention. They are implementing the policy to try and solve a specific problem that the city faces. Perhaps the lesson for folks who care about a city’s branding is that trying to tackle the city’s problems and not being afraid to take new approaches is the best way to garner positive press and build an identity.
What are Columbus problems and how have they been tackled?
Read George Mattei’s post from OCTOBER 5, 2017 AT 5:19 PM (sorry about the formatting, that is how time and date stamp looks copying and pasting)
Those aren’t ‘problems.’ They’re evidence of economic growth. That’s not a problem. That’s an opportunity. Columbus doesn’t have any real problems, other than not getting the due it’s residents feel it deserves.
I cannot tell if this is sarcasm or not (Poe’s law in action). The point of my original post was that Columbus was busy focusing on Columbus, and through that garnered positive national and international press.
It wasn’t sarcasm. Aaron’s point in that Columbus was busy focusing on being first in whatever ways it could, not that it was focusing on itself. I think you’ve missed his point.
Isn’t being a “polycentric” metropolis exactly why Columbus could benefit from mass transit like light rail? Its various hubs make a natural connect-the-dots. Ask anyone riding a sardine-tin COTA #2 from the OSU campus to downtown.
I do think some sort of dedicated line, whether rail or bus, with its own right of way, would make sense to connect Easton, the airport, downtown and OSU. Columbus is a bit unique in that it’s urban assets, such as they are, are extremely spread out. We really have 2 downtown’s, downtown and Ohio State. The area in between those 2 is the most vibrant urban area of the city. So you have this narrow, long area, almost like the Strip in Las Vegas is laid out, that comprises the heart of the city. Conneting this area, the airport and Easton, the faux-urban development near the airport that’s the city’s most dense and vibrant suburban node, makes all the sense in the world.
Except the four nodes form a big U. Downtown is south of THE OSU; the airport generally ENE from downtown; Easton is north of the airport.
I guess it’s not unlike the DC Metro Red or Blue line.
Yes, this would be more connecting the urban node pieces vs commuting downtown from the burbs. I do agree that Columbus’ urban fabric doesn’t lend itself to a massive transit system in the sense that it’s fairly spread out.
Although I guess there’s an argument to be made that over time in a growing city you can develop new nodes around transit stops. I am intrigued to see whay happens in places like Denver or Charlotte, which did opt for rail lines and have more Columbus – like development patterns (i.e. modest sized urban core, significant suburbs areas).
Aaron–
Always good to find the positive developments, particularly in a large city with very little non-bus transit. Almost starting from scratch, Columbus’ growing service holds some hope for developing transit that could help break the stereotype that “transit is for other people.”
I offer two un-related points. One in my expertise. The other outside of it.
First, Columbus is the largest city without Amtrak service. (Phoenix service stops only in a suburb 15 miles away.) Without a central station, Columbus has a clean slate to think through how commuter rail can startup to serve the city and the suburbs as a region. (As we know, American metros overwhelmingly use rail mostly for suburban service and at the expense of urban redevelopment.)
Perhaps as incentive for an Ohio rivalry, Cincinnati and Cleveland have proposed wannabe lines.
Second, we should look closely at the results of Columbus free bus service for workers. As a consequence of Portland and Denver offering free downtown light rail, both have become a magnet for the less fortunate and some think that this has scared away the middle class… who are the target market to get out of their car dependency.