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Columbia Transit


JT Boy

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Transit is a great idea and out state and country could use more of it.  That being said, at its least expensive, Light Rail currently runs around $20 million per mile, and it's about 40 miles from Columbia to Newberry. You guys can do the math.  Maybe focus on getting a half-way decent bus system first.

LRT isn't intended to be used for intercity transit, so it wouldn't be used to go to Newberry. It would likely connect downtown to Irmo at the furthest in that direction. Maybe Sandhill in the northeast. In order to get funding for LRT, Richland would have to pass a transit tax and dramatically improve bus service as a base requirement for receiving federal funds. I don't see any of this happening in the foreseeable future, but I like that people are at least thinking about it.

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LRT isn't intended to be used for intercity transit, so it wouldn't be used to go to Newberry. It would likely connect downtown to Irmo at the furthest in that direction. Maybe Sandhill in the northeast. In order to get funding for LRT, Richland would have to pass a transit tax and dramatically improve bus service as a base requirement for receiving federal funds. I don't see any of this happening in the foreseeable future, but I like that people are at least thinking about it.

Charlotte was able to justify light rail by showing evidence of use along the route (high bus utilization), potential for high economic activity (added density in Uptown, redevelopment of South End, better land use in the suburbs), and a positive economic impact (less congestion on 77, 277 and 485). It was able to draw streetcar funding by demonstrating the same benefits and connecting low income neighborhoods with poor connectivity. Columbia does not have much of a traffic problem when compared to other cities and the bus system is not very well used by locals.

Streetcars are much cheaper than light rails on a per mile basis and are designed to connect neighborhoods rather than suburbs/towns and cities. I think Columbia might eventually have a case for building a streetcar that connects a few of its neighborhoods (maybe the Vista, USC, Columbia Commons, Benedict/Allen, Five Points?). The first step would be something akin to the Gold Line in Charlotte which is a trolley-bus fusion, potentially sponsored by local employers. Of course transit is not useful until there's an economic need for it, as would be the case if parking in downtown was prohibitively expensive. The best thing Columbia can do is shift cars from surface lots to parking garages and then allow those garages to slowly increase rates based on market pressure. At that point, the city may have a stronger argument.

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Charlotte was able to justify light rail by showing evidence of use along the route (high bus utilization), potential for high economic activity (added density in Uptown, redevelopment of South End, better land use in the suburbs), and a positive economic impact (less congestion on 77, 277 and 485). It was able to draw streetcar funding by demonstrating the same benefits and connecting low income neighborhoods with poor connectivity. Columbia does not have much of a traffic problem when compared to other cities and the bus system is not very well used by locals.

Streetcars are much cheaper than light rails on a per mile basis and are designed to connect neighborhoods rather than suburbs/towns and cities. I think Columbia might eventually have a case for building a streetcar that connects a few of its neighborhoods (maybe the Vista, USC, Columbia Commons, Benedict/Allen, Five Points?). The first step would be something akin to the Gold Line in Charlotte which is a trolley-bus fusion, potentially sponsored by local employers. Of course transit is not useful until there's an economic need for it, as would be the case if parking in downtown was prohibitively expensive. The best thing Columbia can do is shift cars from surface lots to parking garages and then allow those garages to slowly increase rates based on market pressure. At that point, the city may have a stronger argument.

Now It was thrown around before that Columbia could do Streetcars/Trolleys again. something that connects All of the Downtown Main Districts. ive made a map before of such a project a route and how it would look in Columbia.

 

18998585563_4473c8ff0f_b.jpg

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Charlotte was able to justify light rail by showing evidence of use along the route (high bus utilization), potential for high economic activity (added density in Uptown, redevelopment of South End, better land use in the suburbs), and a positive economic impact (less congestion on 77, 277 and 485). It was able to draw streetcar funding by demonstrating the same benefits and connecting low income neighborhoods with poor connectivity. Columbia does not have much of a traffic problem when compared to other cities and the bus system is not very well used by locals.

Streetcars are much cheaper than light rails on a per mile basis and are designed to connect neighborhoods rather than suburbs/towns and cities. I think Columbia might eventually have a case for building a streetcar that connects a few of its neighborhoods (maybe the Vista, USC, Columbia Commons, Benedict/Allen, Five Points?). The first step would be something akin to the Gold Line in Charlotte which is a trolley-bus fusion, potentially sponsored by local employers. Of course transit is not useful until there's an economic need for it, as would be the case if parking in downtown was prohibitively expensive. The best thing Columbia can do is shift cars from surface lots to parking garages and then allow those garages to slowly increase rates based on market pressure. At that point, the city may have a stronger argument.

True, although in Charlotte the bus system wasn't that well used (compared to today) until the transit tax allowed for the expansion of service. 

Streetcars make sense from a financial standpoint to be sure,  but they need to pass the public opinion test due to their slower speeds. It might actually be less of an issue in Columbia since the grid system in town is pretty good, but here in Charlotte it gets a lot of flack for being inefficient compared to LRT (even though it isn't an apples to apples comparison).

 

 

 

 

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I'm a big supporter of public transportation, but I really have no idea what would work best in Columbia. I know we used to have streetcars back in the early 1900's, when Cola was a postage stamp sized town. I do have a pretty good memory of the trolleys. They were actually buses to look like trolleys, and I believe, by most accounts, were a colossal failure. I think they started charging a buck per ride, then went to fifty cents, and then eventually just started giving rides for free. Then the two or three in the fleet were scrapped, and began showing up as a novelty for weddings, and so forth. So..a real streetcar network..I really have no idea if it would work. I do know, however, we are growing as a city, not only in population, but in "cool factor", so maybe people would take to it.    

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Now It was thrown around before that Columbia could do Streetcars/Trolleys again. something that connects All of the Downtown Main Districts. ive made a map before of such a project a route and how it would look in Columbia.

 

18998585563_4473c8ff0f_b.jpg

I like what you did here. If I could make one change, I'd say extend it to Blossom St. The USC campus continues to expand westward towards the river, and think how useful that streetcar would be for the students getting from their dorms/apartments near Huger, up to the traditional heart of campus. Just a thought. However, I like how your route would do drop-offs and pick-ups at Bull Street Common.

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True, although in Charlotte the bus system wasn't that well used (compared to today) until the transit tax allowed for the expansion of service. 

Streetcars make sense from a financial standpoint to be sure,  but they need to pass the public opinion test due to their slower speeds. It might actually be less of an issue in Columbia since the grid system in town is pretty good, but here in Charlotte it gets a lot of flack for being inefficient compared to LRT (even though it isn't an apples to apples comparison).

 

The bus system is not as well used in Charlotte, but the routes that the Gold Line is replacing (along with the Gold Line Trolley) were very well utilized. The challenge with mass transit in any form is the need for city or state funding. Columbia will be strapped for years due to the EPA sewer repairs and Columbia Common, while the state has never been a huge supporter of transportation funding in any capacity. Charlotte was able to manage its portion of the federal match for its own streetcar. It is difficult to imagine Columbia doing the same just because of the smaller tax base. 

On an unrelated note, the cost of rebuilding roads damaged by flooding will be enormous. Nikki Haley has been unwilling to sign a gas tax increase without a corresponding decrease in state income taxes. The legislature is holding a series of budget sessions to determine how to pay for everything on an already limited bydget. Does anyone think they may force her to approve a gas tax increase to pay for the repairs?

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I like what you did here. If I could make one change, I'd say extend it to Blossom St. The USC campus continues to expand westward towards the river, and think how useful that streetcar would be for the students getting from their dorms/apartments near Huger, up to the traditional heart of campus. Just a thought. However, I like how your route would do drop-offs and pick-ups at Bull Street Common.

Thanks I appreciate it. and also you're right on moving it towards the River but as for Blossom St it just doesnt look like a great place for a slower moving Street car to be in. Reason I put it on Greene St from Five points aallll the way down through USC to well the River is because that area in general is about to become the next big Corridor in a few years.

 

I can see it running through the Closed Part of Greene St in USC where Greene Meets Sumter I can see them have gates that open for the Street cars only to go through. kinda like how the LRT goes through the Convention Center in Charlotte.

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The bus system is not as well used in Charlotte, but the routes that the Gold Line is replacing (along with the Gold Line Trolley) were very well utilized. The challenge with mass transit in any form is the need for city or state funding. Columbia will be strapped for years due to the EPA sewer repairs and Columbia Common, while the state has never been a huge supporter of transportation funding in any capacity. Charlotte was able to manage its portion of the federal match for its own streetcar. It is difficult to imagine Columbia doing the same just because of the smaller tax base. 

On an unrelated note, the cost of rebuilding roads damaged by flooding will be enormous. Nikki Haley has been unwilling to sign a gas tax increase without a corresponding decrease in state income taxes. The legislature is holding a series of budget sessions to determine how to pay for everything on an already limited bydget. Does anyone think they may force her to approve a gas tax increase to pay for the repairs?

They might. I mean if i pay a few cents more on Gas I have no problem knowing the money is going back into fixing roads and improving Transportation and not tearing up my car everytime I go to work and Hopefully in the Future better Highway network in through and around columbia and the rest of the state from such a tax increase.

Sidenote: Charlotte's Penny Tax was a 100% going to Transportation and funding the Rail system. it seems to really paying off with all the development in the South End which looks beautiful and I hope this is what South Columbia and N Main could look like in the near future with such a project.

I still am kinda upset that the only way we was able to get voters to bearly agree on a sale taxs which is not even hurting anyone actually. is that we had to use the money on things other than our Transit but its spread out across Transit, Roads, ECT. which I like but I wish it was focused on Our Transit only and can improve it for the better. Maybe we would of had a Blue Line like Rail System already in Columbia by now or at least in the planning or Construction phases already. But now it looks like our city is going to grow up without a Rail System which is great for any great city.

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The bus system is not as well used in Charlotte, but the routes that the Gold Line is replacing (along with the Gold Line Trolley) were very well utilized. The challenge with mass transit in any form is the need for city or state funding. Columbia will be strapped for years due to the EPA sewer repairs and Columbia Common, while the state has never been a huge supporter of transportation funding in any capacity. Charlotte was able to manage its portion of the federal match for its own streetcar. It is difficult to imagine Columbia doing the same just because of the smaller tax base. 

On an unrelated note, the cost of rebuilding roads damaged by flooding will be enormous. Nikki Haley has been unwilling to sign a gas tax increase without a corresponding decrease in state income taxes. The legislature is holding a series of budget sessions to determine how to pay for everything on an already limited bydget. Does anyone think they may force her to approve a gas tax increase to pay for the repairs?

I think we aren't quite talking about the same thing, but I agree that it's unlikely that any jurisdiction in South Carolina will be able to afford any form of serious mass transit due to the general attitude towards taxes and progress in SC.

I hope they force her to sign a gas tax increase, but I assume the legislature will cut funding to education or social programs to fund repairs if they won't.

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I can see it running through the Closed Part of Greene St in USC where Greene Meets Sumter I can see them have gates that open for the Street cars only to go through. kinda like how the LRT goes through the Convention Center in Charlotte.

The challenge with Greene is I doubt they are designing the bridge across the train tracks to accommodate anything other than road traffic. They would probably need to reinforce the bridge at a later date, but I agree that Greene would be an interesting path at least up to the Russell House as it would fit with the more communal use of the street that USC and Columbia seem to be pushing. The image of a streetcar passing through Foundation Square is pretty neat.

I think we aren't quite talking about the same thing, but I agree that it's unlikely that any jurisdiction in South Carolina will be able to afford any form of serious mass transit due to the general attitude towards taxes and progress in SC.

I hope they force her to sign a gas tax increase, but I assume the legislature will cut funding to education or social programs to fund repairs if they won't.

Social programs are generally excluded from discretionary spending due to the obligation to pay and the state has a history of cutting spending for education, so I wouldn't hold my breath. That said, there seems to be enough support within the legislature to push through a gas tax. The question is whether Haley will take advantage of the opportunity to increase transit funding and restructure the Transportation Board. There is a genuine need that her base could not really argue with (other than maybe complaining that it places an undue burden on people who are already struggling financially with loss of homes, possessions, etc.)

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USC's master plan is to make Greene Street it's primary axis to the river. I'm willing to bet that any bridge over the tracks will accommodate all traffic or perhaps ONLY bike/ped traffic.traffic.

All expected traffic, but there are no plans for a streetcar. My point is that they would have to retrofit the newly built bridge to handle a streetcar and there may be additional infrastructure requirements to handle that load (e.g. power if there are not overhead lines).

Edited by carolinagarnet
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  • 6 months later...

I have it from a reliable source that SC is VERY close to raising their gas tax by a good amount with bipartisan support. Details are being hammered out. But perhaps it would leave some room for some kind of rail service. I think LRT going northwest with stops in st. andrews and irmo and mostly park&rides would be huge if it could get decent ridership. Broad river, busch river, and i26/126 are only getting worse. 

My same source says we won't see anything done for malfunction junction for a while due to its estimated cost of 1.2 BILLION to fix. 

it's 12 miles to Irmo from Columbia. that's fairly comparable to phase one of the blue line in Charlotte so you can assume a cost of about half a billion. (CLT's blue line cost 400 million for 9 miles). SC hates taxes but this increase is happening anyway, so many they could use it in a smart way for the future. 

I'd like to see light rail out to Irmo and maybe lexington. And an additional line into the Northeast to help alleviate Two notch and 277.

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According to her, any gas tax increase must be accompanied by an offsetting income or sales tax decrease. I would love for SC to embrace mass transit, but I think the lack of density relative to larger cities with light rail and the seemingly steep opposition to any non-road spending will kill anything pricey.

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Well when I went to the 2020 vision meeting a few of the leaders there said that they already have the money and the plans out to start on the first phase of the LRT or Communter Rail. From downtown to Newberry. But they said that they are worried that they might not execute it properly.

 

Meaning they don't want mistakes.

 

He said the plans he saw was a light rail similar to Charlotte's Siemens S90 trains that will run from the Amtrak station through USC turn around come back through downtown and have stops from columbia all the way to Newberry. With 2 Express trains and 2 semi express trains and 2 trains that stops at every stop.

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I assume they mean they would use the existing tracks that run along St. Andrews Road in Irmo and Dutch Fork/76 through Chapin to Newberry. They would need a right-of-way from Amtrak since that is probably their line. Charlotte initially explored running a line north along 85, but they had trouble convincing Norfolk Southern to grant them a right-of-way for commuter rail because it would interrupt their schedule. Nashville faced the exact same issue and scrapped its plans. I'm not sure the real benefit of a line all the way to Newberry since virtually nobody lives past Irmo, but that line would cut down on the price of rail and land acquisition, which are the primary cost drivers in new mass transit. A line just to Irmo would run along 126, cut to the west of Bush River Road, then continue along St. Andrews into Irmo. Of course the problem with this, aside from right-of-way, is that nobody works near the Amtrak station. I suppose it could appeal to USC employees and downtown workers were there a shuttle to drop them on or near campus. 

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59 minutes ago, carolinagarnet said:

I assume they mean they would use the existing tracks that run along St. Andrews Road in Irmo and Dutch Fork/76 through Chapin to Newberry. They would need a right-of-way from Amtrak since that is probably their line. Charlotte initially explored running a line north along 85, but they had trouble convincing Norfolk Southern to grant them a right-of-way for commuter rail because it would interrupt their schedule. Nashville faced the exact same issue and scrapped its plans. I'm not sure the real benefit of a line all the way to Newberry since virtually nobody lives past Irmo, but that line would cut down on the price of rail and land acquisition, which are the primary cost drivers in new mass transit. A line just to Irmo would run along 126, cut to the west of Bush River Road, then continue along St. Andrews into Irmo. Of course the problem with this, aside from right-of-way, is that nobody works near the Amtrak station. I suppose it could appeal to USC employees and downtown workers were there a shuttle to drop them on or near campus. 

Actually the told me they will have to build new rails and use a bit of the existing rails

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2 hours ago, growingup15 said:

Actually the told me they will have to build new rails and use a bit of the existing rails

In that case they would incur the cost of the new rails, pay for land acquisition from either Amtrak or the existing land owner (if they diverge from existing tracks), need right-of-way from Amtrak, have to pay for the use of the existing tracks at a rate determined by Amtrak, and of course pay for new trains, probably 6-9 months of testing, training for new conductors, a new or modified operations center, a train yard and/or service building, and all of the administrative infrastructure that comes along with it. Charlotte had trouble building the blue line and they were able to spread the cost over a much larger population. The only way the Charlotte red line (commuter rail) would have worked would be for the counties and cities north of Charlotte to chip in, which they refused to do. The argument there was much stronger because I-77 has terrible traffic and cannot be expanded.

Any mass transit pretty much has to be paid for in part by the federal government. With stimulus spending waning, competition for this money is intense. To give you an idea, the last couple projects to win DOT funding for rail (including high speed inter-city) were New England (Boston/New Hampshire/Maine), Chicago-Detroit, Hawaii, and Southern California. These are some of the worst areas for traffic in the country, with people often commuting for more than an hour. I don't want to be overly negative, but Columbia cannot compete against major cities with such significant populations and associated traffic issues. I also doubt that any of the gas money will be used for mass transit. The state is addicted to roads.

Edited by carolinagarnet
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There are some old school GOP officials who are against a new tax, period. Absolutely no new taxes, not matter what. They're the only reason they haven't passed it already. I hadn't heard anything about Haley being against it but she's not exactly involved from what I understand (could be wrong).

It doesn't make sense to bring the line to newberry. Way too low of a population density along the way. I think Richland and Lexington counties could work together to get a light rail out to Lexington. 

I'm not splitting hairs but it's i77 that the red line would parallel not i85.

It's exciting to hear that they're already appropriating funds for it. I had no idea this was anywhere past the "what if" stage. As far as feasability goes, I think a LRT out of downtown into Irmo or Lexington would work well and a street car line (siemens models would be great) around downtown similar to what's already been discussed would compliment it.

And to be fair, i think the biggest thing that would stop this from happening is poor public approval. SC residents hate taxes and hate government. They would have to be very careful about how press gets out about it if they are doing studies. They would definitely have to focus on how absolutely awful malfunction junction is. Maybe even create a plan for that corridor which includes to LRT and some more minor improvements to the interstates to help flow a bit (throw in a couple extra lanes where possible)

I'm pretty sure any sort of commuter rail in Columbia is a very long way into the future. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Exciting times for the state!!

 

South Carolina House Passes Transportation Funding Bill; Measure Moved to Senate

Read more at: http://www.ttnews.com/articles/basetemplate.aspx?storyid=42085

© Transport Topics, American Trucking Associations Inc.
Reproduction, redistribution, display or rebroadcast by any means without written permission is prohibited.

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I really think Columbia needs to jump on the One Way street game  because I'm not going to lie most street in Downtown are inefficient as two ways. Look at Charleston, Charlotte, Greenville. They have a lot of one ways that make sense and keeps traffic flowing.

 

http://www.wltx.com/mb/news/local/drivers-express-mixxed-feelings-over-new-one-way-project-in-lexington/229234394

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