XING Columbus wrote
Euclid Avenue vs. High Street: Why the Streetcar Would Work
August 2, 2008 by johnwirtz
I was recently in Cleveland for two days for a Transportation Research Board workshop to view its new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line first-hand. I came away very impressed with what Cleveland has done, and I couldn�t help thinking about the similarities to what Columbus is trying to do with the streetcar.
The BRT line, along with brand new sewers, sidewalks, signals, and more have given the region a focus for new urban development. If you�re going to build something in the City of Cleveland, you might as well do it on Euclid, because you know all the infrastructure is brand new.
Cleveland has already counted more than $4.3 Billion in investment along the Euclid Corridor, and the line hasn�t even opened yet. Even land values in the depressed mid-town/Fairfax neighborhood have doubled from $5 a square foot to $10. The amount of new development is especially impressive in a city that is losing population to the suburbs and a region that is losing population to other cities in Ohio and the rest of the USA. There are a number of tax and other financial incentives to developing in Cleveland, but the BRT line seems to have accelerated the process.
I am now convinced the streetcar could give High Street the same kind of boost that the Health Line is giving to Euclid Avenue in Cleveland. The healthier economy in Columbus and momentum of development in the Short North should make the development happen all that much easier. This shouldn�t be surprising, as many other cities have found the same results, but I had always been a bit skeptical. A streetcar is the kind of high-visibility infrastructure improvement that would gives developers a reason to focus on downtown and High Street.
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