This is less of a commentary and more of a commercial for mass transit. Let me see - Crude Oil say 100 bucks a barrel And, the experts tell us that Gas could easily be $4 a gallon by early next year
Personally, I'm not so happy about all of this money heading toward into my gas tank.
As it is right now, I only drive when it's necessary... and honestly, I'd rather be driven than drive.
So with fuel prices, and my lack of enthusiasm for driving, I'd like to bring up a fresh mass transit idea for Columbus.
How about a monorail system? Yes, I said MONORAIL. Light rail in the air. We could call it Buckeye in the sky - you might think pie in the sky - who's going to pay for that? We can drive off that bridge when we come to it - I mean look - Seattle has one. Vegas has one. Disneyland has one. Japan and Malaysia have them. Why not Columbus?
I think the time is right. The City Center Mall could become the City Center Station. What a perfect location - Right across from the state capitol - Just an awesome place for the hub of a new state-of-the-art transportation system.
We start with a line from downtown to the airport. Next we connect to OSU the Arena District the new courthouse I can easily visualize a monorail pulling up beside the Miranova and Cosi Just think - eventually there's a line to the zoo, to the outlying malls maybe even a monorail link to a new Amtrak passenger railroad station?.
Wouldn't it be great if you could actually catch a train in Columbus to say Chicago? DC maybe?
I've thrown this idea out to a few friends.
All of them agree that a monorail system would be uplifting for the city. That it would practical and fun to ride be green and just really look cool. Then they drop their heads and say COTA would fight it - I say let COTA run it. Let OSU and Battelle figure out how to make it work. Have the people that built the Miranova build the stations and Let Honda build the actual monorail cars.
We have everything it would take to make this monorail system work right here, right now. Why not? World class cities invest in mass transit. It's time to give Columbus a world-class mass transit system and maybe for no other reason than it's time to start saving me some money at the gas pump.
You can find out more about monorails at monorails.org. For WOSU this is Michael Ivey