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Ohio has all the potential to right the wrongs of past urban development. I'm hoping that they can get it right.

I'm a trump suipporter and a transit advocate- yes we exist

Once the 🟥🟦🟩🚉🚊 lines get new rolling stock that's high & low platform compatible, RTA could do a Browns GameDay limited/express providing a direct link from the Airport & Windmere stations without having to change trains at Tower City.

I'm glad to have found your channel, as I'm very interested in the issues you're naming in this video and I expect is the focus of your channel.

It’s just so crazy that major transit projects come down to ballot initiatives. Whats the point of voting people into office if it’s just mob rule in the end? 🤦🏻‍♀️ Not to crap on US political system, but I don’t see the benefits of this, in terms of efficiency, equity, and just sensible decisions. The mob doesn’t understand the complexity of the issues and won’t vote for what’s best for them - let alone for their city.

I wonder if their traffic projections are the same as in Oregon where they just draw a straight line and call it science.

Does this mean COTA will no longer buy CNG buses? Also great video 🎉

Why not banned personal vehicles and let emergency vehicles and commercial vehicles to stay? Moved out from car centric suburban areas.

The city only recently started embracing the cultural trail and has a lot more it can do. The original cultural trail project was funded by a charitable foundation without the city's help. Now if we can keep up with getting rid of all this parking and actually get some housing built up.

Yayyy

Thanks for offering such great coverage of the stl metrolink system. I always liked the name "Metrolink" :) The total mileage will have a compounding affect with each additional expansion. I love how Metro and supporting organizations, and people/voters have continuously added miles at every chance available. It's like the tortoise and the hare. If the north-south "Jefferson Alignment" pulls through with matching street enhancements, we will really be establishing new momentum. By starting IN ST LOUIS CITY for the initial 5.5 miles of the line, metro can bypass any suburban NIMBYism or opposition. From there, if beautiful, useful, and popular, with accelerations of TOD, the county north and south extensions may come next. I am bummed its not grade seperated, but I'm sure it's been calculated as the best path forward. Hopefully there is succesful street calming and bicycle/pedestrian friendliness to bolster the avenue and reduce possibilities of automobile or pedestrian accidents. Racism is rooted in fear and ignorance. We can unravel it with reason and love. Absolutely relevant. One final point, the advent of e-bikes, scooters, and even uber and maybe soon autonomous vehicles, car ownership as a practical requirement in stl will begin to die, and metrolink/bus expansions will both catalyze and harness this as the spine of the system. Public transit and micromobility are going to take st louis by storm. TOD is already going very well from my pov.

I wouldnt call Whitmer "pro transit" but many members of the legislature certainly are

In February there was a community meeting about adding miles to the streetcar route. We voted among nine different options, all but one connected to the extant line.

Well at least you can breathe the air and drink the water in Columbus. I don’t disagree though, I just got back from there, and wondering why they don’t refrigerate eggs?? Or why grocery stores and everything is 1/4 the price of US.

I am so happy I stumbled upon this channel. I LOVED living in Cleveland. We moved there totally by accident in the middle of the pandemic. We were shocked by how worldly and the amazing amenities it has. We unfortunately don't live there any more. But I miss it dearly!

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Thank you for your work! This video was very informative for a report I'm working on for the Washington Area Metro Transit Authority (nice map in the background btw). I have been tasked with conducting a market analysis on charging equipment as the Authority is looking to upgrade one of our garage facilities with this equipment for the electric buses we're procuring. I'll be sure to reference your video when I include the information about COTA's strategy in my report. I'm sure that the Authority's bus program office will be happy to hear about the pantograph chargers too if they don't already know about them. Very cool and useful equipment. Do you know where I'd be able to find information about which contractors provided and installed the equipment that has been installed in COTA's garages? Any information you can provide would be extremely helpful, thank you!

Laketran built the first all electric bus routes in Ohio back in 2021 and have those fun quick chargers at some of their stations. It is very exciting to see the technology rolling out in such a larger network.

7:46 One unrelated thing I noticed was the ‘traffic calming’ on the sidewalks in front of the redesigned McKinley COTA facility. Why not make them straight ugh

Thanks. Where are these buses made?

It seems like the obvious solution to the on-route charging is to just use a trolleybus.

Dayton's trackless trolleycoaches: hold our beer.

Dedicated subtitles during the rough audio sections would go a long way I think

I think that you said about the transit agency death spiral also applies to Greyhound. As you probably already know, Greyhound and its new owners flixbus have been reducing or even canceling service, laying off employees, closing stations, and raising fares all over North America. Even big cities like Atlanta and Philadelphia have had their intercity bus stations closed in the last year. I'm sure many communities in the Midwest have been impacted by flixbus station closures as well. In my community, flixbus made a big deal of extending the start and end point of one of its bus routes, one city over to serve a college town about a hundred kilometers away with two buses per day in each direction instead of just one. I wanted to ride the new service but I couldn't buy a ticket on the return trip. After spending a month fighting with the useless flixbus customer service system, I sent a DM to flixbus on Twitter, asking them what was happening here. They replied amazingly and said they had found a glitch in their system and fixed it in two hours. Once the glitch was fixed I bought my tickets and it was finally time for my trip. It was great. I made a point to ride the morning greyhound into the next city over spending a day exploring the city on its city bus network and ride the flixbus back in the afternoon. I didn't have enough money for a hotel room back then, so without the afternoon return bus, I wouldn't have been able to afford the trip. Then, just eight months later, flixbus quietly canceled the service on the afternoon flixbus I took to get home. Someone needs to make a video about how flixbus is going to the dogs. Maybe something can be done about this. I know we deserve an intercity bus service that actually works. In Virginia, the state government has begun sponsoring four daily bus routes, all starting in Washington DC and going to undeserved communities in the south and west of the state. This service is called the Virginia breeze. Unfortunately, no east west service currently exists. Hopefully, this gap can be filled eventually. Although the Virginia breeze is not a perfect system by any means, I think every other state should take a look at what Virginia has done and find ways to create networks like this in their states as well. Colorado also already has one state supported intercity bus route in service.

Great behind the scenes look - not many of us get the opportunity to do that! Any thoughts on the debate about switching to electric buses vs. expanding transit service in terms of being more effective at emissions reduction? You touched upon how electric buses should save money in the long run (which would help improve service later on), but there's an argument for how this transition takes up valuable resources today that could be used for network expansions and service improvements that get more cars off the road

Very interested to see how these electric busses work out. Seems like maintenance is a problem, at least with the electric school bus fleets

Really enjoyed this video, I didn’t know COTA had more than one electric bus. Look forward to hearing more about LinkUS

Washington DC is falling way behind in getting electric buses into service. So far, DC only has a few electric buses in service on one short route as a pilot project for introducing electric buses into service. That has been the case for over a year now, and no progress has been made. Let's hope DC can pick up the pace on this project soon. Diesel smoke from city buses is a serious problem in several low income neighborhoods in DC.

it doesn't help that the only Amtrak service that goes through Cleveland happens at 0 dark thirty in the morning and the Amtrak station is super sketchy and hard to get to. I really want to do a cross country Amtrak trip just to see things but I'd rather take a cheap Southwest flight to Chicago and start from there than try to leave from Cleveland at some ungodly time in the early morning

what does "light" BRT mean? does it mean putting the fancy "bendy" busses on regular bus routes that have none of the BRT advantages?

Glad to see the electric bus fleet seems to be working well for COTA so far. Here in Minneapolis we have a fleet of 7 articulated electric buses assigned to operate on the C Line rapid bus. When ordered they were expected to operate about 50% of the C Line trips. Unfortunately they have been fairly problematic with a higher operating cost and more frequent roadcalls compared to their diesel counterparts, and have only been covering 10-25% of the C line trips in recent months. This has meant there aren't enough rapid bus units to operate all the BRT and rapid bus services, so it's fairly common to see 13-14 year old regular route diesel artics running on those services to fill the assignment gaps.

Having lived in Columbus for over 40 years, I am very excited about the improvements to COTA. I will be voting FOR the sales tax increase this November. Of course, I am also looking forward to 2030 when we will have Amtrak service.

great video as always, I really appreciate what you do!

I'm from Minneapolis, this is a great first step, and I'm so glad our metro is trying so hard. Hopefully we'll make some of those brt lite lines into light rail in the next ten years such as the midtown line :D

Not sure about other thing, but INDIA will give you a lot of subscribers.. But you should stick to Bangalore & South India only

The steet car expansion I would like to see would be: First, the line to UC and the ZOO. (1 mile), Second to the museum center. ( 1/2 mile?), and Thirdly: The East side commuter lie to Milford Batavia into the 2nd street transit tunnel. Also, a connection by line rail from Fairfax (Redcomb Junction PRR) to Xavier Univ. I agree, you really don't want to mix your mass transit. The downtown connector is great, butt it would be FAR more efficient if it had exclusive rightaway.

In central Florida, some cities actually kept their brick streets near downtown, like Orlando or St Cloud (a suburb). It's my indicator species for a walkable neighborhood here. They are usually low speed and very narrow for Florida standards.

I live in at Louis. Hardly anyone takes public transportation and actively thwart efforts to expand it. The reason is simple: crime. There are many well publicized attacks on busses and trains. Street violence is out of control in the city. People fled the violence to the suburbs. They want to keep it safe and view public transportation as allowing the violence of the cities to spill into the relatively safe suburbs. People just don’t see themselves ever taking public transportation in St. Louis. If crime is taken in control, acceptance, ridership, and construction demand for public transportation would increase.

I think you fail to realize that the crime rate here in Cincinnati and the potential for large scale riots is what keeps this city in the half dead state it has been sense the 2000s. For this city to grow as a whole will need major action that will never manifest

Uh, things aren't going so good in Minneapolis ever since the 'George Floyd' riots.

The N/S line is all neighborhoods which is incredible

I really cant seem to understand why is there people who oppose these kind of projects, i really cant fathom it.

I wish Rhode Island was as progressive as this but we don’t even know how to keep a single bridge in a good state of repair.

Regarding the importance of students and public transportation, NKU students get free TANK access, and students depend on it so much. (especially NKU's large international student population, whom are less likely to have access to cars) As such, I can totally agree that university students would definitely ride any public transit available.

The question on my mind!

I don't know much about Ohio, apart from naming the main cities, Cedar Point, the non-rectangular flag, Drew Carrey and his show... and that it is in the Rust Belt, part of former New France territory. But this was very interesting! And great to see some good examples of transit success. I really hope you'll get what you want and greatly improved transit. Total Ohio illiterate question : Wouldn't the Health line be better served by a tram instead of BRT? Or even a heavier mode, possibly automated? Given the great return on investment mentioned, the line seems to be a great success and could further improve its impact by behind heavier. I'm also a transit enthusiast & and activist, and I don't know how you manage to keep faith in certain situations, especially after watching your recent short about Indiana's possible ban on bus lanes... it's unbelievable that such a thing could even be thought! 🤯 I really admire you for this. Greetings from Paris, which is pretty much in a state of transit-a-palooza fever.

MATT: Regional STALWART 🎩

Well, Bangkok is about 600 square miles in size, and the Midwest is about 821,000 square miles in size... moron...

I love the Midwest being compared to international destinations we are not flyover country also as a Clevelander thank you for shouting us outtt in your videos!

I agree. There metro rail is a real gift. The only other Midwest city I can think of is Cleveland. But St. Louis has a lot of muscle around it system, because of mileage. This is even compare to Dallas, which is a much bigger city that has street running light rail. But should have gotten a Cleveland like system. And Cleveland should have gotten a St. Louis typed system. St. Louis got the advantage of better weather.