mmaass

I personally think $1400-1500 is a lot of money, particularly for Virginia (even though Clarendon has a lot going on). Alexandria or East Falls Church might have places near the metro for much cheaper if you want to stay in Virginia. Rosslyn seems to be less expensive compared to other parts of Arlington; and I also want to say that Arlington has a good bus system, so you may have luck looking in an area not so close to a metro stop that would be cheaper. Have you considered rooming with other people to save money? There are a lot of people who find places on Craigslist and live with random roommates. As far as living in DC proper goes, it depends on what you really want. It has some great restaurants, really cool nighlife spots (much better than in VA in my opinion), and really interesting (older) neighborhoods. The commute would not be that bad. Taxes are quite a bit higher than in Virginia, and the place can seem poorly-run from time to time. However, you can find some safe, inexpensive areas to live in. I'm in Mt. Pleasant (by the zoo) which is quite safe, has really cheap rent (I pay $850 a month)--and I'm close to a lot of shops, restauants, and bars. My commute to work in Ballston is about 30-40 minutes door-to-door. Capitol Hill is another neighborhood in the District where you'd probably be able to find inexpensive rent.

Coxsackie, New York

How about Pickerington? It would be an easy commute, and the schools/marching bands are pretty well respected. Houses are not too expensive either.

I've only been to Juergens once before, but it was pretty good. It's actually a restaurant with a Konditerei attached. The woman who was working the pastry shop when I went (not sure if she was the owner) was very friendly... und auch Deutsche!

It's hard to speak coherently when all your words are being fed to you by Dick Cheney through an earpiece.

It seems good to me that COTA in its current state of management and operation won't have the opportunity to screw up the design of a rail system that should be done carefully. However, I think it would be too hasty to just scrap COTA. Sure it's not very good, especially for a city of Columbus's size, but I think it is a system that could be greatly improved if some thought were put into it, and it got new management controlling things. We've talked some on here before about simple changes that COTA could make to create a more user-friendly and effecient bus system. Here are some of my major ideas (keep in mind, I'm no transport engineer): - Revamp some of the routes. The principle times I take the bus are going up and down High Street, and It is ridiculous how many stops there are. Simply taking out stops that occur 1 or 2 blocks from other ones would speed the bus up a lot. I think it would also make it easier to display the routes in a cleaner and more-easily understood fashion. That way, shelters could be put up at most stops, and they would actaully function as real transit stops and not sidewalks with signs on them. - Use an honor system with tickets (and undercover ticket agents checking randomly), or force people to buy them off of the bus and present them to the driver upon entering. If everyone in line at each stop has to buy tickets, think of how many minutes that really holds things up. -Make a decent website with a good destination guide. People shoule be able to see the routes all positioned together so they can actually easily determine transfers. Riders should also be able to type in their origin and destination and easily find the best route and what times the bus will be coming. With Google Maps and other online maps, I really don't see why this would be that difficult. -Like others have said, include communities outside Franklin county in the bus system as more commuter-type busing with several leaving in the morning and coming home at night. -Work with major employers throughout the region (but esp. downtown) to encourage employees to ride the bus. Maybe even give advantages to employees who buy bus passes. One big problem is that COTA is not really interested in receiving input from the public or seeking help from the outside. Instead, they seem content with just chugging along at status quo, hoping for more money so that they can create a larger ineffecient transit system that doesn't reach its potential. I think an infusion of new key people with creative and open minds would go a long way to improving COTA and attracting ridership.

Can't they just renovate the original bridges, or are they beyond repair? I would think it would still be just as nice (or better) to have 1920s bridges.

I went to the city hop on Saturday-- it was pretty cool to see all the projects going on. Buggyworks was one of my favorites. If I remember right, phase one is done (the left side of the "alley"), and only 3 units need to be sold as far as the residences-- I don't know about the live-work stuff on the ground floor. Phase two is the building on the other side of the alley which will have a row of shops with offices above and then two floors of lofts/condos at the top. I didn't see the rendering for the tower, but I did see a map. It showed a space for "tower/parking" somewhere closer to the arena district from the rest of the project. It didn't show how tall it would be or whether it would be on top of a garage. Pretty good project though, and the developer was really nice.

Nice to meet some people on here Had an enjoyable time-- thanks!

Well I guess it would create a 24-hour downtown :roll:

The Columbus DDC has posted a March 2006 progress report. http://www.downtowncolumbus.com/publications/ProgressReport2006-03.pdf Just a recap of info already posted, but there is a story about consolidating city departments into the old deaf school building.

This is an interesting problem to look at. In even some of the most sprawed areas, if only dedicated sidewalks AND bike paths were added, it would open up so many mobility options for people to get around without their cars. In Pickerington, if there were sidewalks and bike paths that were smartly connected to my housing pod, I could have access to the main street of stores and restaurants with a 5 minute bike ride (probably 1 or 2 minutes longer than in the car). I think another problem as far as people like these students getting struck by cars is that drivers outside of major urban areas are not use to encountering people walking (because it is so unfeasible in many areas). I think they need to beef up drivers education and laws to make it clear that you need to slow down and/or move to the left for pedistrians and bikes.

This means that downtown will have really good public transit coverage. Many case cities have shown that light rail/streetcars/other fixed route public transit attracts a different type of rider and is more successful than regular buses. Do you know if there is any evidence to show that by getting more people to use public transit with streetcars, it would eventually increase peoples' willingness to take the bus in other places?

Well you can't just expect your dear old town to stay very rural and country-like when you encourage all these businesses to come. These suburbs see businesses and big office parks/HQs as a way to get a boost in tax revenue. But do they not think that a whole lot of other people are not going to want to move there too to be near jobs and businesses? You can't live in your sparsly-populated pastoral paradise and still expect to be close to everything at the same time and have no traffic. And if it is that way, it won't last for long-- you can't have your cake and it too, and I wish more people would understand that. IMO, if everyone were made to choose between living in a rural setting and being close to shops; restaurants;and work, I think people would rather be close to things.

If you'd like a dorky friend at South Carolina, you can add me... Search for "Matt Maass"