Comments on: Inside 43215: Downtown Lifestyles

By: Frank A

Frank A — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:40:25 +0000

A shuttle service that runs late enough (2 am) for people to use it for dinner before the theatre, hockey or whatever and then a drink after. (What’s wrong with ruber tires, that can change routes, why set it in steel!) Now if you stop for dinner it’s one parking fee, then another for the show or event, then another for the after dinner drink.. Stops need to be well lit, safe and clean (COTA’s are dark at night, safe ?) suburban folks are very safety conscious.

And its embarrassing if a patron asks where to get something to eat on a Sunday, downtown Sunday is a wasteland !!

no place to eat = no one stays downtown
(I know there’s a chicken and the egg problem)

By: Laurie Deerwester

Laurie Deerwester — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:45:40 +0000

Glad to see that the vacant windows will have something in them other than newspaper and crud. Hope I wasn’t the only one to suggest it

By: WILLIAM K

WILLIAM K — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:28:50 +0000

Make downtown intersections more pedestrian friendly such as raised intersections to calm traffic. Smaller intersections could become four way stops which will slow traffic but actually increase traffic flow. Once the Town Street bridge closes make Town street pedestrian only from the river front to High street.

By: dave

dave — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:53:46 +0000

PS: Mother Nature is not over-rated. If anything, she’s under-appreciated. Instead of repressing our connection to the natural environment in our city, we should be orienting towards it and celebrating it. In columbus, that means our rivers and in particular, the Scioto downtown. Free the river from the stagnant dams and walls, revegetate the shoreline with trees and shade, and recognize that nature is a partner in sustainable living rather than a force to be conquered and subverted. Clean air and water are what we and all life depends on, our choices and actions individually and collectively should reflect this priority.

By: Kacey Campbell

Kacey Campbell — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:56:04 +0000

First place winner – winning two Broadway tickets to The Wedding singer is Paul Feeney. He wrote,

“More street festivals that actually close the streets. A giant stage to rock out in the right-of-way at Broad and High, while CJO jams at Nationwide & High. Food and family fun all in between. Do it right, take some lessons from Chicago’s neighborhood festivals… Market Days, Andersonville Street Fair, etc.”

A close second place is Walker Evans with the location-based gaming or cell phone tag idea.

And an honorary mention goes to Jeff Harris who suggested making better use of surface parking lots.

We’ll keep posting other ideas if you have them. And Happy New Year everyone.

By: Jeff Harris

Jeff Harris — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 17:54:48 +0000

Fill-in the downtown’s heavy volume of surface parking lots with continued residential and commercial spaces. Put another way – aggressively promote downtown density. The new billboards and message arrays give us the “impression” of solidly packed city blocks (at least along the High St. corridor). But we can do better than to have surface parking lots abutting parking garages (think the surface lot + parking garage on Long, across from Chick’s Camera; or the “sinking” surface lot + City Center parking garage on High Street). Less parking availability = more use of public transit (in theory). Or perhaps even increased demand for light rail.

By: Pat Lewis

Pat Lewis — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:21:20 +0000

How about a discount for those of us who live, work, and play downtown. The chances of us getting one of those $95 red light camera tickets are astronomically increased over the rest of Columbus that never set foot downtown. It’s just not fair.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:36:49 +0000

How about a bike-friendly urban center, with a bikestation. http://www.bikestation.org/
combined with secure bike parking on every block. and bike lanes and complete streets in all directions.

Note: Aritha Peaks stole my idea on the city center casino conversion. (Make it completely run by the state and use the money to fix other intractable ills such as the unconstitutional and unequal schools.) Seriuosly– fixing Columbus city schools for real, will bring back other residents like me with school age kid(s), downtown to live and not just to work.

By: ehill

ehill — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 02:48:12 +0000

Light rail.

By: Kevin Wood

Kevin Wood — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:36:15 +0000

A true market in the urban core – so that I don’t have to listen to suburbanites ask “where do you shop?”. (I shop at the North Market, CVS and the BD Kroger).
Also, agressive plans to implement streetcars, and to redevelop city center (sorry – had to say it) – thats all.