The Future Of Transportation: Where Will We Go?

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We are looking forward our way. We’re in Studio C in the Studios that is located just south of downtown Columbus in the brewery district. This is Brett. With me, as always, is Carol. How long did it take you to get in the studio today?

Oh, my gosh. Second I walked in the door. I was complaining about traffic on 71. I come in from north of Polaris Parkway and it was at a standstill.

Right.

I’m just a complainer about traffic in Columbus. For those of you not from central Ohio, we have two seasons here, winter and Orange barrel season. So it’s a great topic today.

Yeah. Well, you know, after the Orange barrel season, you do see the joys of it. But it seems Delaware County seems to go Orange again after a while. Yeah. We’ve got a returning guest to give us even more information on transportation issues in central Ohio via Ewing, director of transportation and infrastructure development for the Mid Ohio Regional Planning Commission. Most people know it as Morphsy. Thanks for joining us again today.

Thanks, Brett. Thanks, Carol. Always a joy to come talk to you guys and share the great work of Morphe, etc.

Is one of our favorite people because we have fun. We laugh through the whole thing. And luckily for you, you didn’t have to actually drive here. We’re right around the corner from Morphsy, literally, so it’s not too hard of a commute for her to come to see. So the last time we covered the role of Morphsy in our community, but let’s just give a quick overview at such an important resource in our region. And yes, I know they’re all over the country, but we think Morpsy is the top. So you have incredible experience in this area. So just give us a little bit of background about Morsee and your position.

Yeah. Thanks, Carol. So we are a regional planning Commission in almost every region that has over 50,000 people in the United States has a regional planning Commission. And then, of course, if it’s a larger community, it’s a bigger regional planning Commission. And I would say we have one of the best. I’m pretty proud of my crew and my co workers at North Sea, we help community members with residential services like home heating and assistance with weatherization. We also do a lot of the planning with Coda and the Delaware transit system. We’ve been doing a lot of outreach, even to some of the rural transit systems. We have planned bike paths and highways and pretty much anything related to transportation. And then with our local governments that are our members, all of the cities and villages and townships in central Ohio, they all do rely on us, too, to tell them about what’s going on at the state House. So we have a whole arm that looks at government services and ensuring that they know how it’s going to impact the way they do business in their community. And of course, all the outreach and communications that come along with that and of course, the data and mapping.

So we are a trove of that because of all the programs we run.

She sounds like she hates that, but we know that she loves the data.

I love it. I love it. Yeah, it’s a lot now that we have so much technology, it’s just so much more. We’re capturing a lot of that. So it’s really exciting time because that is something that’s so important to the work we do is all that data and everything is very metric driven, of course, making an investment. Now you look at what’s needed. So that gives us quite a bit of information to help guide the best spending of all of our money. Right. All the taxpayers dollars.

And one of the things that you talked about the last time we were together is no one really has a clue as to the length of time you’re looking at to create these projects. All of that planning means money. And that’s what Morpes is so great at, is bringing our community the dollars we need to do the planning correctly.

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the ways this works is that a regional planning Commission like Morphsey in every region of the United States, we do a long range plan. So Morphe does a long range plan that looks out at least 20 years. We’re given specific guidance by the federal government what we need to do in order to be qualified for funding from the federal highway funds and other related programs like Federal Transit Administration. And so we put together this forward looking plan, and we did that in 2020, and it is a 30 year plan because we’re going to go out to 2050 and we anticipate $30 billion in 30 years. It’s crazy. Right. And then from that, every project moves into a more short range plan known as a transportation improvement program. What that means when the word program is involved, that means the money is programmed and that means you’ve got funds to spend. So if your project lands there, it’s ready to go. Right. It’s a two parts process, and it’s very open to the public. And certainly all the projects that are really kind of boring like this resurfacing all that stuff in there, but some really cool stuff like bike trails and the new links program that we’re working on with the city of Columbus and Coda.

So, yeah, it’s a laborious process. We’re here to do it, and we’re here to bring those community dollars back to central Ohio.

Well, you know, for those of us who do come in and out of downtown, the whole 71 70 changes, they’re major. I mean, they are major. And yes, they are taking forever. But we’re on the kind of the downside, aren’t we? Like this is happening.

We have Crest Hill of the 70 71 community crosswords projects. Yes. The last one is in the queue now.

How long was that? When did it start? Well, I know it was stages and it kind of took a breath and then stages, correct? Kind of, yes.

So I’m trying to go back to I do believe it’s over 20 years now. So we did a ribbon cutting on this last segment, and Jack March Banks is the director of ODOT now at the time that this was being initially studied in the early 2000s, he had kicked that off as the District Six director back then. Wow. So this guy, he’s seen this from the day he started it here in central Ohio, all the way to being the director of ODOT for the whole state. Very cool. So, yeah, it’s 20 years in the making, and we’re not quite done yet. And there was ebbs and flows in that all dependent on funds because those bigger projects are kind of more in that discretionary flow of funding, and it takes a little more maneuverability to get big projects off the ground. So certainly looking forward to seeing that be mostly done.

You are?

How about all of us? Yes.

The pieces that are done, though, are actually kind of cool that you see, like, oh, that makes sense. That mound does that, or even I know the onramps and the offramps. So I’m thinking, okay, this could not that I’m rethinking what’s going to happen, but I can never put my head around you see the master of it, and you kind of go, especially when 670 was not connected.

Oh, my gosh.

I remember traveling over here. Right.

And I saw an overview of what was going to happen, and I couldn’t in my mind, get in where how does that link up with that over there, which maybe a mile away? I guess it would have been probably I think that’s how it was left of that I could not invent. And then once it’s put together, going, well, that makes sense. This is cool.

When I moved into Delaware County, I was just north past what was the amphitheater at Polaris Park. That’s Jade, which is gone. Not only gone, but it’s taken my road and connected it to Gemini, which is the road behind the player small, which for those of you outside of central Ohio, that’s huge. It’s a huge place. I couldn’t figure it out. And I was driving it every day. And I’m like, what are they doing?

And then you have a key away. Yes.

We were going to be driving into a big lot kind of thing. It’s amazing.

What we’re talking about here is that part of a master plan. I mean, I know it’s all economic driven. We want to make sure that the roads are easy to maneuver, that we get our stuff from point A to point B, whether it’s us as the stuff or things we’re going to buy. Is that part of a big master plan that obviously, none of us really see.

Yeah, well, you actually do see it in our long range plan. It’s known as our Metropolitan Transportation Plan. I refer to it as long range because that’s the old planner in me. But anyway, the Metropolitan Transportation Plan does kind of like line that stuff all up. But then each project that has its own process and especially a bigger one like this, there is a master sheet of like, what segment goes in and what I find really interesting. I’m a planner, so I see the big vision, but the engineers see breakdowns in the system. They say, okay, this isn’t working functionally. And so they also understand. And this is what’s really cool. I love talking to them because they make this stuff work, and they go, well, we got to start with section R or whatever, because if we don’t open that section up first and these cars aren’t going to be able to get through, and so we’ll be in a mess.

The logic of it then basically. Yeah.

Then they piece it together. We start with the corners and outside of a puzzle sometimes. And that’s what we think is logical. They put together based on traffic flow, which is just really cool process to watch that there’s a model process that goes into it and of course, flow analysis, but really exciting that we have that kind of talent locally, and a lot of it is locally driven. It’s not always a bunch of consultants from outside. We have a lot of folks here locally kind of keep all that stuff going, whether it’s ODOT or Franklin County Engineer. They all have to do that as part of the process.

When you talk to those engineers, tell them the Gemini entrance on the 71 is great. But whoever decided to do a merge Lane should have to travel that merge Lane every day because it is not easy to get on to 71 while you’re merging with the amount of truck traffic that we have up there, it’s pretty crazy.

I have heard some conversations about that.

Good. That means that it’s back on the table.

Good.

Okay. Theo, we’re not sure of any funding numbers for federal legislation as of today when we are actually taping this. We’ve been talking about this for a while. I think Morphsy has a handle on what’s going to happen once funding is approved. Can you give us some hints as to what’s on the table to move and maybe what’s going to have to sit for a bit.

Yeah. So quite a bit, actually. There’s an opportunity for us to see more funds flow in, and I’ve seen the numbers being as large as 25% more in the first year and then kind of more of a smaller amount after that, more single digit percentage growth. That will make a huge dent in the number of projects we have on the list. So that would clear the deck for a lot of new opportunities or big things we have on the horizon, like link us and the work we’re doing with Koda and the new transit assets that we’re trying to bring to the region. But the big winner here and I know we were going to talk about this a little bit later and I can share more then is the rail. Amtrak has a big segment in this budget, and we are the very largest market that they have not tapped and they need to be looking at ways to invest in new places. And we’re at the top of their list. So it’s a really exciting time to be where we’re at the deal that they have currently on the table based on what they knew at the time the bill was kind of being put together is that they would do the improvements in Ohio connecting Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus on up to Cleveland.

And there’s a number of stops in between there and some of the smaller areas that the funds would be used to pay for the start up of the new service and all the improvements necessary for that Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus line. And with that, then we would be able to have all that updated and then into the future, the state may be asked to pay like a subsidy in order to just maintain it and to help with the maybe under sold tickets or anything like that. But we do anticipate that the ridership will be solid.

So my question before we started was, am I going to see this before I turn 80?

I hope so. I know if you only be in 39, I’m really confident.

Okay, that’s true. Good answer.

But yeah, we are really excited. I know last time I talked to you, we were talking about connections to Chicago and to Pittsburgh, and we’re still very much working that. But this Amtrak flip has really kind of focused tension back on something that the state walked away from a couple of years or actually about ten years ago. Can you believe it? And so we have some new open doors, right. Federal government, Amtrak, local communities and businesses. And it’s a new day to have this conversation. And I think this legislation passing will open the door to a very different conversation about connecting the three C’s.

Oh, absolutely. I could never understand how we lost passenger rail in Columbus. It just didn’t make any sense that we wouldn’t have something. And so even if it’s just the three C’s, that’s a huge step for us.

With anyone that has some history of the development of Columbus knowing that 71 was a big divider for the city. It broke up neighborhoods and access and equity and such. Not that this is happening, but we have that taste of like gotta watch what we do and where we put things and make it accessible and stuff. So what is more seem doing to move our systems toward a more fair and affordable transportation program in central Ohio.

Well, certainly we fund a lot of projects with those federal dollars that we receive. So we have a whole scoring criteria that looks at the impacts on neighborhoods, the impacts on the environment, and economic impacts, too. Right. And what that project may very well mean. And we go through this process, actually, with all of our partners in the region, like the city of Columbus and Delaware County and whatnot. And they tell us like, okay, well, I think it’d be fair to be scored on this criteria or that criteria, and then we apply it, and then after that, they can’t really touch the scoring after we then start applying it. And when we start applying it, that’s whenever those projects that have a minimal impact on a neighborhood that rises up above one that doesn’t and things like that. So it is a very distinct process that we go through. And we’re actually doing that right now for the upcoming funds. So that’ll be all be done.

So does the community have a voice in that in some stage of it?

Yes.

Okay. I knew that answer is probably going to be a yes, but that’s what I was going to say. I would encourage community get involved then.

Yes.

You have a control and the destiny of what’s going to happen in your neighborhood then 100%.

Not only in the scoring criteria, but then also the project list. There’s 30 day comment periods in both cases. And then we have a community advisory committee, too, that is seated, and they share that out through their networks. Our whole goal is to bring in people who they may be represent a whole group of folks like senior citizens or they may be I know one doesn’t maybe one is more focused on the African American community and one is in the ring suburbs and one’s city, Columbus and so on. So we really try to be as representative as possible with that community advisory committee, and they are very engaged. So it’s exciting to work with them because they ask questions that we just don’t think about.

Right.

I can remember when we were doing the planning for the beginning of Age friendly Columbus, and we were talking about the bus stops and the shelters at bus stops. That’s good for an older adult, but it’s also good for a mom with a stroller kid in a stroller. So just that notion of hearing from all sides is going to make the project better, but it also means the project is going to take longer to make sure all the bases are covered.

Yeah. I don’t even think it takes that much longer to do it.

Right.

More because so much of that is baked into the process. If you’re doing it right from the very beginning.

This isn’t confirmation that you’re doing it right.

Yeah.

We’ve been doing this stuff for years, and we should be getting it. Right. We’re long past the days of just plowing through a neighborhood and relocating a bunch of people. I think the thing we are faced with now is I think some people want to make a right for the wrong right and say, okay, well, we got to open this back up. Well, in some cases, absolutely, because there’s still a neighborhood here and it needs to be connected. But if that neighborhood is long since gone, I think the idea is what are we going to do to at least share that history interpretation? It may not need the reconnection. And maybe we need to think about that for now where those people now live. Right. Or way to help them establish. So this isn’t a one for one approach. You can’t go at it like, oh, we’ve got to fix this problem we created in 1960 because the problem in 2022 isn’t the same. Right?

Oh, my gosh, yes.

And I guess my example, my thought behind that is that it’s not just plowing through now. It isn’t. It’s just to get something through. It’s thought about in depth.

It’s surgical.

Yeah.

Although what happened, the result of 71 and 70 going through Columbus was really catastrophic in some ways. It was also necessary for us to be on the map. It was necessary for Columbus to be part of the interstate system.

To be number one on Amtrak’s list, all partial. If you think about it.

We did the best we could with what we knew at the time. Thank goodness we’ve learned more and we’re doing better at the planning. So I don’t want to short change what was happening in Columbus because we’re part of the National Road.

Oh, my gosh. So you’re bringing back so many memories for me. I mean, not all the way back to the beginning of the National Road, but actually I’m only 39, but the very start of my career was actually working on the National Road. I worked on the scenic Byway plan for the Ohio National Road and made a lot of connections between Vandalia, Illinois, and Cumberland, Maryland. And I loved the whole concept of historic tourism. And at that time, I started working around 2002. So people were a little timid about flying, and so families were taking on driving, maybe similar to what we’ve experienced in the Pandemic. They were less likely to get those RVs out and they were taken to the road. And so the national government was actually issuing these National Scenic Byway awards, and the idea being that these are places that are significant in the history of the United States. So I got really deep into that. In fact, my thesis was on the policy, the national policy, and whether that actually helps preserve those sites and the six intrinsic qualities. Truth is, about 10% of those sites get lost almost every year.

Wow.

Whether they be historic or scenic views due to billboards or whatever. So really interpreting those places that does get lost in some of these shuffles is really important, especially if something is so significant to the way we’ve developed. And the national road is big to Ohio. It was the first federally funded road. I said, don’t get me started on the National Road. Well, I will tell you one thing that I found just crazy amazing about this history is that a passable road when that was built, it’s like it’s in the bill that no segment should have stumps higher than 4ft high.

Oh, my gosh.

Your wagon had to be able to get over it, so it had to be less than 4ft.

Well, how many times do you read the history of streets and roads where they go back and say, well, it was a deer path in the beginning? You’re like, there you go.

Oh, my God. Well, now the potholes just don’t have to be 4ft deep, right. So it works the opposite now. Okay.

Yeah, we got it at the beginning. It should have been Orange barrels season and potholes season.

True. Very true. Oh, my gosh. Oh, goodness. Okay, so now let’s get back on track here. Let’s cover the differences in rural and urban in our transportation system. It’s really difficult to cover vast space, which is probably part of the issues that some of the counties outside of Franklin have. The populations are very compact, and like Lancaster, they’re all compact. We often have inadequate services in our rural communities. How do you balance the two?

Yeah, that is definitely the subject of a lot of conversation right now. We’ve been working on a mobility plan over the last year and a half. We’re going to be finishing up probably around the time this airs, luckily. And some of the goals of that is to actually make the connections between those services or identify where needs are and gaps are. We’ve really spent a significant amount of time working with the counties, particularly outside of Franklin County, to address those needs. And then we’ve Additionally been working with Koda to talk about the connections they need to make.

Right.

I’ve even wrote a couple of grants, and unfortunately, the last one we wrote, we didn’t get funded, but we’ve actually started. That what I call county connections. Right. Like, we’re just working with them to determine these different places and where we can make those connections. A lot of those conversations have started, and we’re at least starting a little bit of work in that direction. Nothing too formal yet because we’re just trying to really, I think with understanding where the finances are coming from. We’re kind of in this kind of gearing things up right now. But certainly we are listening to those counties outside of Franklin in particular and how we can help them. And I have a lot of thoughts about ways we have to step up these services if we expect people to be able to age in place in our communities.

And that was one of the things I just wanted to follow up because we’ve got the aging in place, the aging of our population in central Ohio, which people need to get to the doctor, the dentist, the grocery store. But we also have the issues of individuals coming from the rural areas into Columbus for jobs, but also it’s the other way around, folks going from Columbus to rural areas where some of these huge server farms and those kinds of things are getting built.

That is the number one workforce issue right now, transportation, it has been underlying and specifically the flow. You’re talking about inward out, because those what I would reference is kind of like start of your career or start of your work experience type of jobs. They tend to be out maybe at Rick and Bucker or out in Newark or Potasskela. And the thing we hear the most often from those locations is we can’t get people here or if one person who’s driving all of them calls in sick or gets fired. Now, I’ve lost five people instead of one. Right, right. So we are very much on the cusp of trying to solve those problems. I will say technology is going to be a part of it. Koda has really enhanced a lot of its traffic management and oversight of what’s going on around not only their buses, but just around the region. That’s going to help us understand timing. And I think when it comes down to it, number one is lack of access to a vehicle or lack of access to getting some place. Second is, well, if I’m going to spend 2 hours going there and 2 hours getting back, I don’t even know if it’s worth my time.

Right. And so what I want to do is basically erase that number, too.

Right.

We got to make sure that it’s comparable. It’s equitable. Right. This is a matter of equity in our region and allowing people to have reasonable commutes to work. And that includes whether you have a car or not. And so this is a step we have to be taking. And it’s definitely top of mind.

It’s been an issue. The fact that the Pandemic had us at home, I think, exploded that issue a bit. But it’s been an issue. Transportation in central Ohio has been an issue in terms of getting to work.

It’s tough, quietly, always been there. Sometimes it’s louder than other times. I mean, I have staff that work in this around the clock. We have an Ohio program, and we do van pools and car pool matching. And we even have right now we have a commute action fund where if an employer wants to invest in their employees getting to work in a sustainable mode, we’re not going to pay one to one cars. But if they’re sharing a ride or using a system that’s established or a van pool, we will match them up. To $5,000 on their investments. So it may be that everybody who rides in the band pool gets a special lunch every week or something like that. That would be an incentive, the type of thing we could incent. Maybe we’re helping pay for the actual mode. Right. So something like that. Yeah. It’s based on the number of employees they have in their building, how much they’re eligible for. But if they’re willing to make an investment, we are, too, because we know that’s probably one of the most important things right now is getting people back to work.

That’s phenomenal.

The pains you’re talking about is that similar to any other Metropolitan areas and around the country.

Oh, we’re all talking about it. I was just at a conference in the fall where we discussed the things that we’re all going through. And I would say getting to work is probably eliminating barriers to work, all kinds of them. But this one being one of the more significant ones, the actual being able to get their piece. But there’s educational ones, too, and child care. You’re hearing about a lot of this, particularly the transportation bill and the bipartisan infrastructure package and build back better were kind of coming through. Those were those additional services that people were talking about.

Yeah.

Those are barriers to employment.

Well, even think about the lack of being able to get a new car means there’s a lack of used cars. Means there’s a lack of used used cars, which many people depend on for their younger members of the family or kids who are just out of school needing a job. And their car may be a used car and they’re not there to buy the cheapest.

And not only that, the cost of even a used car or a new car right now that may come at a premium due to the fact that there’s so few of them.

So few the cost of it, the insurance of it, the gasoline of it, all of that.

Yeah. I wouldn’t call them unprecedented, but unprecedented in recent times when it comes to that, with supply and demand. But the other thing about this is when we evolve from this and I know we will have confidence there’s going to be so many more electric vehicles on the market.

Right.

And electric vehicles are another place where we’re going to be needing to make a lot of focus because listeners her eyes are just lighting up when you talk about electric vehicles. Well, I drive one. There you go. I’m also the President of Cleanfield, Ohio, and have been for about four or five years now. So big advocate of electric vehicles. But we’ll say this is a very important topic in central Ohio because we are an auto industry region, and electric vehicles take a lot less parts than a traditional combustion engine vehicle. So there’s parts being made possibly in the region right now that won’t be needed in five years. For a new vehicle. Right. And then you see that evolve also not be needed in AutoZone anymore either. Right. So you’ve got to completely overhaul the way automobiles are being made. We have one big manufacturer in the region, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not just them. There’s all these OEMs here, too, the original equipment manufacturers and the suppliers. So it’s really important that we get a handle on this. Understand it be a part of the transformation of the auto industry from education all the way through the built vehicle.

And I can tell you that our friends at One Columbus, they are on top of this. We’ve been working with them in that, too. Yeah. Although I mentioned all these other pieces, we’ve been soaring into economic development quite a bit, too, as this is hand in hand. Right? Yes. So auto industry and electric vehicles is where it’s at. And a nice used electric vehicle is a way to go. If you’re not sure, that’s a great way to start this conversation.

Yeah, right. I think there was just and again, from when we’re podcasting today, there was just in the news recently that somebody ordered one of the companies ordered a huge number of electric vehicles. A rental car company.

Oh, okay.

I think they ordered from Tesla. There’s a big line of buying Tesla’s.

Yes.

So to bring new cars into a fleet.

Right.

I don’t remember what name it was, though.

Yeah, that’s what I’ve always said. I’m going to try an electric car by renting one.

Exactly.

Yeah. They have a lot of bells and whistles on them, a lot of gadgets. They are top notch vehicles. There’s no question about it. We are so much better connected, lots of safety features, but certainly something that if you’re not used to driving, that you’re going to want to get used to it. It even trains you on how to press the gas pedal efficiently so that you’re not wasting your electric, which you never had a trainer on your the last two electric vehicles I’ve driven actually has a thing that tells me how efficient I’m being with the gas pedal. So, yeah, really cool features and they’re just fun to drive. You’re so better connected. And I feel like I’m not an expert, but I feel safer, too, in some ways because I do have some more information as well. As I know it has all the standard safety features that we’ve been building towards for so many years in the automotive industry. So, yeah, definitely check them out. And I was going to say with the rental car company, that totally makes sense because so many of them had to offload a ton of vehicles during the pandemic.

And that’s the reason why it’s so hard to get a hold of one.

Right.

The orders are back in.

Actually. What I’m waiting for are the driverless vehicles driving with staffing. So I won’t ever not be able to get to the grocery stores.

Oh, my God.

There was like a whole brand of them or a focus driving just for the I think that’s a gig job.

My next career.

Exactly. Well, there’s a new program, Link US, that’s connecting the outer edges of the community. Launched last year, the program is collaborative effort, which is good private sector and neighborhood partners in concentrating the efforts under a common umbrella. One really important aspect of the program is development of transportation corridors that run across Columbus. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Yeah. So Link US is an initiative of Mortsi, the city of Columbus, Franklin County and Coda. And the whole goal there is to create high capacity transit lines that connect the region in the core, primarily that at least beat current traffic speeds and create an opportunity for you to link from your neighborhood to your job in a way that you would expect in a city of this size. Right. So we have a number of corridors that we’re looking at. And I want to make clear, too, this isn’t just about transit. I said it was about transit, but it’s also about bike trails and other amenities like ability to good sidewalks, good transportation hubs that have rental bikes and other maybe even like an Amazon Luck or something. So that when you do get off of the high capacity transit, you can go and pull maybe your groceries out of maybe Kroger is working with us or something, too. So we’re really looking at a fully connected service, not just very cool, just transit. And I would call them three lines, really. We started out with East West, which was West Broad, East Main. But those are really two different lines.

Right. And those two will be kind of the first ones that are going to be moving to the Federal Transit Administration for funding. And then the one that we’ve actually started on first but won’t be the first to be constructed. But there’s been a large focus on what’s known as the northwest corridor. And that corridor is olent Angie River Road moving up to Bethel and then all the way up to Dublin. So those are the first three. There’s a number of them. I think looking at the Link US website is a great place. You’ll see the map of all the different quarters. I’m not really good at describing all of them vocally, but certainly take a look. I think there’s about eight in that mix right now. And, you know, it’s really just about ensuring that all of our, you know, high capacity corridors have this option in addition to the standard vehicle.

We became more aware of Linked US because with the work Brett and I were doing at the agency in Whitehall, we were doing a lot of work with the Whitehall folks. And they kept talking about this corridor across Broad Street, this corridor across Broad Street because the huge federal center is right there. We could be bringing people in from all over to work at the Federal Center in Whitehall. It would be phenomenal. But also the people in Whitehall need transportation out to get to their jobs.

Yeah. I mean, Whitehall is doing a tremendous job out there anyway, and they’re going to be planning we’ve been working on the Woodcliff Condominium site, a number of different grants, but yeah, I do think that particular site, whether it’s the VA or the DSCC, there’s a lot of users of our Vampal program out there. Sometimes they drive as far as there’s local folks who are working there. But we have people who we know ride vans from Dayton to go there because they may be I know there was like a unit out in Kettering that you see huge defense finance, and many of them ended up over here in Columbus as a result of that move. So, yeah, we’re still seeing people commute from far away for a job that they’ve had for a very long time.

Good. Yeah. I want to go back to trains. I love talking about trains. We talked about Amtrak and the rail service. Anything else? I want to be the first person to buy a ticket. Is there anything else going on that we can find out more about? Trains? I really want to get to Chicago.

Yeah.

Even New York.

Yeah. I agree with you. I think it’s just about interregional connections in general.

Right.

So I like the idea of us reinitiating train service in central Ohio, and I think it makes sense on the right distance. Right. The right amount of time it takes to get some place. And another line that we had looked at was Chicago through Columbus onto Pittsburgh, too. And that’s still very much in our sites. We do realize that there’s a potential with Amtrak. It’s not on their long range plan yet like the three C corridor is. But I think there’s that opportunity for it to be on their radar. And there’s other train companies right. There’s private sector trained organizations that aren’t Amtrak that are providing service, like down in Florida known as Bright Line. And that’s a different level of service. We can be talking to them. In fact, we have had conversations with them. That’s the same corridor I looked at for Hyperloop. Right. And we’re continuing our conversations with Hyperloop. So I think that’s one of those things that’s going to evolve as technology evolves. But I think for a quarter of that length to be a good service to us as a region, we need to find a way to get there faster, faster than the terrain or faster than the kind of level of train service we would need for the Cincinnati to Cleveland.

Right. We just got to be kind of those interstate times plus a couple of stops, whereas you go doing that all the way out to Chicago and all the way out to Pittsburgh it becomes another situation altogether.

Right.

So if anything, I’ve learned through our most recent studies of rail is that we’ve got to still pushing forward on the Chicago and Pittsburgh connection that we want to make in a fast way.

And if we could show success in the three C corridor that people were interested in rail, then I think we would have a better chance of doing the Chicago, Columbus, Pittsburgh. But I’m wondering with a younger population who is more used to alternative transportation modes, that this would be a flight to Chicago is only an hour, but that doesn’t include the time in the airports at both ends, finding a parking place, getting your luggage there, the whole nine yards, as opposed to popping on a train and ended up maybe it is the same amount of time.

I think you’re closer at driving, to be honest, but that’s really what I want to focus on is getting that speed closer. That’s how we’re going to be competitive. I think it’s still a value, even if it’s not as fast trained to go to Chicago and get started on that route because there’s value in the stops.

Right.

Somebody who wants to maybe go from here to Lima, somebody who wants to stop in Fort Wayne and so on and so on. So I think there’s still some value in that line. Establishing a service is a good thing to do and then improving upon that service is a good thing to do. And I think that’s the traditional way would I love to just break that traditional mold and let’s just get there as fast as possible. That’s my goal. And if we get the service that’s stepping stone to that way.

But it could also be just like planes. You could have a straight through flight to Chicago, or you could have a flight that has a stop that goes to Dallas to Chicago. So you could have the stops or you could have a fast trade.

Right.

Yeah.

And they call that an express.

Exactly. Not fast in terms of speed, but fast in terms of no stops.

Right. Yeah. That would be you getting closer to the car time once you take that, you take the stops out, but you also take out a lot of passengers whenever you take those stops there’s that weighing of options you have to make on a route like that, it’s significantly longer.

Is there truly that notion of and maybe I’m misreading younger folks that they are more interested in other they would be more interested in rail because they are interested in alternative transportation as opposed to just getting a car.

Yeah. So along with electric, autonomous and connected vehicles is also the notion of shared automobiles. And so the idea of the shared economy and the idea that there’s at least some interest more significant than in the past, that people may not want to own an automobile and that they may still be interested in sharing in a vehicle or renting one. Right. Means that to go long distance, they may be looking at other modes, too, like flying, like riding rails, things like that. They may not want to take a car to go on a trip like that, especially if they don’t do it around town all the time. Why would you want to pick up a car and go on a long trip if you’re only used to doing a short one? So I definitely agree with you. I think there is a population growing for that. I think this last couple of years has got you rethinking everything. Of course, that was all before the Pandemic, so I hesitate to say that it’s still there, but I really do feel like it goes part and parcel with the future of the automobile.

Right.

You know what we didn’t talk about and it reminded me of the electric vehicles and the charging stations. We’re so used to having gas stations around every corner. It seems like with a Starbucks. What’s Morphsy doing with regards to recharge stations to help support that transition into electric vehicles?

Yeah, well, we’ve been working to attract grant funding for that. Some of our resources are eligible for that, too, and we have funded those in the past. Typically, ours are focused at the public sector, like fleet vehicles. So even the ones in the bottom of the garage, though, at Columbus were funded by our team and by Morpecy. But I think in the future you’re going to see us doing a little bit more of that. We also help people identify locations where they would be best served by electric vehicle charging. We’ve done energy analysis to determine what we’re going to need as far as energy in order to be able to support this in the region. So we’re right there. We’re right there in the electric vehicle conversation. It’s a daily conversation. I always think I’m like kind of a novice at this. I love electric vehicles, but when it comes right down to it, when I’m talking, it seems like maybe I know a little bit more about it than I thought because everybody is learning it right now. So I just know there’s people out there who know it better than I do. But I’m really excited about it.

I think we all should be because it is part of a solution to climate change.

Well, truthfully, I think it’s like any other car that we would buy. Talking to somebody who has one is a lot better than talking to the salesperson. So the fact that you’re talking to us from the perspective of an owner makes a huge difference.

Well, as an early adopter, salesmen are just not ready for this electric vehicle thing. They will try to talk you out, or at least my experience. And I’ve been driving one for a couple of years now, so I’m sure it’s gotten better. But at the time, I was like, well, I don’t know much about that, but let’s go look at this. One of my vehicles I had to chase down to the dealership because I couldn’t even buy it in central Ohio because I couldn’t find it. It’s not a Tesla, by the way. So this is a Pacifica minivan, but it’s part electric. But yeah. So the customers up until now that are seeking electric were doing it because they were early adopters. Now we’re moving into kind of the range of folks who are going to be kind of the mainstream adoption of electric vehicles, and then you’ll have the laggards who are just not going to. So now as we move into this, the marketing is going to get better and there’s going to be more educational assets around. How do I use this? The number one thing that hampers people from wanting to get an electric vehicle is that range anxiety.

So the range anxiety is the idea that, oh, my goodness, that this vehicle might run out of electricity. I don’t know where I’m going to plug it in at not familiar. So having all those electrical charging places around the community is really important. And I think you’re going to see some of our gas stations kind of start offering up that service. They evolve, too.

The profit centers inside where you buy your Diet Coke and your coffee and your doughnuts. It’s not the gas pump.

Right. Exactly. And I think the other thing to keep in mind is that if you notice the new gas stations that have popped up, they don’t look like gas stations as much anymore. They’re bigger retail establishments than what they used to be. And then they have the pumps out front, but that can be reconfigured in a heartbeat. So I think that’s just an interesting time to see this evolution. And I think the last thing I’ll say about it, I think there’s folks who maybe don’t believe in climate change. Right. Or they still feel like fossil fuels is for us. Well, electric does not have to hamper your view on that. Right. I think there’s people who kind of tied that electricity to that. The truth is electric. And having electric vehicles actually gives us a medium where we can put energy through kind of almost any type, because almost all other types of energy can create electricity. Right. Wind, solar, natural gas electricity is made of all those things, even fossil fuels. If you have a generator at your house after a tornado or something, you’re putting fossil fuels in that thing, and it’s producing electric for you.

So that is not the root of evil. And I think, of course, we need to focus on climate change, like, there’s no question about it. But electric is not the bad guy.

Right.

And so it is a good opportunity to get a highly efficient vehicle. I’ll tell you what, spend a lot less money on gas, and mine is still partially gas. Right. And oil changes will be a thing of the past if you have a full electric vehicle.

Well, and I can remember the pretty clear sky we had when nobody was on the road during the Pandemic. The difference was phenomenal in a really short period of time.

Yeah. It’s going to make a significant difference. I think one of the things that I’ve learned about recently is Elon Musk has a company. It’s called the Boring Company. And this company actually bore holes, really deep holes. And they do these tracks for vehicles. Now, the vehicles are not driven by just the lay citizen. You have to actually it’s like transit, basically. You have to have a driver. The whole goal is that these will be autonomous because about 95% of the drivers actually can’t do the course. So you have to have early scale driver or these autonomous features for this to be successful into the future. But it’s really exciting because they’ve just launched this out in Las Vegas to connect a couple things around the convention center, just like a 1 mile test track. But they were talking about putting these vehicles down in this tube. And I’m like, aren’t they going to get carbon monoxide to poison? No, electric doesn’t have any emissions. Of course, I should know that. But it’s just these are the things that change the idea that we could run a subway of electric vehicles, whereas we couldn’t have done that with fossil fuel.

Right.

Without a lot of ventilation. And I mean, we still would need a ventilation, but not like you need for interesting. Yeah. So it really changes the paradigm of all kinds of things we could do.

Well, needless to say, this has been phenomenal. I could talk transportation all day long with Thea as I said, we have fun, but we learn something new from you every time we sit down at this table. So thank you very much for our listeners. We’re going to have all this information about Morphe on our website. I think one of the most important things that you said is that if people want to have a voice in these discussions, there are ways to do that. Check the Morphe website. We’ll make sure that’s on there to get your voice heard about transportation. So even when you call the local TV station and complain that you need a light at this corner, planning has to happen. It can’t just pop out of thin air. But people do need to hear your voice. Before we stop, though, any other words of wisdom or any other topic that maybe we forgot today?

Well, what I like to think is that the future. I work on the future quite a bit. And 30 years out, the future becomes today every day quickly. Right. And so that is what we really need to be focused on, because I think we talk about the future a lot. And we’re like, oh, it’s out there, but it can happen overnight. And I think the pandemic definitely proved that to us because it sped up a lot of things that were happening in our economy. And so just think about what those disruptors are doing and what they’re going to do for us in these years to come.

Yeah, very good. Yeah. Well, before we leave, happy birthday early.

Oh, thank you.

By the time this publishes, your birthday is going to be right around the corner. So it’s probably been too early to ask big plans. I don’t even know yet.

I know we’ll be in the midst of a lot of work at that time. I normally wait till about the spring to get out and about.

Exactly. Well, again, thanks for being being with us today and listener you can find this podcast as well as information resources on our website. Head to lookingforward ourway.com thanks for joining us.

Thanks to you.

Thanks. You guys are great.