COLUMBUS AGAINST STREETCAR EXCESS

Opposing The Columbus Streetcar Plan!

Welcome! This is where we perceive the community can begin to get ideas on how to voice its opposition to the Columbus Streetcar Plan. The community has many citizens that feel this plan is a waste of money that will not meet projected goals and has not been fully explained.

This community is diverse and includes people such as community activist Barry Edney to wealthy businessmen like Robert Weiler. Both of these men, and many others, spoke out against the Columbus Streetcar Plan at the April 28th public hearing at City Hall, which Mayor Michael Coleman chose not to attend. Right now, there are many across the city how are just discovering that they are not alone in their feelings against the Columbus Streetcar Plan and still have many unanswered questions.

On this site, as a first effort at speaking out, we have been given the privilege of presenting what we feel is the best and most revealing attempt to not only identify the problems with the plan, but uncover what its true hidden agenda is. This commentary and analysis also contains a compromise that could be achieved, if the city would listen.

The commentary is by Marshall Barnes who we met at the public hearing and gave us permission to host it on this site so the greater community could be aware of its existence. He is a R&D engineer with an investigations background and experience in the field of advanced concepts. We feel that it is truly an enlightening piece and answers the mystery of why the city feels it needs streetcars and COTA buses at the same time. We know that this piece will anger some for a variety of reasons, but we stress that what should be focused on is the proposed compromise, because it gives the community at large what it has been promised and never received - expanded and upgraded COTA services, while it still solves the needs deemed necessary by the city and developers.

Any remarks can be emailed to us at case@activist.com .

The Truth About The Columbus Streetcar Plan...

The Truth About Streetcars: An Analysis of the Columbus Streetcar Project Plan and Commentary

By Marshall Barnes

After hearing much in the media about the streetcar idea, and little of it answering any of the questions that I have had concerning the project, I took the time to both review the official Columbus Streetcar Project Financial Plan issued by Mayor Michael Coleman's office, and attend the public hearing at City Hall chambers from about 7:PM to its conclusion. During that time the majority of the comments that I heard were against the streetcar idea and for a variety of reasons. These comments came from a diverse range of citizens, including community leaders, activists, and businessmen that I have known since the 1980s. The general feeling was that the project is too expensive, will not deliver on its projected goals, and the money could be better spent on upgrading COTA, fixing city streets and improving police. Of the people that I saw in favor of it, the general feeling was the same that had been promoted in the media - better transportation connecting from German Village through downtown to OSU, increased traffic and easy access for retail, a "green" mode of mass transit that would be better for the environment, and a dedicated transportation infrastructure that would lead to business development because of the permanence of the streetcar route.

As a research and development engineer with a 30 year background in dealing with advanced concepts in such diverse fields as consciousness, alternative energy, electromagnetic field theory, exotic propulsion and other areas, and as a leading figure in the promotion of advanced concept technology and physics in education, I come at this issue with a unique perspective. I have found a pervasiveness of a phenomena called hidden assumptions, which is a term I learned from physics that involves usually a mistake or error that goes unrecognized because it is hidden as an assumption that is true.

In 2004, I lectured at the International Mars Society Conference on how hidden assumptions have led to many concepts that are currently held to be true and accurate until, upon proper analysis, they are in fact found to be false. I have discovered so many of these, published by famous scientists, that the question has to be asked, how many more are out there that are hindering the technological advancement of our society and civilization? The answer to how this happens, I have found, is a psychological disconnect, many times due to years of trained thinking in particular modes of problem solving or conceptualization of scenario methodologies.

My ultimate proof of this is a soon to be released video where I predicted that a physics class at Bexley High School would be able to detect a mistake, that the world famous physicist Stephen Hawking had made, that no other PhD physicists anywhere in the world had caught, including all of the ones that I know that I had presented the problem to. When I pointed out the mistake, they all agreed that I was correct, but none of them were capable of seeing it on their own. In other words, so-called "experts" are not necessarily so savvy on every aspect of the subject that they are recognized as being an expert in. Five of the Bexley High School students in fact were able to identify the mistake – three girls and two boys.

When analyzing the problem surrounding the Columbus streetcar idea there are a variety of key issues that could be raised, as they were at the public hearing, however they are too numerous and are not needed to get to the crux of the matter in this presentation. I will synthesize them down to two main, and admittedly stereotypical camps. The first is the camp that is concerned with a value set that includes conservative investment views, a sense of independence that does not like change that threatens that independence, and in many instances has long, if not birth, ties to the city. By conservative investment views, I included the range from not wanting tax dollars to go to waste, to not wanting to put their own money in something they don't want to, as well as not wanting tax dollars going to fancy projects when the inner city and bread and butter issues are left wanting. The independence factor includes everything from not wanting people to tell them where and how to spend their entertainment dollars - or what that entertainment should be, to the preference of cars over mass transit. I will call this group the American Group or AG, because it embodies the core of diverse ingredients that were not only found in those who built this country after its creation, but in the building of the city of Columbus itself.

The second is marked by how many of them are not originally from Columbus. They compare Columbus to other cities constantly and say "Why can't we be like them?". Included in this group are those who dislike cars and seek urban efforts to change traffic patterns to restrict the movement of cars and to slow them down. This group includes those whose focus is on the movement of pedestrians and the increase of pedestrian traffic, and the creation of neighborhood sectors where pedestrians are congregated. The emphasis is on slowing things down and limiting the freedom of movement unless it is within the mass transit model or is a mode that usually limits travel within the urban area (bikes, scooters, etc.) which provides quicker access to designated areas than walking would allow. Their focus is constantly on models based on other cities with particular urban design structures that they find favorable and how they can change Columbus to fit those models. I will call this the Neo-European Group or NG because the reality is that much of what they discuss is how it has been in Europe for decades.

Admittedly, I'm being extremely general with this depiction, and in fact, at times individuals from either group can find themselves in the opposite one, depending on the issue in question. However, in this particular matter, these descriptions should suffice.

As should be apparent by now, I feel that what drives these two groups in part is psychology, or a particular worldview which is created by specific psychological factors. It can be summed up this way - the AG sees the streetcars as a waste of money that will impede traffic and is a redundancy of services that COTA already provides. The NG sees the streetcar the way that many members of AG sees a sexy sports car or perhaps even a SUV or 4 wheel drive, in fact, the streetcars always shown now are not the clunky vehicles of yesteryear but sleek, futuristic-looking, people movers - the NG equivalent of the sexy sports car which will deliver them to their ideal society where life is slower paced and people leisurely stroll from shops and restaurants and sit at sidewalk cafes for hours on end.

That, however, is only one part of the issue. The other part is the facts. For those I turned to the press release issued by Mayor Michael Coleman's office and more importantly, the Columbus Streetcar Project Financial Plan . The fact is that the media has been inundated with pro-streetcar hype about how they would be great for the city and will get people around. Until I started looking for answers to my questions, I found no discussion of them anywhere until a few mentions, recently. My questions are very basic and should have been addressed when the first news of this concept was presented.

We Won't Let These Streetcars Run Us Down!

The future that Marshall writes about is happening now, not sooner than you would think. We have video links below that prove this. As gas prices threaten to go higher and higher, what you need to do now is investigate the best options that you personally have to either convert your car to some hybrid form, to all electric or buying an electric car. We need as many people to make that conversion as quickly as possible.

This is a matter of National Security. If you wait until you suddenly can't afford gas, then it may be too late. Gas is not going to go back down to a $1 a gallon, it's going to go over $4 a gallon, so you have no choice. Every dollar you spend on gas now is a dollar you wasted that could have gone toward the conversion that you will have to be making most probably before the end of 2009 if not before.

In addition, if the demand for gas goes down, the price will fall some as well, which will relieve some of the pressure on the trucking industry until they can convert. We are dependent on the trucking industry for much of our food and other goods, and if transportation costs can be held in check, we will reap the benefits at the stores in the form of modrate prices.

In the meantime, to help you save money while you wait to convert or if you own a hybrid check Diane Fackler. She's a distributor for Fuel Freedom International's fuel saving pill the MPG-Cap! For an even better price savings, combine the MPG pill with a water conversion kit for your car and and save even more on gas!

Unanswered Questions

1. How are these streetcars any different from COTA buses?

2. How much would it cost to ride?

3. How is this system going to be paid for?

The answer to the last question is that it will be paid for by an increase in all parking fees, in hotel rates and ticket prices in the so-called "benefit zones" as well as so-called "financial participation" by OSU. One of the objections raised by at least two of the AG commentators at the public hearing was the increase in parking meter fees, which many people feel are already too high. One point that was raised was that it could in fact create a "bubble effect" where people would seek out parking outside of the so-called benefit zones and then ride COTA buses into downtown.

This idea is typical of AG thinking - if you don't like something, you figure out how to get around it (i.e. we don't like King George - let's rebel, we don't like crowding in the city - let's settle the Northwest territory, we don't like Prohibition - let's sell moonshine, we don't like being treated like 2nd class citizens - let's demand our civil rights, we don't like the war in Viet Nam - let's burn our draft cards). The inability of the NG planners to figure this out is typical of NG thinking, particularly from the position-of-power point of view - we know what's good for you and you're going to like it.

This attitude, which manifests in other ways as well, I call arrogant ignorance because it assumes that it knows more than it actually does and projects power based on that false assumption. It is often linked with the failing to recognize hidden assumptions in critical problems.

The answer to my first and second questions I found in the Columbus Streetcar Project Financial Plan. The first is in the middle of the Executive Summary, 1st paragraph which reads:

"The typical streetcar trip is not the commute to work, although many of the new residents in downtown Columbus could use it for that purpose. National studies illustrate that a typical household generates nine personal trips per day; the overwhelming majority of those trips are not from home to work and back.

Other trips include lunch, dinner or social activities, trips between business locations for mid-day meetings, shopping, and visitors circulating between hotels and major destinations. These are the types of trips that this "urban circulator” form of transit is designed to capture.

In addition, the availability of the circulator makes it much more convenient and practical for users to take conventional transit for their work trip, or even to drive to work or other locations, “park once” and use the streetcar circulator for other trips."

I have deliberately broken up the paragraph so that its contents can be more readily dissected, and put in bold type those portions that I feel are key. The beginnings of the psychological disconnect that I have identified as being the catalyst for missing hidden assumptions, is already apparent. First, the reliance on national studies sets the stage upon which this plan falls apart. The types of trips that it cites are those stereotypically made in Columbus either in one's own neighborhood, driving cross town or via freeways, unless one uses the bus. Since the streetcars won't connect the suburbs, or even most neighborhoods outside of the main High Street corridor, this concept is meaningless when applied here. In other words, the trips that are being mentioned are already being made by existing modes of transportation with no requirement for streetcars.

While there is already development underway in building the residential base in downtown Columbus, simultaneously there has been no successful effort to increase retail development. The idea that streetcars will bring development is baseless because the need and demand for development already exists, with the growing residential base to support it. There are already people coming to downtown for plays and concerts and sporting events so clearly, the problem is not getting people into the area. In fact, the creation of downtown living was supposed to spur the creation of downtown retail development long before streetcars were ever mentioned. If that hasn't happened yet, streetcars aren't going to change it, and I defy anyone to show data specific to Columbus to prove otherwise.

In the meantime, I will use data specific to the streetcar plan that I have already mentioned, to reveal its lack of credibility on its face.

The next segment only reinforces my argument. The "urban circulator" idea sounds appealing to the NG mindset, however COTA already does this. If I want to go from the now defunct City Center to the Hyatt Regency, I can take the 5, 2, 8, 7, or 4 bus to do it. Why do I need a streetcar? The very activity that the streetcar is supposed to fill a niche for is already being filled by COTA. In fact, COTA used to have the trolley bus that ran a route from one end of downtown to another for free (or 25 cents, I think). For a fraction of pennies on the dollar, COTA could not only bring back that service, but expand it from German Village to OSU in a loop. To make it green, COTA could apply for grants to run these trolley buses on a combination of electric and biofuel. They would be pollution free and possibly run for 25 cents a ride, cheap and worth it, if you wanted to get from point A to point B in between regularly scheduled buses, which brings me to my next point - the cost of riding the streetcar:

From Page 34, 2nd paragraph from the Fares/Pay-to-Ride section of the Columbus Streetcar Project Financial Plan:

"Everyone who rides the streetcar will pay. Fare revenue is based on the assumption that approximately 30 percent of the ridership would pay the respective fares for a one-way ticket, round-trip ticket, monthly pass, ten-trip coupon booklet, etc. It is believed that this mix of fares would average $1 per ride. It is further assumed that approximately 70 percent of the ridership would ride under programs linked to the charges in the benefit zone for paid off-street parking and admissions. The resulting $720,000 per year expected from fare revenues equals approximately 16 percent of gross operating costs, which is in line with other transit system operating experience, where such revenues rarely exceed 20 percent of operating costs.”

If you take my example of the type of trip this describes, I can take a #5, 2, 8, 7, or 4 bus and do the same thing, with no additional cost because I have a monthly COTA pass. Anyone can ride a bus back and forth within two hours for $1.50 as opposed to $1 per ride or get a day pass and ride anywhere in the city all day for $3.50. If my bus pass doesn't allow me to ride the streetcar for free, I won’t be riding it and I doubt that many other COTA monthly pass holders or any COTA riders at all, will either, unless it delivers a service that COTA doesn't. So far one has not been presented. It is often cited that the thousands of OSU students will ride the streetcar, well they won't be paying to ride it unless they can ride for free the way they can on COTA, which I suspect may happen due to OSU's "financial participation". Otherwise, anyone else, once they figure out they can grab a bus for less money, will do so, unless they are of that particular NG type that was mentioned at the public hearing as seeing riding a COTA bus as "beneath them". More on that later.

In any event, at this point not only has the streetcar idea failed to provide a convincing need, it also has less potential riders than one would be led to believe. I would also bring one's attention to the two times that I have placed the word "assumption" in bold type in the quoted preceding material. Consider this plan's assumptions no longer hidden.

From page 5 of the Columbus Streetcar Financial Plan, page 5, 4th paragraph of the A Short History of the Modern Streetcar section: "Starting in 2001 with Portland’s Central City Streetcar project, a “new” transit and development prototype has emerged. It has re-emphasized transit's traditional combined roles of connecting and shaping new development as urban environments became attractive areas for rejuvenation. The circulatory function of streetcars, acting as a “pedestrian accelerator” in downtowns and urban neighborhoods, is different from mass transit’s role of moving commuters to and from the central business district. The needs and goals of this type of transit are not about speed; they are about convenience, and about spreading the area of “walkable urbanism” beyond a small downtown core or single neighborhood. "

The model of mass transit’s role of simply a commuter function, like that seen where urban workers commute from the suburbs, is again erroneously applied to COTA without naming it. COTA does it all already - handles suburban commuters to some extent, handles short transit trips in the same area that the streetcars are supposed to operate as well as crisscross the greater metropolitan area. The psychological disconnect is obvious. The city's own plan is worded as though I don't have the option of taking any number of buses to get around downtown already. That there is some kind of transportation gap that exists, when it doesn't. As someone who used to live in New York off and on, and knows how the big city works, this is how transit gets done in Columbus with COTA:

1. First you identify which areas of town you usually go to.

2. You get the bus schedules for all of the buses that go there.

3. You keep those with you and plan your trips by the time and those buses.

What you discover is that you save time by not having to wait on a bus very much. You also, if you are smart enough, figure out how to navigate the city along multiple routes. For example, I need to get to OSU but I missed the # 2. Depending on where I need to go there, I can take a #8 or even a 7 or 18 and walk up a few blocks on High St. or over a few blocks from Neil Ave. Need to go to Grandview? Take the 3 or the 5 or depending on the time of day, the 19. Or even take a 2 or 8 up High St. to snag the 84 that will go places that the 3 or 5 won't. Or if the 84 is preferred but the timing is bad to catch it on time from downtown, for example, take the #5 and get off at Olentangy and 5th Ave and walk over the Lennox Center to catch the 84 there after it has already left High St. That’s the way I learned how to get around on New York subways and anyone familiar with that activity will see the obvious similarity here.

What I'm getting at is that COTA already does everything that the streetcars are supposed to do and with further investment, could do it better, faster, cheaper. What is needed is a revamping of the COTA system. I would dare say that the average member of the AG doesn't ride COTA very much, if at all. This opinion is reinforced by the comments of one of the most ardent of the streetcar supporters who claimed that businesses on Gay St had gone out of business since it had been changed into a two way street, that the location of the Madison's store had been empty for 20 years and that OSU students would be able to ride streetcars to get downtown when the have no way to get there now. The reality is that there was a night club in the Madison's location until just recently, the businesses that are closed on Gay St. were closed before the street was changed and this gentleman clearly has never set foot on a # 2 bus, either during the day - when it is at times half full of OSU students going downtown or coming from there, or at night when scantily clad co-eds and their escorts are heading out for a night's club hopping on the weekend.

I say again, COTA currently does exactly the same thing that streetcars are supposed to do. No one has offered one piece of concrete, verifiable data derived from the actual city itself to show otherwise. From page 6, last paragraph of the Economic Development section of the Columbus Streetcar Project Financial Plan:

“Streetcar projects across the

U.S.

are typically being spearheaded by city governments or by public-private partnerships composed of developers, property owners and city governments. Traditional transit authorities are typically not in the lead, although in most cases they are key partners. This is no accident: streetcar projects, at least in their current American iteration, are best understood as economic development projects with a transportation benefit, rather than the other way around. “Some short term case studies demonstrate the economic development potential delivered by the streetcar. Because of the frequency of stops – every two to four blocks – development. "

The section in bold is the little truth that has been deemphasized. While all the talk has been about how the streetcars will get people from here to there in the fanciful, nonexistent void that COTA doesn't fill, the truth is that this project is seen as a development project that has a transportation benefit, and is not a transportation project at all. The fact is that when compared to COTA, the streetcars are a waste of money. It will not attract additional riders at the level to sustain it, it won't attract additional downtown development because the demand already exists for it and it's not there, and the primary beneficiaries will be only those who will make money from the construction and subsidized operation of the system and those who want a perceived attractive trophy to show off in the city.

The problems of downtown development are currently beyond the psychological grasp of those in place to deal with them. After all, they said that bringing residential living to downtown would spur commercial and retail development and it hasn't. Why not fix that problem first? Those same "experts" want us to believe that streetcars will do the trick, but when carefully analyzed, that model falls on its face.

In my research in the field of consciousness I have identified a particular area, prompted in part by encouragement by Dr. Itiel Dror, a professor of psychology in the

. I had to name it because it is essentially a new field. I call it technocogninetics or the effect that devices or things have on the human consciousness. It is somewhat applicable in this case to explain this disconnect from the facts. The streetcar, both as a symbol and an actual thing, has such a powerful technocogninetic effect that it causes those in the NG camp to literally be out of touch with reality. I am astounded by this - the last segment in bold in the above paragraph, that equates economic development happening because the streetcar will stop every two to four blocks. Hello ? The last time I checked the COTA buses do EXACTLY THE SAME THING! The places where they stop are called bus stops. It's as if these people have been hypnotized not to see COTA buses!

Finally, the Truth Revealed

It is at this point that I will reveal the truth behind this plan, based on the results of my analysis. I don’t believe that the main planners are under any type of technocogninetic effect, though the fans of this plan most certainly are. The truth is that the main purpose of this plan has been hidden, with its main components placed in plain site. It is those components that have caused all of the confusion over why the streetcars are needed when COTA provides the same service in the same area. It is why a per ride fee structure was put in place and the emphasis on the concept of moving people every two blocks or so. The truth is that COTA does not provide the same service in the same areas because the plan is not about the average person in Columbus. It’s about providing an almost exclusive service to people who don’t want to ride COTA.

The only way that this model makes any sense is if the planners feel that they will be able to attract people who don't want to ride a COTA bus downtown because they don’t feel safe riding COTA or, as the one commentator said at the hearing - because it is "beneath them". Once these people pay to park downtown they will have the ability to move about the corridor in question without having to deal with COTA and its perceived undesirable clientele. For what amounts to a shuttle service, they will be happy to pay the $1 per ride for the convenience and the comfort of avoiding those undesirables beneath their class on the COTA buses. Likewise, convention visitors will be insured to have a safe and pleasant means of conveyance anywhere in the proposed service area which will prompt positive comments about their experience when they get back home. Simultaneously, the streetcar system is an interesting visual gimmick ready made for marketing the city to attract convention business and you can be sure, in those meetings where those pitches are made, the emphasis will be on the exclusive nature of the street cars versus the more common nature of COTA, i.e. "Oh, and when you want to visit restaurants and shops - you can ride our new streetcar system and avoid waiting around for buses."

That is the only way this plan makes any kind of sense. It is an elitist attempt to get well heeled suburbanites, the ones who fled downtown for Tuttle Mall and Polaris, to think about downtown again, simultaneously insuring their comfort while they visit, the rest of the city's needs be damned. The fallacy of course is that there is no data based on the city's history or current condition to support it. If there were, it would be in the report. This whole concept wouldn't be based on self-admitted assumptions.

I take you back to the City Center. They built it and it worked, for a while. Then the city allowed for Polaris and Tuttle malls when people said that it would siphon business away from City Center. After all, why would people come into the downtown if they didn't have to? Oh, no, the powers-that-be knew better and now we have a dead City Center. Likewise, the "if we build it, they will come" idea for downtown residential development led to an increased effort for downtown living, so far with mixed success. What hasn't happened is the retail development side, and instead of concentrating on that, another carrot and stick plan has been initiated with this streetcar concept. The truth is, if there's nothing downtown to do, no one is going to go downtown.

What the NG set forgets is that the majority population in Columbus fits within the AG set. It was NG thinking that wanted a tax to build the Nationwide Arena but it was the AG population that said, "If it's such a good idea, use your own money". The AG set sees right through these kinds of simplistic pitches, like the argument that streetcar rails are dedicated and will convince retailers that traffic will be there, which is one of the most asinine ideas ever because of the simple fact that no one is going to change the bus route on High St., or any other major route where they're trying to get development. The dedicated traffic pattern is already there and it won't be going anywhere, ever. For anyone to make that argument is either insulting another's intelligence or a clear indication of the lack of intelligence on the part of the person saying it. Like I said, a total and complete psychological disconnect.

When I criticize concepts I usually like to propose a counter solution. Anyone can say that something won't work while it is more difficult to show what will. The hidden purpose behind the streetcar plan that I have identified has its merits, but only as it has identified a need. The way that it attempts to solve it, and justify that solution, is what is flawed. If anyone in the city administration tasked with this problem was really intelligent, they would have foreseen the problems with this solution and looked toward the obvious - a COTA upgrade with a simultaneous shuttle service as part of the package. Let me explain:

1. Do the parking fees and the hotel and ticket taxes in the benefit zones, but not by too much.

2. Use that money to get COTA to upgrade its services overall, including late night or all night service in some areas, and buses added to new service areas. I know COTA is a county agency but it’s the Greater Columbus area that it serves. Certainly someone down at City Hall can figure out how to make the funding here work.

3. In addition, COTA would get more of those trolley buses and convert them to electric/biofuel hybrids. That would make the city look progressive as well as having the aesthetic of the nostalgic streetcars from the city's much lauded past. My estimate is that COTA would need a grand compliment of 10 to cover the entire proposed streetcar route so that a trolley would be at every stop every 5 to 10 minutes. That's just an estimate but it shouldn't be too far off target.

4. To ride the trolley bus would cost a $1 per ride or $5 all day in any direction. Hotel guests could get a voucher for a $1 all day pass, since they'll be staying here and spending money anyway. Simultaneously, the financial disincentive for the rest of us unwashed locals to ride would still be intact.

5. No one would have noticed this obvious slight against the community-at-large because they would be happy and distracted by the fact that the bus service would finally be upgraded. Yes, I'm being cynical here, but it would have worked - it's called "win-win" and it's better than being simply stupid like the current streetcar plan.

6. The entire cost of this proposal would be a fraction of the streetcar cost which, although the city's plan says they have a way to pay for it without raising taxes, that remains to be seen. Because of the actual benefits and the low overall cost (funded the same way as they want now), no one would have been too upset. In fact, the people of Columbus could have actually been excited by it since it would be giving them something that they want instead of lying to their faces to sell them something that they haven't asked for and that many of them won't and were never intended to use.

7. Most important for all of the politicos, from the Mayor on down, they could have accomplished the same goal without spending the money on useless studies that they have so far - the $2,000,000 they want to spend doing more studies, and they could have avoided the animosity that their streetcar plan has raised due to its nonsensical posturing, as well as save themselves the political fallout that has already begun and will only get worse if they actually proceed to pursue this misguided course of action.

This brings me to my conclusion, and perhaps the most frightening example of this phenomenon of psychological disconnect, that I do see as real. In the March 27, 2008 issue of The Other Paper, reporter Erik Johns wrote in the article, Mayor Says Streetcars Could Outlast Freeways:

" Columbus has a reputation as a city that’s particularly friendly to cars: nice big freeways, wide Downtown thoroughfares and lots of parking lots. But Coleman said perpetually rising gas prices will require the city to adapt.

'I can foresee gasoline prices being so expensive that our average working men and women won’t be able to get to work,' he said.

'This is a wild statement, but I’m gonna let you write it: We have one of the best freeway systems in . I wonder if 50 years from now that system will be outdated because no one will be able to ride on it because of the cost of gasoline.'

The only way to describe my reaction to that statement is total and complete horror. Horror that our mayor could be that sold on an idea that he could be that out of touch with reality. The reality is that the electric car is going to solve the gasoline problem. Anyone who has seriously looked at the energy question knows that, after all there are already electric hybrids on the streets of Columbus! 50 years from now, electric cars, or cars that have been electrically retrofitted, or other non-gas cars will be the only cars on the freeways and they will have the range that existing cars do, if not greater, because they will most probably be regenerating in most cases. This means that either the mayor hasn't been seriously looking at the energy problem at all or is so obsessed with these streetcars that he's willing to make total and complete asinine statements to the press in a desperate attempt to sell the idea to the public, despite how it makes him look.

This is the difference between those that play at 21st century thinking and those of us who do it for real. In the real world the future is on its way - EV World http://www.evworld.com , the Tesla Roadster http://www.teslamotors.com , ElectricCars http://electriccars.com/tour.cfm?EUNC=mainUNC=main .

The entire basis for Mayor Coleman's statement is a fallacy based on the hidden assumption that the working men and women of Columbus have no other options but gas fueled autos, and in a world of rising gas prices the streetcars will deliver their salvation. However, those of us in the AG camp know better. Even in the real Europe, the opinion is that electric cars will replace gas ones http://solveclimate.com/blog/20080409/deutsche-bank-electric-cars-could-wipe-gas-cars-map .

Moreover, I myself have a plan for the nationwide distribution of electric car components that can be used to retrofit older gas cars through a network of entrepreneurs. Those cars would be retrofitted on local levels nationwide and then sold in those same local markets through used car dealers who would welcome the opportunity to sell an attractive product to a customer base that would consist primarily of the same demographic that the Mayor claims his streetcars will rescue. This avoids the costs of manufacturing and distributing new vehicles, resulting in a lower cost.

I already did my market surveys and found that 100% of those queried, who were lower income COTA bus riders that travel out to suburban jobs, would buy a used, older vehicle, if they would never have to pay for gas or oil for it. That was two years ago, when gas was still around $2 a gallon. I had already seen the day that the mayor talks and had a solution - requiring no tax dollars, no studies and absolutely no permission from anybody. At the end of May, I will be formally announcing the plan so that enterprising individuals across the country can start to make it happen. In addition, I'm working on the development of technologies that will make any electric car self-charging, resulting in a completely autonomous personal vehicle. I expect that to happen sometime in late 2009.

If the mayor wants the city to adapt to rising gas prices, I suggest that the city replace all city cars with either electric hybrids, new electric cars or retrofit existing cars to be electric. I also suggest the installation of solar panels on top of all city buildings and the adaptation of available city land to utilization of solar panel fields. In fact, all levels of government should be doing that right now - city, county and federal.

This country needs the energy equivalent of the National Defense Research Committee from World War II, because indeed our National Security and American Way of Life is at stake. Streetcars will have zero effect on this. If this energy crisis is not solved within the next two years, this country is going to come unglued. Because of bad consumer decisions on purchasing gas guzzling SUVs, the Clinton administration's failure to live up to promises Bill Clinton made in 1992 to develop alternative energy, and his allowing domestic oil producers to be driven out of business by cheap Saudi oil, this country now faces the perfect storm which portends its destruction. The fact is I saw Bill Clinton promise us all the wonders of alternative energy technology, when he spoke at OSU behind the Student Union in the summer of 1992, and then when he got into office - with his supposed environmental VP, nothing really changed except alternative energy researchers complaining at conventions about being harassed and the alleged mysterious death of Ohio water car inventor, Stanley Myer. Just one of the reasons I know now that if a Clinton is saying it, not to believe it.

The day when working men and women can’t afford to drive is nearly at hand – not 50 years away. Fortunately, politicians like Mayor Coleman don’t have to be depended on for our salvation.

The idea that the streetcar plan is also the first step toward the holy grail of a light rail system is another fallacy. If you want light rail, build it. The streetcars aren’t a needed component. A light rail system that circles I-270, with COTA stations to take riders into the city, while outbound routes connect to Cleveland in the north and Cincinnati in the south, would be easier and cheaper because it wouldn’t involve the expense of the streetcar system within the city. You could easily have the trolley buses make hourly trips from stations in Dublin, Worthington, Westerville, Gahanna, Reynoldsburg, Grove City and Hilliard that would bring people into downtown and back via the freeway, using the same pricing structure I already mentioned.

Streetcars won't replace cars, they will have adverse effects on local businesses during the construction process and in the end, they will have a zero net effect on changing so-called traffic patterns. The same well heeled suburbanites, that are the real target for streetcars, will be some of the first to buy electrics and will stay in the suburbs where they can shop and park for free. In fact, they will probably shop further away from the downtown unless the development problem is solved (clue to the clueless – if you can’t get someone to put something interesting downtown, you’re talking to the wrong developers) because of increased mobility and the sudden flush of cash they've saved from being able to drive by the all gas stations, waving whatever friendly greeting they have a mind to, as they go. This will leave the center city's shiny new streetcars all dressed up but with very few dates.

The facts are that the streetcar initiative is a hollow attempt to lure suburban shoppers back to downtown with a disguised, and overpriced shuttle service, it ignores the cost savings and benefits of upgrading and expanding COTA, and it does this with the promotion of technocogninetic effects from the psychological appeal of streetcars to the typical NG set. It ignores the reality of the concerns of the AG set and the very real potential that the AG set will upend all of the projected goals and outcomes of the plan by the oncoming increase of the availability of electric cars - making the populace even less interested in streetcars by ending once and for all the arguments for mass transit based upon saving fuel costs and ending pollution.

The core value of the AG set is independence and self-determination, which is what the automobile has always symbolized, and the electric car will reawaken that dream with the force of an atomic bomb. It simultaneously returns that individual freedom of movement with the ability of telling the much hated oil companies to take a hike, and with them, anyone else that gets in the way. The mechanisms to make that happen are already here and if the powers-that-be in the NG set were half as knowledgeable as they present themselves to be, they would already know this.

If the City of Columbus proceeds with its streetcar plan it will not stop the coming of the electric car solution. The electric car solution is the resurrected messiah of the AG set after the big auto manufactures killed it. It is bigger and more powerful than any group of city planners and bureaucratic pencil pushers serving the will of their political masters. What will happen is that the city and the mayor will face the ever increasing probability of failure of their plan, and the negative community feeling that has already begun, because the electric car solution won’t be stopped by the streetcars, it will happen in spite of them.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear - I have no political axe to grind. I'm making this statement as a professional both in the advanced concept area and in the area of research analysis. The devil is in the details and the details of this plan reveal exactly what I've stated. Anyone else who took the time to read it, and was armed with the same critical questions, would have come to the same conclusion. The apparent ignorance of the planners of the oncoming electric car phenomena shows that there was only one focus and that was to build streetcars and not solve any transportation problems. I am only speaking out so that, if this plan is enacted, there would have been at least one person with an expert opinion who had warned the city of this folly, and had the data to back it up. I will make no effort to stop the plan - that's for activists and community leaders to do. I’m merely telling the truth about what this plan really is and then going back to my work.

The beginning of the 21st century will be dominated by the AG set just as the beginning of the 20th century was. The AG set includes the inventors, the innovators and the visionaries and it has already begun. Those in the NG set that ignore this fact, do so at the risk of their own idealized projects.