Can't Teach an Old Political Gang New Tricks

Columbus is a car city, and there's no reason to think our leaders care about changing that.

Columbus mayor Andrew Ginther (left) and former Columbus mayor Michael Coleman (right).

We in Columbus love our lofty plans that our leaders use to peddle the notion they care about something other than maintaining their power.

We have a plan to become a carbon neutral city by 2050—long after the world will likely be embroiled in climate catastrophe. We have a plan to eliminate pedestrian and bicyclist deaths (half of the victims in fatal car crashes in 2021) by an unspecified date.

For all the graphs and grandiose prose, cars are the obvious enemy of those well-intended plans. You can witness how much personal vehicles mean to this city by standing on the corner of Gift Street and Rich Street during morning rush hour and watching the endless stream of them exit the highway and make their way downtown.

And that’s just one small artery into one small part of our city during one hour of the day.

I would gladly set my car on fire to live in a city that didn’t require one, and I’m not alone in that notion. Biking and walking are not only cheaper than car ownership, they’re better for the body and environment. I refuse to believe people would choose driving over walking or biking if they didn’t have to risk their lives doing so.