COTA seeking sales tax boost to fund LinkUS projects
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- The Central Ohio Transportation Authority (COTA) wants to make it easier for everyone to get around by modernizing public transit, and is asking more than 40 communities in its service area to fund it.
Residents will soon have to vote on Issue 47, and with the population in the city continually growing, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther thinks this is a needed investment in the community.
"When you grow by a third in a community that's already grown significantly in the last 50 years, we have to have options,” Ginther said. “We got to have choices, and we want to grow the right way."
COTA’s proposed levy on the November ballot is asking voters to increase its share of local sales tax by .5 percent, which would equate to about an extra .50 in sales tax on a $100 purchase.
If passed, the levy would help fund a portion of the LinkUS initiative, and city leaders are confident it will pass.
"I believe in the people of central Ohio and every time they've had issues before them where they could vote to invest in their future, to invest in the future of their families, their communities and neighborhoods, I believe in the voters of this community, and they've shown us throughout history to always make the right choice,” Ginther said.
COTA’s Linden Green Line is part of the initiative; the funding would turn a seven-mile abandoned rail corridor into a linear park with faster bus routes, bikeways, expanded sidewalks, and more. Planning manager with Columbus Recreation and Parks Brad Westall notes that one project would cost $16 million with $6 million coming from the levy, but it would be well worth it.
“There are 40 access points -- one is right behind us on 18th Avenue,” Westall said. “About every couple of hundred yards, you as a resident have a way to get on or get off that's very convenient for you. You don't generally have that in the Columbus area.”
There are more than 80 projects ready to start work in 2025 through 2030, hoping to significantly impact how people live their daily lives throughout central Ohio.
"We're on the Linden Green Line, we go by ten parks on this corridor, we go by 19 schools, we go by 3,000 places of employment,” Westall said. “It's not hard for me to envision that that is going to make a difference in people's lives."
There was also a process by the Mid-Ohio Planning Commission that included all jurisdictions listing their needs and a public comment period on the project.