Operation: TSR - Part # 11
Line # 11 - Bryden/Maize
For our look on the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) Transit System Review (TSR) changes in May, on the 11th day in March, we are paying homage to the # 11 line, which for the first 30-plus years of COTA, was just a “loop and weave around the Near East Side” (which I’ll explain on the show on the 20th - TRUST me). The # 11 went from Sawyer Towers to the “Bexley” Kroger at Main & Alum Creek Drive, looping around Columbus State Community College and Ohio Center Way (the 1980s era food court next to the Hyatt Regency, to the south end of the Convention Center), to High Street, and looping/weaving to Main Street to Fourth, to State, and then it gets interesting. Does it go down Oak? Or Bryden (as most passengers have asked these 40-plus years)? The line was extended on both ends - The # 11 Saint Clair to the old VA Clinic (now CarePoint East) in 1995, and then again in 2011. The # 11 Oak/Bryden was extended to Alum Creek and Winslow Drive in the late 1990s, and then in 2009, to Eastland Mall (Weekends only until January 2010) and the Gender Road Town Center (Weekdays, before it became daily in January 2010).
This line was one of the most hotly contested routes in the whole TSR deliberation, as to whether it should stay or go, because you had service competing with other lines on the # 11 (Mount Vernon Avenue, Broad Street, Main Street), and the TSR consultants wanted COTA go give the Refugee Road part to the Whittier Street line. COTA agreed to save the # 11, but with a catch. It would connect to a NEW line, serving the North End, where it goes through the Near East (here we go again), but goes up Joyce Avenue, then Maize Road, and then Morse Road, back to High Street, ending at the Westview Turnaround. As for Oak/Bryden, the line will ONLY go down Town Street/Bryden Road, and then end at Maryhaven on Alum Creek and Frebis Avenues (which two other lines will go further down Alum Creek from there). The line will end at 10PM, daily (rather than Midnight, Monday through Saturday, and 9PM on Sunday).
# 11 Bryden/Maize
- 60 minute service from Westview Turnaround to Maryhaven via Morse Road, Maize Road, Joyce Avenue, Long Street, and Bryden Road
- Last bus leaves downtown around 9PM (or 10PM?)
- Destinations include Maryhaven, DeVry Institute of Technology, the Near East Side - Franklin Park, Woodland Park, Olde Towne East, & King-Lincoln District, Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus State Community College, the Lincoln Theatre, the Main Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, Franklin University, Grant Medical Center, Downtown Columbus, OSU Carepoint East, OSU Hospital East, St. Stephen’s Community House, Ohio School for the Deaf, Ohio School for the Blind, North Linden, and Graceland Shopping Center
For more on the Transit System Review, go to http://www.cota.com/TSR.
