COTA Line Review: 24 Hamilton
ughhhhh so boringggggggggg
what is this
The 24 starts in Lockbourne near the Rickenbacker Airport, runs locally through a business park, then gets on London-Groveport Road. London-Groveport becomes Hamilton, where the route makes local stops until Morse Road. It then makes a deviation to a Meijer near the intersection of Morse and Hamilton and turns west onto Morse to run over to the Easton Transit Center, where the route terminates. For much of the route’s history, it was listed as a rush-hour route, only operating a few times during the morning and evening rush on weekdays. In fact, some station markers along the line still have the 24 listed as a rush-hour route.
okay, where does it go
We started at the intersection of London-Groveport Road and Alum Creek Drive, at the southern terminus of the 22. After departing, we turned north onto Alum Creek, then east onto Speigel, then north again onto Port Road, then east again onto Rohr, making local stops the entire time. After running along Rohr for a while, we turned north onto Commerce Center, then east onto Green Pointe. Throughout this entire section, the landscape was dotted with warehouses and other industrial complexes. We went along Green Pointe for a while before making a quick jog east over on Groveport Road to continue to travel north on London-Groveport. While it was on London-Groveport, it made no stops.
After a while, London-Groveport turned into Hamilton as it exits Groveport, and the route started making local stops again. The first few stops were along a divided expressway (which i am not a fan of), but later, the road became a 4-lane road.
As we continued through Blacklick, the sidewalks disappeared as we continued to make local stops. We went by a few strip malls before entering the stereotypical example of suburbia. Still no sidewalks.
More strip malls and no sidewalks as we left Blacklick and entered Whitehall. As we got further into Whitehall and further away from Blacklick, a magical thing happened. Sidewalks appeared! We also passed less and less strip malls and passed more and more neighborhoods with spaced out single-family homes.
We left Whitehall, still headed north along Hamilton. The sidewalks disappeared on the west side of the road, dropping off on the right side as well a few minutes later. We also were passing more and more strip malls instead of residential suburbia. We passed by the airport but did not stop at the terminal; however connection is available to the 7 which services the airport.
We crossed over I-270 and entered Gahanna, but the boring part of Gahanna, not near Creekside. The sidewalks and strip malls returned, and disappeared again as we entered more residential suburbia.
The strip malls and intermittent sidewalks came back as we approached the intersection of Hamilton and Morse. We made a diversion to a Meijer. No other things of note.
We turned west onto Morse Road, where the strip malls disappeared but the sidewalks stayed. We passed over Big Walnut Creek, through a small forest, and back into the strip malls. The sidewalks also disappeared momentarily.
Crossing under I-270, we entered Easton. We turned north onto Stelzer, then turned into the Easton Transit Center, where we terminated. More strip malls and some sidewalks, huge parking lots all around.
so what
in case you can’t tell, this route is so unbelievably boring. It’s literally just strip malls, then suburbs, then strip malls, then suburbs. The scenery is pretty much non-existent, and it’s also a pretty slow route. The route runs every 30 minutes on weekdays, and I think this is suitable, but as always, more frequency is always a good thing.
final rating
I will give the 24 a 4/10. It makes decent connections to other routes and runs at a decent frequency, but the lack of sidewalks for over half the route and the sheer monotony of Hamilton Road both really bring the score down.
how would i improve this
There really is not a whole lot I can think of to improve this route, but making the stops more accessible would do wonders. Also, headway improvements would be nice, but with the 34 paralleling the 24 to Hamilton Road from Easton now, this seems less likely.