COTA Line Review: 5 W 5th / Refugee
this took a very long time but it was worth it
what is this
The 5 is one of only a handful of routes on the COTA system with branches. It runs from the eastern side of Columbus near the town of Brice westward into the south side of Columbus. It then turns north to go through downtown. The route continues north to hit the Short North, then heads west through Grandview Heights and crosses the Scioto into Valleyview. From here, the line splits into two branches, with one continuing west to the Renner Road Park & Ride in the south of Hilliard, and the other turning south then west again to terminate in Lincoln Village.
okay, where does it go
We started our journey behind the Gender Road Towne Centre, technically in Canal Winchester but really more in the town of Brice. We stopped at a few other places in the strip mall before turning west onto Refugee Road. Refugee turns into Chatterton, then back into Refugee.
It makes a diversion to the now-defunct-but-still-sort-of-a-transit-center Eastland Mall, where interchange is available to the 23 and the 24. With the exception of the now-abandoned Eastland Mall, this entire area has lots of single-family homes with lots of space between them.
Once we passed the Eastland Mall, the surroundings became more industrial and less residential, but there was still the occasional isolated neighborhood here and there. We passed over US-33 and turned north onto Alum Creek Drive, where interchange is available with the 22. We remained in a very industrial neighborhood, with even less residential areas than the previous area.
We turned west onto Frebis and the industrial quickly swapped out with residential. The density slowly increased as we turned north onto Fairwood and west again onto Whittier. The houses became closer and closer together, and eventually we entered German Village. This area is very nice, with old and charming houses at every corner. Eventually, we turned north onto High, crossed I-70/71, and entered Downtown Columbus.
Downtown, we traveled solely along High Street, interlining with the 1, 2, and 102, and we passed by the Statehouse and the Convention Center. Crossing over I-670, we left Downtown and entered the Short North. This area is full of mixed-use development, with stores and shops on the ground floor and apartments occupying the upper floors.
After some time, we turned west onto West 5th, leaving the Short North and entering Grandview Heights. We rode past tightly packed commercial and residential buildings, with sidewalks throughout. Some people got on and off, but the busiest part of the line was downtown.
We passed through Marble Cliff, then over the Scioto River into Valleyview. This neighborhood has a pretty even mix of industrial buildings and residential quarters. We had very few people remaining on the bus by this point, and the sidewalks were all but gone.
At this point, the line splits into two branches. The northern branch goes to the southern end of Hilliard, while the southern branch goes to Lincoln Village.
We first went along the northern branch running along Trybue, and it got very rural very quickly. Large swaths of unoccupied lots dominated the landscape, and a freight terminal was visible far off in the distance. We terminated at the Renner Road Park & Ride, in the parking lot of a Meijer that you couldn’t walk to. It is important to note that I was the only person on the bus.
Doubling back to cover the southern branch, there were significantly more people traveling along this section. We turned south off of Trabue onto Wilson, and then west onto Broad. This area had many small homes, and on Broad, too many strip malls. The bus terminated behind a strip mall on N Murray Hill Rd, within walking distance of some apartment complexes and some shops.
so what
The 5 is really quite a nice route. It runs with a 15-minute frequency (30-minute on the branches), which is solid enough for the locations it serves. A lot of its neighborhoods are very nice, which adds to the overall appeal of the line.
final rating
The 5 gets an 9/10 — a new high! It is a walkable, frequent, relatively scenic route that serves some interesting neighborhoods (Grandview Heights, the Short North, Downtown AND German Village in one route!) and crosses both the Scioto and the Olentangy. It also makes a lot of easy connections throughout the route. I don’t really have any major complaints about it, other than that the southern branch should be more frequent based on the ridership it had.
Honestly, make three out of four buses use the southern branch and one use the northern branch. This would roughly give the northern branch an ~1 hour frequency, and the southern branch a ~20 minute frequency, which, based on ridership, seems appropriate. In addition, they should give different designations to buses that run on different branches. These could be 5N for Renner Road-bound buses, 5S for Lincoln Village-bound buses, and there's only one eastern terminus, so those could just retain the 5.