COTA Line Review: 6 Sullivant

a surprisingly solid route

what is this

The 6 is the main secondary route to reach the western side of Columbus (the main route being the more direct 10). It starts out in the western suburb of Lincoln Village, then serves the communities of Hilltop and Franklinton before crossing the Scioto into Downtown and terminating at the Spring Street Terminal. It is a rather unusual route, as many of the downtown routes (numbers 1-12) start in a suburb, travel through downtown, and end in another suburb. The 6 does not continue to another suburb after serving downtown, however, and it is the only non-rush-hour route to regularly serve the Spring Street Terminal.

okay, where does it go

suburbia but sidewalks!

We started at the intersection of Murray Hill & Beacon Hill, then turned east onto Beacon Hill, then south onto Old Williams, then east onto Broad. We crossed over I-270 and made a stop at the Westland Mall (with a lot of parking lots between the street and the shops) before turning south onto Georgesville. We stopped at the Hollywood Casino, then turned east onto Sullivant, the namesake of the line.

hilltop

After running along Sullivant Avenue for a while, we entered the Hilltop neighborhood. This area is filled with a relatively even spread of small businesses and tightly packed single-family homes. This entire segment has sidewalks as well and the bus got busy enough to the point where most every seat on the bus was taken and some people had to stand. This was (and still is) the busiest I have ever seen a COTA bus.

franklinton

As we entered Franklinton, the ridership slowly tapered off, and only about half the seats were taken. This is still very heavy ridership for a mid-day ride in late December in the holiday season. We turned north onto Davis, then back west onto Rich. Sidewalks remained, and the houses slowly got denser and eventually turned into apartments. We passed over the Scioto on the Main Street Bridge and passed by Bicentennial Park as we arrived downtown.

spring street terminal (very nice)

Downtown, we continued along Main, passed by the main COTA Transit Terminal downtown for all of the rush-hour buses, and turned north onto 4th Street. After running along 4th, we turned west onto Spring, where we terminated at the Spring Street Terminal.

so what

I like this route. It’s very walkable and serves mid-to-high density areas. It makes nice connections to frequent lines and feels faster than the 10 (Broad Street bus) due to running along a less traveled street. The scenery is okay, but it goes downtown, past some nice parks, and over the Scioto.

final rating

I will give the 6 an 8/10. It is a very solid route, and it has all of the aspects of a good bus line. My only complaint is that it only runs every 30 minutes, but with the amount of interlining it does with other routes, that doesn’t seem like it would be an issue. The ridership is really high though, so it probably should run more often.