MORPC’s William Murdock

Tim Fulton 0:11Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, we find out if Columbus is ever going to get a light rail, or at least we explore the what's and the why's of the conversation. Columbus Underground reporter Brent Warren sat down with the executive director of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, William Murdock, to discuss what MORPC does, where the region is going, the difference between developing a plan and implementing it, and how to ignite the conversation about transit change in Columbus. You can get more information about what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Also, The Confluence Cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website, theconfluencecast.com, or at patreon.com/confluence. The Confluence Cast is sponsored this week by the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, or MORPC, featuring stories about local and regional partners that envision and embrace innovative directions in economic prosperity, transportation, sustainability, and an inclusive central Ohio. MORPC's transformative programming, innovative services, and public policy initiatives are designed to promote and support the vitality and growth in the region. For more information, please visit morpc.org.

Brent Warren 1:49Well, William Murdock, executive director of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, thanks for being with us today.

William Murdock 1:54Great. Glad to be here.

Brent Warren 1:55I think, as you know, I've been covering urban development and transit in Columbus for over six years for Columbus Underground, and I have a planning background. I worked as a city planner, and I have a degree in city planning.

William Murdock 2:06Right.

Brent Warren 2:07I, I know a lot about you guys, and I'm interested in what you're doing, and I'm excited to kinda delve into the, to the weeds with you on this stuff.

William Murdock 2:14Great.

Brent Warren 2:14But I'm sure there are people that you meet, that you tell them what you do, and they kind of get a blank look on their face.

William Murdock 2:20Sure. Sure.

Brent Warren 2:21Um, can you give me sort of the, the overview of what you tell people like that about what MORPC is and, and what you do?

William Murdock 2:29Sure, yeah. So anytime you work for a five-letter acronym, you have to explain things. So at, at MORPC, we're the regional council for central Ohio. So that means we work with local governments of all types, uh, small villages, townships, all the way up to the city of Columbus. Uh, we cover a wide range, um, of central Ohio. And, uh, whether it's urban, rural, suburban, we're helping them with transportation, sustainability, planning, data, all that stuff you said that, uh, uh, you learned and excited about in planning school, and certainly you're the regional expert on a lot of these things. Um, that's what we do. So we're a technical resource. Uh, we help the region really get ahead of where it's going and prepare for growth.

Brent Warren 3:10Great. And can you just explain a little bit, like, how you're funded, um, who are your stakeholders?

William Murdock 3:17Yeah. So we're... Uh, MORPC's actually a membership association of local governments. So we have 67 local governments across central Ohio who voluntarily work together. And so, uh, through their support, through federal support on transportation and energy, state support, grants, we, we pull it all together to, to be this resource for central Ohio.

Brent Warren 3:40Great. And that- that's cities, townships, counties, everything, right?

William Murdock 3:44Cities-

Brent Warren 3:44Yeah

William Murdock 3:45... counties, townships, villages, and other regional organizations. So, uh, really, it's any, any level of government in central Ohio that, that wants to work together. Um, that's... Those are our members. So we think of it as, uh, as our members, and we really... We have a membership coordinator. We focus on services to them. Uh, but when we think of who we're working for, we're also working for the public in central Ohio. So we do everything from help low income families with energy insulation installs all the way up to, uh, trying to bring together diverse opinions on what the region looks like. And so it's really about the people of central Ohio and how we can move it forward.

Brent Warren 4:20Great. I don't think I've asked you this when I've talked to you previously, but what is... How did you end up in this role? Are, are you from the region originally? Did you grow up here?

William Murdock 4:28I did. I did. I s- so I went to high school in Westerville, went to Ohio State for a long time until I got a planning degree at the end of it and an environmental degree at the end of it. Uh, worked in Gahanna for almost a decade, uh, from their parks department all the way into their planning, uh, department. I helped close a landfill, uh, and helped redevelop old Gahanna. Went to the State of Ohio and ran what was called the Clean Ohio Revitalization Program, so a brownfield and urban development program. Ended up running a whole suite of community programs, but when this job came open, I'm a city planner by trade, I'm a central Ohioan, I'm a Buckeye, and I said, "You know what? If ever a chance to impact the region and really, uh, serve it," this was it. And so it's been about six years since I've had the chance to, to come over to MORPC, and a great team here, great supportive board, and we're doing lots of good work.

Brent Warren 5:16Is this your dream job being here?

William Murdock 5:17Oh, yeah. I mean, come on. A, a, a Buckeye city planner graduate in central Ohio- ... like, of course you wanna be at, at MORPC as, uh, the planning commission for the region.

Brent Warren 5:26Um, one of the topics I wanna delve into, and I know you'll be excited to talk about, is, um, Insight 2050 and the corridors concept. Um, we just covered the unveiling of the corridors recently, um, so there's been a lot of discussion about that lately. Insight 2050 I think goes back, like, is it, like, five years or so, right?

William Murdock 5:47Mm-hmm.

Brent Warren 5:47That, since that started. Um, can you give us a little background on that?

William Murdock 5:51Yeah. So, so Insight 2050 came together, uh, as a collaboration between the public sector, the private sector, local governments saying, "Where is this region going, and how can we best get in front of that when it comes to things like development, transportation, and all of the infrastructure investments we need to make?" It came out of a discussion with a few people about five years ago, just as I was coming on into the position, where they said You know what? If you really wanna help the region, you really gotta get us focused on these questions of growth and investment. And they said, "If, if you're willing to be all in on this, uh, William, at MORPC, we're willing to be all in with you." And, uh, five years later, they've-- that's proven to be true. So leaders like Jarmar Steiner at Steiner, uh, Corporation, Terry Fogler out in Dublin, uh, the Urban Land Institute to Columbus, Columbus 2020, the Partnership, the Foundation, uh, they've been all in on supporting the strategy to really capture and talk about growth. And when-- to boil it down, I, I think the big takeaway from Insight 2050 that we learned at the beginning is we're growing, and we're growing steadily and more quickly. And being from central Ohio, you know we're pretty modest about this. And if anything, we shouldn't be. And the reason we shouldn't be is because if we're modest about it, that means we're not preparing for it, and we're not planning for it. And so, uh, the first phase of Insight 2050 looked at, uh, different types of development and how that impacts things like the environment and health. If we, um, just let growth happen to us, as, you know, you've seen around the country, you can end up with terrible traffic or, uh, terrible, uh, issues with housing or environmental issues or sprawl or loss of farmland. Our growth is happening at just enough of a clip that we really believe that we've learned we can make those investments now to maybe avoid some of those impacts and maybe make growth work to improve our quality of life. Uh, so with Insight 2050, that's, that's what it's been about. It's a very technical study, but it's also been really engaged in the, in community. We've done hundreds of presentations to every Rotary Club, chamber of commerce, planning commission that we can to really help central Ohio realize we're growing, and if we wanna improve our quality of life, we gotta plan to make that work for us. And that, that boils it down basically-

Brent Warren 8:09Sure

William Murdock 8:10... on what Insight 2050 is.

Brent Warren 8:11And the corridors in particular is narrowing it even more, where you're looking at five different corridors and you're saying, "If we focus, uh, some density and more development on these corridors, and if we improve transit, we can actually handle a lot of that growth coming into the region just along those corridors," right?

William Murdock 8:30Yeah. Actually, that's-- So one of the big takeaways from the original Insight 2050 was denser development in some places could really take advantage of, uh, things like existing infrastructure. It could really allow us to look at better ways to move people with transit investments, and, uh, maybe take advantage of some of our older commercial corridors. So we could, we could look at places that have nice neighborhoods around them, maybe need some redevelopment, have a lot of parking spaces, uh, that might be used better. So out of that came, uh, this corridor study to look at five corridors in central Ohio. We chose these corridors because they look like other places in central Ohio. And so if you see the map, you know, East, uh, Main Street, West Broad, and Cleveland Avenue, uh, what, northwest, uh, to 315, and then, uh, south to Rickenbacker, those corridors all have different types of development styles. And what we wanted to do was look at the question of, could we, by changing the development pattern along the corridors and by investing in some sort of mass transit, could we handle a good portion of the region's growth? And if we could, what would that look like? What would be the economic benefits, the environmental benefits? Uh, and so we've just finished that study of corridor concepts. And what we've seen is it's, it's true, a good portion of the region's growth could be accommodated in these corridors. We think that it could help things like congestion. It could reduce local government investments in infrastructure 'cause we're, we're using what's there. Um, and it could provide for things that we're really concerned about here, like a mix of housing, different retail opportunities, um, you know, really help us shape how the region's growth looks like. And it-- This is-- This was not an easy undertaking. We worked with, uh, a number of local governments up and down the corridors, uh, a lot of public and private input, um, combined with our technical analysis of what different development styles look like.

Brent Warren 10:30Do you think after, after all this work you've done, um, as we kind of look to transition, like, everything up until now has been data and planning and figuring all this out and presenting it to people, um, what about the implementation of the plan? How is that gonna look? Are you optimistic about that? Um, what role is MORPC gonna play in that?

William Murdock 10:53Yeah. So next steps is what people wanna know. The, "All right. So you know this type of development could be really beneficial, but how are we gonna make it happen? Uh, how is it gonna get going?" And so we, we view the next steps on this in four ways. And, uh, I know we've talked to a lot of people already, but there's more talking to do. Um, what we really wanna do is get out in the community and socialize the concept that here's how you can do development differently. Here's how, uh, it could provide benefits. Uh, there'll be a lot of communication efforts and engagement, uh, because we wanna make sure we're hitting different communities. If we're just talking to developers or mayors, we're not doing our job, so there's a lot more discussion to do. Uh, we also wanna be talking to our peers, and this is what we think is a, a big thing that could help central Ohio, is bringing community leaders and business leaders of all stripes to other places that have done this well and to learn from that. And we do this in some respects in our business community, but we really don't take a group of community leaders and go to places like Minneapolis or Charlotte or look at places that have done this, done it well, maybe look at some places that haven't done it well, um, because What we wanna get away from is the mindset that we sometimes are guilty of in central Ohio, which is, you know what? It won't work here.

Brent Warren 12:08Mm-hmm.

William Murdock 12:08And when you go and you look at places that look a lot like us, and they've done it, and they've tried it, that, that can be really motivating. Um.

Brent Warren 12:14Right, the old, uh, we're not New York City, we're not Portland, Oregon argument.

William Murdock 12:18Right.

Brent Warren 12:18Right?

William Murdock 12:18Exactly, exactly. Um, but, but actually a lot- ... a lot of communities our size and even smaller are doing things that, uh, we haven't done yet, and so we wanna take a look at that. Uh, we're really interested in... And this is the MORPC guy talking. Um, planning and technical assistance. Um, and the reason I say that is it's important. We have communities who, in order to do these things, are gonna have to look at their zoning regs. They're gonna have to look at incentive structures. They're gonna have to look at right of way. And so what we've done is we took, uh, Insight 2050 had a, a pilot program on planning and technical assistance, and we're making it permanent. And we're, we're hopeful that this'll allow us to work directly with these communities to do the changes they need to do, um, in their own context. So I don't... At MORPC, we don't tell them how they're gonna change their zoning or how they're gonna do, uh, their planning. What we do is we wanna be able to work with them, give them the tools 'cause they gotta work with their own residents, their own planning commissions to make their choices, but we've got the information now, and so we wanna give them that technical assistance. Um, and then the last thing is where I think a lot of CU folks get excited and where I get excited as a Columbus, uh, resident is, uh, we wanna start moving, uh, the needle forward on mobility corridors. And we've got great partners at COTA and around the region. What this study told us is we really have an opportunity here to move corridor-based transit forward. Um, the way we get started is something we haven't done before, and what... I, I think we've labeled it mobility innovation tests. Um, there's no acronym yet or anything, but mobility innovation tests, uh, are what we're looking at as, um... I'm gonna geek out as a planner here. You can edit this out if you need to. Um, there's something called tactical urbanism.

Brent Warren 14:05Mm-hmm.

William Murdock 14:05And so what that means in planning speak is, okay, so you wanna add, say, a bike lane or something. Well, don't do a two-year study and then wait three years for the investment to see if it works. Go ahead, get some cones, get some paint and some duct tape, and for a week, try a, a bike lane and see what it looks like. Um.

Brent Warren 14:23Mm-hmm.

William Murdock 14:24Uh, you've seen this kinda effort with the parking space into, uh, city parks, uh, movement. Um, other places have done this with transit, and so we're, we're particularly interested in Boston-

Brent Warren 14:35Mm

William Murdock 14:35... where you could actually do something like do a temporary bus rapid transit-like installation. So maybe for a week we reserve a whole lane just to increase bus transit times, or they've done things like all-doors boarding, where you get on all at once, or, uh, raised platforms temporarily, just as a way to get the region excited about trying different forms of transit. Um, we really think this is a way to ignite the conversation and get people excited about it 'cause in all reality, to implement any kinda new, uh, transit, uh, investment is gonna take a couple years, even if we move really fast. But we don't wanna wait. We wanna show people that we're serious, and I think the community's ready to do that. Um, but the next step is looking at, um, what types of, uh, mobility investments we wanna make.

Brent Warren 15:24Mm.

William Murdock 15:24So we, we talk about high capacity transit.

Brent Warren 15:27Mm-hmm.

William Murdock 15:27And everybody says, "What is that? And is it, you know, is it, uh, bus rapid transit? Is it light rail? Uh, what are you, what are you talking about?" And, um, we're using a phrase we've been, uh, batting around called advanced rapid transit. And so what the corridor concept study looked at is what if you reserve right of way? So dedicated space for transit, and then you start applying new technologies to move that faster. Um, it's a way for us to maybe move as many people as something as light rail in existing right of way.

Brent Warren 15:57Hmm.

William Murdock 15:57And, uh, to do it maybe more cheaply and more quickly. And so, um, you know, there's no definitive plans. I don't wanna disappoint, but there's a lot of momentum. There's a lot of interest in the public sector, private and, uh, sector and business leaders. We're talking to community members saying, "We need to do something." And we think that, uh, by looking at what we're calling advanced rapid transit, there's a way to move pretty quickly on these things. And, um, part of what I talked about earlier with peer exchanges, other communities are trying everything to get ahead in the transit space. We think that, um, we're at a moment in time in central Ohio where now's the time to do that. And-

Brent Warren 16:35Mm-hmm

William Murdock 16:35... um, that's, that's what I'm really excited about is can we, can we actually move this forward and stop talking about, uh, a mobility investment that might be 20 years off and actually do something in the very short to medium term?

Brent Warren 16:48Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, I've heard... I've talked to people at the city who are saying, "Yeah, this summer we could see something."

William Murdock 16:54Yeah.

Brent Warren 16:54So, so just to kind of drill down on that, we're talking, say, it's on West Broad Street. We're talking about a lane that would be blocked off to cars, and a bus would be able to go, and they'd be able to go a lot faster than... They'd be able to do that route in less time, and it would get people downtown a lot faster.

William Murdock 17:15Right. I mean, the, the key with transit is you wanna make it as convenient or more convenient than driving your own car. And-

Brent Warren 17:23And it usually isn't in central Ohio.

William Murdock 17:25It isn't.

Brent Warren 17:25Yeah.

William Murdock 17:26It isn't. Yeah. And, and so when we look at how can we actually do something temporarily to show people the possibilities... Like when you tell people, "Oh, no, it could actually work, and it'll take 10 years before you see it," people start losing interest or they get mad. Um, if you can show them temporarily reserve that lane, maybe adjust the timing on the stoplights, you know, whatever you can do really quickly and cheaply, show them the possibility, that's when we think we can really get excitement around moving this forward.

Tim Fulton 17:55The Confluence Cast is sponsored by the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, or MORPC, featuring stories about local and regional partners that envision and embrace innovative directions in economic prosperity, transportation, sustainability, and inclusive central Ohio. MORPC's transformative programming, innovative services, and public policy initiatives are designed to promote and support the vitality and growth of the region. For more information, please visit morpc.org.

Brent Warren 18:30Do you think this approach is something that will help to build that coalition for actual investment? When I talked to Joanna Pinkerton for this podcast, we asked her, "Should we, should we allow ourselves, the people who really have been wanting to see transit improvements for so long in Columbus and it just hasn't happened," you know, "should we allow ourselves to get excited about this or is this just another thing that is not gonna happen?"

William Murdock 18:58Yeah. So as somebody who went to planning school in central Ohio, I remember them coming in, this is in the '90s, talking about light rail, and we're more than 20 years later, and so I'm a big skeptic. I've been a big skeptic of how can this actually move forward. I'm feeling optimistic. I feel like there's alignment here on there's growth, there's a community need for it, it can maybe solve other problems, 'cause we're not just thinking about it as transit. We're thinking about it as this is a way to help us deal with growth or d- deal with housing affordability or, uh, you know, to deal with some of the environmental challenges of growth. Um, so that means a number of different groups that maybe haven't thought about it before are pushing in the same direction. So I'm, I'm feeling pretty optimistic about our chances here.

Brent Warren 19:42Mm-hmm. The other thing that I've asked, um, 'cause we talked to Jarmer Steiner and, uh, Crawford Hoing-

William Murdock 19:49Yeah

Brent Warren 19:49... and I asked them in terms of the density piece, how if, if this is also something we're implementing this kind of policy on a broad scale, if you look at some very specific examples that are, like, kind of ideal urban infill in, on the c- on these big corridors in great locations, walkable, and then proposals for those have run into neighborhood opposition and elected officials against it. I mean, if we can't... If we are struggling with even some of these sort of, like, low-hanging fruit sites-

William Murdock 20:24Mm-hmm

Brent Warren 20:25... how can we expect, uh, on such a big scale to densify?

William Murdock 20:29Yeah. So that's a big question. Um, y- you know, when we look at, um, anywhere in central Ohio, so we work all over in central Ohio, everywhere where there's growth, there's stress in the community. And I, I think a big part of it is, um, folks don't like change, but they especially don't like change when they don't have the information about why it's happening, about how it, they could benefit from it, and I, I think that's been a missing piece. And I know there's a lot of good efforts out there, but when we're, we're looking at corridors, part of, uh, the approach here is very organic. So I mentioned that technical assistance. So say we pick the East Main Street corridor as, as a community we wanna move forward. Well, that's not just Columbus. That's Bexley and that's Whitehall and that's-

Brent Warren 21:14Mm-hmm

William Murdock 21:14... Reynoldsburg, and I think there's a township along the way. All of them have to deal with the residents and the planning around it, and so helping to demystify it is one thing, but also when you're looking at a, well, how could they benefit from it? So w- if there's a transit corridor there and that helps improve their, uh, transportation times and gives them more options, that's a big benefit. Uh, if we're looking at the type of infrastructure along the corridor, um, that we need, a lot of it's already there, and so maybe these type of investments could actually save their communities money. Uh, and when we look at the type of developments, when we say the word density in central Ohio, sometimes folks go straight to some sort of image of Manhattan, and that's, or even the Short North, and that's, that's not necessarily the density we're talking about. I- in Insight 2050, the original study looked at, um, moderate density as something like, uh, one home per, like, a fifth of an acre or something like that.

Brent Warren 22:13Mm.

William Murdock 22:13To a planner, that's, that's not dense at all. And so when we're looking at these corridors, um, we're looking at y- we're not looking at 10 or 20-story buildings. We're looking at maybe nodes, um, of development where you see multi-story that really reflects what a community's looking for, the market's looking for. Um, so a lot of it's just talking to neighbors, helping them see the benefits. I mean, if, if you, uh, have this happening in your community and you don't understand it, you think it's gonna make traffic worse and you see no benefit, then of course you should be opposed to it. And so part of the challenge here is we have information to show that folks could benefit from it, and we wanna make sure we're connecting that.

Brent Warren 22:49Mm-hmm. Um, I wanted to talk about some of the other things that you're working on.

William Murdock 22:53Sure.

Brent Warren 22:53'Cause I know you have a lot of initiatives that are not getting as much attention.

William Murdock 22:57Sure.

Brent Warren 22:57Um, the Rickenbacker area study, can you talk about that a little bit? And that's actually on one of the corridors, right? Isn't that sort of the end of one of the corridors?

William Murdock 23:06It is, yeah.

Brent Warren 23:07Yeah.

William Murdock 23:07The corridor that goes southeast, um, through Columbus, uh, um, through Obetz and Groveport, um, is part of that study. So, uh, for folks who don't know what Rickenbacker-

Brent Warren 23:17Mm-hmm

William Murdock 23:18... is, um, this is a unique place that central Ohio is so fortunate to have. It is, uh, one of the world's only freight-focused global airports. Uh, we have flights to other continents direct from, uh, Rickenbacker. It's one of the world's only places where that kind of global freight, uh, connection happens to be next to a rail yard that is connected to a truck yard, and it all happens in the same place. So the word is intermodal.

Brent Warren 23:45Mm-hmm.

William Murdock 23:45Um, so when you look at what we have there, we're one of the few places in the country to have this benefit, and the big challenge the community has is making sure we're helping it grow, taking advantage of it, and making the investments around it. Um, the way we've done this in the past is, 'cause MORPC's been involved about every 10 years, is we've done highway and roads planning around it. And you know where MORPC's going these days. You can't just plan a road and think that that's gonna solve everything. You have to look at the environmental issues. You have to look at economic development and housing and transit-

Brent Warren 24:19Mm

William Murdock 24:19... and, uh, uh, y- Folks' needs that don't require cars. And so that's what our study's done. We've brought together partners in that whole area around, uh, Rickenbacker, uh, to look at how we can make the investments we need to, to take advantage of this, make it work economically, and, and really get our region prepared for, uh, the growth around here. So, um, logistics is a big part of Central Ohio's economy, so more logistics means more jobs and more growth.

Brent Warren 24:47And part of the... I mean, I, I went out there 'cause we had a flight to Florida on one of the-

William Murdock 24:53Okay, yep.

Brent Warren 24:53So-

William Murdock 24:53Okay. There is some passenger traffic.

Brent Warren 24:55Yes, yes.

William Murdock 24:55Yep.

Brent Warren 24:55The very few.

William Murdock 24:57Yeah.

Brent Warren 24:57And it's a tiny terminal, but it, it was the first time I had ever been there. Um, and I saw on the way out, uh, people waiting at the bus stop along, you know, the, the road that goes to Rickenbacker. And, you know, there's a ton of jobs out there. There's not a lot of housing. Is part of the study looking at how do you connect people with those jobs that don't... I mean, not many people live right around there, right?

William Murdock 25:21Exactly.

Brent Warren 25:22Mm.

William Murdock 25:22Exactly. So the biggest thing we hear from employers that's holding them back is they don't have employees. And you mentioned it, you hit the nail on the head. There's not housing that's affordable for the workforce down there that's close.

Brent Warren 25:35Mm-hmm.

William Murdock 25:35And the transit options have been getting better. Uh, we've had communities investing in shuttles, and COTA's been adjusting things, but it's still not enough to deliver what that area needs to really thrive.

Brent Warren 25:47And I'm sure that's-

William Murdock 25:47Yeah

Brent Warren 25:47... like a 24-hour thing, right?

William Murdock 25:49It is.

Brent Warren 25:50Yeah.

William Murdock 25:50It is. And, and the type of industry we have down there requires people to be on time, or they, they lose their job. And if you're n- if things aren't dependable, that's, that's bad for the workforce. Um, but there's a bigger issue around safety, and part of what the plan's looking at is once you get off the bus, sometimes it's a mile or more walk in the road to get to your job. And, uh, we've had people... Unfortunately, we've had fatalities down there. We've had people lose their lives just walking to work early in the morning. And so one of the big, uh, recommendations out of the plan is, here's a planning term for you, a low-stress pedestrian and bike network. And so what we're talking about are separated walk and bike paths, so when people get off the transit, uh, if they need to walk, you know, 10 minutes or 15 minutes, they can do so safely off the roads, and that network doesn't exist really well in that area down there.

Brent Warren 26:44Mm.

William Murdock 26:44Um, I know sometimes we think of sidewalks and trails just along, uh, rivers, or we think of them in urban areas, but it's a really big issue down there. People getting to work need that extra option to be able to safely get to work. So that's one of the things the plan looks at. It, it covers the whole gamut. I, I, I could go into this for a while. I won't. But we've looked at the rivers and tourism opportunities. We've looked at place making and that, that area's missing some of the amenities you might need to support the employment growth. We've looked at housing affordability and housing development. Uh, it's, it's really covered the whole gamut there, so we're, we're thinking about how to position that area, um, more holistically than we have before.

Brent Warren 27:22Mm-hmm. Um, another thing you guys are working on which, uh, kind of fits in with everything else, Smart Streets Policy.

William Murdock 27:31Yeah.

Brent Warren 27:31Um, can you explain that in a way that's ... 'Cause anytime I feel like you get into the smart city stuff, you know, you're talking about jargon. The jargon just comes fast and and steady, but-

William Murdock 27:43It does

Brent Warren 27:43... uh, what is the Smart Streets Policy?

William Murdock 27:45Yeah. So your listeners are really familiar and readers are really familiar with, uh, Smart Columbus and maybe the 33 Corridor or some of these efforts we have in what they call smart mobility. What we do at MORPC, because we work with a lot of communities, and many of them don't have the capacity to even think about this or to plan for this like they want to, um, we have what we call, it's a very creative name, the Smart Region Task Force so that we can really look at ways to leverage these good efforts going on, um, in smart mobility and connect them to the rest of the region. And so, um, Smart Streets is the first tangible effort that comes out of that. And, uh, one, uh, it, it... A good way to explain it is we have this policy and have had it for about 10 years in Central Ohio called Complete Streets. Complete Streets just means every time we spend a dollar on transportation, we have to pause and make sure we're thinking about bikes and buses and, uh, pedestrian. It, it'll look different in different spots, but every time we have to look at how it affects that network, how we extend trail networks or pedestrian networks. Over time, that can move the whole region to have a better bike ped network. Smart Streets is the same concept, and it doesn't even... Uh, we, we won't get too technical here. Basically, what the policy says is every time we spend a dollar on transportation in Central Ohio, we're gonna look at smart mobility. Do we need smart intersections? Do we need to extend the fiber network? Do we need to look at different data collection things or different ways to really allow these smart transportation technologies to be in place? Uh, that won't change things in a year, but over time... Keep, keep in mind, we're a long range planning organization.

Brent Warren 29:26Mm-hmm.

William Murdock 29:27Over time, it will redirect billions of dollars to be mindful of how to lift the whole region up. So you don't necessarily need to be Columbus, who's really advanced at this, um, to access this technology. Just as part of our normal process, we'll be thinking about it and connecting it, and we think it's the first example in the country.

Brent Warren 29:44Hmm. And when you talk about smart intersections or smart anything, basically we're talking about technology and communications.

William Murdock 29:54Yes.

Brent Warren 29:54Right?

William Murdock 29:54Yeah.

Brent Warren 29:54I mean, is that basically-

William Murdock 29:56Yeah, you can say connected. It's, it's-

Brent Warren 29:57Mm-hmm

William Murdock 29:57... basically, uh, are you, are you looking at traffic flows differently? Are you, uh, connecting or, um, communicating with the vehicles or transit buses to move traffic smoother to-

Brent Warren 30:10Like the bus-

William Murdock 30:10... to safety? Yeah.

Brent Warren 30:11It knows when a bus is coming, and it changes the light to, to give it priority.

William Murdock 30:15Right.

Brent Warren 30:15That's an example.

William Murdock 30:16Right.

Brent Warren 30:16Yeah.

William Murdock 30:16Or, or a safety example might be if you have a car that's about to run a red light, it will hold the other cars off maybe that split second so that they're not, um, causing an accident.

Brent Warren 30:28Mm-hmm.

William Murdock 30:28So there's, there's a safety element. There's a congestion element. And basically what our region... Just this is brand new. Just last week, we voted unanimously to make this a new policy. Every time we plan transportation, we have to think about these technology pieces. Part of it might be the extending fiber and internet. We still have parts of Franklin County, parts of the region that don't have access to good high-speed internet. This is part of a way that that might help with that problem too.

Brent Warren 30:53Mm-hmm. Okay. Finally, I, I know, um, this is something that our audience has been very interested in and engaged with, even... Well, on the one side, we have the Hyperloop which I wanna talk about.

William Murdock 31:08Right.

Brent Warren 31:09Uh, but even before the... there was any talk of the Hyperloop, there was talk of a high-speed rail connection between Columbus and Chicago.

William Murdock 31:17Right.

Brent Warren 31:17And that just, like, every time we wrote about it, it was just through the roof. Everybody was interested in that. Um, can you give us a quick update on where that stands and what's happening with that? I mean, that's still, still... There's still planning happening for that, right?

William Murdock 31:32Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think a disclaimer at first. So we're really excited about, uh, different ways to connect Columbus to Chicago or other regions. The moment I say Hyperloop, people think that we're not working on anything else. Um, this is an important part of what we're doing, but I mean, we just talked about we're, we're hitting pedestrians, bikes, transit, roads, safety, uh, advanced technology, um-

Brent Warren 31:54Are you saying that everybody always wants to talk about Hyperloop?

William Murdock 31:57They love-

Brent Warren 31:57Yeah

William Murdock 31:57... they love... And we love to talk about it too, but it's, uh, it's something that I think, um, uh, transit advocates and others sometimes worry that we're, we're looking at even high-speed rail or things like Hyperloop at the expense of these things. And, and we're not. We're, we're investing in all modes and trying to move everything forward. Anyhow, um, the good news for folks interested in high-speed rail or Hyperloop is we're still working on both. And so the initiative we have is called the Rapid Speed Transportation Initiative, um, which is looking at both Hyperloop technology and high-speed rail between Chicago and Columbus and Pittsburgh. And so that effort on the rail piece has been going on for more than five years. Um, we have every community, um, every regional organization between Chicago and Pittsburgh working on this. So there's regular meetings. We're participating on studies and, and the planning efforts. So, uh, if folks are worried that not a whole lot is happening, there's been a continued push on both of those things. What's really exciting and different though is on the Hyperloop project, I mean, with the technology, I think your, your listeners and readers are really familiar. It moves things really quickly, whether it's freight or it's passenger. Um, we saw an opportunity there to look at new technology, and we competed in what was called the, uh, Virgin Hyperloop, uh, Global Challenge. And we actually beat out 2,600 other corridors around the world to study the technology. And so if people are wondering when Columbus and this corridor is gonna be named a winner, we, we already were. And what that means is in addition to the rail, we're also looking at Hyperloop technology, and we're working with this company, Virgin, uh, Hyperloop One, uh, to look at things like right of way, look at how the technology applies to the corridor. We're doing environmental studies, all the things you would do for a normal transportation investment. That work's happening, and the studies are gonna finish here this summer, and so we'll have a lot more on things like cost and alignment and those kind of things. Um, the potential here is enormous, and I know folks will sometimes focus on Elon Musk. Um, he was the one who birthed the idea, but that's not who we're working with. We're working with a company that's the, the larger company that's, uh, not just, uh, the larger company. They actually have a test facility, and so we've taken more than 50 community and business leaders out to see it. And I tell you, this is something that, uh, no one will believe me, but I was the biggest skeptic going out. The what are we working on? Is this... Should we really be doing this? And there is a working test facility. They've hired people from NASA and SpaceX to work on it. There's a lot of money globally behind it, major freight companies, major logistics companies. Uh, the Virgin Group is actually a really large transportation group. Um, they're pushing on this, and if anything, we've... What we've done is we've said, "Okay, this is real. It's coming, and we wanna make sure we're ready and we're in front." And we have that unique opportunity. We're actually working with the leading company as one of their first corridors. And so, um, we didn't wanna do so at the expense of rail, and so both studies were moving forward together, and our communities were really emphatic about that. It's just Hyperloop grabs the headline first.

Brent Warren 35:09Mm-hmm. Right. Um, is there going to come a time when we'll have to make a choice, like this is either a rail corridor or a Hyperloop corridor?

William Murdock 35:19Yeah. I, I think that one thing we have to think about is Hyperloop moves both freight and passenger traffic really quickly. It, and it might start with freight, and we just talked about being a logistics hub. The possibilities if, if the technology is ready to be commercially implemented, which we know it will be here shortly in other countries, um, Hyperloop may actually move forward. And, um, what-- when we think about the timing of this, if we had to choose, a high-speed rail network could take 10 years to develop. If a Hyperloop, uh, network and technology is ready, and that might take five or 10 years to develop, and it moves significantly faster, um, you know, I, I think the region would have to make a choice. I think it comes down to cost. But, um, all other things equal, if you could get to Chicago in under 40 minutes or Pittsburgh in under 20, it doesn't matter whether you're a box or a person, I think that might be the technology we're interested in. But-

Brent Warren 36:16It does if you're-

William Murdock 36:17Yeah

Brent Warren 36:17... um, concerned about how it feels right?

William Murdock 36:20Right. Right.

Brent Warren 36:20I mean, a box can be in a, in a pressurized tube-

William Murdock 36:23Right

Brent Warren 36:23... and no worries, but we're not sure how humans are gonna feel in one of these things, right?

William Murdock 36:28Well, actually, talking to them, they've done a lot of study on this, and so they, they've done the study on the, the G-forces and all this. This is way outside of my expertise as a planner. Um, but part of, uh, the process here is you've heard of maglev trains.

Brent Warren 36:40Mm-hmm.

William Murdock 36:41Um, they're noted for being really smooth. And so this is the same, uh, a similar type of technology where you're actually not touching the rails. You're floating above the rails. So the friction is less. It's very smooth. Think of a really smooth elevator. That's how they describe it. So you might feel a little bit, but, um, if that technology is implemented, uh, uh, commercially and it's successful and it's affordable, this is something we think we could really move forward on. We haven't given up on high-speed passenger rail yet, so we're still doing the steps to move both projects forward.

Brent Warren 37:12Mm-hmm.

William Murdock 37:13Yeah.

Brent Warren 37:13When I started looking into this, and I've become a little bit of a Hyperloop skeptic myself, and part of that I think is just, you know, as you mentioned, the media has gotten so excited about it, and this, you know, 30 minutes to Chicago. But you start looking into all of the advances that still would have to be made to get, get anyone to Chicago in 30 minutes, and it's... There's a lot. And, and there's no... You know, unlike high-speed rail, where we have examples we can look to and it's actually been built and it works, there's none of that with Hyperloop. And there's, uh, it seems to me a lot of questions still about building it and cost and even advancing with the technology to make it faster than existing high-speed rail. Um, do you think there's a concern that because everybody's so excited about Hyperloop, that we lose focus on something that is more practical and could still be transformational? I mean, you could still get to Chicago a lot faster-

William Murdock 38:15Right

Brent Warren 38:15... on a direct trai- uh, rail line than you can on the highways today. You know, you could, you could build that soon.

William Murdock 38:22Yeah. No, so, uh, some of what you said I think is correct, and others I wanna give you more information on.

Brent Warren 38:27Mm-hmm.

William Murdock 38:27So, um, if we could have both, absolutely. Columbus needs... We're a huge region, and we're growing. And so we need connections more than just to Chicago and Pittsburgh, and we need different types of connections. So if we could have passenger rail at a higher speed and Hyperloop and other options, I think that that would be the ideal situation. When we're looking at Hyperloop technology, so the company we're working with, Virgin Hyperloop One, has a test facility.

Brent Warren 38:54Mm-hmm.

William Murdock 38:55They've achieved what they need to achieve. Like, we've walked through the tube. They've achieved the speeds they need. Um, they're work-

Brent Warren 39:01How fast do they go in that?

William Murdock 39:03In under a half a kilometer, they can go over 200 miles an hour.

Brent Warren 39:07Mm.

William Murdock 39:08And-

Brent Warren 39:08But that's not gonna get you to Chicago in half an hour.

William Murdock 39:11Right. And so, no, this is a great question. So we've asked their engineers that, and the question is, well, you didn't hit 600 or 700 miles an hour, right?

Brent Warren 39:19Mm-hmm.

William Murdock 39:19Well, in a kile- uh, half a kilometer, what they've done is they've shown the acceleration necessary, uh, to do it. They've proven the physics works, the concept works. And so their next step is building that longer segment so they can. And so they've been working with, uh, governments in the Middle East and India, in addition to ones in the United States, to build that longer concept. Um, these... Uh, to, to do this technology first means you have to prove it works. They feel like they have. They've partnered with companies like DP World, which is one of the largest freight and logistics firms, uh, to commercialize the concept. I think when, um... It's good to be skeptical about it, and, and we are. And we are. But I, I think when you look at high-speed rail, we look at projects around the country, so look at California or Texas or Florida. Like, we've looked at these examples. We've talked to folks. Um, these projects take more than 10 to 15 years to implement sometimes. It's existing technology. What we're talking about here is in central Ohio connecting to other places. If we're looking at a 10 to 15-year horizon, it's very possible we'd, we would have a choice between the two. And what's really great is sometimes they use the same corridor.

Brent Warren 40:29Mm.

William Murdock 40:29So the planning that we're doing, the environmental assessments, uh, the right of way align... Like, doing one helps the other. And so, um, and actually in attracting some support and funding for it, having Hyperloop has actually allowed us to advance some of our rail studies at the same time. So it seems to be a prudent bet to bet on both of them being available and keep moving the studies forward. Um, we're gonna know a lot more here in the next six months in terms of cost in central Ohio. Uh, their, our partners at Virgin Hyperloop One have told us in the next year or so we're gonna be able to actually see some of that, that higher speed testing, the, the, uh, the bigger investments. So we're, we're, we're approaching cautiously. You'd expect us to. But, uh, what we've seen so far continues to, to think this is a great strategy for us to be prepared for both.

Brent Warren 41:19Mm-hmm. Well, great. I mean, I could keep going on Hyperloop-

William Murdock 41:23Oh, yeah. Yeah

Brent Warren 41:24... and high-speed rail-

William Murdock 41:25Yeah

Brent Warren 41:25... and all of this stuff, but I think we're at the end of our time.

William Murdock 41:28Great.

Brent Warren 41:28Thanks so much for speaking with us today.

William Murdock 41:29Yeah. Thanks. It's been a delight. Thanks.

Brent Warren 41:33Thanks.

Tim Fulton 41:38Thank you for listening to Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite commuter. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.