COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Central Ohio Transit Authority and the Columbus Regional Airport Authority broke ground on what is being called a “mobility center” near Rickenbacker International Airport Wednesday morning.
The $24.3 million project is aimed at boosting economic development in the area that currently employs about 38,000 people in the region. It will contain a child care center, a food pantry and a shared space for workforce training and community gatherings.
It comes as COTA looks to improve public transportation in central Ohio.
“Over the next decade and a half, we will be building high-capacity rapid transit corridors throughout the region,” said Joanna Pinkerton, president and CEO of COTA. “There will be transit centers involved in that buildout. Certainly, this is the first and what we learn from this location can be scaled to other locations as we expand transit in central Ohio.”
The child care option will be an important factor for parents working in the area.
"We are a tool so why not include child care, the Mid-Ohio Food Collective and access to affordable food at the same location where you're making transfers to get to work or home," said Pinkerton.
Columbus City Councilmember Lourdes Barroso de Padilla said this is a big step forward. She said as a child her family relied on COTA buses to get to and from places. Having child care as an option on the way to the workplace will be a big help to working parents.
"If you don't have reliable transportation to get to that job and you have to go across town to drop off your child at child care to then get on another bus to get to work. Now we're removing that barrier,” said Barroso de Padilla. "Innovative projects like this are the future that we need to think about and how to get our residents the things that we need.”
Child care in central Ohio and nationally has been a struggle for years, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The November 2022 child care report from Action for Children found that more than one in five child care programs in the seven-county region served (Franklin and collar counties) closed their doors for good in 2020. However, there were some startups at that time helping to offset the loss.
Many parents have claimed a lack of child care or affordable child care as a reason for not returning to the workforce after the pandemic.
"Where there isn't child care, it's a real strain on the growth. It holds growth back,” said Eric Karolak, CEO of Action for Children. "Rising prices for child care are a real challenge. The average for an infant in our area is over $13,000.”
That average is far above the national and state averages from Child Care Aware of America. Increases in the cost of child care have surpassed the rate of inflation since 2019.
Karolak said that there have been some efforts to help ease the pain. Some employers have started to provide child care in-house. Ohio currently offers an income-based child care program, but the income threshold to qualify is one of the lowest in the country.
Money for child care was part of the American Rescue Plan, but that money had to be allocated by Sept. 30, 2023 or be given back to the federal government. That money was used to help increase pay for child care workers and cover some of the expenses of child care providers.
Ohio has allocated what money was left, but it is limited and no more is coming down the pipe in the foreseeable future. Many child care providers have been forced to increase their tuition costs to cover the gap.
Karolak said the child care project going into the mobility center will be a welcomed addition in that region of the county since there is a genuine lack of child care centers in the neighborhoods around Rickenbacker.
“The mobility center at Rickenbacker will serve as a major connection point and address the needs of Rickenbacker, area employers and employees and our residents,” said Joe Nardone, Columbus Regional Airport Authority President and CEO.
The COTA mobility center is slated to open sometime in 2025.