Category Archives: Columbus Culture

2023 Population Estimates of Columbus Metro Places

Posted on by
Reply

2023 population estimates

New 2023 population estimates of Columbus metro places were just released by the US Census. In general, they showed that most places are now recovering from the pandemic population decline blip.

First, the full list of all available population estimates for Columbus metro area incorporated places. This list does not include Census Designated Places, as estimates for those are only done once per decade. Red places have moved down in the rankings, green have moved up.


Out of Ohio’s 925 incorporated communities, 660 showed a population loss between 2020-2023, or 71.35%. 27 saw no population change, and 238- or 25.73%- saw population growth.
In the Columbus metro, however, 60% of its communities saw growth, with 6% seeing no change and 34% seeing a loss. The Columbus metro places represented just 5.15% of the total communities seeing loss within the state, but 25.73% of all the communities seeing growth. This shows just how poorly most of the state is doing in comparison to the Columbus area.

CoGo Bike Share Sees Record Ridership in 2023

Posted on by
Reply

CoGo bike share

Columbus’ CoGo bike share system has been in operation since July, 2013. After a decade of ups and downs, the system seems to be finally hitting its stride.

CoGo bikeshare total trips by year

As the chart above shows, total CoGo trips were generally up between 2013-2017, and then saw a fairly steep decline 2018-2019. It’s unclear what caused that decline, but everything from system disruptions to weather could have played a role. Regardless, the pandemic, protests and general chaos of 2020 didn’t seem to matter as total trips for the year rebounded strongly. After another down year in 2021, 2022 saw CoGo’s highest ridership since the system opened, and 2023 continued that trend by blowing out 2022’s record. There were an extra 33 trips per day in 2023 vs. 2022, which added up to more than 12,000 more for the year.
Hopefully, the increase in ridership will prompt another expansion of the system into new areas soon. And some actual protected bike lanes would be nice, as Columbus- to date, anyway- has been less than stellar on this issue.