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Just curious. Where is your study that shows no one will ride? No office workers will ride it? Where is your study or a study that says so? Also this is Phase one(starter)..
1) What will the streetcar provide that the current but system does not?
2) How will the streetcar get traffic off I-71 and I-75?
Disclaimer: I voted for the light rail funding earlier this century. Cincinnati needs regional rail service to serve places beyond downtown and Over-the-Rhine before it needs a streetcar that duplicates current bus service.
And a few more jabs at Cincinnati streetcars before I'd like to get back on topic of Cincinnati and Dayton possibly merging).
1) Public opinion was, and is, overwhelmingly against streetcars in Cincinnati. Issue 48 failed because of some powerful endorsements and a successful campaign on their part to sow doubt on whether it was overbroad. (Source on public opinion: Streetcar Survey Data)
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Although predicting future behaviors so far in advance is an imprecise enterprise, it appears that, at this time, there is limited interest in using the street car system, when it is completed. Overall, just 14% of voters say they plan to use it a lot (4%) or somewhat (10%), when it is finished.
2) I would also like to see what happens to the 100-year old sewer system when construction bulls ahead nevertheless. Talk about a disaster (and associated cost) waiting to happen.
And this is me turning back to Cincinnati-Dayton:
3) What, from a regional perspective, does a streetcar do for transit? I already mentioned above how the streetcar would do absolutely nada for the traffic problems we already face. And I'm going to pre-emptively shoot down a high speed rail line because you can get to Dayton, Columbus, or Cleveland almost as quickly, and far more cheaply, by driving 70 MPH on the interstate - and once you get there, you'll have a car to get around town in.
If widening has already been planned for I-75 this is welcome news to me.
With regards to the streetcar, the State has already pulled $52 million in funding and the Federal government looks set to do the same (U.S. House bars federal money for streetcar | Politics Extra). Any cost would have to be borne by the City alone - and the money simply isn't there to spare. There are countless other projects that need money that would get the city a LOT more bang for its' buck - such as someone mentioned a MLK/71 interchange, or a replacement for the Brent Spence Bridge.
If you were to make the streetcar viable, it would have to actually go somewhere and serve some people. As proposed, it runs from Second St. downtown to Central Parkway, then up Race Street through OTR up to Findlay Market. It doesn't stop at the Riverfront Transit Center, Paul Brown Stadium, the Banks, the Freedom Center, Fountain Square, or the Horseshoe Casino that's under construction. The other end leads to Over-the-Rhine. (Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ap-phase-1.jpg)
Over-the-Rhine's population was estimated at 4,970 in 2007. (Source: http://www.uc.edu/cdc/urban_database...own_report.pdf). We don't know exactly how many people live in OTR anymore because... well, nobody really knows. This is from Wikipedia:
So to serve a population of less than 5,000, the City is prepared to spend over $100 million. Come again?
With that $100 million, the City could easily go to the State and Federal governments, lobby for matching funding, raise a billion dollars, and upgrade the road network - which would help 500,000 people living throughout the metro area - not just the 5,000 who live within a one-square mile area. Unfortunately, Mark Mallory and Roxane Qualls will hear none of it. They're determined to bull full-speed ahead with the project for reasons I cannot really fathom. I can only surmise that the current Cincinnati City Council has bought up all the properties along the proposed streetcar and that they personally have the most to lose by seeing the streetcar fail?
As for me - I just won't live inside of Cincinnati's city limits. I won't pay those taxes, and I won't subsidize those boondoggles.
If you wanted to create a viable streetcar program, you would actually expand it to include all the stops at the places I mentioned - the casino, the riverfront, etc. And then extend the line up to UC and on up towards the zoo. Because as it is, it's a streetcar line that runs from nowhere to nowhere.
It's posts like these that make me want to rip my hair out. The amount of misinformation in this post is absolutely insane.
First and foremost, you're correct that that streetcar goes down to second street. But Paul Brown Stadium, the Banks, and the Freedom Center ARE ALL ON SECOND STREET!!! Plus, the Riverfront Transit Center is DIRECTLY UNDER SECOND STREET!!! Also, the streetcar stops one block away from the casino. So how on earth does the streetcar not serve these venues???
In regards to population, Over-the-Rhine may have a population of around 5,000, but it is growing very quickly. Almost 300 units are under construction right now, or will begin this year. But, you seem to have overlooked the fact that the streetcar also runs through downtown, which has a population of OVER 13,000, and grew by 12% in 2011 alone. 600 additional residential units will be under construction this year. This is pretty significant population growth along the line.
And lastly, you are under the delusion that we can simply say "Oh, I have an idea, lets use the streetcar money for something other than what it was given to us for." It doesn't work like that! If Cincinnati decided not to build the streetcar, we would have to give the money back to the feds, and they would give it to another city to fund their streetcar project. The same thing happened with the 3-C train money that Kasich turned down. He thought he would be able to use it on highways instead of the train. Nope. We had to give the money back, and it went to Maine and California to fund rail transportation projects in those states.
The streetcar is meant to be a first step in a regional rail plan, which will help reduce traffic congestion.
^Also funds are already programmed for the widening. It may take 10+ years though. Why would Cincinnati stop the streetcar to help fund I-75 widening which is already programmed??? Much of the widening is outside the city limits as well.
You can't send money funded(federal) by one project and send it to another project . You would have to go through other processes which would waste time and more money.
The problem with widening highways and roads is that the results are usually the opposite. They're widened to help reduce congestion, but study after study has shown that if people perceive that the road is fixed, they'll start driving on it more vs going another route because of the congestion. In the end, you almost always end up with even more traffic than when you started. It'd be better to add alternatives.
First and foremost, you're correct that that streetcar goes down to second street. But Paul Brown Stadium, the Banks, and the Freedom Center ARE ALL ON SECOND STREET!!! Plus, the Riverfront Transit Center is DIRECTLY UNDER SECOND STREET!!! Also, the streetcar stops one block away from the casino. So how on earth does the streetcar not serve these venues???
Hi CinciFan--
According to the map (here is again: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ap-phase-1.jpg), it looks like it stops about four blocks away from Paul Brown Stadium. I have no problem with walking four blocks... if I lived where the other end of the streetcar line was - in OTR. But if I lived anywhere else in Cincinnati - Mount Adams, the West End, CUF, California - I would be incensed that $100 million of my tax dollars were going to something that I never would use anyway. And the streetcar might stop 'directly over' the Riverfront Transit Center, but it doesn't stop in it - and neither does Metro, TANK, or the failed Issue 7 a while back (which in any case was completely redundant with currently-existing bus lines).
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Originally Posted by CinciFan
In regards to population, Over-the-Rhine may have a population of around 5,000, but it is growing very quickly. Almost 300 units are under construction right now, or will begin this year. But, you seem to have overlooked the fact that the streetcar also runs through downtown, which has a population of OVER 10,000, and grew by 12% in 2011 alone. 600 additional residential units will be under construction this year. This is pretty significant population growth along the line.
Hi CinciFan--
If what you say is true then maybe OTR is starting to recover from what happened a decade ago. But I remember as recently as 2007-2008 when I was in college I wouldn't ever go there, much less at night, without 'two guns, a baggie of weed, and a gang' (a friend's words back in the day). So, if OTR can gets its collective act together, bring back some decent business and complement the downtown area, then I'm all for it.
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Originally Posted by CinciFan
And lastly, you are under the delusion that we can simply say "Oh, I have an idea, lets use the streetcar money for something other than what it was given to us for." It doesn't work like that! If Cincinnati decided not to build the streetcar, we would have to give the money back to the feds, and they would give it to another city to fund their streetcar project. The same thing happened with the 3-C train money that Kasich turned down. He thought he would be able to use it on highways instead of the train. Nope. We had to give the money back, and it went to Maine and California to fund rail transportation projects in those states.
And yes, the Feds have sent the money to California so that they can bull full-speed ahead with their high speed rails. Remind me how many tens of billions of $ that will cost? What's the first segment of the line? Fresno to Bakersfield?
I will never fully understand what fascination people have with trains, but George Will, a while back, did:
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Florida’s new Republican governor, Rick Scott, has joined Ohio’s (John Kasich) and Wisconsin’s (Scott Walker) in rejecting federal incentives—more than $2 billion in Florida’s case—to begin a high-speed rail project. Florida’s 84-mile line, which would have run parallel to Interstate 4, would have connected Tampa and Orlando. One preposterous projection was that it would attract 3 million passengers a year—almost as many as ride Amtrak’s Acela in the densely populated Boston–New York–Washington corridor.
The three governors want to spare their states from paying the much larger sums likely to be required for construction-cost overruns and operating subsidies when ridership projections prove to be delusional. Kasich and Walker, who were elected promising to stop the nonsense, asked Washington for permission to use the high-speed-rail money for more pressing transportation needs than a train running along Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Cincinnati, or a train parallel to Interstate 94 between Milwaukee and Madison. Washington, disdaining the decisions of Ohio and Wisconsin voters, replied that it will find states that will waste the money.
California will. Although prostrate from its own profligacy, it will sink tens of billions of its own taxpayers’ money in the 616-mile San Francisco–to–San Diego line. Supposedly 39 million people will eagerly pay much more than an airfare in order to travel slower. Between 2008 and 2009, the projected cost increased from $33 billion to $42.6 billion.
Randal O’Toole of the Cato Institute notes that high-speed rail connects big-city downtowns, where only 7 percent of Americans work and 1 percent live. And high speed will not displace enough cars to measurably reduce congestion. The Washington Post says China’s fast trains are priced beyond ordinary workers’ budgets, and that France, like Japan, has only one profitable line.
So why is America’s “win the future” administration so fixated on railroads, a technology that was the future two centuries ago? Because progressivism’s aim is the modification of (other people’s) behavior.
Forever seeking Archimedean levers for prying the world in directions they prefer, progressives say they embrace high-speed rail for many reasons—to improve the climate, increase competitiveness, enhance national security, reduce congestion, and rationalize land use. The length of the list of reasons, and the flimsiness of each, points to this conclusion: the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.
To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.
It seems areas that don't have trains can't figure out why you would want access to them. It makes a huge difference to be able to hop on a train and get where you want than to have to drive, pay to park, sit in traffic. I have spent years of my life carless and don't have that option here, and frankly I can't stand it. When I lived in NYC I could take the train anywhere. When I wanted to visit relatives in VA and NC I could hop on Amtrak at Pennstation an be there within 8 hours or so. Of course once there I was dependent on them for a ride but we can work with that. That Cincinnati doesn't have rail and people around here are so adamantly against it is symbolic of backward ways,IMO.
hens, you were the one who started talking about the streetcar, so...
You are getting your information from Wikipedia, really? I am not a liberal or a conservative, but I live around and see the benefits of rail, so I support it. People who bash rail without any facts and base their opinion as if it were a fact based on what they truly think of rail need to get out and explore the world a little bit more. The only place that I think has spent a complete waste of money was when I was in South Africa and rode the Gautrain, talk about a waste. Cincinnati's streetcar links so much within such a small area.
Learn transportation before you start bashing it. You do realize the streetcar is a fraction of the cost of road projects currently under construction or planned for the future. For instance, the Brent Spence Bridge is going to cost over an estimate $ 2 billion. What about all the billions being spent in Columbus to re-arrange on and off ramps and bridges around the downtown area? Road construction is a hell of a lot more to keep up and build than rail projects that can last for decades without any serious work. How long has it been since I-75 went without any work?
I love how you pull politics into this saying you have to be some liberal to love rail. And the quick links to Wikipedia are real nice, too.
You want to stop talking about rail, why did you even bring it up in the first place?
You do realize the streetcar is a fraction of the cost of road projects currently under construction or planned for the future. For instance, the Brent Spence Bridge is going to cost over an estimate $ 2 billion. What about all the billions being spent in Columbus to re-arrange on and off ramps and bridges around the downtown area? Road construction is a hell of a lot more to keep up and build than rail projects that can last for decades without any serious work. How long has it been since I-75 went without any work?
Hi WRosado--
I freely admit that we spend tons more on our road network than we do on rails - because that's what people use to go places. Although I admit it's partly a self-fulling prophecy - build it and they will usually come - in this economy, with budgets as tight as they are, there are far more pressing transportation needs. And it's imperative that what little money is available goes to the right places. In this case, the 1,000,000+ residents of Butler, Warren, and Clermont counties take some precedence over the 10,000 in OTR from a regional perspective.
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Originally Posted by WRosado
I love how you pull politics into this saying you have to be some liberal to love rail. And the quick links to Wikipedia are real nice, too.
Hi WRosado--
That's George Will's fault, not mine in particular. Although the overwhelming majority (read: I haven't met a single person to the contrary - please prove me wrong) of staunch advocates for public transportation are well to the left of center, and often include many self-described 'progressives'.
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Originally Posted by WRosado
You want to stop talking about rail, why did you even bring it up in the first place?
Hi WRosado--
I bought it up because it's $100 million that the City of Cincinnati is wasting on a terrible boondoggle that could have instead been spent towards other, much more pressing transportation needs. Consequently, it formed a cornerstone of my own 'Fix the Cincinnati Transit Solution' which was in the other thread.
The question I have is What is the advantage? Yes the suburban areas have grown closer together, but so what? Both cities do not want to admit the growth of their outer suburbs, Cincinnati with the northern suburbs such as Mason, Westchester, Liberty Twp, Monroe etc, and Dayton with their southern suburbs of Centerville, Beavercreek, Springboro, etc.
So since the cities do not want to acknowledge the suburbs which are connecting them even exist, again What is the advantage?
When the cities want to disavow any direct relationship to their own outer suburbs, what is the sense in contending they are connected in a common metro? I just don't get it.
Sorry, but don't the suburbs of both Cincinnati and Dayton act as if the urban areas themselves do not exist?
Ohio is an interesting state as we have several large metro areas and they are all counted separately. Cleveland and Akron are counted as the same CSA, but separate MSAs. Even if you added Cleveland, Akron, Canton into the same MSA, it would still be a much smaller area than other MSA's like Pittsburgh or St. Louis, but more populated. Say Cleveland, Akron, Canton (the I-77 corridor) were one MSA, it would have over 3.2 million people. Same goes for Cincinnati, Dayton, Springfield. If combined, they would have almost 3.5 million people, but still be than places St. Louis or Kansas City.
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