Cincinnati Commuter Rail (Dayton, Ada, Covington: middle-class, apartments, neighborhood)

[CinciFan]

Originally Posted by rrtechno

We live in a community in NW Ohio with an Amtrak station within 8 miles of our house. We can drive to Cincinnati in approximately 3 1/2 hours.

I just checked the Amtrak schedule to take the train down sometime. We would need to board the train at 7:05 am and would arrive in Cincinnati at 3:17 am the next morning. The majority of that time would be sitting in the train station in Chicago. Cost -$236 for 2 people.

Return trip - Leave Cincinnati at 1:23 am. Arrive at destination 1:40 AM the next morning. Cost - $220 for 2.

Sorry - It's NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

You can talk all you want about high speed rail connecting the 3Cs, but unless you have a plan that includes the entire state, you aren't going to convince me.

Well, you pretty much summed up why better rail infrastructure is needed in Ohio. Thanks for bringing that to our attention.

[unusualfire]

Flashes1 do you not understand gas is going higher and higher and will be gone or out of reach for most people by 2045? Build these things now so we have options in the future or are only option in the future will be unemployment.

[jmecklenborg]

Flashes 1, not everyone lives 20 miles from the train stations, especially the many people who do not own cars to begin with. And fewer and fewer will live far from the cities in 10-20 years, since long-distance commutes will become prohibitively expensive with $5+ gasoline.

[flashes1]

Originally Posted by unusualfire

Flashes1 do you not understand gas is going higher and higher and will be gone or out of reach for most people by 2045? Build these things now so we have options in the future or are only option in the future will be unemployment.

I think we'll find a replacement for gasoline prior to extinguishing its supplies.....natural gas, fusion, ??? I don't know, but I believe in American ingenuity. I've also heard reports that there's a ton of oil hiding under the Rocky Mountains in the form of sands. It would be a great way to monetize those assets and use those proceeds to pay down the national debt, fund social security, and pay for the inevitable future wars.

[neilworms2]

I struggle seeing how inter-city rail between major Ohio cities will work. It might work if you were going from downtown Cinti to downtown Cleveland....but how would you go from say Montgomery or Anderson to Lorain or Mentor? Number 1: You have to drive from your home to the Cincinnati rail station---could be 20+ miles-----and then how do you get to your final destination upon being dropped off---you take a cab? Could be another 20+ miles. Number 2: it's cost prohibitive------Ive read reports of it being at least $100 each way between Cinti and Cleveland and it would take many more hours than via car.

I think with higher gas prices we need to rebuild our neighborhoods. We did it once (very messily) in deurbanizing our growth 50-60 years ago, we need to do it again in reurbanizing our growth. Suburban neighborhoods without access to rail/transit will be marginalized and ones with rail/transit will be desirable. Its going to take a long time to happen because we literally got off on the wrong track for so long (pun intended) with the anti-urban ideas of the mid-20th century. NIMBYs are going to have to concede this is the way to go. Look at the fights going on in LA right now, this is a precursor to what's going to wind up happening in most of the rest of the country.

Actually in some places this is already happening, the mid century suburbs in Cincinnati are going downhill. In Chicago they are even worse; some of them actually are as dangerous if not more as inner city neighborhoods. Ford City comes to mind, a once stable middle/working class suburb on the Southside, now bankrupt and abandoned, its a very sad sight but indicative of where things are probably going to head in the next 50 years.

Frankly peoples preferences are shifting, particularly in larger cities that tend to pick up on such things way faster than Cincy does, more people have more of a desire to live closer together, getting rid of the ennui of the suburbs and at the same time living more efficiently given the energy/commodity issues we are facing. Not only that but I do believe ingenuity will find a solution for those technical problems such as internal combustion engines requiring gasoline right now, however the less concrete issues of life style preferences particularly of younger people are shifting and this is why cities will come back and rail is a way to help fuel this trend. Places that don't invest in this will be left in the dust as being old fashioned and unwilling to embrace this shift.

Not only that but technical ingenuity needs to have political willpower and capitol in order to make a reality there is a softer dimension to that too and vested interest are going to have a hard time giving up when they need to adapt. That's pure business - places need to adapt to changing environments or die.

[Joke Insurance]

Originally Posted by kjbrill

Somehow people seem to think there is an electric plug in the ground somewhere which provides this. You have to generate it. So where is this electric to come from? Cover Ohio with wind turbines? And what do you think the maintenance costs on those things are going to be?

I know you exactly know what Nexis4Jersey is talking about. I think you are just saying that for the sake of arguing.

Based on what I heard, you and him are on the same page.

[unusualfire]

Commuter rail should be for longer distances. Like to Hamilton-Middletown-Dayton. Or have a line go up to Dayton with spurs from Hamilton and Middletown.

This region can't afford to fall behind further to other up-and-coming regions. We are behind to regions such as Salt Lake city. Such a shame that region can afford the transportation option they have, yet this more populated region can't or refuse to recognize it's losing it's clout.

[hensleya1]

Hi all--

For all the talk about gasoline becoming prohibitively expensive, I'm not so convinced that it will in the foreseeable future. They've been talking about how we're going to run out of oil in 40 years... and that was 40 years ago. Hubbert is looking like a fool with his 'peak oil' theory because everyone predicted the peak to be in 2006 or so. I will concede a recent rise in gas prices in the past few years, but I'm not convinced it's due to anything more than speculators and in some cases government refusing to expand supply (a la Keystone Pipeline which enjoys bipartisan support).

The rise in gas prices since the 1960's is almost exclusively due to inflation, not due to a scarcity of the gasoline.

Gasoline isn't going up: the dollar is going down.

Vehicle Technologies Office: Fact #741: August 20, 2012 Historical Gasoline Prices, 1929-2011

[Dayton Sux]

Nice graph. Looks like gas is spiking starting in 1999, in fact even higher than that famous oil price spike in the 1970s. Bound to have an impact on the economy.

@@@

As for commuter rail, dream on.

The only reason it works where it does (which is pretty much a limited set of cities and metro areas on the East & West Coast and in Chicago) is the density of employment in the center city.

You just dont have this to the degree that would make commuter rail viable. Yes, there is an employment concentration downtown but is it enough to make sense for commuter rail? To the point that the pain and cost of parking makes commuting downtown by car unviable.

It seems that employment is much more dispersed across the metro area.

The concept that best describes this is "Edgless City" (which goes beyond the more familiar concept of "Edge City").

Heres a link: http://www.brookings.edu/research/bo...dgeless-cities

..."Edgeless City" type of development means commuter rail wouldn't be an efficient form of transportation for commuters. There is quite a bit of this lower desnity suburban employment throughout the Cincy area.

[TomJones123]

Originally Posted by Dayton Sux

You just dont have this to the degree that would make commuter rail viable. Employment is much more dispersed across the metro area.

Not really true, but that seems to be the common perception.

http://www.urbancincy.com/2013/02/ci...ful-in-region/

STUDY: Suburban Residents Have Longest Commutes in Cincinnati Region — UrbanCincy

Due to the lack of a comprehensive regional transit system, approximately 79.3% of Cincinnatians are stuck behind the wheel of a car by themselves, and another 9.2% are carpooling to work each day.