Light Rail - Where and how do we get started! (Cincinnati: home, buying)

[jmecklenborg]

>I just wonder how much extra business those places in West Chester and Fairfield would get, especially on big-ticket items, if Hamilton County's sales tax was raised to 8% (between the 0.25% hike from the state and the 1% proposed by Mecklenborg here)?

So Ohio's sales tax hike does not affect Butler County? Are you happy that Kasich's estate tax cut for the rich resulted in this tax hike for the common man? That the Tea Party that backs Kasich has been totally silent about this sales tax hike?


>Something tells me that people voting with their feet would pull the rug out from any economic development that you'd see by building more mass transit.

Wrong. America's highest tax cities and states continue to be inundated with college graduates from the low tax Midwest. Dozens if not hundreds of recent college graduates from Ohio move to New York City, Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles every day. There is no significant reciprocal migration.

What do people in the big cities get for their higher taxes in return?

They get to live in places where they don't need to own a car, or rarely drive their car, and therefore save between $5,000 and 10,000 per year. What's more, the taxes and fares they spend to ride buses and trains for the most part STAYS IN THAT CITY. By comparison, gasoline, spare parts, and interest on car loans LEAVE THE CITY WHERE THAT PERSON LIVES. That money is GONE, some of it to overseas countries.

Let's compare the stadium tax to a transit sales tax. After construction of the stadiums, virtually all of the interest on the bonds goes to investors somewhere else in the world. After a transit system is built, virtually ALL of the ongoing tax STAYS in Hamilton County, or fairly close. Sure, a transit employee spends money elsewhere if they take a vacation or send their kid to college at OSU and their mortgage interest goes up in the clouds somewhere, but their day-to-day expenses are spent here in Hamilton County.

[jmecklenborg]

>I'm curious what people think would be the best line of approach for the west side.

More than one line. Even a true subway under Glenway from Lower Price Hill to Bridgetown can't cover the whole need of the area.

Some combination of the following are the options for the West Side:

1. Subway under Price Hill, following Glenway to Bridgetown. Cost: $1 billion
2. Surface line on I-71 to Harrison/Rybolt. Cost: $500 million
3. Surface line on old C&O ROW from South Fairmount to Glenway Crossing shopping center. Cost: $500 million
4. Streetcar line on Harrison from the viaduct to Bridgetown. Cost: $500 million

Think for a moment if all four of these were built at a cost of $2.5 billion. Roughly the same cost as the Brent Spence Bridge project but would totally transform the lives of about 200,000 people.

[kjbrill]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

>I'm curious what people think would be the best line of approach for the west side.

More than one line. Even a true subway under Glenway from Lower Price Hill to Bridgetown can't cover the whole need of the area.

Some combination of the following are the options for the West Side:

1. Subway under Price Hill, following Glenway to Bridgetown. Cost: $1 billion
2. Surface line on I-71 to Harrison/Rybolt. Cost: $500 million
3. Surface line on old C&O ROW from South Fairmount to Glenway Crossing shopping center. Cost: $500 million
4. Streetcar line on Harrison from the viaduct to Bridgetown. Cost: $500 million

Think for a moment if all four of these were built at a cost of $2.5 billion. Roughly the same cost as the Brent Spence Bridge project but would totally transform the lives of about 200,000 people.

I certainly hope you do not intend a surface line on I-71 to go to Harrison. I-74 maybe? And just where exactly is this surface line to be positioned? I-74 barely has enough lanes to carry its current traffic, are you proposing to run rail lines up the center of it?

For your projected $2.5 billion cost, you say 200,000 people are impacted. Good trick since the entire population of Cincinnati is below 400,000 and I don't believe half of them live on the west side.

You also comment it is about the cost of the Brent Spence Bridge project. One very major difference, The BSB project is to preserve what already exists, not some pie-in-the-sky projection of future potential.

Also, are you recommending not doing the BSB project, but this west side project instead? Or are you admitting both need to be done? And along with your previously proposed central Cincinnati projects. I don't believe you ever got to the eastern side projects, don't believe those citizens will be too happy with that. As another poster stated, eastern Hamilton county has been carrying the load for some years now. Since that is where the money is, don't ignore them.

From the way I count, your Cincinnati projects come up to around $8 billion dollars, excluding the BSB, if I factor in something for the east side, and since it is larger I probably am under funded. How in the world you expect to get this out of a county population of 800,000 is just beyond my grasp. The way I do math, and I admit I am getting old, that adds up to $10,000 for every man woman and child in the county.

Just to fund public transit, you are nuts! Especially since it will not fund itself once built, but require an ongoing operating subsidy.

[restorationconsultant]

Light Rail works well in Business High Denisty, high real estate cost environs. It works in New York and Chicago because people CAN'T afford to live downtown, can't afford to park a car downtown and the time to get from A to B is time consuming.

Those conditions simply do not exist in Cincinnati and likely never will . People are not going to commute via rail from Dayton for example to Cincinnati in any numbers that would EVER make economic sense.

I hate to bring everyone down to reality ( I know we have some big dreamers on this board).

The best use on economic development monies is not on Light rail Transportation but community and neighborhood redevelopment in areas like Price Hill, Walnut hills, Fairmount, Westwood and Avondale with park and ride locations. Couple that with "nice looking" buses and you have a recipe for success and you build a property tax base which city blight=bulldozer policies have decimated.

This isn't Europe, it isn't New York, it isnt' even Chicago....its Cincinnati , a once "big" city that has lost half its population since 1920 to where is treading water at 295,000 pop. Unless 900 sq ft condos in OTR sell for 2 Mill and a parking space cost 1000.00 a month..light rail is waste of time, money and discussion.

If we work hard on redeveloping our neighborhoods, we "might' be Indianapolis in 20 years ( with far better architecture).

[natininja]

NYC and Chicago don't have light rail AFAIK. Minneapolis, St. Louis, SLC, and other cities more like Cincinnati do, though. And many of them are expanding it, because it's successful.

[restorationconsultant]

Originally Posted by natininja

NYC and Chicago don't have light rail AFAIK. Minneapolis, St. Louis, SLC, and other cities more like Cincinnati do, though. And many of them are expanding it, because it's successful.

Light rail /trains whatever you call it its not going to fly here. We should be concentrating our resources on things we can do. Rebuilding neighborhoods/communities we have makes sense.

[TomJones123]

Originally Posted by restorationconsultant

Light Rail works well in Business High Denisty, high real estate cost environs. It works in New York and Chicago because people CAN'T afford to live downtown, can't afford to park a car downtown and the time to get from A to B is time consuming.

It works in New York because it's efficient and people can live car free and have increased quality of life w/o spending hours behind the wheel each day. Using the subway has nothing to do with not being able to afford other modes of transportation, or not being able to live "downtown." In context of NYC, that's laughable. Hordes of wealthy New Yorkers, and commuting New Yorkers use rail daily. They take Metro North, and LIRR into the city and transfer to the subway at Grand Central, or Jamaica Queens (with LIRR) and Penn Station with New Jersey Transit.. Then there are the millions of people who live in the city, or the outer boroughs and rely on the subway. People from all walks of life, demographic, and especially income.

To help you understand New York a little better, downtown Manhattan is usually referred to as lower Manhattan and, historically, has not been the most exclusive location to live. Since 9/11, billions of dollars has been poured into the area in redevelopment, that obviously, is making it more desirable. However, the Upper East Side, neighborhoods in Brooklyn, mid-town Manhattan, Upper West Side, etc., have traditionally been highly sought after. And the more highly sought after neighborhoods are ones with convenient access to the subway.

Former New Yorker here, and I can say in my experience people from the mid-west, who have been totally dependent on auto-mobiles, do not get it. No matter how compelling the arguments in favor of rail.

[tylerSC]

I like the light rail system in Charlotte, NC. It is still being expanded and has been proven successful. But there is always the argument over how to pay for it, as people don't like higher taxes.

[jmecklenborg]

>Light rail /trains whatever you call it its not going to fly here.

The various terms mean very specific things. You're suggesting that an interstate highway is the same thing as Pacific Coast Highway which is the same thing as a private logging road which is the same thing as a drag strip. People like Bill Cunningham intentionally mispronounce and confuse the terminology of their opponents -- it's an old lawyer trick.

"Light Rail" refers to both a specific type of train AND a specific range of line types. As for the "Cincinnati isn't XXXXX" city, watch this recent video of light rail construction in Portland, OR:


Light Rail Construction: A Bird's Eye View - YouTube

Most of Cincinnati is *much* more densely built than what you're seeing this line traveling through. In fact Cincinnati is THE most densely built city without rail and much denser than many that have recently built lines.

In the video's final minute you will see the new river bridge under construction which will carry light rail AND modern streetcars on shared trackage. The new high-rises you see are all on the existing streetcar line extension that opened around 2007.

[bertwrench]

Originally Posted by kjbrill

Good trick since the entire population of Cincinnati is below 400,000 and I don't believe half of them live on the west side.

The way I do math, and I admit I am getting old, that adds up to $10,000 for every man woman and child in the county.

Just to fund public transit, you are nuts! Especially since it will not fund itself once built, but require an ongoing operating subsidy.

I don't mean to single you out Brill, but you seem to be the biggest pessimist on this board concerning any kind of public transportation. This thread was meant to encourage us to think anew on how to overcome the obstacles facing a project like light rail. It's not that I/we don't know they exist or are in some fantasy land about it, but that I wanted us to think creatively about how to overcome them.

Perhaps I have gotten ahead of myself thinking there is more demand for rail than what there truly is. Perhaps a good place to start would be surveying the population of the region concerning the matter, but that doesn't mean those who would like to see rail transportation cant' discuss it.

You keep coming back to the population of Cincinnati and Hamilton county, but you ignore the population outside the county who I think would use and support rail. Neither the county nor those outside it exist in a bubble. I doubt the county line is that salient in the minds of those beyond it.

Your math of 10,000 per person may be correct, or it may be high or it may be low. We don't really know for sure at this point. However, it is not like this project would be built in two years, at least 15 -20 is a more realistic timeline. Spread 10,000 out over that amount of time and it doesn't look so daunting. Your also forgetting about corporate sponsorships and other possible funding sources.