Does Cincy have or will Cincy get Light Rail service ? (Cincinnati: jobs, home)

[jlrosen]

cincinnati is actually more densely populated than houston. With the two huge employment centers of the uptown medical complex and the Central buisness district, you have nearly 200k jobs within about three miles.

[JesusisLord]

Originally Posted by jlrosen

cincinnati is actually more densely populated than houston. With the two huge employment centers of the uptown medical complex and the Central buisness district, you have nearly 200k jobs within about three miles.

Oh really! Is traffic bad in Cincinnati? In Los Angeles and surrounding counties the traffic is gnarley. I don't consider going thirty on the freeway to be heavy traffic. I am interested in Cincinnati, my grandmother grew up in Covington.

[UncleRando]

Originally Posted by JesusisLord

Oh really! Is traffic bad in Cincinnati? In Los Angeles and surrounding counties the traffic is gnarley. I don't consider going thirty on the freeway to be heavy traffic. I am interested in Cincinnati, my grandmother grew up in Covington.

I lived in Atlanta for a little while recently, and I would say that Cincinnati has not been hit with bad traffic quite yet. The thing here is that if we were to implement a comprehensive light rail system, we could possible avoid massive widenings to our highways in the not so distant future. I-75 is in terrible shape and is already poised for massive reconstruction/widening efforts. Once this is done I-75 will still be a level D classified highway, and is going to need more work just to stay relevant. We could avoid massive demolitions and costs by implementing light rail there. I-71 is still salvageable though without any major efforts yet.

Essentially what I'm getting at is that while Cincy may not be plagued with real bad traffic yet, we could plan ahead and try to avoid those kinds of messes with a comprehensive multi-modal transportation system. One that accommodates not only the car, but also the train/bus/bike/pedestrian.

[dramamama6685]

Originally Posted by yayoi

Yeah, that's why Metro's ridership is up. Let's see if you're singing the same tune when gas hits $6-7 a gallon. It will happen.

It won't even help my commute, but since some of the funding will most likely come from the state, not only will I get to pay for my commute, but light rail too. People need to realize more government run programs are NEVER the answer. However, if the private sector wanted to do this, more power to them.

[dramamama6685]

Originally Posted by UncleRando

Highways are a perennial loser and you know what that's fine...but people must realize that just about every kind of infrastructure project loses money. These types of things are set up to be profitable...that is also why they aren't the sexiest things for politicians to get behind and support.

BTW, the federal highway fund is just about bankrupt...and more and more people are looking to ditch their cars (especially the younger generations). It should be interesting to see how things pan out over the next 10-20 years in this country.

I agree. My better half was pointing and laughing at those who took part in the bigger the better vehicle craze a while back. He warned his mom not to buy a big car and I quote "you never know gas may get up to over $2 a gallon." She called him crazy.

[jlrosen]

Originally Posted by dramamama6685

It won't even help my commute, but since some of the funding will most likely come from the state, not only will I get to pay for my commute, but light rail too. People need to realize more government run programs are NEVER the answer. However, if the private sector wanted to do this, more power to them.

so you would be in favor of abandoning the interstate highway system and switching to toll roads?

[jlrosen]

^and with thousands of people taking the train each day it would help your commute by reducing highway congestion.

[dramamama6685]

Originally Posted by jlrosen

so you would be in favor of abandoning the interstate highway system and switching to toll roads?

No, not really. I'm just saying that the government does such a wonderful job with all of our money they currently have. Maybe we should just sign our paychecks over.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by UncleRando

As for light rail, it is still a vision in the community but lacks the necessary money to move forward. It also is lacking virtually any support from the western portions of Hamilton County. With that said, Cincinnati proper voted overwhelmingly in favor of the light rail referendum in 2002. The overall vote was for the county and it went down roughly 2:1...but the city had just experienced riots, the nation was reeling from 9/11 and the nation was in the midst of a recession. Furthermore, MANY voters had the bitter taste of cost-overruns with Paul Brown Stadium and weren't ready to approve another tax increase.

One of the reasons why Western Hamilton County voted against it was there was nothing in it for us.

The original plans called for a line parallel to I-71 and maybe crossing over the river to the airport. Eventually there was a potential for some unknown line to serve the western suburbs.

Add to that the fact that we (Cincinnati) do no have the LEADERSHIP to get something like that done... can you imagine what a field day City Clowncile would have with a project like this? My God, they can't even get started on the Banks project - something that has been successfully accomplished in cities across the country - including our neigbors on the other side of the Ohio River.
Building a rail system would require insight, innovation, foresight; our elected officials (I can't call them leaders) lack these.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by jlrosen

so you would be in favor of abandoning the interstate highway system and switching to toll roads?

An interesting concept. I wonder just how much we pay for our highway system when all is said and done. And would it be cheaper and better to have private enterprise run it? That doesn't necessarity mean a complex of toll roads but that would be one possiblity. With today's technology, it would be easy to collect tolls from drivers who actually use a stretch of highway.

I think one of the drawbacks would be similar to the issues we have now with the air transport system and mail systems. No one would want to own the stretch of highway out in the boonies somewhere.