It's Official: Streetcar Under Budget! (Cincinnati, Ada: neighborhood, living, low cost)

[censusdata]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

Anyone in this forum currently seeing how this streetcar will change their commute patterns or other ways they'll be making use of it?

There are a lot of college educated Millennials who would move to an up and coming area with great architecture because of a street car. It may not appeal to a couple 40 year married couple with 2 kids but it does have appeal for single younger people.


As someone who doesn't live in Cincy but visits sometimes I would take a street that went between attractions like the art museum and Union Station. I wouldn't take a streetcar that simply circled an area that's improving but still has lots of crime, but I understand that anti urban politicians do look to cut projects like streetcars. Building it with the current route is better than millions in studies but no street car.

[TeacherinTN]

Originally Posted by censusdata

There are a lot of college educated Millennials who would move to an up and coming area with great architecture because of a street car. It may not appeal to a couple 40 year married couple with 2 kids but it does have appeal for single younger people.


As someone who doesn't live in Cincy but visits sometimes I would take a street that went between attractions like the art museum and Union Station. I wouldn't take a streetcar that simply circled an area that's improving but still has lots of crime, but I understand that anti urban politicians do look to cut projects like streetcars. Building it with the current route is better than millions in studies but no street car.

I'm 40, married and have 4 kids and it really appeals to me. Ha ha!

In fact, it was the streetcar, the up and coming downtown and OTR that made me choose Cincy over other good city options.

40 something people (Gen X) are probably more aligned to Millenials than Baby Boomers or should I say Millenials are more aligned to Gen X. I have tattoos, played in grunge rock bands, and learned about the importance of recycling and alternative energy sources long before any Millenial was born.

[kruschev]

at the risk of suffering the wrath of derail(ha)ing the thread,

Streetcar and vehicle collide Downtown

righteous indignation! you see! the streetcar was folly to begin with!

but seriously, people who hate going downtown because of the layout, traffic, parking, troves of roving weirdos, hot dog man, etc... will have to deal with this now. it's going to be a common theme. when we were visiting a friend in zurich, he said they have collisions daily. i assume their streetcar has been operational for some time now, being it's europe. but it's also a touristy city, but a considerable amount of downtown traffic (i assume) is suburban tourists.

anyways, sorry for the derail.

also can someone answer me this; the cincinnati streetcar psa says you can't drive on the streetcar track. that can't be true, can it?

[Kevin1813]

What's the difference between a streetcar and a car colliding and two cars colliding? You don't see people saying, "I'm not going there because I might get a fender bender". Good grief, if the streetcar keeps someone away from downtown they really weren't interested in the first place.


Normally, one can drive on rails. It never appeared to me that these were intended to be designated lanes for the streetcar.


I'm still blown away at the people who really believe a streetcar should cover it's costs and/or make a profit while they are completely ok with local road funding coming 100% from the general fund, about 70% of state road funding coming from the general fund, and 50% of new federal road funding coming from the general fund. I think the proper term for this belief is cafeteria style libertarianism.

[cincydave8]

Originally Posted by kruschev

at the risk of suffering the wrath of derail(ha)ing the thread,

Streetcar and vehicle collide Downtown

righteous indignation! you see! the streetcar was folly to begin with!

but seriously, people who hate going downtown because of the layout, traffic, parking, troves of roving weirdos, hot dog man, etc... will have to deal with this now. it's going to be a common theme. when we were visiting a friend in zurich, he said they have collisions daily. i assume their streetcar has been operational for some time now, being it's europe. but it's also a touristy city, but a considerable amount of downtown traffic (i assume) is suburban tourists.

anyways, sorry for the derail.

also can someone answer me this; the cincinnati streetcar psa says you can't drive on the streetcar track. that can't be true, can it?

You can drive on the street car lines, you just have to be careful when parking. You have to be inside the white lines or you will lose your side mirror. Not sure how you hit a giant yellow train though.

And you're right, just read those horrible comments on the article. Plus I've already seen facebook posts about people being happy that this car wrecked into it. They feel vindicated or something. I've never understood why so many suburbanites even care. I don't care what Blue Ash, Harrison or Florence spend their money on.

But that's all ancient history now. It opens in about 3 weeks. My wife and I were already talking about how we're looking forward to parking at the Mercer garage, putting our name in at The Eagle and then riding it up Rhinegiest while we wait.

[426HemiCA]

I was hoping they would at least design the Street Car with a vintage look that would blend into the city-scape better, maybe a German look or even the SF street car trolley type of design, not an ugly ass City bus looking thing.

[Nomomo07]

Originally Posted by 426HemiCA

I was hoping they would at least design the Street Car with a vintage look that would blend into the city-scape better, maybe a German look or even the SF street car trolley type of design, not an ugly ass City bus looking thing.

It's transportation, not a gimmick.

[kruschev]

Originally Posted by Nomomo07

It's transportation, not a gimmick.

that's debatable. mallory essentially called it advertising

[Nomomo07]

Originally Posted by kruschev

that's debatable. mallory essentially called it advertising

Mallory called it a driver of new development. Which it has proven to be many times over. It's primary purpose is transportation around the basin (formerly to uptown before it came into contact with Kasich's unending wisdom). I'm not sure how the streetcar could be called an "advertisement" other than the actual advertisement space in and on the vehicles. This city seems full of sore losers.

[426HemiCA]

Originally Posted by Nomomo07

It's transportation, not a gimmick.

Just because its Transportation doesn't mean it has to look like Crap. Nothing wrong with a functional system (yet to be proven) embracing the heritage of a community or going for an upscale look at least. That hideous looking bus is just missing some graffiti to have that nice Philly/NYC look, but I am sure it will be coming along soon enough to complete the picture.