Streetcar skeptic to believer (Cincinnati, Findlay: apartments, per square foot, living)

[Wilson513]

OK, so on October 26, 2016, the Enquirer gave us ridership numbers through October 25, 2016 i.e. the day before.

So where are the numbers for November and December?

[Wilson513]

Article says November riders 1/2 of minimum goal (less than 50,000).

Streetcar Struggles: Small snags or signs of bigger problems?

[WILWRadio]

It should be noted the KC Street Car is free to ride if I recall correctly. Apparently it is fully funded by the local tax payers through taxes and not through a fee based ride.

[unusualfire]

It's 53% over projections.

[Wilson513]

Originally Posted by unusualfire

It's 53% over projections.

But only if you count the 200,000 people who rode free for the opening.

Weather was great in November and they were less than half of projections.

[unusualfire]

Well if you put it that way. It's going as expected. It still has 8 more months to see if the projections are true. It's just plain dumb to say it's not working after only 3 and a half months.

[Wilson513]

Originally Posted by unusualfire

Well if you put it that way. It's going as expected. It still has 8 more months to see if the projections are true. It's just plain dumb to say it's not working after only 3 and a half months.

Agreed. Let's see what the 12 month total is without the 200,000 free opening. That will be a better test. Right now, they are trending to below 50%.

[American Luxury]

Early trends seem to say that in cold weather it will be below average, above average in warm weather. Way above average on Saturdays (and Fridays in warm weather).

[EddieOlSkool]

Was in Cincinnati over the weekend and driving up to Clifton Heights I saw it. It amazed me. And here I am in Louisville where progress is a pipe dream and an empty promise. Good on Cincinnati to start this! It is positioned to become a big player in the Midwest!!

[jmecklenborg]

Here is the ridership printout for December 2016:


A few points:

-The streetcar should definitely take a nap on Thanksgiving and Christmas. These have been, by far, the two lowest
ridership days so far, and we are probably paying the drivers and staff double time. There might be a labor union issue that is forcing them to operate, but I don't know that for a fact.

-Ridership for the Bengals games have been low. The streetcar's station at The Banks is a 1,800 foot walk from the closest Paul Brown Stadium gate, approximately 1,600 feet further than the walk from that same station to the front gate of Great American Ballpark. The baseball stadium obviously has 65~ more events per year than Paul Brown so we are lucky that the line stops much closer to the busier venue

-Monday ridership continues to be the lowest of the week since Findlay Market is always closed. As the area develops around the market with new restaurants and bars we likely won't see a change because Mondays are a very slow entertainment day as well.

The bright spot in this month's figures was the last week...Monday December 26 through Thursday December 29. That Monday was a record high 71F and the rest of the week was also unseasonably warm. Many people had out-of-town guests and headed downtown with their kids for something inexpensive to do. I personally saw Smale Park packed with families that Monday.

So the least week of December was a lot like summer -- warm and lots of people visiting from out-of-town. Also, when the Reds start playing again in April, we should see a noticeable uptick because the number of days when multiple events occur on the same day will begin. That's why we were seeing big ridership back in September and October -- warm weather and multiple events on the same day...Reds + festivals, for example.


Also, the following technical situations still exist:

-Real-Time Arrival signs at the stations are still not working. The fix is being tested this week and hopefully it will be working perfectly within a month. Too many people were burned by the inaccurate information displayed on the signs for the first three months and it will take time to rebuild that trust.

-Streetcars still have no signal priority. A metro bus or compact car sitting at a red light triggers red lights to turn green, but not the streetcars. Cranley keeps playing games with the traffic study that promises to give the streetcars signal priority at some intersections.

-Most of the streetcars spend most of their time sitting unused in the car barn. Again, this is Cranley's anti-streetcar strategy. People can't ride streetcars that aren't out on the tracks. Only 2 streetcars are scheduled to operate non-peak hours, which is most of the time. People will wait 5 minutes to ride the streetcar but not 15.