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I would say Vegas surprises me. And not because its so urban and dense because its not. But it seems like a no brainer to figure out some type of light rail connecting the strips hotels and casinos.
They have their monorail which goes behind the casinos on the east side of the strip. They wanted to expand the monorail south to the airport, but all the taxis and limos fought it and they also wanted to expand the monorail north to the downtown, which hasn't happened either.
The big problem with the monorail is that it's on the back side of just one side of the strip and you still have to cross the street to get to the properties on the west side.
There have been talks in recent years of trying to put a real subway directly under the strip from the south all the way to the downtown, not sure how many billions that would cost and who would pay for it, the casinos maybe. They also have talked about shutting down the strip to all vehicles and putting light rail there instead and the rest of the ROW would be pedestrian walkways, that sounds a little extreme and probably has little chance of ever happening.
While Cincinnati may have old subway tunnels, its current transit system consists of buses with low ridership.
I don't understand cities building rail when its bus system is lackluster and underused.
I don't know about Cincy specifically, but could it just be that their current bus system is poorly designed or executed?
Quote:
Originally Posted by _Buster
Not really. Bus ridership far exceeds rail in most US cities.
I think this is just because more bus routes exist than rail routes. I doubt the data is compiled anywhere, but I would expect most of the top used transit routes in the country are rail. Cities with decent rail systems consistently have higher transit ridership numbers. Though it's hard to prove a direct causation. Those cities are also denser and have more car traffic and more expensive parking.
They have their monorail which goes behind the casinos on the east side of the strip. They wanted to expand the monorail south to the airport, but all the taxis and limos fought it and they also wanted to expand the monorail north to the downtown, which hasn't happened either.
The big problem with the monorail is that it's on the back side of just one side of the strip and you still have to cross the street to get to the properties on the west side.
There have been talks in recent years of trying to put a real subway directly under the strip from the south all the way to the downtown, not sure how many billions that would cost and who would pay for it, the casinos maybe. They also have talked about shutting down the strip to all vehicles and putting light rail there instead and the rest of the ROW would be pedestrian walkways, that sounds a little extreme and probably has little chance of ever happening.
Gotcha. Thats pretty interesting but kinda of sounds like a pipe dream at this point unfortunately.
I don't know about Cincy specifically, but could it just be that their current bus system is poorly designed or executed?
Cinci's urban core was heavily wrecked by urban renewal. In the late 19th century, the flat areas close to the river were as densely populated as the Lower East Side of Manhattan. But the city in the mid 20th century demolished almost all of these neighborhoods except for Over-The-Rhine. The "highland" neighborhoods are less intensely built - more streetcar suburban on the whole than urban - meaning there's relatively little "city" left to string together a viable transit system.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ferraris
I think this is just because more bus routes exist than rail routes. I doubt the data is compiled anywhere, but I would expect most of the top used transit routes in the country are rail. Cities with decent rail systems consistently have higher transit ridership numbers. Though it's hard to prove a direct causation. Those cities are also denser and have more car traffic and more expensive parking.
Rail routes will always have higher ridership per route than bus routes if managed properly because they have much higher capacity.
Make no mistake, the system would be costly. The RTC’s plan, which connects McCarran International Airport to downtown’s Bonneville Transit Center and then to Cashman Center, would cost a minimum of $600 million and as much as $5.7 billion (if portions are built underground) in today’s dollars.
I don't know about Cincy specifically, but could it just be that their current bus system is poorly designed or executed?
I think this is just because more bus routes exist than rail routes. I doubt the data is compiled anywhere, but I would expect most of the top used transit routes in the country are rail. Cities with decent rail systems consistently have higher transit ridership numbers. Though it's hard to prove a direct causation. Those cities are also denser and have more car traffic and more expensive parking.
If you look at the cities in the midwest, most of the them have pretty low public transit usage, and when you look in the region around Cincy, Indy, Detroit, and Columbus it can even be shockingly low. Just based on that alone it seems it is partially a geographic, regional cultural trait. Part of it may be based on state/local policies, but going a little east to Cleveland the numbers improve significantly, and by the time you get into the Northeast, to Pittsburgh the ridership numbers are way higher, even though their system has had a lot of cuts in the past years. Then going further east to DC Philly and NY of course the numbers shoot up even more.
If you look at the cities in the midwest, most of the them have pretty low public transit usage, and when you look in the region around Cincy, Indy, Detroit, and Columbus it can even be shockingly low. Just based on that alone it seems it is partially a geographic, regional cultural trait. Part of it may be based on state/local policies, but going a little east to Cleveland the numbers improve significantly, and by the time you get into the Northeast, to Pittsburgh the ridership numbers are way higher, even though their system has had a lot of cuts in the past years. Then going further east to DC Philly and NY of course the numbers shoot up even more.
It's tough to determine the cause really. It could be cultural, it could be physical constraints (as Eschaton pointed out), maybe employers are less concentrated downtown, it could be that all of the cities you mentioned with poor ridership don't have rail to entice riders, or it could be that driving is simply not as big of a burden in those places. It's probably a combination of all of the above.
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