Streetcar skeptic to believer (Columbus, Cleveland: airport, trains, wealthy)

[WILWRadio]

Here's something else to consider.

A bus designed to look exactly like a Street Car (see them in Indy) could run the very same loop as the current Street Cars do and you would still achieve the same objective. A fixed route minus the rails which cause all sorts of problems for cars, trucks and pedestrians. And best of all tens of millions of dollars would have been saved.

[WILWRadio]

Originally Posted by Kamms

Not tough to write a hit piece on Cinci's streetcar at this point nor transit generally since its use is down nationally. The rise of the suburbs continues. The Cinci streetcar is a ''connector'' not a traditional mass line. Just because this writer mentioned that ORT would have developed anyway and pointed out the related TIF, it's propaganda. Never mind the very real defects related to the vehicles already. More propaganda I bet.

I don't think you can call it a hit piece if it contains factually correct information. A hit piece is usually a story filled with out and out lies or embellishments of the facts that distort the real story. No evidence of that.

[cincydave8]

Originally Posted by WILWRadio

Here's something else to consider.

A bus designed to look exactly like a Street Car (see them in Indy) could run the very same loop as the current Street Cars do and you would still achieve the same objective. A fixed route minus the rails which cause all sorts of problems for cars, trucks and pedestrians. And best of all tens of millions of dollars would have been saved.

Ugh. This painfully not true. Buses do not spur development because their routes can and do change. Streetcar spur development because of the fixed route. We've already seen that from the dozens upon dozens of new business opening on the line stating one the top reasons they chose to open was the Streetcar. It's one the top reasons GE chose the banks over Mason. Along with tons of business owners saying they've seen large sales increases since the streetcar opened. There have been issues with our streetcar but the idea that a bus could do the same thing with all the benefits we're seeing and will continue to see is not true. I'm not going to go in a debate hole on every talking point the haters say but this one is just not true. Did you ever hear of a business opening because of the southbank shuttle? No, because buses like that do not spur development.


The basic facts remain, the streetcar is here for good, it was built on time, on budget, is less than 1% of the city's budget, currently running in the black (according to multiple news reports), it's creating tax revenue in higher costs of real estate, tax revenue in new business because of it and tax revenue in higher sales at businesses along the line and ridership is on the rise. There are problems, without a doubt, the crash is absolutely absurd and there's no excuse for it. But the benefits outweigh the negative.

[Kamms]

Originally Posted by WILWRadio

I don't think you can call it a hit piece if it contains factually correct information. A hit piece is usually a story filled with out and out lies or embellishments of the facts that distort the real story. No evidence of that.

Right, it's not a hit piece; it's based on current facts.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by WILWRadio

Here's something else to consider.

A bus designed to look exactly like a Street Car (see them in Indy) could run the very same loop as the current Street Cars do and you would still achieve the same objective. A fixed route minus the rails which cause all sorts of problems for cars, trucks and pedestrians. And best of all tens of millions of dollars would have been saved.

We had the Holly Jolly Trolley. Nobody remembers it. We have the TANK Southbank Shuttle -- how much development has it spurred in the past 15 years? They're usually empty or almost empty. Nobody seems to care about how much those cost -- only the streetcar. Because people only care about how much the streetcar costs, not the other 99% of the city's budget.


Queen City Metro buses have run on Elm and Race along the exact route of the streetcar for the past 50+ years -- in fact since streetcars were removed from those streets in the late 40s and early 50s. What was once the most densely-populated neighborhood in the Midwest decline to almost 100% vacancy. The streetcars are back, the area is being repopulated, and everyone out in the suburbs is pissed because 700WLW told them to be pissed.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by WILWRadio

I don't think you can call it a hit piece if it contains factually correct information. A hit piece is usually a story filled with out and out lies or embellishments of the facts that distort the real story. No evidence of that.

A hit piece is anything written by an industry shill. Randal O'Toole has been employed by the Cato Institute for 20+ years for the express purpose of writing anti-transit (and pro-sprawl land use) hit pieces. The city or specific situation doesn't matter -- O'Toole is hired to attack anything that doesn't promote cars and sprawl. Look him up and look up who funds the Cato Institute. Most big city newspapers long ago stopped publishing his op-eds, but occasionally a smaller news source doesn't realize who he is and he sneaks one in there.

[bjimmy24]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Randal O'Toole has been paid by the Cato Institute (which is funded by the Koch Bros.) since the mid-1990s to write anti-transit hit pieces. That's what he does for a living -- wakes up and writes anti-transit propaganda.

This addresses zero of what the article said. Though invoking the evil Koch brothers is a good way to justify pretty much anything to the left.

[WRnative]

Originally Posted by JR_C

https://taxfoundation.org/gasoline-t...road-spending/

There is a major flaw in this article.

<<Nationwide in 2010, state and local governments raised $37 billion in motor fuel taxes and $12 billion in tolls and non-fuel taxes, but spent $155 billion on highways.[3] In other words, highway user taxes and fees made up just 32 percent of state and local expenses on roads. The rest was financed out of general revenues, including federal aid.>>

It doesn't mention that federal aid largely is financed by fuel taxes.

These are 2013 statistics. The following table includes federal aid.

https://taxfoundation.org/road-spend...s-tax-revenues

Also, it's not clear if these statistics include a massive source of road funds, at least in Ohio -- license fees and registration fees. I suspect that they do NOT.

Finally, many Ohio localities do have dedicated property taxes to finance local roads. Is this really inappropriate as these streets and main arteries finance access to local properties, including by safety forces??? Clearly, these calculations omit these significant sources of revenues.

I still believe that road maintenance largely is financed by fuel taxes, license fees, registration fees, tolls, other user fees, and dedicate local property taxes, at least in Ohio. Prove me wrong.

Anyway, thanks for posting this article as it apparently represents the basis for many of the likely questionable claims made in this thread.

In the past, when Ohio state and local government fund distributions were more generous, localities did use these funds for road funds.

Candidly, I have no problem with using funds raised by real estate taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, etc. on roads, highways or mass transit. I do believe, it's better to use funds directly related to the transit options, whether fares, tolls, or fuel taxes, to finance each mode of transportation. Why? It depresses subsidized travel and encourages persons to maximize living choices to minimize resource consumption.

I do want all public transportation investments not directly financed to be cost effective. I do believe that intelligent mass transit investments promote economic activity and minimize road and highway investment. Could a NYC even function or exist without a substantial mass transit investment?

With autonomous vehicles in the future, mass transit labor costs may become much less, increasing the economic returns on mass transit investments. Aging baby boomers who no longer need individual vehicles or the assistance of friends or neighbors may benefit greatly from more robust mass transit services, such as the point-to-point services that already exist in many communities and may be enhanced by more autonomous vehicles.

There is a reason that downtown businesses subsidize the free bus trolleys in downtown Cleveland. This is a model that should be explored in more communities, perhaps with special real estate taxes assessed on property directly benefiting from the mass transit service. Consider how much hotels benefit when guests easily can visit attractions without paying for taxi or even Uber or Lyft services.

Based on the posts that I've seen in this thread, I'm not convinced that the Cincinnati Connector was a cost effective mass transit investment.

And obviously voters in Ohio believe it's appropriate to use sales taxes to subsidize mass transit services.

[PerryMason614]

Originally Posted by WRnative

Candidly, I have no problem with using funds raised by real estate taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, etc. on roads, highways or mass transit.

I have absolutely zero problem with mass transit myself. People need to be able to get around and I don't care if it makes money or not. It's a necessity for a lot of people. But the problem is that mass transit is the method of last resort for most people. If they can afford to drive and if they don't save time, nobody wants to use mass transit.

These urbanistas think if they can throw a lot of money at the problem they can force people to use mass transit but nobody is going to use it in cities like these where it is very easy to get in and out of downtown in a reasonable amount of time.

And this is one of the rare occasions I agree with WR about roads. Roads provide mobility and growth. They provide access to properties, open up areas for development. The freeways we build today are like the Roman Roads. They're going to be here long after we're gone.

Without roads, you can't have mass transit.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by bjimmy24

This addresses zero of what the article said. Though invoking the evil Koch brothers is a good way to justify pretty much anything to the left.

Well the Koch Brothers are the primary architects and funders of the Tea Party and the post-Reagan fascist thrust of the Republican Party. They are masters of disaster.


Today's homework is reading this piece by Vice President Henry A. Wallace from 1944:
Henry A. Wallace, The Danger of American Fascism


Point 4 from the piece is the blueprint of the Koch Bros. wide-ranging media campaign and Randal O'Toole is a great example of someone distorting the public conversation according to this 1944 remark:

The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.

And more from bullet point 11:

The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.