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Lack of housing density, lack of job density, lack of transit service (routes, frequency, speed), easy parking, lack of retail in residential areas....
The last point is hard to gauge. I suspect that neighborhoods that are dense, prosperous, and walkable enough to have decent retail will tend to have people used to not driving everywhere, which might help encourage less car ownership and varied mode uses.
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.
Rail routes will always have higher ridership per route than bus routes if managed properly because they have much higher capacity.
Only one neighborhood in Cincy was demolished and the reason was not urban renewal. In the early 20th century the state of Ohio made it harder for Cincinnati to annex adjoining areas for growth. Industries needed more real estate than what was available in Cincinnati city limits at the time. Manufacturing industries were leaving Cincinnati for the surrounding areas that had the space needed for them to expand. This was a problem for Cincinnati since its financial budget was heavily dependent on income taxes on workers of these employers. Much of Cincinnati is geographically hilly so the only place with a flat area of land suitable for heavy industry in the Cincinnati city limits was in the basin where the Central Business District, Over The Rhine, West End and Kenyon Barr neighborhoods were located. In the 1930's there were plans drawn up to make the Kenyon Barr neighbor on the west side of Downtown to become the new industrial zone of Queensgate. In the 1950's the Federal government provided the funds to make those plans a reality.
Because of the hilly geography a good deal of jobs are located miles outside the city limits poorly served by mass transit. This makes people dependent on the automobile as the most suitable way to access employment in most areas of the Cincy metro. That is why transit has to be a comprehensive regional wide issue instead of a city specific issue for the Cincinnati metro to realize economic and population growth that is seen in places like Seattle, the Twin Cities, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, etc. The only problem is that most residents are content with how things are currently seeing no need for brain gain. With the economy just running in place the exodus of a major player such as Proctor and Gamble the Cincinnati metro will see brain drain which will eventually hit critical mass sparking an Detroit or Cleveland type collapse of the metro.
Please, if you're gonna build a subway, make it outstanding, otherwise nobody will use it and you've wasted your money. If you don't have the money for this, then just subsidize Uber to run in your city instead.
Please, if you're gonna build a subway, make it outstanding, otherwise nobody will use it and you've wasted your money. If you don't have the money for this, then just subsidize Uber to run in your city instead.
Do you have an example of a subway system that is too small?
Only one neighborhood in Cincy was demolished and the reason was not urban renewal. In the early 20th century the state of Ohio made it harder for Cincinnati to annex adjoining areas for growth. Industries needed more real estate than what was available in Cincinnati city limits at the time. Manufacturing industries were leaving Cincinnati for the surrounding areas that had the space needed for them to expand. This was a problem for Cincinnati since its financial budget was heavily dependent on income taxes on workers of these employers. Much of Cincinnati is geographically hilly so the only place with a flat area of land suitable for heavy industry in the Cincinnati city limits was in the basin where the Central Business District, Over The Rhine, West End and Kenyon Barr neighborhoods were located. In the 1930's there were plans drawn up to make the Kenyon Barr neighbor on the west side of Downtown to become the new industrial zone of Queensgate. In the 1950's the Federal government provided the funds to make those plans a reality.
Because of the hilly geography a good deal of jobs are located miles outside the city limits poorly served by mass transit. This makes people dependent on the automobile as the most suitable way to access employment in most areas of the Cincy metro. That is why transit has to be a comprehensive regional wide issue instead of a city specific issue for the Cincinnati metro to realize economic and population growth that is seen in places like Seattle, the Twin Cities, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, etc. The only problem is that most residents are content with how things are currently seeing no need for brain gain. With the economy just running in place the exodus of a major player such as Proctor and Gamble the Cincinnati metro will see brain drain which will eventually hit critical mass sparking an Detroit or Cleveland type collapse of the metro.
The idea that a lack of transit in Cincinnati is holding it back in seeing Seattle etc type growth is misplaced as is the idea that Detroit or Cleveland have seen a ''collapse of the metro''. The ''brain drain'' you describe is also misplaced in that the metro college/graduate degree rates for CIN, DET, and CLE are comparable.
Cincinnati's issue related to Detroit or Cleveland is metro sprawl, low population growth. Cinci's metro sprawls over a 15 county area so getting a comprehensive metro transit system there will be a challenge. Cincinnati itself lost about 40%+ so it shares in the city-collapse that Detroit, Cleveland, St Louis, and numerous other cities faced and are trying to reverse, some more so than others (NYC, San Fran, DC, Boston, Philly to a name a few +)
Wonder why you didn't mention Columbus OH, a city with even worse mass transit than Cincinnati, yet has seen major population growth.
Also, the type of rider using Cincinnati's metro mass transit needs to be identified. This is another issue facing many cities/metros, the jobs are in the suburbs/exurbs: do these places spend upwards of $billions to make low-skill, low-wage jobs accessible for city residents. How are transit users going from suburb to suburb going to work into these regional transit systems in low-density metro areas like CIN? Cities need to attract the low skill, lower wage jobs instead of spending $billions to move city residents to jobs in the exurbs.
CIN, like many similar cities needs to attract residents from around the U.S. and abroad like Seattle, Boston, and Atlanta or offer similar tax incentives other high growth metros offer. Mass transit is nice and the only city mentioned with excellent mass transit is Boston. The other high-growth cities you cite have poor to decent mass transit so-so transit use generally.
To claim that a lack of mass transit in CIN is holding it back from Seattle-like growth is incorrect. If mass transit was so needed in Cincinnati, it would already be there. Cincinnati itself contains only about 13% of its metro area population so why would it be the hub of a new metro transit system?
Please consider that the ''back to the city'' movement, while real to extent, is also a bit of a misnomer in many places.
In America, almost all of them are! Except NYC, Chicago, DC, and maybe Boston?
All of them are too small in the sense that there is plenty of opportunity for expansion, but I don't think there are any that are so small they weren't even worth building, which is what I think Ragnarkar was saying.
Do you have an example of a subway system that is too small?
San Francisco, if you even consider the few miles of BART and MUNI underground along Market Street and connecting to downtown Oakland as a "subway".
I almost never used the public transportation in San Francisco when I lived there because it was pathetically slow.. always preferred to walk, drive, or Uber than to wait at the stop like I'm waiting for Halley's comet and then to have it be stuck in traffic even longer once I'm on (since most of the trains ran on the surface streets.)
Can't comment on it myself since I've never ridden it but I also hear Atlanta's subway doesn't have that many lines either.
Do you have an example of a subway system that is too small?
Philadelphia!! If new subway funding ever becomes available, subway expansion in Philly needs to be a priority. For a city of nearly 1.6 million and a population density of about 12,000 ppsm, Philly needs a lot of subway extensions and a few new lines. The Broad Street Line, for example, should be extended northwest to Cheltenham-Ogontz and south to at least the Navy Yard. Forget light rail, Philly needs heavy rail subway lines.
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