GHOST TRACKS

The City of Cincinnati has released an RFP for planning/engineering firms to study options for replacement of the Western Hills Viaduct.

Don't know if anyone noticed that ODOT has devoted $7M in stimulus funding towards planning etc for intercity rail.

I wonder if any thought was put into transit oriented development to provide linkages to the Eastern Corridor rail transit station planned to be located adjacent to the site? Now that the Eastern corridor has stimulus money it may have some life in the future.

While not having read the final version of the bill it was my understanding that the bill does not contain any money for intercity passenger rail but gives the ORDC the authority to apply for funding which then has to be approved by a super majority of the Ohio Controlling Board.

ODOT announced yesterday that approx 20 million in stimulus funding would be awarded to the Eastern Corridor project.

The stimulus furnding for the Banks and Eastern Corriodr could help with planning for intercity rail at the Transit Center. From today's Enquirer Several major road-related projects in Hamilton, Butler, Clermont and Warren counties will receive millions in federal stimulus dollars, including The Banks riverfront development and the Eastern Corridor project in Cincinnati and Clermont County. Gov. Ted Strickland announced Thursday a total of $774 million in federal transportation stimulus funds will be spread over almost every Ohio county, to fund or partially fund 149 projects. Strickland's office estimates the projects will create or retain 21,257 jobs. The local projects include: $23.2 million for the Banks project, a live-work-play neighborhood under construction in downtown Cincinnati on the Ohio River. $20 million on studies for the proposed Interstate 275/Ohio 32 Eastern Corridor. $6.1 million for Interstate 75 rehabilitation. $5.5 million for the Ohio 4 Bypass improvements in Hamilton, Fairfield and Fairfield Township in Butler County. $185,900 for the Franklin Road rehabilitation in Springboro. Local officials were thrilled at the news. "It's huge. I can't overstate how big this is to us," said Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune. "This means so much for the city, the county and the region." The money will accelerate the projects and could bring passenger rail service to Hamilton County within seven years, Portune said. "This funding ... will remake transportation service in Greater Cincinnati in ways that catapult us into the 21st century and that give us a real competitive advantage for retaining and growing population and in retaining and creating jobs," he said. The state has set up a Web site, www.OhioMeansJobs- .com for stimulus-related job opportunities. The Banks project has been under construction for almost a year. The stimulus money will allow construction on certain parts of the project to begin next year instead of four years from now. The money will also result in reduced construction costs for the city and county. Some of the money will go to construction of the Banks transportation hub, which could ultimately provide rail service from The Banks past the Montgomery Inn Boathouse and beyond. "I'm just excited this is going to push The Banks through because it's also representative that things are going on in Hamilton County," Commissioner Greg Hartmann said. The money for the Eastern Corridor improvement project will be spent on studies of traffic and the potential for expanded bus service and rail service. Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper called the Banks and Eastern Corridor projects "transformational" because they will result in long-term job creation and economic development. Mayor Mark Mallory said the money will put hundreds of Cincinnatians to work. In Butler County, officials said they were surprised that after all these years, one of the final pieces needed to trigger economic development in the county was finally becoming a reality. The $5.5 million will be spent on a portion of the five-phase project to widen the Ohio 4 Bypass to ease traffic congestion. "This is very good news for Butler County. I think it's going to be a boom for economic development. This is something we've been waiting on for years," Commissioner Greg Jolivette said. The widening project and creating a new access point to the Butler County Regional Airport have been identified as ways to spur growth and name recognition for Butler County. Thousands of projects were evaluated and prioritized in a joint effort by the Ohio Department of Transportation, the Ohio Rail Development Commission and the Ohio Department of Development. The stimulus money will be funneled to the projects via the Ohio Department of Transportation. Another $30.1 million will go to the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments for road projects throughout the region. Half of the federal stimulus money must be assigned to the projects by June 29 and the remainder must be assigned by March 1, according to Strickland's office. The stimulus-funded portion of the project must be built by March 1, 2012. "We'll be advancing projects as quickly as possible," said ODOT spokesman Scott Varner.

If the purple people bridge were used for the streetcars it would be most logical to place the track where the the former L&N trackbed was located in the upstream truss but this would limit it to a single track over the bridge. The sidewalk truss in center would likely be too small. The roadway portion of the bridge could be used for two tracks but would inhibit pedestrian travel. The bigger challenge is linking the track on the bridge to the downtown core on the Ohio side of the river. The streetcar would likely need to run in Pete Roseway & Broadway with mixed traffic.

Streetcars once ran where the sidewalk is located between the roadway and the railroad on the L&N bridge as well as being cantilevered to the outside (downstream) side of the roadway truss. The current bridge was reconstructed in 1896 specifically to handle heavier rail traffic and the streetcars.

The Passenger Rail Study approved by the controlling board will be performed by the Woodside Consulting Group.

I read a story the other day that Connex Veolia is being sued over the deadly commuter train crash last year that may result in fiancial troubles for the company. I believe they were leading one of the streetcar vendors for the City's RFP. Anybody know the details?

The painting project has received 16 million dollars from OKI's allocation of KYTC funding from the Stimulus Package. Seems like a lot of money just for the painting. I wonder if they are doing any additional work.

Read that the mayor is in DC lobbying for 75 million in the next transportation bill for the streetcar. Also no stimulus funding from OKI either and with no announcement for the results of the City's RFQ for vendors it appears that funding is still lacking in the short term. Perhaps money from the State may be forthcoming in this years budget.

The old streetcar tracks from the Cincinnati Street Railway Company were wide gage and would not be compatible with current standard gage streetcars. I believe they would need to be removed where the new tracks would be located to prevent stray current leakage as well as to physically remove them for the new track slab. I believe most if not all of the planned streetcar route has existing tracks which would need to be removed along portions trackway which have not already been removed for utility work etc.

Parking is a long term source of revenue to assist with the paying the bonds issued by the Port Authority. While the construction of the project will have a positive impact locally over the next couple of years I don't know that the net positive will be all that great given that most of the employees will move a few blocks down the street vacating existing buildings closer to the core but without as extensive on site parking. I would venture to say that most employees will come park and drive back home without ever leaving the immediate area. The public tax exempt low interest financing by the port authority and the TIF district allows Western Southen and Great American to meet the cash flow requirements at a substantially lower outlay than if they were doing so themselves. I think some could question if the public subsidy for consolidating existing employees of one of Cincinnati's wealthiest companies a few blocks from their existing location is really highest and best use of those economic development tools.

I believe the 20 million or so for Mass Transit will go to SORTA, TANK and the smaller suburban systems for both operational assistance and for capital expenditures for their bus fleets, shops and communications. I believe OKI has a list of these expenditures. This funding would not be targeted for the streetcar. OKI has a public meeting on the stimulus funding etc on Monday night. May be worth attending to see how the streetcar may fair in all of this. Should also be on the state's web page

I don't believe any construction work has begun for the Riverfront Park. The relocation of Mehring Way has to precede it. I believe that work is scheduled to get underway next summer. The Corps of Engineers is managing the Park Construction in cooperation with the City Park Board. Its not directly controlled by the County like the Banks. I keep wondering if they are integrating plans for the proposed streetcar into the street grid construction that will occur next spring.

I don't believe it would be feasible to lower the busway in the transit center much since there is a major CWW transmission main a few feet below the pavement that ties the CWW treatment plant to the new water main under the Ohio River serving Boone County. Seems like a great station site but also seems to me that it would be very conjested with intercity rail, light rail, streetcars and charter buses etc operating at the same time.

I think it would be difficult to run LRT and the streetcars along Main and Walnut concurrently. If I remember correctly the LRT was planned to run in exclusive rights of way in the curb lanes while the street car is planned to run in the traffic lane wiht mixed traffic as not to interfere with on street parking. The LRT was also planned to have headways less than the 10 minutes assumed for the streetcar. The LRT also requires a larger turning radius and much larger station platforms than would the streetcars etc. I don't believe the streetcar feasiblty study looked into those issues in detail.

I read on the Governor's stimulus site that the City requested $12.6 million for the streetcar but $100 million for intercity passenger rail and the Eastern Corridor Oasis rail transit. I thought the later was not going anywhere. I also saw where the Mayor said he would fight for the streetcar in his state of the City speech but what if anything did he say about the funding. The City interviewed the vendors I believe 3 weeks ago. Do they have the funding in hand or don't they? If there is not enough funding to move the project it doesn't seem like it matters what the NAACP or Winburn says or does.

I believe somebody said the City has interviewed the vendors for the RFQ by this point. They should know if someone has the funding in hand. Does anyone know when they will be able to discuss next steps publicly? I think they will have to rely on some Federal funding but I could be surprised.

I agree with Mecklenborg that tolling is not a bad thing. In fact I think all interstates should be tolled so that users pay at least some of the costs of maintaining the system which we cannot afford to do moving forward with the current tax revenues we have. That being said this is such an expensive project I think the only way it will get fully funded is to spread the funding across many sources, federal, state, local and user fees (tolls). I do think that you would have to toll I-471 to prevent diversion of intersate travel and local commuters to a lesser degree. The other downtown bridges may not be necessary. Another missperception I think many have is that replacing the Brent Spence is the heart of the project. A new Ohio River bridge while important would likely be less than 10% of the project cost with the vast majority of the cost and impacts associated with the I-75 mainline widening and interchanges between FWW and Harrison Ave including a new interchange at the Western Hills Viaduct. Its likely that the existing bridge will be retained in the alternatives under study at this time in combination with a new parallel structure just to the west.

It may be worth noting that when KYTC studied the tolling issue to pay for the two new Ohio bridges serving I-65 and I-265 in Lousiville they found that they the most feasible scenario would be to toll all Ohio River bridges in the region. And even if they did so they would the tolls would only fund about 1/3 the costs of the project. I would think the same would be true here. You would likely have to toll all the bridges downtown (diverting traffic to I-275) to make it plausible and even if you did implement tolls it would not pay for even half of the project. The money has to come from somewhere both likely with tolling and increased fuel or VMT taxes. Just like all transportation the interstates are not free.

I thoguht I remember reading that the City was goingt to interview the vendors for the streetcar this past week. Does anybody know when Dohoney is going to update Coucil on the results and next steps?

Is there room in the transit center for intercity passenger rail? Don't they use that for buses during Reds and Bengals games? Also I thought that is where they planned to bring rail transit from the Eastern Corridor in the future. Has anybody been looking at how that could all work together. It seams like the riverfront transit center would be the best location close to the CBD if you could make the connections and it worked with everything else planned on the riverfront.

I would consider $62 million a lot of ground to cover. Granted the project may get some stimulus funds but at the same time the TIF portion of the plan may be over optimistic at this point and any inflation due a delay in the construction timeline would likely increase the need for additional revenue. I think the project will happen when and if the state or the feds contribute most of the funding needed one way or the other or there is some other way to fund the bonds needed for construction.