Jeffery

The early 1970s oil price shocks wreaked havoc with the economy. Man, it sounds like the 1970s all over again, including a green movement, a cycling craze and wind power.

Just after the announcement that Iams pet food offices are relocating to the P&G mothership in Mason, comes this early warning. Whats at stake are 1,300 white collar executive jobs, which is nothing to sneeze at. Note, also, that the CEO and top-level executives have relocated to NYC, offices at 3 World Trade Center. Comments are a hoot as always/ Local officials worry about NCR silence on move Concerned that NCR Corp. may be moving its world headquarters to Georgia, state and local officials say the company’s silence in the face of their calls and questions has them worried. Spokespeople for Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and the Ohio Department of Development said Strickland and the development department have reached out to NCR for reassurance that the company’s headquarters will remain in Dayton.

I think the interesting angle is white-collar downward mobility. $140K to nothing....though i think this guy is going to land on his feet eventually since he was doing a sort of managerial position which required some degree of technical expertise.

^ good rant there, KJP. I think thats what suprised me when i did those posts on Youngstown ..gosh..last year I think. That the place didnt really shink in overall employment.

Nor, he added was there much risk of inflation taking off yet. The Dallas Fed uses a "trim mean" method based on 180 prices that excludes extreme moves and is widely admired for accuracy. "You've got some mild deflation here," he said. Interesting.

The "pointy" nature of that Somali map makes me wonder if they are mapping apartment complexes as well as neighborhoods.

One of the comments to the DDN article said this: Let the truth be know. When the Admiral Benbow building was torn down by RTA the foundation was mostly left untouched. This was under the supervision of RTA's Binh Dinh. He has since left RTA. The remaining foundation created havoc for the re-routing of electrical utilities and other underground services. Funny how RTA isn't pleased with a contractor when they created the problem themselves. Shame! ...if true and the foundation removal wasn't in the bid, big "oops".

Myers said construction problems relate directly to the unique circumstances of the site, a narrow space between buildings formerly called Market Street. Underground issues included foundations that were not known to be there, existing utilities that had to be rerouted or modified, electrical problems, basements and vaults, and a gas line that was supposed to be there but could not be found Whoops! No soil boring? Might not have picked up on foundations , though. This is a good example of how RTA's project manager and their engineering firm did really poor site investigation or didn't build in a contingency for latent site conditions. Those of you who follow the Dayton threads here at Urban Ohio would have known better, because the history of the site was well documented at this thread From Market House to Bus Hub

RTA chief blasts hub contractor Construction of the downtown plaza is far behind schedule; agency is charging damage By Lynn Hulsey Staff Writer Updated 10:14 AM Sunday, May 24, 2009 DAYTON — Construction of the Wright Stop Plaza Transit Center downtown is far behind schedule and disagreements over blame have the general contractor demanding more money and the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority charging liquidated damages.

From the UC evaluation of the HDR study: "Some financial aspects of the streetcar proposal are not fully addressed. It would be helpful to have a more thoroughly developed pro forma for the system’s operations, as this is a vital consideration for its long term viability. for example, ridership revenues generally cover no more than about half of the total operations costs, so careful planning needs to be given to funding operations."

I think the OTR focus is too narrow. This transit line is in downtown and The Banks as well as OTR, so one can see it serving housing and office space downtown, too. There is also a futures aspect of rising fuel prices leading to a demand to live close to work. This would lead to higher rate of new riders in the out-years of the feasibility study, rather than the a low slope they show beyond the first 6 years or so.

But, yeah this is risky. Still I think the Findlay Marekt to the river and back is a good starter line.

Is this is the HDR study?

Assuming the streetcar at least gets to Findlay Market to start and later to Peebles Corner and Knowlton's Corner, it would be logical to transfer passengers from 44-passenger Metro buses to 130-passenger Cincinnati Streetcars at these points and send the buses back to the neighborhoods to get more passengers while avoiding downtown traffic. This sounds a bit like the old interurban-streetcar relationship, where there wasnt a single-seat rider into downtown. The reason for that was technological but the effect was the same: Ride in from outlying areas and transfer to a streetcar to take you into the city. Some of the fare "revenue" will occur as a result of transfers from Metro and TANK, when trips originate there and are continued on the streetcar. That study does lay in some capture rates for people using the streetcar instead of buses or cars. I am going to run some projections using the higher starting year daily rider number from the HDR study. It's hard to forecast the future, but if there is a long trend to higher density/re-centralization due to higher gas prices, this would mean a larger pool of riders coming from the area served by the streetcar due to higher density residential construction (filling in the empy space in OTR and downtown, building conversions, and higher density replacement buildings) and recentralization of business.

The economics of this is fascinating. Some streetcar numbers. These are based on the 2007 HDR study linked upthread. The issue is the operating and maintenance costs. How to pay for the ongoing operations of the line. The study had three O&M number in table 2.1; $1.9M, $2.2M, and $2.4M. I use the lowest number and imply three inflation rates. We have been hovering around 2.5% to 5% in the recent past, and the higher 7.5% rate is from the 1970s. Some over at the Recession thread are expecting higher inflation so lets show that here. So we have a range. Now lets look at some ridership numbers. Appendix A has some ridership numbers. They have a 3100 lower number, a 4850 central number, and a 6600 upper number, and some growth rates. I took the lower, central and upper growth rates an applied them to the lower opening year rider number to get a possible range. I think the lower opening year number is probably conservative and realistic. I multiply the daily rider number by 365 and then by the two fares that where mentioned on this thread, $1.00 and $2.00 I think .50 cents & “free” are unrealistic. Here are the run for different traffic growth rates…and I show a break point where inflation overtakes revenue for the $2 fare. Another assumption here is that the initial construction cost is 100% subsidized by TIF and grants. There is no capital costs figure in on these graphs; what’s shown is straight O&M. As you can see the $1 fare always requires some subsidy. And the $2 fare would, too, eventually, unless it increases with inflation. The question always is “where does the subsidy come from?” With TIF the answer is easy as the bonds are paid back via property taxes. Theoretically the streetcar will generate economic activity aside from increased property valuation. Things like more residents and shoppers and workers of various types. The operating subsidy could, in theory, be paid for by increase in income and sales tax volume due to the quickening of the economy in the basin.

There is an annual O&M cost associated with this in a range of $1.9M, $2.2M, and $2.4M...not including inflation? If the fare is free this will have to be eaten. Given that the study has rideship projections, on can figure in a $1 and $2 fare to see how far away the fares would be from covering the O&M costs.

Aside from hidden agendas the argument against the streetcar does have some good class/race justsification. The line is an expensive "economic development" initiative. Expensive to build and expensive to use. In this case economic development means gentrification of OTR, pushing the poor (and black) residents out to make way for a predominentlay white middle and upper-middle-class population. So one can see whay groups with a base in or or who support the blacks &/or the poor would oppose it. As Ive shown fares will be high (assuming there is in O&M subsidy), so this would be a costly ride for people on lower income. Its interesting no one is making these arguments, though the NAACP sort of is, behind the prioritization/allocation issue.

I thought someone posted a link to a blog awhile back that had some speculation about why Smitherman might be opposed? Still, the NAACP argument would be stronger if they provided a project list of what would be hit or delayed due to streetcar funding. The strongest argument on this is whether this will be a big boondoogle. The ridership numbers for the low side are probably the realistic ones, which would mean fares around $3 to $4/trip. Would you pay that to ride a streetcar from downtown to Findlay Market? A

For a bit more on the German experience read: Making Transportation Relevant, Insites From Germany, from Brookings. Fascinating stuff. The Germans are able to afford to give deep discounts to frequent riders, yet still keep the public susidy low. Which is what these numbers from that Cincy study impy, too.

That cost-benefit econ dev impact study that was linked to a few posts upthread has info on anticpated riders, O&M costs, and capital costs. So one can do a real quick and dirty calculation to see what the fares might be depending on the amount of up front subsidy. The assumption that a certain % of the initial capital investment would come as a subsidy of some form, some mix of grants or TIFs. The balance would have to be paid back out of the fairbox. Plus there is the O&M costs. Assuming a 50% capital subsidy and 20 years to pay back the streetcars share, + 0% operating & maintenance subsidy here is a range of fairs based on the high/mid/low costs in the study. 1/2 Capital $1,800,000.00 $2,000,000.00 $2,200,000.00 O&M $1,900,000.00 $2,200,000.00 $2,400,000.00 Total $3,700,000.00 $4,200,000.00 $4,600,000.00 Riders Fares (round up?) /day /year 3100 1,131,500 $3.27 $3.71 $4.07 4850 1,770,250 $2.09 $2.37 $2.60 6000 2,190,000 $1.69 $1.92 $2.10 Assuming a 2/3s capital susbisdy and 1/3 to be payed back out of the farebox over 20 years, O&M & riders remaining constant, leads to this fair range: 1/3 Capital $1,200,000.00 $1,300,000.00 $1,400,000.00 O&M $1,900,000.00 $2,200,000.00 $2,400,000.00 Total $3,100,000.00 $3,500,000.00 $3,800,000.00 Riders Faires (round up) /day /year 3100 1,131,500 $2.74 $3.09 $3.36 4850 1,770,250 $1.75 $1.98 $2.15 6000 2,190,000 $1.42 $1.60 $1.74 The study does assume various %s in increase in ridership per year for various periods. For the first six years the range is 6%, 8%, and 10% per year. Seems a bit high? Maybe not if the neighborhood repopulates and beomes denser and more people use the streetcar for trips. Fares would have to keep pace with O&M costs increasing with inflation, too. Note that the fares can actually decrease with increases in ridership, yet perhaps bring in more money, enough to cover O&M increases, but also drawing in more riders if they are reduced over time. This is the German experience as they have high ridership but mostly paid for out of the farebox (public subisidy is in the 20%-25% range). But are the ridership numbers good? The low range is higher than the highest bus run in Dayton, which has 2884 rider per day for weekdays. But its not excessively higher and this is a more built up city, too. So I think their "low" rideship number is in the ballpark. So, yes, I'm convinced this can pay for itself if ridership targets can be met and there is some sort of substantial upfront susbidy of construction costs to keep payback from driving up fares. On edit, the construction costs from the study where $71M, $78M, & $86.8M

There was something else going on, though, because there was signifigantly more job creation happenind in the 1990s vs the 2000s, for Ohio metro areas.

Those of you with long memories will recall another government takeover and consolidation of a big failed company. That would be the Penn Central collapse of the early 1970s. At that time Congress took over the bankrupt Penn Central, added the bankrupt Erie-Lackawana (not sure what happened to the Reading), and formed the "Consoldiated Rail Corporation", Conrail for short. The intent was not to establish a nationalized "British Rail" or "Deutsche Bundesbahn" but to keep the system operating and then privatize it again. Perhaps that's the idea behind GM. The concept here probably isnt long-term nationalization but a sort of managed restructuring, similar to what Conrail did with the bankrupt Northeast rail system.

Another Deal Banking on Austin Interchange SPRINGBORO — Dense woods and a horse farm cover most of the 80-plus acres along Interstate 75 developers plan to turn into a business park and condominiums over the next five years. MORE: http://www.daytondailynews.com/business/another-deal-banking-on-austin-interchange-126023.htm

Me and the so were down in Cincy this Sunday for a cig run to Covington. On the way back I detoured to OTR to check out the area in light of these stats. Still a lot of people on the street hanging out, but you can see the gentrification action in the southern part of the neighborhood. Yet it was pretty noticeable there are a lot of vacant buildings here, too, if you look beyond the "streetcorner society". Im guessing just from looking that these stats are accurate for that tract south of Liberty. Why that is is another question. It could be because that 3CDC group bought up the property and is holding it or it could be that plus straight abandonment &/or condemnations

The numbers are just for the metro areas. I can't disaggregate them to show the core city.