jjakucyk

That's an excellent point.

That's a good point, or the $500+ million just to rebuild and widen what, 15 miles of I-75 here in Cincinnati? Then there's the Brent Spence Bridge, which is close to that number just for the main span, let alone all the other widening and rebuilding that's planned to go along with it. Instead of crying about the costs and studies and speeds, everyone should be applauding how much of a bargain it is!

The Price Hill, and most of the others, carried horse drawn wagons, carriages, etc. as well. I just started writing a general history of the city's streetcar history, including the early horsecars, cable cars, and inclines last night, and I read about the skirmish between the Gilbert Avenue and Mt. Adams interests. As it was, a horsecar line was built up Gilbert in the 1870s as competition to the Mt. Adams Incline, but it was woefully unsuccessful due to the difficulty of the climb for horses. In 1880, George Kerper, owner of the Mt. Adams Incline tried to buy it, but was unsuccessful. John Kilgour obtained it a month later as part of the merger that formed the Cincinnati Street Railway Company. Kilgour wanted to convert it to cable car operation, but Kerper threatened to build a competing cable car line up Vine and east on McMillan. After a bunch of fighting, Kerper bought the Gilbert Avenue horsecar line from Kilgour, but at the same time Kilgour's Cincinnati Street Railway Company was buying up certificates for Kerper's Mt. Adams & Eden Park Inclined Railway Company, with plans for an eventual merger. Confusing eh? It was Kerper who built the Walnut Hills Cable Road up Gilbert in 1885, which became more of a necessity than a draining competitor as Walnut Hills grew. Even though the horsecars took 30 minutes to climb the hill, it was still carrying 10,000 people per day when the decisions was made to convert to cable car operations. While Kerper's company was the first in Cincinnati to introduce electric streetcars in 1888, they didn't convert the Walnut Hills Cable Road until 1898.

Yea, no argument there. Part of my frustration when I see the trolley buses is knowing that the old streetcar tracks are probably still buried in the pavement where the trolley buses run. True, but that was the case here in Cincinnati as well. However, even the trolleybuses were scrapped by 1965, so all we have left are some of the metal poles along the roads. Nearly all the tracks are still in place under an inch or two of asphalt.

Not to worry. The rumblings are nothing more than that. We have neither the money nor the political leadership to champion anything like a streetcar in Dayton. Maybe not, but you do still have trolleybuses. That's no small feat in and of itself, and one that deserves a lot more praise than it currently receives.

If it's small and simple enough, I imagine it could be done pretty quickly and simply. Just look at the Kenosha streetcar loop.

It would be great if they could build a new Bellevue incline with a platform long enough to handle modern streetcars, though that would preclude attaching a trailer in times of high demand, etc. Another challenge, though probably not a big one, would be to keep the cars powered during the climb. While the three inclines that did support streetcars (Fairview, Bellevue, and Mt. Adams) did have overhead trolley wires, they weren't connected to power until it was docked at either the top or the bottom. While not as big a big deal back in the day, the loss of lights and heating/air conditioning would be a bit unnerving. I'm sure they could do it though.

The suburbs exist as they are because of draconian zoning and transportation planning (or the lack thereof). People move there because it's artificially cheap, at least at first, and to escape the problems, both real and imagined, of crime and poor schools in the cities. Of course, we see that this is an unsustainable situation, as many suburbs are falling to the same fate as inner cities, so something has to change to keep this from continuing. A bit back on topic, I can't believe we're still complaining about the whole speed and frequency issue of 3-C trains. We established long ago that the current 3-C quick start program is the ONLY WAY TO GET HIGH SPEED RAIL. Other ways have been tried in the past and failed. Other states have similar low-speed rail systems and they're working, with ridership increasing. Why isn't this getting through?

The point was to see if it is something that could be implemented on the 3-C corridor, and why. I don't see it being off-topic at all, as long as it doesn't keep going.

It's usually attributed to Mark Twain, but there's no verification of that. Anyone could've said it, at any time.

It's just an urban legend as far as I've heard.

You think that'll be a GOOD thing? :lol: Now if they had Graeters in the dining car, THEN we're talking.

That's an interesting idea. I want to say though that these end up being more trouble (and expense) than they're worth. It also only works on long haul trips with one stop, or at least only the cars are allowed to get off at the end since it takes so long. I don't think there's even that many of these left in Europe.

Not that I've ever heard of. There were certainly many efforts to do so, such as the Cincinnati Traction Company's excessively high rental fees to the interurbans for using their tracks, or using their political connections to block the Ohio Electric/Cincinnati & Lake Erie concerns from using the canal towpath to reach downtown. The choice of track gauge for the street railway predates the interurbans and was more to prevent steam railroads from trying to use them. While the reality of the subway turned out to be fairly anti-interurban, it was a moot point by the time construction was underway as many were going out of business in the 1920s. Still, the plans for it were very much for the benefit of the interurbans, and it was political cronyism that turned it into something else, not anything that was codified into law. Not that it makes the situation any better of course. The good-old-boy network here is HUGE, and even without legal backing, they can significantly affect what goes on here just with political clout. This goes along with the building height situation downtown. Even if there was no ordinance (though I've heard there was too), there's a "you'll never work in this town again" attitude that could very easily chop the head off of taller buildings.

I agree. There's not much south of Harrison, but I feel that there would be some strong opposition to HSR through Lower Price Hill and Northside, particularly with at grade crossings. Of course, no matter how fast the trains may get, they're not going to be at anything near high-speed this close to downtown, regardless of the route. I would bet 45 mph is the absolute maximum south of I-74 and possibly even St. Bernard.

Regarding KJP's proposal, the proximity of the C&O bridge approach to this location was one of the main functional problems of the old Central Union Depot, which was just two blocks east of here at 3rd and Central (in fact, the foundation of the old station building remains at the corner): Anyway, the problem is that even though trains from the C&O bridge ended up almost right on top of the station, they were a good deal above it and there was no good way to get them down to station level without going halfway to the Mill Creek Valley and then backing up into the station. This is why they built their own little station at about the same height as the bridge, by buying an old row house on 4th Street. Notice the Dunnhumby building to the left in the above shot. So that's still an issue today, and it was a problem with the L&N trains getting into the Pan Handle station at Sawyer Point too. There used to be another track that descended to ground level at the Gest Street bridge following your through route with the arrows. To avoid having to make weird movements to pull a train into the stub end of a new station, it would probably be necessary to have C&O trains to stop on the through track. The only problem is that it might be too steep. I don't know if it's kosher for trains to stop at a station on a slope like that. Flooding is an issue, as you mentioned, and I don't know that raising the grade of the terminal would do much since the approach tracks would still get inundated during high water. One thing about your passenger route up the Mill Creek Valley doesn't take into account is that although it bypasses all the freight yards, it still needs to use the congested 3-track approach between Spring Grove Avenue/I-74 and Ivorydale. Ideally they'd be able to reuse the whole CH&D route from Ivorydale to downtown, but the section that's been pulled up in Northside, Spring Grove Cemetery, and Winton Place would be quite difficult to put back, especially considering all the grade crossings (and I assume NIMBY opposition) in Northside. The tracks west of the Mill Creek itself also have no access to Union Terminal whatsoever.

If course, many projects that get done quickly are usually done under the umbrella of corruption, cronyism, etc., many times to disastrous results. Still, there is something to be said for having a fully developed plan to present to the public.

He just means that a northern suburbs station may be more convenient for the people who live in Sharonville or West Chester or Reading, but it's less convenient for those coming from Kentucky. I don't know what the actual center of population concentration here is (it of course varies depending on what areas you decide to include like Hamilton and Middletown etc.) but I don't think it's really much farther north than Cross County Highway.

Well, OTR is anywhere from .47 to .54 square miles depending on whether or not you include the Pendleton area east of Sycamore Street, with a maximum population around 45,000 people in 1900. If that total included the West End (say east of Dalton Street and north of Court Street) that's 1.4 square miles for 32,000 people per square mile. Going back to 1860 when the incorporated area of the city was 7.15 square miles, the population was 161,000, yielding a density of 22,500 people per square mile for the entire city. The borders at that time were Mill Creek on the west, McMillan Street on the north, and the Ohio River on the east and south. The lowlands along Mill Creek were still sparsely populated, as were the hilltops in Walnut Hills, Mt. Auburn, and Mt. Adams, so even then OTR and the West end were pushing much higher densities.

Or Over-the-Rhine 100 years ago.

Ok, that helps. Thanks for the clarification.

Probably less than the whole I-75 widening and Brent Spence Bridge replacement is going to cost.

Interesting that the previous plan uses the former Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton near Cincinnati, whereas the current proposal uses the former Big Four. I wonder what prompted choosing one over the other. In fact, I wonder why the 3-C trains couldn't follow the directional running strategy NS and CSX use today, though it would preclude having any stations between Cincinnati and Middletown. Can you post a larger view of the Cincinnati-Dayton section? It looks like they were maybe planning for some extra connecting tracks south of Middletown and perhaps somewhere in Lockland or farther north? Something about it just doesn't add up right.

It's the former Big Four/New York Central line, and south of NA Junction it's the former Baltimore & Ohio to Columbus. I marked it in blue on the following map. The red route is the Indiana & Ohio Oasis line, formerly the Pennsylvania Railroad's Richmond Division between Mill and Valley junctions and the Little Miami Railroad mainline south of Valley. If a Bond Hill station is built on the Oasis line, that's still a long detour away from the route to Union Terminal. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?gl=us&om=0&ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=39.191553,-84.469414&spn=0.194244,0.312424&z=12&msid=103871532514751842563.00048189ce2e12bca3b05

The lines split south of Sharonville. The point is that Bond Hill (at least as we understand it) is not on the same line as CUT.