jjakucyk

I'd also keep in mind that the feasibility study projects billions (that's with a B) of dollars in new development and redevelopment due directly to the streetcar. That's entirely in line with what was already experienced (not just projected, but actually measured) in other cities that put in streetcar lines years ago. So even though the usually quoted 3:1 benefit:cost ratio doesn't sound all that impressive, that's only because it factors in all the costs and what is actually captured by the city in taxes to pay for and operate the line. It takes billions of dollars of increased property values, new job salaries, and sales to generate millions in new taxes because the taxes levied on those things are only single-digit percentages. Nevertheless, the fact that even the most conservative projections still show the project being at least a 3X win should be a red flag for anyone trying to cite fiscal reasons for canceling it. At the very least, everyone should ask Cranley why he wants to throw away billions of dollars of improved property value and new development potential.

It's a nice graphic, but all the troglodytes will see is "cancel the streetcar to save $33 million."

^ Unlimited budget, I like the sound of that.

You know who really needs to get all up Cranley's ass about this and has been way too quiet all throughout the project? P&G, Macy's, Kroger, 5/3. Seriously, they're always crying about not being able to attract good talent. I know I've brought this up before from time to time, but honestly, where have they been in all this? Any one of those companies could bankroll the whole project if they wanted to. What good is having a bunch of Fortune 500 companies in town if they don't do squat for it?

^ It's also very poorly connected to downtown. There's a miserable tangle of ramps, overpasses, and limited sidewalk connections. There's got to be a better way to cross I-75 as a pedestrian or cyclist than 3rd Street, which is the "least unpleasant" way to go now.

Ok John Schneider, time to pull a rabbit out of your hat if you've got one.

^ Now that is slick.

My knowledge of statistics breaks down at this point, but would there be some advantage to throwing the 9th vote to someone specific versus only picking 8 candidates, especially if it can displace Smitherman? Like a lesser of two evils kind of thing?

That second graph above is exactly like the traffic projections of the Washington Department of Transportation for a particular highway. Traffic is gonna explode any day now! Calling B.S. on WSDOT Agency doesn't even bother to get the facts about SR-520 right.

I fail to see how this would be much of a benefit to anyone but a few gas station franchises and fast food restaurants. Most of the land on both sides of the river is already developed, even if mostly suburban, and if there was so much demand for travel across the river then wouldn't Anderson Ferry be swamped? I don't know how much west side/Boone County commuting is going on, but I doubt it has more than a marginal impact on traffic volumes on either the Brent Spence or Caroll C. Cropper bridges. This notion that new roads/bridges/highways bring about some new golden age of prosperity hasn't been true for generations now, and it needs to stop.

I went by Elm Street yesterday and I was a little surprised to see they're using standard T-rail instead of the girder rail usually seen in street railway tracks. Is this because it's easier/cheaper to use the standard T-rail and just form the flangeway in the poured concrete surrounding it?

A little sad because those 1940s apartments are pretty affordable due to their size and age. This is definitely an up-scaling of the demographics, but I just hope this ends up bringing more units online than what are taken away. There's lots of single-family areas of Hyde Park that would seem to be much better suited to densification than this. Here's some neat before and after shots from 1940-1942 that show the site. Shaw used to dead-end just south of Erie before it was extended to connect with Linwood. Before: http://drc.libraries.uc.edu/handle/2374.UC/717389 After: http://drc.libraries.uc.edu/handle/2374.UC/720737 Before: http://drc.libraries.uc.edu/handle/2374.UC/717390 After: http://drc.libraries.uc.edu/handle/2374.UC/720736

Cincinnati has an extra hurdle to overcome compared to those other cities though. Unlike Charleston, Savannah, or New Orleans, Cincinnati doesn't have the warm winters, nearby beaches, famous golf courses, party/music atmosphere, or unique culinary experiences (sorry but Skyline won't cut it) that they do. There needs to be something else to fall back on to make the trip worthwhile to people who have spouses or kids that aren't interested enough in the architecture to make a whole trip out of it. The other architectural tourist destinations that don't have those things make up for it by being very large cities with the kinds of destinations (museums, shopping, historical sites of national interest, etc.) that draw lots of tourists on their own, like Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco.

^ And we know that we have no hope of overcoming those challenges to "keep running things the way we're running them now." If we could then we'd be doing that already, except for the technological AND financial AND environmental AND social barriers that are preventing it.

^ The idea is that in an urban area the tax rate will be too high for surface parking lots or speculators to "hold" that land in such a low-value use. http://www.earthrights.net/docs/kunstler.html

This is a good reason why moving to a more land-based tax scheme is advantageous, because it takes the whole appraisal aspect out of the equation.

There were supposedly complaints that when streetcars went by it caused static on nearby telephone lines. Hardly an earth-shattering problem, but people were very spooked by electricity back then. Also, many horsecar lines and some cable car lines had been built throughout the city before electrification, and the rails were not electrically bonded (much easier to achieve today since they're in longer sections and welded together). So when a horsecar or cable car line was converted to electricity, they'd have to pull up the pavement around every rail joint to install a bonding wire. Not only were the street railway companies responsible for maintaining good paving between and to a certain distance around their rails, but they were also restricted by city ordinance from disrupting that pavement too much as well. Whatever the reason, it only took a small installation at the start of the electrification process to become the standard throughout the city, just for simplicity's sake, most of which happened during an injunction that prevented using the rails to carry return current anyway. Even though the phone company argument didn't hold up, the two-wire system was already mostly in place by the time the injunction was lifted. It definitely had a big visual impact on the system, especially at turns and crossings. The one advantage, I suppose, is that it made the system a natural fit for trolleybuses. One need only look to Dayton to see what that looks like. http://www.jjakucyk.com/transit/streetcarinfo.html

"Unconventional oil reserves, even with admittedly higher depletion rates and lower EROEI, still become economically viable at some price. If society has used the more easily-accessible resources wisely (i.e., used them in ways that increased societal wealth), then we can afford to then continue to move on to the less-accessible resources." Why do you assume that's the case? As resources become more scarce it does become more economically viable to tap less conventional sources of them, that's true. But at the same time demand gets suppressed because of the higher cost. It's called demand destruction. If oil were to cost $1,000 per barrel then yes there would be a huge scramble from everyone under the sun to find ways to squeeze every last drop of oil out of whatever source they can find. The problem is that we have virtually no uses for oil that expensive. It's too valuable to burn, too valuable to make into cheap plastic parts, too valuable to do just about anything with it. Thus the price will drop back down to reflect actual demand, making those unconventional sources too expensive again to tap.

The legal situation is odd because there was (and I believe still is) no legal framework that allows a municipality to own and operate a common carrier railroad. So once it was finished being built, the city leased the property to the CNO&TP, which became part of the Southern Railway and now Norfolk Southern. The leasing railroad is responsible for all maintenance, tunnels, tracks, bridges, etc., which I believe they own outright at this point, but I could be wrong on that. Anyway, the point is that I believe all the city actually owns is the right-of-way, i.e. the land, but not any of the equipment or infrastructure. That makes it less valuable to sell off.

Thermite welding is totally old school, but it works!

There seems to be a bit of a chicken and egg problem with the number of residents and commercial development. There's currently not enough residents to support the commercial strip along Linn Street, but who wants to move into a neighborhood with no amenities? I'd also say the development pattern represents a flawed type of new urbanism. Most of the streets are rather wide, enough to allow parking on both sides, while at the same time there's very generous alleys with huge parking pads. This sacrifices back yards in the name of having attached garages and extra driveway space. The whole place is a mess of hard surfaces, nearly all of which are for vehicles, front and back. That means there's virtually no outdoor private space, exposing the cheap ugly back ends of these buildings to vandalism and crime. It's much harder to keep eyes on the street when you have to look out the front and back at the same time.

I fed the troll but... "Streetcars went up and down Vine Street, West Clifton Avenue, Liberty Hill, Milton, and McMillan, and that was over a century ago. Those streets all have slopes in the 6-8% range."

DC wires, specifically the running wire for things like streetcars, tend to be thicker than their AC equivalents. I want to say they're about 1/2" in diameter or possibly more, though they can be more of a squashed oval shape with grooves to hold supports and such. Anyway, they have to be thicker because of the simple fact that there's more resistance to DC current than AC. So with there being more resistance, should that make the wires warmer, and thus less likely to ice over? I know they still can ice up, but maybe less so than the rest of the grid? With a pantograph that puts a fair bit of pressure on the wire (more than a trolley pole I think), it should do a decent job of breaking ice off the wire ahead of it just from flexing of the wire itself. If not, the pickup bar at the top of the pantograph is a decent scraper by itself too.

If they really want to bring back the "traction orange" color scheme, they'd do cream instead of white.