cailes

Ill be there with my wife and son on a much needed vacation day and covering for Urban Indy. Looking forward to seeing the group of supporters on this project :-)

An argument I hear often is, "I support transit but now is not the right time." To this I say, when is a good time? In my humble opinion, there is no more right time. Interest rates are at all time lows, so labor costs are lower than they will ever be barring changing laws. People will always need to get to their jobs and between activity centers. That will never change. Moreover, in tough economic times like this, lessening the pinch of private automobile upkeep is needed more than ever.

My own pictures from Portland:

Funny when you hear folks like Bortz saying the city needs to "slow down" on the streetcar. That's code for "scuttle the project" because the same folks who would build roads complain about the process taking too long... #facepalm

These guys act like streetcars were just thought of yesterday and that this is the first streetcar to ever be built on top of a sewer system. In fact, most streetcar systems were built atop sewers, and most tracks are still there -- including in Cincinnati, in between the bricks just below the surface asphalt. And if they are concerned about streetcar service being temorarily disrupted by unplanned street/sewer repairs, we've had many decades experience with streetcars to come up with solutions. This was one of the most common -- a temporary track kept in storage that could be laid on top of the pavement within hours. This one is in Cleveland on St. Clair Avenue in 1944 to get around the after-effects of a natural gas explosion.... Ive never seen that. Thats pretty neat.

If he is calling it illegal because the state wrote it into budget that the state cant appropriate the fund, he obviously hasnt been keeping up with things.

The level of ridiculous rhetoric being tossed about with this project is beyond belief..... The opposition doesnt know what defeat means. Don't they get it at this point that support for this project is strong? They continue to lose so that should be obvious at this point. Put their resources into something else worth fighting for.

A little breathing room there. 1 to go. Cmon!! it DOES feel like the 4th quarter of the game..

Hitting reload on the enquirer website. This is nail biting close....

Good luck today folks! Do all you can to make 48 fail. Cincy isnt the only city banking on the outcome of this. ;-)

I wouldn't expect that anything happening at this point anyway, being so close to the election, would create any significant support. The only thing construction at this point would create is piles of debris and holes in the ground. Despite that representing progress, it would likely be viewed as troublesome. Not likely to generate any support that way this close. Best to let the project succeed on it's planned merits at this point. Besides, if the issue were somehow successful, it would be money ahead to NOT have dispatched people to dig holes only to have them cover them back up. I tend to be optimistic that the issue will fail, but can't be impractical either.

I saw the city is accepting proposals for the streetcar vehicles themselves http://cincystreetcar.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/city-accepting-proposals-for-streetcar-vehicle/

That is ridiculous. I wonder why that person ever chose to live in OTR in the first place.... wont be a great loss when that friend moves to the burbs...

So, any shovels running to move things yet?

Good grief Smitherclown...

The fact that the opposition is pulling out garbage like that tells me that they are desperate at this point.

Nice photos Randy. Makes me almost shed a tear. :)

Nice to see the press release regarding the FONSI. Now, onto some real earth moving!!

The thing with the south waterfront is that most of that opened right before or during the downturn. I imagine a lot of people are feeling pretty chapped over those high rises despite how cool they look. I was there in October and the neighborhood has a very empty feeling compared to the Pearl. Hopefully thigns pick up as the economy does.

AMEN!!!!

Looks like the NC Senate is trying to take a page out of Ohio's playbook.... also GOP driven. Imagine that., http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/05/25/2323509/senate-targets-new-light-rail.html

Well, that is something that Dems & GOP both get frustrated over is the amount of time it takes to get through these stages. It adds time and money to the process and as you can see, creates REALLY bad situations for bad feelings to fester and second guessing to occur.

Good grief...

I was in Cincy over the weekend and managed to spend some time in OTR. Been a while since I had been and driving through, I think people are crazy if they think the shortening of the route is going to make this route any less successful. The opportunities through OTR alone make this project worth undertaking. And I stand by my previous comments about walking from the Stadium/banks to the 5th street stop. From a tourism standpoint, this is not a conversation stopper. Like I said before, we have to walk further here in Indy from where we park cars to get to Colts games. Ive walked a mile to games in Buffalo and San Francisco. Those who say otherwise, need to think about how far they walk from their car to the mall. Through the mall. To similar sporting events. To say this is a project killer is not even worth talking about IMO. It only gives "them" fodder to have silly meetings like the one being called by GOP council members.

I was looking at the data on the website for the car earlier today. http://www.ameritram.com/ It appears that they can run on overhead wires as well. So it may be a moot point from a technical standpoint.