John Schneider

... for ten more days until the first of these babies gets unloaded off the truck on Race Street

^ The existing tunnels don't go to Uptown

^ No, Jake is the authority.

A couple of things. First, full-on light rail trains will definitely fit in the tunnels and be able to negotiate all the turns, no problem. But we don't have the density - yet - to justify the cost of retrofitting the tunnels for ADA -- new platforms and elevators -- and ventilating them to modern standards. Plus the cost of maintaining an underground system, which is much more expensive than surface-running. And less secure for customers. Our subway was built when we were a much different city. Streetcars and autos were then competing for the ROW, and so going under Central Parkway made more sense. It's so empty today that we've been able to install a bike lane on it. Also the subway was designed to meet up with interurbans that no longer exist. And the workforce was then concentrated along the subway and its above-grade sections in the Mill Creek Valley and in Norwood. That's not coming back anytime soon. I'd let it go. The Mt. Auburn Tunnel is an effective solution for fast travel between two congested areas. Think of it as a bridge, not a subway.

IMHO, they have no viability unless light rail is built to serve the I-74 corridor or the traditional Westside via a new Western Hills Viaduct. Pretty sure I'll never live to see that.

^ They will soon.

Yes, if we were only Portland

^ Not realistic to think Cincinnati will be able to build two rail lines a few blocks apart from each other.

I don't see why it wouldn't be used alot. Uptown is Cincinnati's greatest employer with all the hospitals and the university. In my mind it would seem realistic for proffesors/doctors who live in (future) wealthy places would take the street car from OTR and take the 5 minute ride up to uptown quite frequently. Then simply students from UC who are looking to have fun/party would use the street car quite frequently as well in my opinion. You are confusing the objective -- serving Uptown, which is very important -- with the strategy of using Vine Street to achieve that objective.

A highly compromised route like Vine Street scares me because you never know how few people will use it.

Cost of the tunnel is unknown at this point. The distinction between light rail and streetcars is not significant in this case. We are buying light rail vehicles for the downtown streetcar loop, and the downtown trackway has been mostly built to light rail specs. When you consider the complexity of building on Vine Street and the time savings for passengers, I'm pretty confident the tunnel will be judged to be superior.

Doesn't exactly roll off the tip of your tongue. What about "Uptown!" "Uptown!" "Uptown!"

There are two problems with getting rail to the airport. First the ridership at the airport is surprisingly poor. Even when Delta had 700 flights a day there, the estimates were for about 2,000 riders per day. I'm sure it's much less now. Cincinnati is just not a big O&D airport. The other problem is, Kentucky has no means to pay for it -- local option taxes can't be used for transit in KY, which is why the three judge executives have to decide how much TANK gets each year as opposed to SORTA which has (more or less) a dedicated funding source via an early 1970's Charter Amendment. In retrospect, thinking the airport should be the primary destination for the first rail line to Kentucky was flawed. The real ridership is in the communities mostly east of I-71/75 -- Crestview Hills and Erlanger, plus Florence. While it was never talked about publicly, the second thoughts on this, led by Mark Donaghy who was then GM of TANK (and now GM of Dayton) was that KY should have focused more on commuters -- serving them first -- and enter the airport property from the south. Rail will come to NKY someday, but it's going to be more of a pull than even the streetcar was.

It wasn't part of MetroMoves, but the regional plan was to use the CWB Bridge to CVG.

One reason 2nd and 3rd are as wide as they are is they each built to host light rail to and from KY via the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge. That will happen someday.

I doubt the decks are going to be the magic bullet many people think they will be. Is access to the riverfront a big problem today? Wasn't aware of that.

I'm pretty sure that's the case. Not cheap though. I'm a lot less interested in having bigger vehicles than having more of them operating at headways of less than 10 minutes. With only 3 streetcars in operation, there will be many times when no streetcar is visible to those waiting at the stations south of Central Parkway. People are much more likely to choose to ride a streetcar if they can see one coming. Luckily the federal grant mandates a minimum level of operation since they anticipated the sort of chicanery Cranleyesque mayors might attempt. Jake's right. Before Portland (over)expanded its system to 17 miles, it seemed like on the long streets there -- 10th, 11th, Lovejoy and Northrup, as you were boarding a streetcar at peak, you could almost always see another one coming. Not anymore.

Pretty sure I saw a photo of a CAF vehicle between disassembled and sections being added.

I'm pretty sure that's the case. Not cheap though.

^ Rail to UC will be a 100-year investment with modernizations over that term. You probably wouldn't want to make a decision on that investment based on the currently projected fare structure. In any case, I would expect fares to reach equilibrium between rail and bus for short trips.

John, do you have a feel on why they're not working on anything related to transit? Do they just want to avoid the political hot potato? Or do they truly not see the benefits at this point? My feeling is that many of the Uptown institutions threw their weight behind the MLK interchange and they're completely focused on that right now. I can easily imagine that if UC were to go all-in on bringing the streetcar to Uptown right now, Governor Kasich would be very vindictive when it comes to UC's next capital request. Also, if they have taken the time to analyze it, I can imagine UC's planners concluding that the Vine Street route offers inferior service to MetroPlus, so why get behind it?

My experience in proposing and leading campaigns to build a billion dollars of big capital projects for Cincinnati over the last twenty years is that you first need to put a line on the map and start a conversation. People will react to it, criticize it, improve it and ultimately support it or turn it down. But you have to start somewhere. I see nothing coming out of the Uptown stakeholder groups that makes me think anyone there is working on the idea of getting rail there and beyond. So I am.

I'm thinking McMillan/Woodburn becomes the transit, bike and walking corridor and that Taft/Calhoun becomes the car corridor, maybe gets renamed Taft entirely between Clifton and Columbia Parkway. It is a much better corridor than MLK to the Zoo and on to Childrens. The connections from DeSales Corner to other corridors is really good too.

A streetcar line on McMillan and Woodburn between Hughes Corner and DeSales Corner would do wonders for Walnut Hills.

^ And there are never, ever fires in European cities.