John Schneider

We got this.

Mike is a long-time streetcar supporter. One of the first people I took out to Portland.

If there are two competing issues on the ballot, the one with the most votes prevails.

Yeah, well, he's not going to get it. No way would Eastern Corridor rail qualify.

I brought up this question as well and have received no response. The charter makes no sense unless council approves construction again before Dec 19. If they don't, this is all for nothing. We know where we're going with this.

^ No evidence of this whatsoever.

A lot of things in the works. And yes, I'm still confident we'll complete the streetcar.

Also, "moving the goal posts."

Saying what? That the costs of going uptown have to be considered. Why, exactly, is that?

^ That's the main risk, as I see it now.

I saw a couple shafts of light pierce the darkness today. It won't be pretty, and there will be many twists and turns in the days ahead, but I'm confident that we'll complete Phase 1A of the Cincinnati Streetcar.

^ These photos need to get out there. Offer them to media.

Note how the line jogs to the right to meet the stop at 14th and Elm, now an unpaved area protected by cones. The reason for this is that our cars will meet the curb at the stops perfectly. When the car pulls up to the stop - within a 1/4" horizontally - it will calculate the weight of the passengers on the vehicle and raise or lower its suspension so the floor of the vehicle is exactly 14" above the street -- equal to the height of the curb. So you will have a perfect horizontal and vertical match to the curb. No ramp like in Portland, Tacoma or Seattle or like in any other ADA-compliant streetcar that's operating today. The best analogy I can think of are the trains at the airport. They meet perfectly with the terminal floor when the doors open. That's why the cars travel away from the curb and then move in to "kiss" them at the stops -- why you see the jog in the track. I've watched a lot of streetcar lines get built over the years, and the quality of our Prus' work is exquisite -- as good as any I've seen.

Not at all. I chaired the MetroMoves campaign, and I know exactly what the rails would have looked like on Walnut and Main through the CBD, where I live. But I was used to seeing girder rail used for streetcars. Hence my surprise. The story is, a few years ago I was talking with this engineer -- he's one of those engineers who over-promises yet somehow always manages to over-deliver -- I was talking with him when he told me we couldn't use girder rail, but that he was thinking of something better, something that would host light rail trains. I thought, yeah, right. I was just surprised to see that it turned out that way. Plus the construction quality is exquisite, and Mike Prus leaves me with the impression that we are going to be amazed at how fast they clip along. This is the most-watched rail project in the United States, and the Cincinnati Streetcar is really going to impress. So what we've got under construction now is the first 1.8 miles of the I-75 light rail line and about 1.0 miles of the I-71/Wasson light rail line, which line needs to go through a mile-long Mt. Auburn tunnel to UC at Jefferson and Corry with an underground station at Christ Hospital. A few years from now, some of those delegations going to Portland will be coming to Cincinnati. Have a nice holiday.

Here are the issues: * A finance measure is not subject to a referendum, measure only five votes are necessary. * Ordinances require three readings in committee before they can become law. The first reading was yesterday. Apparently this requirement can be waived with six votes. I thnk that's ^ what Chris is talking about.

Nope. Today's vote was a finance ordinance. Finance ordinances are not subject to referendum. It will pass, and the new Council will have to repeal it.

This group: 2) Townhall Streetcar Team/WeBelieveInCincinnati

I wish nothing but future failures for Cranley, and I would never, EVER vote for him for State office. He's ostracizing a lot of democrats with this foolishness...real democrats that he will need as his 'base' for any future run. Cranley is a scum bag, and I would vote for Sarah Palin over his dumb ass. ^ Posts like this aren't helpful. We're trying to build bridges to Cranley and newly elected City Council members. Rail opponents read this site, and stuff like this gets back to people we need to influence and it damages our efforts. Think about it.

Terrific. Let's make this viral.

Those "streetcar" rails going down on Elm Street -- those are light rail tracks A couple of years ago, an engineer designing our streetcar mentioned Cincinnati wouldn't be installing the type of streetcar rail used in Seattle and Portland because that Austrian-made product doesn't comply with "Buy America" requirements. He said not to worry, that the type of rail Cincinnati would be using would open up more possibilities for the future. I never thought much more about it ... ... until a couple of weeks ago when I studied the end-profile of the rail they're installing on Elm Street right now. I could see it wasn't the streetcar rail I'm used to seeing in the Pacific Northwest. It was common "T" rail used on all kinds of rail systems across the country. So I called my engineer friend and others associated with the project, and sure enough, Cincinnati is building tracks through Over-the-Rhine today that can someday host light rail trains. There is a similar story in Tacoma, which wants light rail to Seattle someday. Tacoma built its "streetcar tracks" to light rail specs and is now running streetcars similar to ours until the time is ripe for light rail. You can look it up: Google "Tacoma Link Light Rail." You'll see pictures of streetcars, not full-on light rail trains. What Cincinnati is building on Elm Street today could easily become the light rail spine through the heart of the region, slicing diagonally across the downtown basin with seven Fortune 500 corporations, two-thirds of our region's cultural institutions and thousands of potential new homes within a few blocks of the line. Prowling around the web site of our streetcar-manufacturer, CAF, I found this: http://www.caf.es/en/productos-servicios/proyectos/proyecto-detalle.php?p=257 This is the Cincinnati Streetcar, which CAF calls a light rail vehicle (LRV). Cincinnati is buying five of these three-section Urbos vehicles shown here, but CAF makes five- and seven-section Urbos too. Even nine-section ones if you need to move enough passengers to fill a 747. I asked around some more, and it turns out the engineers have also designed the radii of the curved track to accommodate longer trains. In order to run light rail on our streetcar line someday, we'd have to boost electrical power, change the signal wiring, and lengthen the platforms where the trains would stop. But those are small potatoes in the big picture. You've heard it before, many times: "The streetcar doesn't go anywhere," or "I'm not crazy about the streetcar, what I really want is light rail." It doesn't have to be this way forever. Using the Cincinnati Streetcar tracks now under construction, we could have light rail in the I-75 Corridor sooner rather than later. Cincinnatians who believe that rail is "just about downtown" need to look at this from 30,000 feet. Here's why. Our streetcars will travel north along Elm until they pass Findlay Market where they will turn east to head up the hill to UC. Longer, faster light rail trains can follow the same path on Elm, but turn west north of Findlay, head over to Central Parkway and then to I-75 where a rail corridor extending throughout Hamilton County is being preserved as part of the highway work now underway. That was a requirement of the I-75 Corridor Study, which found that a newly widened I-75 would attract many more cars and trucks by induced demand and that only the construction of light rail in the corridor would keep future freeway congestion in check. The I-75 light rail might not always run alongside the highway; it probably can't in some places. And anyway, the rail line probably wants to leave the highway here and there in order to penetrate neighborhoods and business districts where people live and work. So our new Mayor and City Council can choose to cancel the Cincinnati Streetcar at great financial and reputational costs to our city. Or they can move forward and complete the project, allow Cincinnatians to become accustomed to using rail transit, and -- when we're ready to resume the community conversation on regional light rail -- have the keystone building block in place. This is an important frame for the decision our city is about to make. It's a big decision, a defining moment for Greater Cincinnati. If we turn away from the expanded transportation choices in front of us now, we probably won't have this chance again for a long time. John Schneider Then there's this: "Light rail (including streetcars) is by far the fastest-growing mode of transit, carrying 2.5 times as many passengers as they did in 1990." http://goo.gl/swvSfk

^ Probably a streetcar-related manhole hosting power or communications facilities for the project.

Can we quit talking about a referendum? Look, we're building a streetcar. The focus should be strictly on continuing that momemtum.

Just got back from taking 24 Cincinnatians to Portland. Anyone who claims there aren't some great lessions to be learned from Portland is a fool. I mean, a AAA credit rating for thirty years, lots of great infrastructure, and a population that's really growing now. So many young people that downtown looks like a college campus. And you know something else?: I took one of the builders out there and really took a critical look at their vehicles, their trackword, and their operations - probably too many stops -- and I've pretty much concluded that, good as Portland's streetcar is, Cincinnati's will be much better.

There were many issues at play in this election. You can't hang it all on the streetcar, which is what Cranley is trying to do. The parking plan, while it may be OK at this point, was done for the wrong reason. It was arbitrary. It's been refined now, but that should have been done on the front end. That really got people stirred-up this year. Why they introduced a radically-new garbage plan the month before the election, I dunno. Our garbage wasn't picked up on time three of four Fridays in October. People came out to vote to Vote on Issue 4. Plus very few Cincinnatians voted. Maybe that's some indication that people are pretty satisfied, I dunno. Didn't I read that 17% of eligibile voters elected John Cranley?

Right Jake. I'm trying to understand the federal money left in the project. Cranley seems to think you just ask and the money moves wherever you like. I'm hoping we don't live in that world. Roughly: $25MM from FTA Urban Circulator grant, as mentioned above. $4 MM from FTA passthrough to OKI CMAQ $16MM from TIGER3 from USDOT My very limited understanding suggests only that $16 mil could be easily reassigned. If that's the case, the city is getting a raw deal in any cancellation. The only money that can be reassigned is the CMAQ. Tiger and Urban Circulator Grants are subject to intense competition and environmental analysis. The Hop-On people would have to issue an RFP for consultants under a Federally-approved procurement. The environmental analysis would not be transferrable even it it used the identical route. And if they received Federal funds, they would have to have union drivers from Local 12 of the ATU. Their proposed costs would be much, much higher than what they have been talking about. All together now: "$41 million of the $45 million in Federal funds for the Cincinnati Streetcar will just go to another city if it's not used here in Cincinnati."