John Schneider

Flynn is an opponent of the streetcar, was quoted a year or so ago saying his vote to save the streetcar was the worst decision he ever made.

The streetcar could easily be extended to serve Mohawk. It was make parking-constrained hillside sites along McMicken viable. And if you got it to Central Parkway, it would be a launching pad for extending into the West End. If it continued along McMicken, it could be extended via Marshall to Colerain to Camp Washington. Or along the surface subway ROW to Northside. The best thing is, the electrical power station at Findlay Market is oversized with enough capacity to get the streetcar halfway up the Vine Street hill to Uptown. So there's already enough power capacity to get it to Central Parkway. I have a hunch this happens before if goes to Uptown.

Not an officially sanctioned study you could take to the bank. But an international engineering firm has looked at it. Turns out the soils are perfect for tunneling. They estimated a cost. All I can say is that it is in line with the cost of other major projects which have been done around here. Compared to the benefits -- people saving 5-10 minutes per trip for 100 or so years of the tunnel's life -- the cost is affordable and, in any case, it's the only way we'll ever get rail to Uptown.

Straight Street for sure and probably West McMillan are too steep for today's streetcars. The existing roads between Uptown and Downtown are either too steep, too narrow or to curvy -- or all three -- to accommodate modern streetcars. The old streetcars which used streets like Vine and west Liberty (now Liberty Hill) were smaller and lighter. Or, in the case of West McMillan, had an incline to get up the hill. It's going to require a tunnel to connect Uptown with Downtown Cincinnati. Probably two. It will happen someday.

Travis, are they displaying the text number up on the reader board where the real-time arrival readouts appear?

Anybody recall what November's ridership was?

^ I'm waiting until northbound traffic exiting I-71 to MLK can't climb the slope of an exit on icy days. Have a look -- you'll see what I mean

They're not supposed to salt the tracks. Corrodes embedded electrical devices and deteriorates the rubber boot that prevents stray currents. They were probably spraying beet juice. Streetcars are equipped to drop sand on the tracks for traction.

Big crowds on the streetcar again today

It will be introduced at the first Major Transportation Committee meeting of 2017.

Sun and warmth seem to make a big difference

Would be a good LTE of Enquirer

This is not new with Daugherty. Over the years, he's taken other shots at rail when he was reporting from other cities.

I don't get that. So instead of having one set of tracks on two sides of SCPA, as is now the case to the north and east, there would have only been one set of tracks on the north side of the school and none on the east. ^ I never did either

I'm guessing that TransDev is increasing frequency now -- I'm hearing streetcar bells every ten minutes or so now -- so they can claim that, "See, we made it more frequent, and it didn't matter."

Because of SCPA student drop-offs and pick-ups, city traffic engineers wouldn't let both directions on 12th

Here's the story. This passed in the form of a Motion. Now the mayor wants an Ordinance. Some have told me that a Motion wasn't even necessary, that this was well within the city manager's authority to do on his own. The Ordinance is overkill -- and requires a sixth vote. In any case, this could have been done months ago. They have known there are problems with the signals since early this year.

Pretty sure Council hasn't passed the ordinance yet. Many months ago, the Feds said it was OK to use money in the streetcar budget for this

Keep in mind that the economists who studied our streetcar between 2007 and 2011 last estimated that by 2034, the streetcar would cause $408 million in permanent property investment -- which is a proxy for repopulation -- that wouldn't have happened but for the streetcar. And property investment was estimated to comprise 85% of the total benefits of the streetcar. Last month, Harry Black estimated that there has been $1.55 billion in investment along the line since 2007, much of which is due to the streetcar. We are absolutely killing it in terms of the principal objective of the streetcar. And as those buildings are occupied, ridership is bound to increase too.

First of all, 5th and Main is the centroid of the office district, where most downtowners work. The center of lunchtime dining in OTR is 13th and Vine. That's not 5-6 blocks, that's 10 blocks, roughly a mile. Second, people are definitely using it to go to lunch. I took it to Findlay today @ Noon, and several people got off there to go to lunch. Sorry this doesn't comport with your "thought" on this.

I'd argue that highways are irrelevant at 3am because no one is using them at that time! Lets roll them up! Just over 13,000 residents in downtown and OTR must be your definition of few. Okay... Sure. And it was going to get extended until the $$ was pulled by Kasich meddling with the TRAC board. I wouldn't call out two crowds and say its one niche crowd. We were getting tourists before the streetcar opened. Now that it is open, their reach is extended. Its the easiest way to hit many of the attractions in downtown. Sure, currently the population directly along the route is not maximized however that will change in a couple of years as the Model development at Findlay, 8th and Sycamore and others come online. This is a 40 year investment. It doesn't make sense to give up in year 0.3. Sure, and this may change with GE opening in the development. The Banks has yet to "mature" into something other than an entertainment district. Yeah sure there are people like that. You'd really have to go to Vine street and then want to go to something else on the line. Eat dinner at Senate, take in a show at the Aronoff. Most people try to combine trips and once a car is in the garage thats a sunk cost. Budget minded people are not going to park in the garage, eat, then drive their car to another garage to pay again. See above. I wouldn't go that far. Its useful when it is timely. This is why we need the signal study and retiming. So what do you suggest we do about it? We spent about $150 million to build it and countless years studying it and advocating for it. Its our responsibility, as a city to figure out ways to make this work. Instead we are still squabbling over whether its a failure or not. Get over it. It's here to stay, lets make it work. If you want it to expand to UC, then you have to help make the "pointless" loop work better. ^ Excellent. Important to call BS on stuff like this

The usual suspects are going crazy with this ridership data on The Enquirer's politics page. None are taking any of these temporary and fixable issues into account, nor are any aware of any of the new construction and rehabs on almost every block along the streetcar route in long-desolate Over-the-Rhine. ^ They will, once again, get out over their skis in their criticism of the streetcar.

Point well made, Travis - although you couldn't yet cross off "No one will ride who works downtown and has a schedule to keep." The streetcar has proven to be a popular transit option for people visiting downtown and OTR. Yesterday I got on at the banks ~6PM, and a couple boarded with me who had evidently parked there and were riding the streetcar up for dinner at Tafts. That's perfect, and I expect such ridership to continue to increase. The uncertainty is downtown worker traffic during the weekdays. Will this become a valid transit option for downtown workers doing business or personal errands? I commute on the streetcar most days, and ridership is extremely light. I've talked to many people using the streetcar for commuting to work and downtown/OTR work related trips -- some that I don't see any longer, by the way -- and I've never had one person describe it as convenient when you've got a schedule to keep. It's an ongoing problem, and those of us who are big streetcar boosters (and want to argue for expansion funding) should continue to voice concerns to get the necessary changes in place. I know there's a lot of things supposedly in the works regarding signal timing and prioritization, real-time tracking fixes for message boards and apps. According to John Schneider from a post a couple of months ago, Deatrick had said fixes for the real time tracking were to be done within days, but that's came and went. Meanwhile I'm concerned that the streetcar is solidifying its reputation that travel and arrival times are not reliable, so you better not use it when you really need to be there on time. Does anyone know - do they discuss these things during the council transportation committee meetings? An update. Revising the downtown and OTR traffic signals is being held up in the politics of City Hall. Now the study won't start until spring, and improvements won't happen until early summer. No one to blame but City Council and the Mayor for this. I agree it's not reliable, and that's hurting regular users. The real-time notifications is a problem shared with KC, which bought the same system. Cincinnati and KC and kind of ganging up on CAF right now to get it corrected. Same thing with the vendor for the credit-card readers. Tickets are being validated now when you buy them, so the awkward two-step process has now gone away. Fare-payment compliance is really high -- in the high 90% range. They are giving citations to people who don't have tickets now, but not to people who bought tickets but didn't validate them.

The multi-family market, condo and rental, has peaked out in a lot of areas of the US. Lenders aren't lending as much.

And the big dilemma facing transit if a county sales tax is placed on the ballot is that the county might seek to reorganize the board so that Cincinnati only become a bit player. Continuing the (or a) city earnings tax for SORTA should guarantee that the city retains a majority of the board seats. ^ Huge risk to the city. I'd hate to see a bunch of Coasties running Metro