John Schneider

After checking around some more today, I'm really confident that things are quickly coming together on several fronts for the streetcar. COAST is a sideshow at this point. And not a very good one.

^ Let's see if the Enquirer has the intellectual honesty to call them on this.

^ I suspect COAST has been saying or implying this in the info it puts out. If so, once people find out it's not true, it's just one more milepost along the road of COAST's decline as a credible source.

^ You guys worry too much. These things get settled. Think Duke wants to be blamed for the project's not being completed by the All-Star Game?

^ Moving water mains. Dunno why Duke would be there except as a consequence of that. Twelfth Street between Main and Elim is one of the most complicated zones for utility moves.

Someone named Gary posted this in the Comments to the CityBeat article. Thought it was pretty good, especially the second graf: "Cranley is the poster child of what's been wrong with this city for so long. The city's finally moving forward and great things are happening and Cranleny (no pun intended) wants to derail this progress. Look at the reality. If Cranley is elected and by the time he's sworn in, the streecar project will be well under way and most of the money spent. Don't expect the streetcar manufacturer, CAF, to give the city a full refund after the trains have been built or under construction because you've change your mind or expect other contractors to break those construction contracts. This isn't Best Buy after you had second thought about the big TV you just bought. In the end, if Cranley gets his way, the city's not going to save much (if anything) and our city, once again, will start looking the Cincinnati of the past that screws everything up. My other point is this. I'm insulted by Cranley who thinks our vote doesn't matter. It's insulting for politicians like him to tell me he knows what's better for the city than the majority of us who voted for this project (twice). The idea that we don't know what you're doing and he does is arrogant."

Milwaukee region received a 100 million or so Federal grant to build light rail many years ago, maybe more than ten. The county, led by now-governor Scott-Walker, opposed using the grant for rail and held up any work on the project. Meanwhile the city wanted rail, and so the grant just sat in limbo all that time. Finally, the threat of a suit against Walker, who was aiming for governor, caused the county and city to split the money. County is buying more buses for suburban routes, and the remaining $50 million or so is going toward the streetcar. They're having problems with two utilities, and I think the state utilities commission is about ready to rule on who pays what. Sounds like the staff will recommend splitting the cost between city and ulilities. So the city/county schism exsits not only in Cincinnati.

^ After checking around today, I'm confident that streetcar construction will commence this spring.

An economist, Todd Litman, has written a couple of critiques of the claims of O'Toole and others. For example: "This report evaluates criticism of rail transit systems. It examines claims that rail transit is ineffective at increasing public transit ridership and improving transportation system performance, that rail transit investments are not cost effective, and that transit is an outdated form of transportation. It finds that critics often misrepresent issues and use biased and inaccurate analysis." SEE: http://vtpi.org/railcrit.pdf And this: "This study evaluates rail transit benefits based on a comprehensive analysis of transportation system performance in major U.S. cities. It finds that cities with large, well established rail systems have significantly higher per capita transit ridership, lower average per capita vehicle ownership and annual mileage, less traffic congestion, lower traffic death rates, lower consumer expenditures on transportation, and higher transit service cost recovery than otherwise comparable cities with less or no rail transit service. This indicates that rail transit systems provide economic, social and environmental benefits, and these benefits tend to increase as a system expands and matures. This report discusses best practices for evaluating transit benefits. It examines criticisms of rail transit investments, finding that many are based on inaccurate analysis." SEE: http://www.vtpi.org/railben.pdf For years, Randal O'Toole has traveled around the United States, appearing in cities that are considering rail systems. Who pays him to do this? For example, he's recently been in San Antonio ... "O'Toole believes residents and businesses long ago abandoned downtown for a reason, so money shouldn't be wasted trying to revive it; he writes a blog called the Antiplanner. San Antonio, he said, 'is a modern city, and it doesn't need a downtown.' ” SEE: http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Streetcar-opponents-reopen-debate-with-VIA-4073905.php And he's weighed-in on Anaheim's streetcar plan ... "Streetcars are just plain inferior to buses in every possible way." SEE: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/streetcar-381281-bus-city.html And Fort Lauderdale's ... "A report recently written by O'Toole called The Great Streetcar Conspiracy argues that streetcars, monorails, light rails, and whatever else you want to call them are an elaborate ruse concocted by engineering firms, contractors, and elected officials to bilk billions in tax dollars." SEE: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2012/07/plans_for_fort_lauderdale_stre.php O'Toole doesn't have much use for cities ... "I would never step into another city again if I didn’t have to as a part of my work." SEE: http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=5663 And O'Toole must really, really hate trains ... "It helped that somebody bombed a train in Spain." SEE: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/03/off_the_rails.html I would also add that O'Toole never goes to places that already have rail -- Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Dallas, Denver, places like that. Those people know better.

There was a PUCO staff report released recently which addressed the issue of Duke charging Cincinnati residents a different amount than other customers to pay for utility relocation. The staff said this should not fly, in part because of the network-structure of transportation projects. You improve the network in one place, you effectively improve it in all places. Keep in mind this is the Kasich administration making this argument. They also pointed to the fact that, if a system is expanded beyond the original boundaries, suddenly you have unfairly shifted the burden. Say a light rail line or network is built within HamCo and Duke charges HamCo residents for relocation expenses. Then a small spur is built into Butler. Even if Butler residents pay for utility work on this spur, suddenly Butler's Duke customers have received a huge subsidy from HamCo's Duke customers. While political boundaries are not perfect for decision making vs. cost distribution, PUCO has considered and ruled against what you are advocating, and they are not exactly known for being urban advocates. You might also want to consider the great extent to which Cincinnati residents subsidize suburban utility expansion. ^ Best post of the year, so far.

A follow-up comment from the person who attended the meeting in Mariemont tonight: "Portune's languge really shocked me. Any comment one one way or the other about the streetcar was completely irrelevant to what people in the audience asked him. They did not come to this meeting to talk about the streetcar, but it was Portune who decided (I suppose) to try and score some cheap approval from suburbanites by trashing the streetcar."

So Todd Portune was in Mariemont tonight, and here's what one attendee reports: "I'm at the Eastern Corridor meeting in Mariemont at Mariemont Elementary School. Commissioner Portune just finished speaking. In speaking a few minutes ago in response to a question, Commissioner Portune went out of his way to trash the streetcar project to this audience very aggressively. He claimed that the proposed Eastern Corridor rail project would stimulate "much more" economic development than the streetcar. In making this statement tonight to this suburban audience, Commissioner Portune obscured the fact that the conception of the streetcar (before Senator Shannon Jones recruited state legislators to remove state funding for it) was to connect the University campus to the river and stimulate development along its entire path from Downtown to Uptown. Portune stated that, at this point in time, he believes that the funding for the Eastern Corridor RAIL project is MORE secure than the funding of the Eastern Corridor HIGHWAY. Re the Eastern Corridor rail, Portune said that because of the various funding options, he foresees funding coming to the Eastern Corridor RAIL project sooner than the funding for the highway relocation of Route 32. One of his exact statements was "The rail portion is moving at a quick pace." WASSON R-O-W: Portune also talked about how there is "renewed interest" in the Wasson line for passenger rail. He said about this that "We are in the process of seeeing if this (Wasson rail line) can be brought online sooner." ______ So there you go.

We should take the long view of COAST's antics. And be happy about what they're doing. None of these modern streetcar systems has ever failed. All have achieved ridership and economic development benefits far in excess of what was expected. All of them have now been expanded. The same will be true here in Cincinnati, which has a better plan with more diversity of uses being served than any of the other systems' first phases. So the more shrill COAST gets, the easier they are making our job of expanding the streetcar to other neighborhoods and for renewing the conversation about light rail here. They have put all their chips on stopping the streetcar, which can no longer be stopped. It will be built, it will be very successful, and Cincinnatians will finally realize how little credibility the COAST/Cranley/Luken types have. This happens in most cities that build light rail or streetcars. After the first lne is open, no one listens to the COAST-types anymore. They are permanently diminished by their opposition to something most citizens come to value.

United Streetcar is a good company, a longtime defense contractor. But building a modern streetcar in America -- no person under 80 or so having ever done it -- has been a challenge. United's particular problem is with its propulsion system, basically a system of computers and controls that run these things and make them really safe. No company in America has perfected one yet -- though I think Rockwell is getting pretty close. There have been licensing issues with the industry-standard, Elin of Austria, a company owned by Siemens. That's pretty much the problem, and it must be a hell of a problem because it seems like whenever I've been in Portland over the last few years, they've had Car 15 (the blue and red one that was on Fountain Square a couple of years ago) in the maintenance yard with all the wiring pulled-down out of the ceiling. That's the prototype car, and it's still not in regular service yet. How CAF got around all these issues and can offer a "Buy America" product is unknown to me.

Here is a sampling of U.S. cities building or actively planning modern streetcar lines and the rolling stock selected: Anaheim, Calif. - not chosen Arlington, Va. - not chosen Atlanta, Ga. - Siemens Austin, Texas - not chosen Charlotte, N.C. - extended line (not chosen) Cincinnati, Ohio - C.A.F. Dallas - Oak Cliff - Brookville Equipment "Liberty" Fort Lauderdale, Fla. - not chosen Kansas City, Mo. - not chosen Los Angeles (downtown) - not chosen Minneapolis, Minn. - not chosen Oklahoma City, Okla. - not chosen Portland, Ore. - United Streetcar LLC Providence, R.I. - not chosen San Antonio, Texas - not chosen Santa Ana, Calif. (Garden Grove) - not chosen Seattle, Wash. - 1st Hill line - Inekon (Pacifica Marine) Tempe, Ariz. - not chosen Tucson, Arix. - United Streetcar LLC Washington, D.C. - United Streetcar LLC

^ City is currently seeking Federal funds to extend streetcar to Uptown. Brad and I were in a meeting with Federal DOT officials yesterday, and City Manager made the pitch.

^ Maybe Finney has finally figured out that he has a real loser on his hands.

Rereading your post, yes, I see that you limited your advocacy of the I-71 LRT to the Hamilton County segment. But that brings up something else that's been on my mind. Are Ohio counties still the best building block for higher-level transit? I doubt it. County government has always been about, and perhaps increasingly so, getting away from the city. I mean, just look at our county commissioners' positions on many things, the fact that all of SORTA's county board appointees voted against modifying the streetcar operating agreement, those sorts of things. Township government is inherently anti-urban, even though some townships are increasingly urban and beset with problems that cities are best able to deal with. With respect to I-71 light rail, Norwood is deeply anti-rail, and Deer Park hated MetroMoves so much that it mobilized to campaign against LRT. Sycamore Township? Dusty Rhodes? These days, almost anywhere in the urban/rural-divided America, the correct building block is the incorporated city, town or village -- places where density and services are valued, not campaigned against. A little known fact of MetroMoves is that Mariemont, Woodlawn, Lincoln Heights and Wyoming all voted for LRT in greater percentages than the City of Cincinnati did. So if you want LRT, you start with Cincinnati, and then try to partner up with adjacent incorporated jurisdictions. To me, that means the I-75 chain of cities, where the problems are getting much worse and where heavy trucks will overwhelm even the widened I-75 by 2025 or so. I think it's an earnings tax in the cities along I-75 for whatever cities want to participate. And for a Cincinnati-sponsored LRT or rapid streetcar along the Wasson Line that Fairfax, Mariemont and Terrace Park can buy into at first or later if they want. If we want rail here sooner rather than later, we're going to have to put each alignment together piece-by-piece. The time for a grand vision has come and gone here. At least for the rest of this decade.

^ I'm not optimistic that light rail will get to CVG anytime soon. The biggest obstacle is that passing a dedicated tax for transit is unconstitutional in Kentucky. That's why TANK is a creature of the judge-executives in Kenton, Campbell and Boone Counties. TANK has to rely on the good graces of the judge executives for year-to-year funding. You'd never be able to get Fed funds without a dedicated local revenue stream for financing capital and operations. The other thing is, there isn't a lot of demand for higher-level transit service at CVG. When economists modeled airport ridership in the late-Nineties -- back when we had almost 600 flights a day -- the ridership was vanishingly small. Sure there were always a lot of people in Delta's terminal, but most of them were originating from and destined for someplace other than Cincinnati. I think O&D ridership at CVG was estimated at around 2,000 riders per day, mostly airport workers. They ran the model again and again, with varying assumptions, and the ridership just wasn't there even if there were a way to finance the project.

On the lead time for ordering streetcars, Cincinnati did the right thing. I'm sure other cities wish they had done this. Be mindful that these cars have to be made in America. So forget a whole bunch of European manufacturers. And Bombardier, which is selling 400 or so streetcars to Toronto. Portland ordered streetcars from United Streetcar for its expansion across the Willamette River several years ago, and they don't have them yet. So Portland is now operating the recent extension using its existing (smaller) fleet, with no spares. Headways have gone to 16-18 minutes at peak from 10 minutes or less before. Tucson's order is behind Portland's, and so is Washington D.C.'s. We would have been behind them. Plus they may have been the most expensive. I know D.C. is paying considerably more than we are. So, OK, forget United Streetcar - we could have ordered streetcars from Siemens, which would have been a no-problems transaction from a highly-qualified manufacturer, and Siemens was heavily favored for the Cincinnati order at one point. But because the Siemens streetcar is really a slimmed-down LRT vehicle, it seemed over-sized for Cincinnati's narrow streets. Plus, there was a question whether the heavier Siemens cars could make it up Vine Street hill. Our hills are a problem. The people at United Streetcar told me they examined all the potential routes being studied in all the fitty or so wannabe streetcar cities. You know what the steepest grade is in all of those cities? Clifton Avenue. And the second steeepest? Vine Street. The wireless Kinkosharyo cars may not have had the off-wire range needed for Cincinnati. I don't think any other city has bought these yet. Do we want to be first with an unproven technology? OK, so now we're down to Brookville and CAF. Brookville has never built a modern streetcar, although it has built quality replica trolleys. I wasn't crazy about the appearance of its modern streetcar. They were competitive on price, but maybe city administrators didn't want to be the alpha city for Brookville either. So, CAF, which has Cincinnati's streetcar operating in Europe right now. And it's a well-known manufacturer of light rail and subway vehicles operating throughout North America, South America and Europe. So it seems like a safe bet to me. And it was cheapest. Had Cincinnati screwed-around and delayed its order until all the unknowns are resolved, another city with a streetcar project -- Fort Lauderdale, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, West Sacramento, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Arlington come to mind -- could have moved in front of Cincinnati's order and captured our "first in North America" launch price offered by CAF, and we might have had to wait several years for the vehicles, I dunno. Then the John Cranleys of the world would have been screaming, "Why didn't you guys plan better?" So that's why the city is doing what it's doing. By the way, a well-connected Cincinnatian said this to me today about our upcoming mayoral election: We have a 35 year-old who thinks like a 60 year-old running against a 60 year-old who thinks like a 35 year-old. I think that's a perfect description of Cranley v. Qualls. Make it viral. Happy New Year, everyone.

Just wanted to note that Julie Janson, CEO of Duke Energy Ohio/Kentucky, was replaced yesterday. She's becoming corporate counsel at Duke's HQ in Charlotte. So she's going from managing an organization of a couple thousand people to managing probably fewer than 100, which doesn't seem like a promotion. The Enquirer moved the story in today's print edition but never put it online. I'm guessing Duke requested that it not be posted, fearing all kinds of negative Comments. Her tenure here has been awful. And not just because of the streetcar. Good riddance. A nice Christmas present for Cincinnati.

Ohio Natural Gas has upped its offer to 25,000 SkyMiles if you switch to ONG from Duke Energy. Formerly, it was 10,000 miles. See: http://www.onlyong.com/delta/

^ No busway or BRT anywhere in the U.S. has ever been converted to rail. It's a one-way street. So to speak.

Yes, and downtown Ottawa literally stinks in the summertime because of all the diesel exhaust from the buses using the busways. By the way, busways are not the same as BRT. They are often confused.

You don't. Pretty much have to watch to whole thing.