John Schneider

^ "I mean, the whole premise of your argument is destroyed by the facts." Not for the first time, and probably not the last. Why does he post?

^ True statement. Plus let's not forget Kasich's taking $52 million from the project, some of which had to be replaced with Fed funds which are very time-consuming to win. And then there's COAST's lobbying the County to forbid the use of MSD funds. I think it's interesting, by the way, that COAST, which supposedly believes decisions should be made at the lowest level possible, has consistently resorted to higher levels of government -- Monzel at the county level, Shannon Jones and Kasich at the state level and now Chabot at the Federal level -- to intercede and try to thwart a local project that voters have approved. "We Demand a Vote!" -- remember. Well they got one, two actually, and they lost. So a vote doesn't really mean much. That, and their total silence on highway boondoggles -- several come to mind -- makes me think they are simple opportunists who use government any way they can to preserve the status quo. There is nothing principled about what they do.

^ Think you're right about that. I mean, the guy's in his Fifties -- his peak earnings years -- and he seems to have nothing better to do than play Cops and Robbers with the city on the streetcar project. He's not a bad guy. Kinda sad, really.

^ Clearly the operation of the BAA has some benefit, but not much of it accrues to the City of Cincinnati. And there is little total benefit in relation to what the land is worth. The most revealing truth is that even the City of Blue Ash doesn't feel it is worth keeping in operation, and it probably gets most of the benefits.

^ Cincinnnati should thank Milton Dohoney for having the guts to get rid of it despite the well-organized opposition of a bunch of well-connected private pilots who have long enjoyed a wasting asset which yields no economic benefit for Cincinnatians.

Talk about your boondoggles! The BAA provided no benefit to the People of Cincinnati, it was simply a government funded handout that benefited a few wealthy airplane hobbyists. And the City of Blue Ash obviously saw no benefit from operating the airport either since they rejected taking the airport over and instead opted to redevelop the land that it sits on. Good riddance. Where is COAST when you need them? Funny how they focus only on the streetcar. I should clarify -- it's less than $40,000 per year. And you're right, how come COAST isn't bitching about this. I mean, an airport site worth $20 - 30 million grossing -- not netting -- only $40,000 per year. I guess you could say, "it will never pay for itself."

Fun fact: total of all monies collected by the City of Cincinnati at the Blue Ash Airport from all sources including landing fees and hangar rentals: less than $40,000.

^ True. And so?

That's shocking. He's always been a good guy to me and supportive of rail, and yet he writes this piece with an extremely negative slant. I'm assuming it was written by John London because he called me today to pick my brain about what's going on. I told him that he should call the city. Duke is the last obstacle. There's agreement on the three feet of separation but disagreement on the costs to achieve that separation. The essence of the disagreement likley results from the fact that Duke didn't lift a finger to do any planning until the results of last November's election were known, and so its design work is behind the rest of the project. A complete set of construction drawings was delivered to the city a week ago. Now city staffers are going over them and are about to hire a construction cost estimator. Rail will be ordered soon. The city is moving forward on vehicle procurement and selecting a contractor -- there are many contractors interested, apparently -- and so at some point Duke's dragging its feet will be very apparent to everyone.

^ John London. I checked with a contact at the city. I feel pretty good about things.

So I guess COAST will have to stop tweeting that the streetcar is starving the Cincinnati Fire Department of funds. See: http://www.building-cincinnati.com/2012/07/new-station-to-bring-cfd-engine-35-into.html

It's been interesting to watch the anti-streetcar arguments being taken away one-by-one. First, the streetcar was supposed to die when the governor took $50 million from the project. Didn't happen. Second, it was said there are no funds to operate it. That's been debunked. They said people were opposed to it, but Cincinnatians supported it twice. Then Duke's demands were going to kill the whole thing. With the opening of Washington Park, the continuous improvement of Findlay Market, and the investment in Music Hall, OTR is now viewed by more Cincinnatians as a worthy destination. Finally, add the explosion of investment at The Banks plus all the new residents in Downtown and OTR, and it's tough to imagine where the opponents go from here, but I'm happy to watch them continue to spin their wheels. The more they leave their fingerprints on the record, the less they will be listened to in the future. Kind of looking forward to seeing this play out over the next few years.

^ We should welcome this. The more they double-down on making outrageous claims, the more discredited they'll be when the first leg opens to great success and serious expansion of the streetcar system gets underway.

Read today's front-page WSJ article on Duke.

^ and back from Findlay Market too!

Speaking of John Schneider, dusty Rhodes just called him and his wife out on twitter. So what did he say? I gots to know.

^ I was beginning to wonder if Mark Miller was even the guy sending the COAST tweets. They are way too juvenile. I suspect that his kid is (was) sending them -- at least the re-tweets from Toronto where Mayor Ford is trying to make the case, so far without result, to convert streetcar lines into subways.

^ These guys have a Cops and Robbers mentality.

^ I agree with David. From many years of watching this across the country, my sense is that guys like Chabot almost always end up being used and discredited. These projects are always successful, and so people stop trusting what the opponents are saying. They never advance to higher office. With this amendment, Chabot is happily using Federal policy to interfere with the settled law of a local jurisdiction. Even people who hate the streetcar ought to hate this. This will come back to bite him.

My reading emails written by people following this closely gives me little reason to worry. I suspect his language would ban spending on light rail. And maybe Oasis Rail too.

^ I'm still waiting to read the first Benefit/Cost Study on the Brent Spence Replacement. Or the Waldvogel. Or the Kennedy Connector. No, actually I'm waiting for the first elected official to even ask for one. There have been three, all with positive findings, on the Cincinnati Streetcar.

Which is exactly what COAST fears. They know the streetcar will reveal the myths about rail they've been putting out there for over a decade now. They hate the idea that it's a first step toward light rail, which is what they fear the most. That's why they keep fighting so hard.

Canceling my subscripton of twenty-five years on Monday.

Smitherman and the other clowns aren't worried that the streetcar will fail. They're worried it will succeed -- for a lot of reasons.

And, if you recall, in the glowing piece they wrote a few months ago on the improvements taking place in OTR, they never showed the route on the map or even mentioned the streetcar in the article -- not even one time.