John Schneider

Like from the casino to, say, Eden Park Drive across from the Seasongood Pavilion?

Too complicated for electronic media.

I think you'd build a cut and cover tunnel starting on the "north" side of Madison, go under Edwards and alongside Wasson all the way through to Paxton. Then widen Wasson over the tunnel and turn it into a boulevard, at last havng an adequate street there. My guess is that doing so would reduce the Nmbyism.

^ Even rail transit?

^ Here's another problem. The trail advocates want to finance this with Federal and state grants. Those will undoubtedly mandate that the trail be kept in service for many years. Consider the issue Cincinnati is having now with trying to use money from the sale of the Blue Ash Airport for the streetcar. A long ago agreeement with the Feds now stands in the way of that.

Trackwork will start in the fall. The overhead electric will be one of the very last things to get built.

I'm guessing this is getting worked out.

Charlotte hasn't built is modern streetcar yet. Still in planning.

^ This is why I've taken 400+ people to Portland over the last ten years.

I've lived downtown since 1976 and had a car until, I dunno, 1982 or something. My wife and I have things organized to where we need a car maybe once every couple of months. I'm picking one up Friday morning and will turn it in Monday morning for a grand total of $63.19 including tax. We almost always get a new car too. My company spends about $200 per year for a super-umbrella liability and collision policy, and depending on the kind of AMEX card you have, AMEX will cover the insurance. I'm guessing we've saved a couple hundred thousand dollars over the years doing this. That's a house for most people.

I agree with you except for one thing: do you really think that the streetcar will promote living car-free? I know you don't own a car, but not everyone is like you. What I imagine is that most of the new development in Over-the-Rhine, if it happens at all, will come with parking. Either that, or it will be targetted toward the poor or disabled who do not drive. I have a friend who lives downtown. I asked her how she liked living downtown. The first thing she said is that parking is such a hassle. She rents a parking space in a garage. She drives to work. It's not for everyone, but living car-free or car-light, especially among young people, has been a trend that's been growing in Japan, Western Europe and North America for ten years now. You could look it up.

I subscribe to the school of thought that function = purpose. You bought the TV because it allows you to watch moving images on it. You drive your car to take you where you want to go. You will ride on the streetcar to move about the downtown/OTR area and go farther and faster than you would on foot. You aren't riding on the streetcar because it is a great economic development catalyst. That might be the reason we fund its construction but not its purpose. Mass transit's purpose is first and foremost for people to actually use it. In the Streetcar's case, it is not a stretch to say that people will be riding it because it's an economic catalyst, because it's not being built to serve existing ridership demand. It's being built to attract residents and development. Why we're building the streetcar: The biggest barrier to redeveloping the core of our region is the burden of accommodating the automobile. Building two garage parking spaces for a new downtown apartment adds at least $50,000 to the price of the apartment. If some or all of that cost can be eliminated, the unit can be sold for much less. Plus, the average Cincinnatian spends about $8,000 per year on his or her car. If some of this money can be diverted to housing, then the condo buyer or renter would have more disposable income to purchase more or better housing. So the streetcar reduces the cost of the housing while the purchasing power of the resident goes up. In effect, housing becomes more affordable. But there's more. As people begin living and working along the streetcar route, they will tend to shop and entertain themselves within a smaller footprint. Earned income that now leaks out of the city will instead be spent more locally. Restaurants, grocers and other retailers will spring up to meet this demand. The Cincinnati Streetcar is all about creating a climate to capture more spending in the places where paychecks are earned. Read more at www.protransit.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Monday's photo of "first dig" for the Cincinnati Streetcar I circulated this photo to rail advocates around the country -- around the world actually -- and now someone from Railway Age has contacted me about using the photo. They want to give credit for it. Who took it, and can they use it?

^ I've talked with Bill Cunningham on my downtown block within the last few years. Plus, I was on his show last spring, and afterward he said he'd like to move downtown if his wife would go along with it. He is not an anti-city guy. Barry Horstman is in Zurich right now riding streetcars.

Umm ... Zurich and Melbourne are the world's top steetcar cities -- a whole lot of capitalism going on there. And the last I heard, Hungary, Czech Republic and Poland are now free-market economies. I guess when you run out of ammunition, you just have to start firing blanks.

Correct. Cincinnati Bell will soon follow-on and move its facilities.

Correct.

^ Would have required a tax increase, and few people are in the mood for that. Also, the potential LRT ridership to the airport was studied extensively early in the past decade -- when there were more than twice as many flights as there are today -- and it was vanishingly small.

10% of local TV coverage would be about what? 150,000 - 200,000 people? How many people will fit in the basin? Each of them using it, say, ten times a year. There's your two million riders per year.

^ From what I hear, they're getting close.

^ Vehicles running in testing and training in late-2013, open for revenue service in early-2014.

Brad's right. After all, most high-level marathons have at least 10,000 runners (be nice to have that many rail supporters some day). And I hear that each successive one becomes a little easier. On the other hand, I was a sprinter, so I really wouldn't know.

Because Duke is used to throwing its weight around. They are not obligated to provide documentation. Duke is in a position where they could care less if the streetcar gets built or not. They have no incentive, financial or otherwise, to see this project get built. Then can replace their aging utilities with or without the streetcar project. Pretty much everyone across the board is hurting in this economy, and just like everyone else, Duke is not in the mood to be spending money unnecessarily. So, maybe Duke is being uncooperative; I'll give you that. That's not something that the city can do anything about. Duke has made an offer to do the required utility work for a certain price; the city had a choice to either come up with the money, or turn down the offer. The City chose to turn them down, but instead of disagreeing peacefully, they issued a letter to the media stating that Duke was being unreasonable, and then followed up with a groundbreaking ceremony. To me, this seems like a grave mistake. Now, the conflict has been elevated beyond the technical details of dimensions between rails and utilities; it has become a battle to see who is stronger, Duke or the City. The letter issued by the city was a shot across the bow; a line in the sand; a rattling of swords. I do believe that Duke is trying to make a statement that they are not going to be pushed around by the City of Cincinnati, or any other city. Duke is a corporation, and they are the servants of their stockholders and their customers, but not of any municipality. I don't think Duke is fearing a PR nightmare, because the streetcar project is already extremely unpopular outside of a core group of streetcar supporters. I do not think that Duke is going to give in, and I think they will go to court before moving any utilities. Even if the city wins in court, the construction schedule will have been set back significantly. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel that this is serious. If anyone has any information that I don't know about, please feel free to share. A couple things ... Duke is a corporation franchised by the City of Cincinnati to provide service to our city's families and businesses. And that includes the City of Cincinnati. Duke can't simply pick and choose the projects it wants to support or not support within the city limits. It has more or less been granted a monopoly to operate, so it's not like Duke is a grocery company which can close a store and cease serving a neighborhood and move on if that's what its "mood" is. The City did not "issue a letter to the media." Duke did. I know -- they sent it to me too. And probably to some other people on this list. It wasn't a nasty letter, but Duke clearly fired the first shot here. "Grave mistake" or not, it wasn't the city's. And I disagree that this has been "elevated beyond the technical details of dimensions between rails and utilities." Precisely the opposite. Throughout the long history of this project, the arguments have been anything but technical, i.e. "No one will ever use the streetcar." Now things have become very technical. I know that benchmarked against the other seven cities that operate or are now constructing modern streetcars, Duke is an outlier in terms of what it is demanding that the city pay for. So the city is saying, in essence, "We'll pay for the utility moves that represent best practices nationwide, anything more than that is on you." It's a defensible position. Then there's this: does anyone believe that with all the scrutiny this project has (will) endure(d), that the City would ever put itself in a position where it could not factually defend what it is doing with respect to Cincinnati Streetcar? Think about it. Is Duke fearing a "PR nightmare?" I think it's revealing that following a week of intense PR on radio, TV and in print media, Duke's PR execs have now gone radio silent, leaving it up its engineers to defend its position in the Business Courier. I like the people I know at Duke, my company works with them often, but Duke is no longer the revered local enterprise it once was. Cincinnatians voted for gas and electric aggregation by wide margins without anyone having to lead a campaign to get them to do so. Many Cincinnatians feel that Duke's pricing is aggressive and that its bills are difficult to understand. So the PR here is not easy to read. I'm guessing that going to court, if it comes to that, would not delay the project. The city may simply accede to Duke's demand to move the utilities eight feet and then rely on a court to determine who pays for that. Sort of what happens in eminent domain cases where compensation is decided long after the "taking." From what I know, I'd much rather have the hand the City is holding. I've come to know Milton Dohoney pretty well. I would not want to play poker with him.

^ It will not go to court and will be settled within a very short while. Facts are piling up.

^ Way to go, Brad!