John Schneider

Found on a Indianapolis blog following the defeat of a bill that would have authorized Indy to put a transit issue on the fall ballot: "You have to be against transit and for highways if you’re a Republican. That’s clearly the stance the GOP has chosen at all levels of government, so that’s what Hoosiers are going to get as long as they keep electing these guys. Move to Chicago, NYC, San Fransisco, soon Cincinnati, Houston, etc., if you want transit. That’s what these guys are saying by refusing Federal dollars so give them what they want."

The Cincinnati Streetcar project has started. It started last year. The groundbreaking is just a public recognition of that.

^ I'm guessing the battery-powered cars -- proposals were submitted by two makers -- are out.

^ However ridiculous all of this reads today, you really had to be there for a year and a half during the late-1990's+ sitting through all the stupid meetings while this was being discussed. Would you believe, for example, that this thing used boat-trailer wheels, or that its 24/7/365 air conditioning system was a mere car air conditioner, or that the monobeam it was supposed to run on deflected by 37" under load when it turned the corner at Fountain Square? And that building owners would gladly give up space and pay for the cost of the stations in their buildings which had to be on the third floors because it had to pass over the skywalks? But all was not lost. Thanks to the PRT initiative, the need for a downtown circulator was indentified, and the modern streetcar emerged from the Alternative Analysis as the Locally Preferred Option. There was so much bi-state support for it that it was kept in the OKI plan even after MetroMoves went down at the polls. Having it in the Long-Range Plan gave license to the City of Cincinnati to study it and for the Feds to fund it. So for that, we should be grateful.

Wow. The suburbs are amazing. I can't tell you how many times I've heard similar things about monorails or "that China magnet train." If Cincinnati's topography isn't suitable for anything, it's the numerous lanes of I-75. Yes, David Dixon, you are absolutely correct. With Cincinnati's challenging typography, it's much easier to widen a highway ROW to 250 feet, together with all the new bridges and interchanges, than it is to construct a 35-foot wide light rail line. And of course it's much easier to build and maintain an elevated rail line, complete with elevators and other access, than it is to build it on the ground.

^ The investigation of the rock and soils for the Mt. Auburn Tunnel were virtually perfect for tunnel construction. The cost in 2001 was about $10,000 per lineal foot. Late in the game, there was interest in daylighting part of the tunnel as it passed west of Christ Hospital. Living in Gin knows the most about this today.

^ If it served only one alignment, i.e. the Eastern Corridor Wasson Line, that would probably be true. But if the I-75 and I-71 lines were also routed through the tunnel to UC and Xavier and then splitting up there, the cost would effectively drop by about two-thirds. With rush-hour trains running every two or three minutes between the CBD and Xavier, we would begin to have a different kind of of city, rapidly redensifying along that corridor.

Soon.

^ Or we can all get behind the Wasson Line to UC to downtown.

I recommend some due-diligence on the Oasis Line. Everyone I know who has taken a look at it has concluded it is a bad project of epic proportions -- amazingly expensive on both the capital and operating side with minimal service and hardly any ridership. I'm pretty sure that it if gets built, it will be the last rail project constructed here for a long time.

I'm willing to bet we hit 1000 before construction starts:) I'll take that bet. How much?

^ Still willing to bet we get to Page 1,000 before the streetcar opens.

^ He just keeps digging a deeper hole for himself. Let's not interfere ...

Without getting into the details, I know that all of this is quickly getting worked out. I expect a groundbreaking very soon -- in February for sure.

Here's what happens in almost every community that builds its first rail project. Talk radio is vehemently opposed ... gee, why would they be so opposed since most of their audience is in cars and so many of their commercials are highway-oriented? ... but I digress. Many elected officials are opposed. The wingnuts are, of course, opposed. The rest of the media fans the flames. Then the project gets built -- these days almost always on time and on budget. The models are so conservative at estimating ridership that projections are often exceeded early-on. Success becomes self-evident, despite the Cassandras. And then you know what? The opponents lose all credibility -- on rail, and by extension, on a lot of other things too. Some of the elected officials who staked their careers on opposing rail get turned out of office. I follow these elections around the country, and I can't name a single elected official whose career has advanced because of his or her opposition to rail. The bottom line is, the Smithermans of the world are just digging a big hole they're going to have to live in for a long time. They are making a record they will regret. Happens almost everywhere.

This is letter is untrue. I've been going to Portland 2-4 times a year since the streetcar opened, and there has been no major repair project, let alone one that would cost $20 million. I mean, think about it. However, Portland, Maine was recently turned down for a $20 million Federal grant for repairs to the Downeaster inter-city rail line.

^ Soon

^ I doubt Oregon has a $16 billion deficit.

Unbelievable. Well, I guess its not really. We have all learned that these morons will stop at nothing to get in the way of progress. Oh well, I don't think they stand any sort of chance here. The city has every right to build whatever they want on the streets that they own. The MSD had a chance to move those lines with the city footing part of the bill and our moron commisioners said no for political reasons. So, this is the result. John, do you think this action by Finney will stand any chance of causing problems? Again, the longer the city waits to start construction, the more stupid stuff like this will come up. This is fundamentally a property rights issue. Cincinnati owns its streets, and it can do what it wants with them.

^ Six vehicles to start. Soon a new rail-only bridge will be constructed between the South Waterfront on the west side of the Willamette and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry on the east, so Portland will have a loop connecting both waterfronts. They are likening this to Vienna's "Ringstrasse."

^ They know more than they are saying.

Yups, huh. My guess is that if you averaged the ages of Mallory, Dohoney, Michael Moore, Chris Eilerman, the co-chairs of "No of 48", the lead engineers and architects for the Cincinnati Streetcar, plus the Council members who have consistently voted for the project -- it would be about 50 -52 years old or so. But I guess they were all Yuppies once if that makes the COAST clown feel better. I'm glad that 50-somethings are still thinking about the future here.

And then there's this: two of the seven vehicles they are looking at are the wireless type. So I guess that if one of those vehicles is selected, we can stop fretting about the overhead and revert to bitching about the sewers again, right?

^ You know, they have these newfangled things called electrical disconnects that allow them to de-energize sections of the line if needed. But most of the time they would just install sleeves over the wires like linemen do when they work on transformers and insulators now. How is it different from the uninsulated primary feeds that exist in OTR today? The fire department seems to manage around all that mess of wiring under stress, in wet conditions, and often with visibility obscured.