John Schneider

^ Spinelli is bad news.

Sherman's right. The comments -- like the one Sherman copied above -- are beyond the pale. The only good thing is, I suspect lots of people, including Enquirer editors, read these comments. The worst of the worst lives somewhere in Tennessee. In the aggregate, they illustrate the irrationality, innumeracy and occasional illiteracy of some, certainly not all, of the opponents. Their writings are helping to make our case. Write on!

^ Do we have a URL on this yet?

^ I do think this is key. In the Nineties, Cincinnati developed a plan to build light rail between our airport in Northen Kentucky and Mason, Ohio -- a distance of about 44 miles, I think. Then some genius in our MPO started describing it as "light rail between the airport and the Kings Island Amusement Park," which is near Mason, because he thought more people knew where Kings Island was than Mason. So, even though the average trip on light rail in the U.S. is something like four miles, the opponents started saying, "Who's going to want to fly into CVG and take this train up to Kings Island just to ride the rides there. Right away, they were able to conjure up an image of a frivolous trip that no one would ever make and diminish the purpose and need for the investment. We never could overcome it once this image was embedded with the public.

^ Here we go with that ruination thing again.

^ I see. Will now work these thoughts into my letter to Governor Strickland.

^ What's a "urination" commercial? Just asking.

About streetcars and topography ... all three cities that have modern streetcars first built lines in the flat parts of their cities. Only after several years of operation did Portland extend the line down the steep hill to the South Waterfront. Seattle is just now debating, with little success, how to add a branch to Seattle University on First Hill, either by tunnel or by a tortured surface alignment. And in seven years, Tacoma hasn't extended from its current waterfront alignment up into the neighborhoods above downtown. I remember when UC was trying to figure out how to get light rail to the main campus and the Medical Center ten years ago. They retained ZGF Architects out of Portland, which had done a lot of the planning and station design there, and UC invited several of us to come to campus to listen to ZGF's presentation. Paddy Tillett, who today might be regarded as the Dean of Portland's architectural community said, "If you want to build light rail, you need to build it straight and flat."

^ City of Cincinnati

The print edition of the Sunday Enquirer published no opinion or letters in opposition to the $15 Million State grant. This is good. On the other hand, there are 332 Comments to Barry Horstman's Friday article on the grant. We're definitely winning the argument here. Brad Thomas figures we're down to about half a dozen regular dead-enders who post under different names in opposition to the project. They're some sick puppies. See for yourself (link fixed now): http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100319/NEWS0108/303190057/Cincinnati-lands-15M-streetcar-grant

^ They have been saying an opening by September 2012, and I haven't heard anything different.

There won't be any track laid for awhile, maybe another year. They will start on Elm in front of Music Hall, do the OTR section first and finish at the Great American Ball Park.

A lot of the utilities they have to move are over 100 years old. The way I look at it, it's all part of the process of repopulating downtown and OTR. They will definitely finish the environmental planning and engineering now. Once the funding gap gets to $10 million, money will come off the sidelines. With that happening and if we win a Federal Urban Circulator grant in June, done deal. From here, I can kinda squint and see the finish line in sight.

^ They can use the money to complete the environmental document, to complete the engineering on the project and to start moving utilities in the path of the streetcar. All of these things would have taken most of a year to complete, and so this keeps us on track. So to speak.

"New Projects with TRAC Funding Commitment" Cincinnati Streetcar - Phase I 2010 $15.0 Million

Gonna' happen.

You know what we're up against? Look at the headlines of the stories posted above. Before even reading them, I'm presented with one headline that screams, "Not Sold" and another that reads, "Defends." So right away, the reader is conditioned to be skeptical of the idea, whatever its merits. This is how rail issues get marginalized -- death by a thousand cuts, day after day. Now I'll read the articles.

Did someone post something about "moderation?" On St. Patrick's Day?

^ Plus: No security hassles, being able to show up at the last minute to board, being able to take several pieces of luggage onto the train or check it.

^ Still cloudy in SW Ohio. Always cloudy in SW Ohio, even when the sun's out.

^ Plus, the limo has to be replaced every ten years. Trains can last forever.

^ Waiting for Cincinnati.

^ When I first started in the real estate business, I worked for a developer who was involved in many downtown projects, here and around the country. His view was that Cincinnati was the most closed market he'd ever tried to work in -- almost cartel-like. He told me that for a long period starting in the Fifties and continuing at least through the Seventies that there was a sort of system, orginally promoted by the Emery interests (Carew Tower) and later the Galbreath interests (Fountain Square tower, US Bank Center, Fountain West for a time) to ensure that new office buildings were properly sequenced into the leasing market. That is, you couldn't just acquire land, get it rezoned and start construction without passing through a sort of peer-review process, which effectively closed the market to outsiders. You literally had to go before what was then the equilvalent of the CBC and make your case and gain the right to bring a new building on-line. The guy I worked for tried to buck the system and was shut down. When Duke came to town with access to unlimited capital and started throwing up towers all over the place, usually without any pre-leasing whatsoever, it broke up the old-boys network which was sort of dying-off anyway. Between the Carew Tower's opening during the Depression and the opening of Provident Tower at Fourth and Vine in 1964, there wasn't a single new office building of significant size constructed in downtown Cincinnati -- over thirty years.

I agree with Jake. Having been involved in a lot of these projects, and considering the difficult times we're living in, the Cincinnati Streetcar is moving along OK. I think Portland took about ten years to get its streetcar up and running from the time it was first proposed. We'll do it in five or six.

Immediately after MetroMoves lost in 2002, we polled and conducted focus groups to capture the mood of the voters. Without getting into the gory details, about which I'm sworn to secrecy, I can tell you that the county's mismanagement of the Paul Brown Stadium project was a major factor in the defeat of MetroMoves.