John Schneider

Your might want to continue north on Jefferson Vine to the Zoo and then east on Erkenbrecher to Children's.

You know what I think is interesting? At various times, Haap, Jeffre and Patton have sought to lead our city - Jeffre and Haap in the mayor's office, and Patton in City Council. And yet, they continue to say they can't get answers to their questions from City Hall while spending countless hours imagining scenarios that have surely been considered in the planning and operation of hundreds or passenger rail systems that successfully operate around the world. Their writings are the best evidence of their ineffectiveness. And these guys hold themselves out as leaders of our city?

^ He has.

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LOCAL MAN NOW FAMOUS See: http://cincystreetcar.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/brad-thomas-interview-with-the-new-colonist/

^ The Cincinnati Streetcar is still in the running for stimulus money.

^ I think Northern Kentucky's Vision 2015 Plan only promotes "non-rail public transportation."

They won't let us on Clay Wade Bailey until the new Brent Spence is complete - maybe ten years from now. It will go to Newport first. Then to Covington if a new Fourth Street Bridge happens.

^ The problem is, you have to travel out-of-direction a lot, probably half the time. Say traffic goes south through Newport and north through Covington back to Cincinnati. If I'm in Covington and want to go to Newport, I have to travel through Cincinnati to get there. I'm pretty sure you want two-way travel if it's really going to be useful to people other than tourists.

This study is so great. To me it suggests that the Downtown/OTR streetcar loop wants to keep going west on McMicken to Central Parkway in the first phase. And from there, to the West Side or Northside or both. You want to be running with the grain of where the buildings are. This illustration explains the logic of the Mount Auburn Tunnel. Imagine going from Fountain Square (about where the black-walled 580 Building is to the south) up Main through OTR and under Mount Auburn to the green loop at University Plaza -- in eight minutes! Building the tunnel is the only way to get a one-seat ride to UC. Otherwise, you're getting off light rail on Gilbert or Reading and getting on something else for the last mile. People won't like it. Christ Hospital could host a station in its basement. Three light rail lines -- the Central, Northeast, and Eastern Corridors -- could all use the tunnel. There would be a train every three or four minutes at rush hour between UC and Downtown. It would be a different kind of city.

^ I just have a well-formed bias that modern streetcars and light rail need to run flat and straight. There are too many turns and grades on this route. It's possible, just undesirable.

This is not going to be a fast, comfortable ride.

They got the spelling of Dave Wormald's last name wrong.

^ Veolia is on the Cincinnati Streetcar Development Partners team, which is competing to design, build and operate the Cincinnati Streetcar. Who is "Ghost Tracks"? Who employs "Ghost Tracks?" Is the employer of "Ghost Tracks" also competing to design, build and operate the Cincinnati Streetcar?

^ I think that's it. They picked the weakest area to serve first. Sound familiar? Great pics, Jake.

Seattle has a long history of opposition to rail transit going back to the Seventies. I've heard the reason Atlanta has MARTA is that Washington Senator "Scoop" Jackson (a power in the Senate at the time and an erstwhile presidential candidate) arranged for lavish Federal funding for rail in Seattle when he was head of the Senate Finance Committee. I think Boeing was even going to build the rail cars. But Seattle leaders couldn't agree on how the money would be spent ("the Seattle Process" is how I've heard it referred to), and so the money went to Atlanta instead, perhaps at the direction of Jimmy Carter, I dunno. I've heard that what finally caused Seattle voters to start to invest in light rail, and then defend that vote against a repeal attempt, was the feeling that they were being eclipsed by Portland and Vancouver -- Portland with its LRT and streetcar and Vancouver with its SkyTrain. Sound Transit -- a multi-county authority -- recently passed a global transportation plan for several light rail lines, four or five more streetcar lines, plus an expanded streetcar in Tacoma, maybe even upgrading the Tacoma streetcar that's there now to light rail.

I cringe every time someone uses Memphis, Kenosha or Little Rock as examples of what we're proposing for Cincinnati. In no way is the Memphis tourist trolley regarded as "renowned" system by anyone who knows anything about rail transit.

^ I agree with this account. National City Lines, at its peak, only owned about 10% of the nation's streetcar systems, though they did own some of the largest. Owning the largest ones probably sent a signal that there wouldn't be much innovation down the road because the largest markets would no longer be available to purchase it. Sort of like the reason the American auto industry has, for years, been fighting to prevent large, mostly western, states from adopting more stringent fuel efficiency standards. If they have to build a special car for California, Oregon and Washington, economies of scale may make them have to build it for the entire country. The Streetcar Conspiracy makes a good story, and it often gets repeated, but NCL was far from being the sole factor for the nation's streetcars (mostly) going away. Politicians' limiting fare increases of the privately-owned streetcar companies, requirements that they pay property and franchise taxes on their operations, physical decay, and changing ridership during the Depression and WWII had more to do with it and collectively set the stage for what appeared to be a superior solution: the auto economy. Now the tables are turning. Similar factors are closing in on the highway economy, and so historians may be writing parallel explanations of its demise in thirty or forty years. They may be attributing the fall of the highway economy to legislators' unwillingness to raise gas taxes, the imposition of tolls everywhere, the daunting cost of maintaining and expanding highways, and the decreasing desire and financial ability of many Americans to travel as often and as far. Plus, the availability of car-competitive alternatives like rail. Be interesting to see how this plays out over time.

^ Top of Elm Street to UC's West Campus.

^ We can't use the old rails. They are in the center of the street. ADA requirements pretty much force boarding to happen at the curbs. Plus they're probably bolted rail rather than welded rail. The ride quality wouldn't be car-competitive. I suspect most of them would just be left in place, undisturbed.

^ This is very true. So far as I know, there has never been a serious crime on the Portland Streetcar. My feeling is, unless you are a principal city of the world, or you need to tunnel through a mountain, rail transit is best left at grade.

“What’s good about living downtown? Public transportation,” said OTR resident Melinda Voss. “If we continue to ignore that need, we will turn into a Detroit. A city without an urban core is a scary picture.” Every member of her team is a supporter of Cincinnati streetcars, a project that has become a hot topic in the city. See: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090307/NEWS01/303070048

^ Portland's Tri-Met subsidizes the streetcar to the extent that the streetcar replaces buses that Tri-Met would otherwise have to buy and pay to operate. I think it is a significant subsidy, maybe a third of its budget.

Plan to attend a streetcar event in or around downtown after work on March 25th. More later.

^ These are diesel trucks with gussied-up bodies made to look like streetcars. When you consider they are in stop/go operations all the time, the emisisions are undoubtedly very, very high. And the "biodiesel", such as it is, will never be more than 10% of the volume of fuel. I bet they won't last more than 5-8 years in continuous service.