John Schneider

No rail supporter I know wants to keep bikes off Wasson Way to preserve a path for future light rail. We do, however, want the path designed for that rail can be added later. Actually, I think almost everyone feels this way.

The proposed conversion of Main to two-way is definitely not being pushed to sabotage future LRT. It is being pushed as a way to slow traffic on a section of road that many drivers treat like a highway. Many of the community members backing the two-way conversion would gladly support running rail on Main. If a LRT plan were pursued in the future that used Main and Walnut, it wouldn't be that hard to convert those streets back to one-way (with potential transit-only lanes where the tracks are/would be). And a two-way Main would be better for the neighborhood in the mean time. Doubt the city will want to make all the changes in signals and a few years later convert it back to one-way. Two-way Main will be used as a reason not to consider the Main/Walnut couplet. I know how our traffic engineers think. They are loathe to make changes. What's more valuable for the future -- two-way traffic, which I agree is desirable, versus, say, 20,000 pairs of eyeballs that could be passing through that part of OTR most days, connected to the two most dense areas of the region? I think it's short-sighted.

The thing is, converting Main to two-way will prevent the installation of rail on it and Walnut, thereby condemning rail to uptown to having to use Vine Street, which is very indirect and which has all kinds of problems. The Main/Walnut alignment built to light rail standards would make it part of a spine, via a tunnel through Mt. Auburn, that could eventually host multiple alignments between downtown and uptown and on to Xavier. So what you gain is a more user-friendly street. What you lose is the possibility for an 11-minute trip between Fountain Square and University and Jefferson. And eventually a network that serves a large section of our region between, say, Tri-County and Milford. So if you want more than a slow streetcar that never gets beyond uptown (and perhaps not even that far) converting Main to two-way is a bad idea.

^ it will also collapse of its own weight

^ Good. This project was a total loser that would have set back efforts to build regional rail in Greater Cincinnati for many years.

Had Jack Boulton remained in Cincinnati -- he moved away to manage David Rockefeller's art collection -- I bet he would have been mayor at some point.

It was ugly. I remember Jack Boulton, then-director of the Contemporary Arts Center, saying to a higher-level Kroger exec saying, "You know, if you put mirrors on your building, it might just go away." I don't think we received a contribution from Kroger that year.

We'll win in the end. All of us love the city, and it's easier to love than hate. The hate will burn off.

Elm's two-way through the Banks

I think that ship has sailed. The Banks development and Smale Park would now make a Race to Madison bridge virtually impossible. Maybe Elm Street to Covington, but the IRS is in the way.

Walked much of one of Bill's suggested Newport streetcar alignments today: Taylor-Southgate to Broadway to Fourth to Main to Fifth to Broadway. I could see this happening if Cincinnati came up with some of the money,

I'm sure the State of Ohio would love to see rail in the Riverfront Transit Center. Because the vehicles would be electric, you'd avoid the expense of running the exhaust fans which were sized to evacuate the exhaust of diesel trains. Very few utilities to move. With no destinations between NOL and the RTC, it would be very fast -- pure transportation. Not much enhanced development potential on the Cincinnati side unless you could get your hands on the U.S. Bank Center, which could be huge. The vertical transfer from the RTC to the Cincinnati Streetcar on Second Street is well-designed, giving Cincinnati the feel of a much larger city. One problem: because this alignment would not connect to the tracks of the Cincinnati Streetcar, NKY would have to build its own maintenance facility. Which they'll need to do in order to expand anyway.

^ I'd also look at the avoided costs of buying land and building on-campus parking.

^ Needs a tunnel

Ovation's developer, Bill Butler, is a longtime rail opponent. Interesting to see how this plays out.

To me, NKY needs to have a process for identifying over-reaching community objectives and then scoring whether a streetcar could help them meet the most important objective. For Cincinnati, the objective was repopulation -- the first sentence of the Executive Summary of the 2007 B/C Study stated the objective was reinvestment and repopulation of the core and we never wavered from that. And we are way ahead of the 2011 projections for development, which is where 82% of the benefits are. If I lived in NKY and my objective were repopulation, I might suggest routes similar to what Bill is putting up here. If it were tourism, I might do something similar to what they have laid out but go west to Bellevue. If the objective were improving regional transportation, I'd focus on LRT through Covington to Florence to CVG. Say.

I dunno. I think if you're seeing this page in terms of a generational path to regional light rail, I'd keep the NKY news in here. I told them today that Cincinnati rail supporters are focused on getting the streetcar to Uptown - nothing more, nothing less.

Couple of observations. Almost certain Cincinnati traffic engineers won't let us use Ramp "LL" - the downward-sloping extension of Second Street east of Main. It clogs up during a lot of riverfront events. The 4th/5th and 5th/6th pairs work nicely, but I've heard in the past the ODOT and FHWA don't want streetcars on streets that lead to freeway entrances or exits. Having said that, i could definitely see streetcars on Fourth - just feels like a streetcar street to me. From what I'm hearing, NKY favors connecting its two river cities closer to the river instead of penetrating deeper into close-in southern neighborhoods as you are showing. The Fourth Street bridge connecting Covington and Newport is scheduled for replacement in a few years, and they would like to make it wide enough to host a streetcar line. Not sure that's the right thing to do if their objective is repopulation like ours was in Cincinnati, but that's what they are thinking.

Planning for the first phase of the Portland Streetcar began in 1991. It opened in 2001.

I'm guessing that's what they do, running at low speed

That doesn't always seem to work, but it's worth a try. Another problem is freezing switches, but I think John Deatrick told me that we had switch warmers.

By far, the bigger problem is the icing of the wires.

Yes, and it may need to be elevated much of the entire length from Vine to Reading on account of the induced traffic from the new interchange. One traffic engineer told me MLK is almost certain to seize up, especially in bad weather, when that interchange opens.

I'm guessing part of the MLK alignment is on a bridge

I've said this before on this thread, but I'm always amazed at how few people we've seen after 11:00p on the Portland Streetcar during our 35 trips there, and Portland has a 17 miles of streetcar and a much more developed food and bar scene. I just read somewhere that the bar scene in Portland was rated by someone to be the best in the nation.