Eigth and State

"Interstates are NOT a 'viable business model' today." Ok, maybe "viable business model" wasn't the best phrase. How about that they have positive cash flow? The point of all of that discussion is that highways have a source of funding. Whether they SHOULD or not is a completely different question. It may not be "fair," but that's the way it is. The highway lobby is just doing what they do naturally - they are going after the money. Bashing highways does not help the cause for rail.

Can't really blame the road lobby: they are just after the money, no matter where it comes from.

I like it. Thanks for posting.

"I thought the point of the streetcar was to grow the property tax base and increase city revenue." It is. Even so, the capital cost of $128 million needs to be found somewhere. It would be possible to borrow that money and pay back the principal plus interest with the increased property tax revenues, if a lending market could be found. However, in my humble opinion, expecting all the young people to flock to Elm Street to ride the streetcar to the their jobs downtown is a long shot, and the market is not willing to take the risk. "Cincinnati is in an impossible position from this perspective." Cincinnati is in a TERRIBLE position. Indeed, Cincinnati has declining revenues and rising expenses. That's a formula for trouble. Granted, only a small part of the total budget is used for transportation infrastructure. The majority of the budget goes for salaries of workers, including police and firefighters, and a huge part of the budget goes to retirement benefits for former city workers, who are not adding anything at all to the city today, and many of them don't even live in the city anymore. Have you ever played SimCity and gotten your city into paralyzing debt, where you have no cash to make any improvements? That's where Cincinnati is. Many other cities, counties, and local governments across America are in this positiion, especially in the Rust Belt.

Don't forget that Hurricane Ike disrupted the industry in a big way in 2008. Some major refineries were shut down, as well as some pipelines. Atlanta was hit hard by gasoline prices due to some pipeline problems. Usually, the United States purchases crude oil from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria, ships it to the Gulf Coast where it is added to the domestic stream, refines it into gasoline, and distributes it by pipeline. In 2008, the United States purchased refined gasoline from Europe, which is not common. In 2008, there were oil tankers parked offshore with no place to unload. That's why oil prices were low and gasoline was high.

"It seems to me it would be easier to take down some of the highway fund's structural advantage..." Agreed. For every dollar the U.S. federal, state, and local governments spend on rail, they spend hundreds or thousands on highways. Automobiles are tremendously useful; they are free from routes, schedules, and centralized control. However, automobiles and the associated infrastructure have gotten out of hand in this country. They lead to dreadfully awful environments, especially suburban shopping districts with seas of parking lots. Instead of building rail with new funds in addition to all of this, why not switch some funding from automobile-oriented infrastructure to rail? "Gas taxes no longer cover interstate expenditures." Ok, highways are funded from gas tax revenue and other sources. The point is that they have a source of funding.

:angel:

I am intrigued by the inscription under the dome. Thanks for posting.

I just searched the internet for a photo of Leslie Ghiz and found this: It came from a political site bashing the streetcar. I've never seen this site before. Is this the way political campaigns are run on the internet these days?

^ Better than nothing, but only addresses operating costs. The article is hilarious, saying that Leslie Ghiz went to the bathroon during the meeting and missed the vote because the others voted in her absence.

^What's wrong with that? It's functional.

^ I think you missed the point. The Interstates HAVE a viable business model - they collect sales tax on gasoline to fund highways. The stadiums have a business model - They raised money for construction by selling bonds backed by a sales tax. Queen City Metro has a business model - they collect about 17% of their budget from fares, about 4% from advertising, and the rest from an earnings tax on workers in the City of Cincinnati. A business model can include public revenue from some kind of tax. What I am saying is that so far, the streetcar proponents have NOT come up with a funding mechanism that works - whether it includes a public funding source or not.

So, maybe COAST will always oppose any kind of rail. But COAST isn't the reason why the Cincinnati Streetcar hasn't been built yet. The reason why the Cincinnati Streetcar hasn't been built is because the proponents have not come up with a viable business model to fund it.

Noozer - I like to use the example of the Delta Train at the Greater Cincinnati Airport. (We forget that we actually do have a rail system!) The Delta train is well used, generally by people of middle to upper class incomes who certainly own cars. They use it because it is convenient, clean, and safe. The reason why the rail proponents are viewed as "cultist" is because for the most part, the rail proponents are asking the electorate (which is mostly drivers) to approve a new source of funding for rail, and when the electorate questions why they should support rail, the rail proponents start preaching about things that the electorate doesn't know or care about. What the rail proponents generally lack is a viable business model. I know - no form of transportation turns a profit, blah blah blah. I didn't say it had to. What it needs is a viable source of funding, whether it be from fares, tax revenue, advertising, commisions, or some combination of sources. Delta pays for the Delta train, I presume, from a portion of ticket prices. They may have gotten some government funding also - I don't know. It helps that the Delta train is driverless, which cuts down on expenses tremendously. If you think about it, elevators in skyscrapers are not that much different technically from streetcars. Both run on rails. I presume that elevator service is usually included with the building rent. I know of at least one elevator that charges a fare. Most elevators are driverless. I don't have the answer, but I have some ideas. How about intitiating a rail transit system integrated with park and ride lots, and charge for parking? How about renting out space in a high-traffic station to vendors? I noticed in Europe that many of the larger train stations have shopping similar to an American shopping mall integrated into the station - I presume that the rent helps subsidize the rail service. In America, most airports are integrated with shopping malls, though we don't necesarly name it that. Many of the historic streetcar lines were partly funded by land developers who built homes in the suburbs. Many historic streetcar lines were also integrated with resorts or amusement parks. I know of at least one railroad in Cincinnati that was funded by a single wealthy resident who wanted to be able to commute from his country home to the city. In any case, the preaching is growing tiresome. No one asked the electorate to fund the Delta train. Delta just did it.

If the artificial leaf is true, then yes, it would be a breakthrough. The article didn't say how much it costs to produce, though. If it costs more to produce and operate over its life cycle than currently available technology, then it is a step down, not up. I wonder why the article says it would be affordable for India and Africa? Are they implying that it's not affordable for the United States or Europe? :? (There may be something to that as Africa and India get more sun.)

No, I'm not missing the point. I am agreeing with you, mostly. Property tax is a method to raise revenue for collective use. The local government can spend that revenue on anything it wants to, including streetcars, subject to state law and the terms of the tax. Most local governments dedicate a certain amount of funding to improvement of the pavement, with a priority on automobile use, but they are not limited to that. Besides as a passage for automobiles, there are many other uses for streets: 1. Pedestrian and bicycle passage 2. Storage of automobiles (parking.) 3. Location to place underground and overhead utilities. 4. Playground for children. 5. Place to have a parade, political demonstration or street party. 6. Staging area for fighting fires. 7. Place for street vendors. 8. Passage for streetcars. And so on. Unfortunately, most local governments design streets first for automobiles and second for all the other uses, but it doesn't have to be that way. Like I mentioned previously, in Ohio Streetcars have essentially the same legal standing as other utilities such as water, sewer, electric, etc. The proposed Cincinnati Streetcar varies from the historic streetcar lines in that it would be operated by a municipality instead of a private company. There is no legal reason why a private company couldn't build a streetcar line in a public street today. (Under Ohio law, Streetcars are different from Railroads in this way.) So to get back to your question - would it be fair to divert property tax revenue from autmobile infrastructure to streetcar infrastructure? I'm not to say whether it's "fair" or not, but it would be legal as long as it complies with state law and the terms of the tax passed by the voters. Whether it is good policy depends on your point of view. So far, the City of Cincinnati has NOT decided to use general property tax revenue to fund the streetcar, and no new property levies have been placed on the ballot. Instead, they propose to use NEW sources of revenue, such as TRAC funds or whatever. This has been convenient for politicians, since they did not have to risk any of their current funding and make someone else angry. (I'm all for cutting government waste, but don't cut MY budget!) When the TRAC funding or whatever falls through, City Council can just blame it on the governor or someone else. Note that the Metro Moves plan would have initiated a new tax for a county-wide system that included a streetcar very similar to the recent proposal. We all know that it failed. If instead, a new, smaller, tax was proposed that only raised enough money for the streetcar, we would have what you are talking about. John keeps telling us that Metro Moves did well in the urban core, so I wonder what might have happened if Metro Moves had been scaled down to the streetcar only.

^ Compare to Paris, where the boulevards were CUT through areas that were already built up, not laid out through open land.

Allright, I feel like I need to respond to two comments about the public/private ownership. In Ohio, railroads are thought of as private, and they have to pay property taxes. Highways are thought of as public, and they are funded by the government. But the proposed streetcar is neither a railroad nor a highway. In Ohio, Streetcar lines are utilities, and have essentially the same standing under the law as the water company. Streetcar lines DO NOT pay property taxes; they occupy the street under the consent of the local government that maintains the street. Sometimes utilities are private corporations, and sometimes utilities are operated by municipalities. In Cincinnati, at least 5 different communications companies, the gas company, the electric company, and a private water company operate utilities in the street. In Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Water Works and Metropolitan Sewer District operate water and sewer utilities. If the City of Cincinnati were to build and operate the streetcar, the City still has to follow state laws. The City would not have to pay property taxes to itself. But even if the streetcar were operated by a private company, the streetcar line would still not have to pay property taxes on the track in the street. They may have to pay taxes on maintenance facilities or other property. They may also be required to pave the street between the tracks. But streetcar lines in Ohio DO NOT pay property taxes. "Why don't I pay a toll when I pull out of my driveway every day? That would be the only way that roads would be profitable." Depending on where you live, you probably DO pay a toll. It's just that it's not a toll based on the number of times you use it. It's based on a yearly rate, and called property tax. Unless you have to live on a state highway, where the road is paid courtesy of gasoline taxes and other sources. (There are also license plate fees and others.) There is no technical reason why the government could not operate a railroad at it's expense for the benefit of the citizens. In fact, many city bus systems are subsidized this way. (Why are highways "funded" and transit systems "subsidized?") But there is a political reason, and that is that the electorate has decided that railroads will recieve a minimum of government funding. If gasoline taxes were dedicated to transit instead of highways, my guess is that we would have more transit and fewer highways. Europe does this. If highways were tolled and the proceeds dedicated to transit, my guess is that we would have more transit and fewer highways. The New York Port Authority does this. So the bottom line is that while we discuss the technical merits of one form over another and bash one form over another for being "unfair," the real issue is that one form has a more reliable source of funding than the other, and that's what makes all the difference.

"I suspect that if we stopped investing in highways and started investing in mass transit.." Now you're talking. In my humble opinion, rail is fighting an uphill battle against highways as long as highways have a healthy funding source and rail has almost nothing. Contractors go after highway work instead of rail work because that's where the money is. Developers build around highways instead of railroads because that's where the money is. All of this highway bashing is irrelevant, as long as highways have a source of funding and rail doesn't.

"So when people say we don't have the population density for rail, that's malarkey." Ok, we don't have the population density for rail today. We had it at one time. We might have it in the future. But we don't have it today.

"The increased price-performance of computer chips indicates..." Computer chip performance is measured in calculations per second, or some variation thereof. Improvement in computer chips is fundamentally a game of minimizing size and thus minimizing the distance that electrons have to travel, in order to get more performance out of the same energy and material input. A recent computer is thousands of times more useful than one of 20 years ago, even if it was made with the same energy and material inputs. Automobiles do not become more useful by becoming smaller. Despite a hundred years of technology improvement, automobiles are essentially the same size and get only slightly better gas mileage as those built 100 years ago. "I see no reason to believe that electric cars would be any exception." I do. Many technologies require MORE energy, material, and labor inputs than the previous technology that they replaced. This has been permitted by the ever growing amount of energy, material, and labor available in the economy. If projections hold true, sometime in the future the amount of energy available in the economy will be declining.

"Because the city has the capacity to collect taxes." I disagree. This is the heart of the problem. The City does NOT have the capacity to collect taxes, or at least they don't have the capacity to collect enough tax revenue dedicated to the streetcar. The City of Cincinnati spends about $1 billion per year. There is ample funding for the streetcar. But instead of building the streetcar, they spend the money on a hundred other things. The City of Cincinnati does not have the political will to divert some of that revenue to the streetcar.

^ Well, if a private operator can't compete, what makes you think that the City of Cincinnati can?

(1) Gas will get more expensive. Yes, but gas getting more expensive does NOT make alternatives get less expensive; in fact, it is more likely to do the opposite. Nearly every good in our economy has a petroleum component in it's production. As petroleum becomes less affordable, nearly every good will also become less affordable, including solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electrical components, etc. (2) Battery technology will get better and become less expensive. It may get better, but may not get less expensive. See (1). (3) Market changes are often sudden. Yes, but they can go in either direction. There are numerous examples of one product or technology putting the previous one out of business. That doesn't necessarily mean that the new one is better, though.

"The Enquirer is a private business. Compete with them by offering a better product." How about compete with them by constructing a privately owned streetcar? (I know, I know, all forms of transportation are subsidized and no private company can afford to build a private streetcar. Or so they say...) :wink: