Eigth and State

"The Henry Ford approach to transportation infrastructure." Ha! Do you not know that Henry Ford was the owner of the Detroit, Toledo, and Ironton railroad, which ran across Ohio between its namesake cities? And that Henry Ford was personally involved in the operation of the railroad, which was said to be maintained in an excellent condition? And that Ford himself expected automobiles to be most useful in the country, where public tranportation was less available? And that Ford eventually got out of the railroad industry because he resented the heavy regulations of government?

Theres a joke going around the city today: "What do you get for 148 cops and 169 firemen?" A photo of the visiting streetcar follows. (It wasn't my joke. I'm just sharing infomation.)

"My likely peak earning years." Chances are that you are in your peak earning years right now. :-o

We could paint them pink, with wings. :-D

Ok, as a break from politics for the moment, I was just thinking about a way to get 3-C trains into Cincinnati. We all know that the Mill Creek valley tracks leading to Cincinnati Union Terminal are all congested with freight trains. There is some talk of building a fourth main, but it will not be cheap. The idea of bringing trains to Union Terminal is very popular, though in my humble opinion it isn't very practical. Union Terminal is simply too far from downtown to walk. So, what are the alternatives? Terminate the line in Sharonville? Near Lunken Airport? At a new station near Bond Hill? I like Jake's idea of using the former CH&D on the west side of the Mill Creek Valley. Although it doesn't go to Union Terminal, it has an easy potential connection to the Riverfront Transit Center. The CH&D was of course part of a line from Cincinnati to Toledo, but it has been cut off at Northside. The southernmost part is now operated at the Cincinnati Industrial Track, but it is very lightly used. How to get around the abandoned section hasn't been worked out, but how nice would it be to get all the way to the Transit Center! There is still the question of whether the Transit Center will accomodate a passenger train. I've heard it argued both ways - that it can, and it can't. It was designed to accomodate light rail. It seems to me that the issue is emissions rather than geometry. I still don't know how the 3-C operation is supposed to turn the train around - or if it is going to change directions, but I wonder if it could back into the transit center and avoid the emissions issue? Cincinnati Union Terminal used to have a long concourse that has been demolished to make more room for frieght trains. Only one, or maybe two, of the passenger tracks are still in use by Amtrak. So, here's a wild and crazy idea to make everyone happy: Use the former CH&D tracks on the west side of the Mill Creek to gain access to the Transit Center. Also, build a new stop on the west side of the Mill Creek with a long, covered pedestrian bridge over the rail yard to Cincinnati Union Terminal. Build a moving sidewalk, airport style, if deemed necessary. Use both Union Terminal AND the Transit Center. :-D

I guess it's red on one side and blue on the other so it can be photographed in either color?

"My hope is that when QE2 starts, the weakening dollar will cause a spike in the price of gas..." Be careful what you wish for! Increasing the price of gasoline will not necessarily favor the proposed 3-C line.

Didn't lose my job but lost some friends. Cost of recreational activites including cost of driving to the activities has become prohibitive for some people.

I'm thinking about buying a new digital camera and would like to solicit recommendations. My current one stopped working. Other than being able to spot interesting things and frame a scene, I know little about photography. My old camera was a point-and-shoot model that cost $100. The main use will be to take technical photos at construction sites, mostly outdoors. My old one fit in a little bag that I attached to my belt and carried with me all the time. I liked the fact that it was small. Also, as it has been mentioned on this site before, a small camera attracts less attention, which in turn allows more access, because people tend to get excited when they see big cameras. I tried a little astrophotography once. I purchased a through-the-eyepiece camera mount for my telescope, but it was so flimsy that it took too much time to get the camera focused and keep it from moving. Although the photos turned out okay, I would much prefer a way to attach the camera directly to the telescope. (They make special astrophotography cameras, but I would rather not buy two cameras.) Finally, I post photos to UO, and would like to post more. (Hint: incentive to help me out!) I would prefer to spend less than $500. Would consider a used one, too. Anyone have any ideas to share?

If you work downtown on a 8 to 5 schedule and you live in Cincinnati or the closer suburbs, then I agree with you; there is no reason not to take the bus most of the time. Outside of those locations and hours it is much, much harder.

High street terminates in a landmark in BOTH directions! There is a bend in the road, right downtown. Going east, the street view terminates at the county courthouse. Going west, the view terminates at the soldiers and sailors monument. Yet, the street itself is not interupted. This is a remarkable pattern. Compare to Indianapolis and many other cities with a single monument at the center, but no through streets.

In Hamilton County, a HUGE number of jobs are in the Evendale / Sharonville / Woodlawn / Blue Ash area, which is pretty much inaccessible by bus.

"Anyone with an 8-5 job should be taking the bus." Tell that to the half a million workers who don't have jobs on the bus line. Only 14% of jobs in Hamilton County are downtown.

Very dense! Thanks for posting!

"Look, the streetcar is happening." I'm not trying to stop it. :-)

This is what I mean by re-tooling the Metro routes. Some routes, or portions of routes, are running empty buses or nearly empty buses. Some other routes are overloaded. From my own experience, some routes way out in the suburbs are underutilized. This make sense, for after all, who wants to take a 40 minute ride and sit through 30 stops while it takes 20 minutes to drive? On the other hand, some routes in the city are overcrowded. I've seen the 17 turn away riders at Clifton and Ludlow because there was no room for more passengers. The solution is obviously to shorten the suburban routes and double up on the urban routes. Another thing that can be adjusted is the fares. If the bus is crowded, the fares should be raised. The good workers at Queen City Metro understand these things, but they don't implement changes due to political reasons. From a cursory knowledge of their overall routes and schedules, it seems that their goal is to maximize coverage within the city. A planner at Metro told me that Metro paid someone to follow a bus in a car, and only one passenger rode the bus on the entire route. Yet when Metro tried to cut that bus route, that one passenger rose such a fuss that City Council (who doesn't control the bus company directly but has a major influence) refused to cancel the service. Whoever funds the system gets to call the shots. It is said that no municipal bus service in the country turns a profit, but even so, Queen City Metro should try to get closer to being profitable. It does not benefit anyone to drive empty buses around. Sadly, I don't have a whole lot of confidence in the City being able to make a business decision.

"I'm not sure what exactly "addressing public housing" means." Do away with it! Public housing is a drain on the local economy. This is a topic for another thread, though.

"Here are several hundred pages of studies and reports..." I appreciate the information, and there is a lot of good data and opinion in those reports. However, it must be remembered that reports by consultants usually favor the concept proposed by the owner. No consultant is going to say, "Sorry, the numbers don't show a good case for your project" and stay in business. It all comes back to the assumptions used in the study. The projected ridership for the streetcar is quite frankly mediocre, at least at first. To get the full benefit, OTR needs to be redeveloped. A streetcar alone isn't going to redevelop OTR. We also need a strong local economy. Building the streetcar AND following policies that promote a strong local economy might succeed in Over-the-Rhine. However, at the same time that the City Manager is promoting the streetcar, there is also talk about raising taxes to cover city pensions. These two movements are in opposition to eacy other. Tax reform in my opinion is just as important or more important to local business than the streetcar. However, tax reform doesn't get much media attention, because you can't take a photo of it. I don't think that development in OTR is limited by lack of a streetcar at this time. I wish Thomas and others could devote as much energy to other reforms.

"Can you tell me which parts of the city of Cincinnati you consider suburbs that are being subsidized for their sprawl" By definition, any part that consumes more resources than it contributes. It is difficult to untangle all of the interactions between government agencies and utilities, but I think anyone on this board is smart enough to tell the difference by looking. An occupied 3 story house on a 25 foot wide lot on a narrow street probably pays for it's own infrastructure in property taxes and utility fees. A McMansion on a 100 foot wide street uses 4 times the infrastructure but doesn't contribute 4 times the cost. A vacant lot contributes nothing. Subsidized housing contributes nothing and draws even more services from the city. A lot of this sprawl is outside of the incorporated boundary of Cincinnati but Cincinnati still contributes resources in the form of sewer and water lines, police protection and fire protection, parks, Metro bus service, and so on.

"What do you suggest Cincinnati do to revitalize and repopulate its core?" I have stated these things in the past on this very forum, but since you asked, To revitalize the core, Cincinnati needs to stop subdizing sprawl on the periphery, overhaul the Queen City Metro routes and fares, address the drug / crime / poor school problem, reduce taxes, address public housing, etc. I realize that Cincinnati suffers from the same problems as every other American city, and that some of these things are out of Cincinnati's direct control. For example, immigration policy is a federal policy, and Cincinnati has no control over it other than the fact that the Cincinnati area has a couple members of the House of Representatives. On the other hand, there is a lot that Cincinnati DOES control. Yet, Cincinnati often does the WRONG thing. For example, Cincinnati Water Works continues to expand service well outside of the core. Cincinnati has a controlling interest in Queen City Metro yet continues to run a poor service (No offense to the Queen City Metro workers.) Cincinnati has lots of programs targeted toward low income people, which are well-intentioned, but not good for business. Cincinnati's high taxes drive businesses away. I see the Streetcar as a pet project. While there's nothing necessariy wrong with a pet project, it doesn't necessarily make business sense, either. I have my doubts as to whether the streetcar is going to make such a big difference as it is given credit for. Sure, a few urban fans will move to OTR because of the streetcar. But in the meantime, how many residents will Cincinnati lose in other areas? "Every couple of weeks it seems like you have found the key reason..." Just trying to keep the forum interesting. :-)

"So why does the absence of an UGB matter as a predictor of the success of the Cincinnati Streetcar?" The bottom line is that the Cincinnati core is becoming less dense. The City of Cincinnati had a population of ~500,000 in 1955 and has ~300,000 today, a loss of ~200,000 or 40%. How much of that population movement can be attributed to government policies such as zoning, highway construction, UGB, etc. is debatable, but it is undeniable that government policies at all levels in the Cincinnati area favor development in the suburbs rather than the core. Yes, the streetcar is an effort to turn that trend around, but if OKI funds ten highway projects in the suburbs for every one project that Cincinnati funds in the core, then Cincinnati is fighting a losing battle. Portland's population is growing at 7%. Cincinnati's is growing at 0.5%. (City-data.com.) That difference is HUGE! Now I know some of the streetcar proponents think that this growth rate is DUE to the streetcar, but I suspect that Portland would have sustained most of this growth without a streetcar. Portland is able to grow mainly with foreign immigration, which Cincinnati lacks. So, in my humble opinion, the absolute density figure is not as important as whether that figure is rising or declining.

"And yet, would you rather live in 1970 or today, all things considered?" Sure, we have cell phones, but opportunities for growth were greater in 1970. The rate of growth was higher. "I think we are all waiting for the Economists, Media, and general public to come around to our realization that 1945-1975 was the exception, not the rule." Agreed.

"A demonstrably positive return on investment..." The streetcar project is not guaranteed to be a success. It is very well possible that if it is built, it attracts only a modest ridership, and never gets extended to uptown. On the other hand, it could be a fantastic success. It is said that borrowing money makes a good business better, but it makes a bad business worse. In the event that the project get built but it does NOT attract new development, then the City of Cincinnati will have more infrastructure to maintain. The trends in Cincinnati are not good; transit ridership is down, even though it is up in most parts of the country. The good news is that Over-the-Rhine is finally starting to look up, after so many years of neglect. Is this the start of something new, or too little too late? I don't know. As for "demonstrably positive," I'm not sure how one would demonstrate it other than actually building it. Sure, the streetcars have done allright in Portland, but Portland has done allright anyway. Portland also has an urban boundary policy, which tends to focus development on the core, as well as a high amount of foreign immigration. By contrast, Cincinnati, at least on a metro level, has a suburban expansion policy. Plus, you can't really make a fair demonstration of any system built in the 1990's. The 1990's were boom times for residential developers, whether it be suburban subdivisions or urban infill. Today, there is an awful lot of vacant property across the board. Please don't get too excited about the issue of manholes being 10' from the centerline. This is one of many details that is supposed to be worked out during design. I am confident that some clever engineer can find a solution. I am less confident that the clever engineer will have the proper support from politicians. 90% of so-called engineering failures are not technical in nature, but are the result of human factors such as miscommunication. "Cincinnati is not some distant world..." No, but Cincinnati truely is different. There was once a time when city governments were more important than state governments. Cincinnati used to have it's own building code, and it's own way of doing things. In time, states developed statewide building codes, and even groups of states banded together to enact common policies. While Cincinnati has succombed to some of this, Cincinnati still remains fiercely independent. Why, Cincinnati still uses the "City supplement" to O.D.O.T. specifications for highway work. At least Cincinnati isn't as territorial as Philidelphia, which uses a different length of foot as a unit of measure than everyone else. (100 feet in Philidelphia is the same length as 100 feet, 4 inches everywhere else.) I hope for the best, but I find it hard to get too optimistic about the streetcar.

"You've repeatedly gotten hung up on some technical detail of this project and not seen the big picture." The big picture is that governments at all levels are facing stagnant or declining budgets. The proponents of the streetcar are overly optimistic with regard to costs and budgets. If some sponsor, whether is be the City of Cincinnati or anyone else, had come in with a project estimate of $120 million for the Over-the-Rhine loop, and a healthy budget of $200 million, I would be less concerned about it. When the project grows to include the uptown loop, the various grants are iffy, and the budget was tight to start with, then bad things can happen.

Furthermore, there is a fear of the unknown in Cincinnati. Portland has a lot of experience with rail transit. Cincinnati does not (as least not in the last 50 years.) It is going to be more difficult to build a new streetcar in Cincinnati than it will to build the same streetcar in Portland just because of the lack of experience. No local contractor in Cincinnati has ever built a streetcar.