Eigth and State

Europe has mass transit available pretty much everywhere and their oil and energy use is higher than ours.

Whoa, that looks so strange. Thanks for posting.

^--- As polluted as our waters are now, they are much improved from 50 years ago.

Nice work. Architect Christopher Alexander suggests that no building should be more than one story higher than adjacent buildings. He also suggests a four story limit, so he is obviously not a fan of skyscrapers. Imagine what Over-the-Rhine would look like if the floor area of QCS were replaced with an equal floor area of 4 story buildings on parking lots in Over-the-Rhine! Plus, imagine how many storefronts would be possible! QCS has a one-block perimeter at sidewalk level. An equavalent number of 4-story buildings would have many times that. Just for fun, could you add the Empire State, World Trade Center, John Hancock, or Sears Tower to Cincinnati?

Oil consumption is not reduced by energy efficiency. See the peak oil thread for more.

"Take Chicago for example." If Chicago didn't have it's transit, it would not have such a dense core. It would be completely different. Sure, if the transit disappeared for a day, the motorways would be more congested. But if the transit disappeared for ten years, the city would develop in a different way to adjust, probably by adding more auto-oriented sprawl around the periphery. "They absolutely should impede auto traffic..." I have said that the streetcar should not have to stop for traffic, ever, except to load or unload passengers. It is bad enough that a passenger has to wait through all of the stops. It would be even worse if a passenger has to also wait at traffic lights for cars. In the downtown area, the signals are timed for continuous movement at 25 mph. There's not much that can be done for streetcars without messing up the entire traffic system. In Over-the-Rhine, the traffic control can be modified to give the streetcar right of way, all the time. This will also help automobile traffic, on the north-south streets, but impede traffic on the east-west streets. Fortunately, Walnut and Main do not carry that much automobile traffic, so it's a good fit. The zig-zag route is just senseless: it will cause a lot of traffic conflicts. Vine Street Hill carries moderate traffic. I'm not sure what can be done there. A short tunnel under McMillan and Calhoun would do wonders for the streetcar running times. Realizing that it is expensive, an analysis should be done to compare construction costs to operating costs. Remember, the faster the streetcar is, the more revenue it will collect in fares. A tunnel section here was discussed way back in 1925. Jefferson should be fast running southward in a separate lane, like light rail. There is room for it, and few crossings on the U.C. side. If the route on Short Vine is chosen northward, I'm not sure what can be done there. Traffic is fairly light, but there is all of that angled parking to contend with. Another short tunnel under MLK would do wonders. Traffic there is a mess; the streetcar should not add to traffic, neither should the streetcar stop for traffic. One more thing about the air pollution: "It's still more efficient than internal combustion engines in many different vehicles, and less polluting" The streetcar itself is less polluting than a number of automobiles conveying the equivalent number of passengers, but in order to reduce pollution, the streetcar has to result in fewer automobiles on the road. I don't think that is going to happen. Even if traffic is impeded in Over-the-Rhine, traffic can increase elsewhere. That said, getting the pollution away from where the people are is a legitimate goal. At Knowlton's Corner, a major bus transfer point, might be some of the worst pollution in Cincinnati. All of those buses idling at stops, in addition to so much traffic sitting on Hamilton Avenue, produce a lot of emissions, and those emissions do not disperse very well because they get trapped in a canyon of buildings. At least on I-275 there is room for the wind to disperse the emissions. Adding streetcars to Main Street and taking away some cars will improve air quality on Main Street. Adding streetcars won't improve air quality overall, and won't reduce dependence on foreign oil.

I am just responding to the words "Streetcars Reduce Congestion" in large print earlier in this thread. :-o As I see it, the benefits of the streetcar might include increase mobility, increased development along with increased property value, and renewed interest in city living. :-) The streetcar will NOT reduce congestion, reduce air pollution, or reduce dependence on foreign oil.

The Chicago River is not only channelized, but REVERSED. The equivalent would be reversing the Cuyahoga so that water flows from Lake Erie through the Cuyahoga eventually to the Ohio and Mississippi. Then, Cincinnati would get Cleveland's sewage as well as Pittsburgh's.

"And even more shocking is that despite the size of the city, the water is very clean. " Chicago gets its water supply from Lake Michigan, but discharges its wastewater to the Mississippi via the Chicago River and Illinois River. I can't think of another city in the world that is so well sited in terms of water and wastewater.

Manhattan, Hong Kong, Paris, London, etc. all have very well developed mass transit systems and they are among the most congested places in the world. Plus, automobile traffic is not the only source of congestion. The transit systems themselves can be congested. The benefit of the streetcar is enhanced mobility, not less congestion. "All things being equal, a streetcar reduces congestion." All things are NOT equal. The streetcar proponents cite increased development as the primary benefit of the streetcar. In fact, for the streetcar to work economically, it HAS to result in increased development. Increased development is going to increase congestion, even if the new residents only drive 4000 miles per year.

"Streetcars reduce congestion..." No kidding that for a given number of passengers, streetcars take up less space than automobiles. (Pedestrians would take up even less space than streetcars!) The problem with your assertion is that the number of passengers is NOT constant. The premise of the streetcar is that it will encourage development. Suppose that it increases the population of Over-the-Rhine from ~10,000 to ~50,000. Suppose that some of those ~40,000 additional residents bring their cars. Even if they ride the streetcar most of the time and drive occasionally, that's a lot of cars on the road, not to mention the need for parking. If the streetcar is successful, there will likely be MORE congestion than there is today!

^--- You sure can spin things positively. In my opinion, the streetcar isn't going to reduce automobile traffic. If anything, it will increase it due to development near the streetcar line.

"If you don't count the taxes paid to build and maintain the roadways." The cost of driving DOES include the taxes paid to build and maintain the roadways. The AAA Cost of driving is about $0.55 per mile. This includes depreciation, fuel, repairs, insurance, and license fees. The cost of maintaining the roadways is included in the cost of fuel. If you said that it costs $0.55 per mile to drive, PLUS so many $billions per year for the state to maintain the roads, then you would be counting that cost twice.

We use A LOT of petroleum products in food production. Look at old aerial photos from the 1940's. Besides the lack of sprawl, something that really stands out is the lack of forests. Basically, it takes 1/10 the amount of land today to grow food. Plus, so much agricultural land has been opened up by irrigation in the arid southwest. A lot of farms have become forests, and subdivisions. This is possible partly because of petroleum based chemicals, not to mention mechanized farming. Some pages back, Rob explained that old-fashioned farms were actually more energy-efficient, but with plenty of oil, why worry about energy efficiency?

Depreciation isn't necessarily linear. They say that a car loses half its value when it is driven off the new car lot. If you buy a beater at a low price and get a few thousand miles out of it, chances are that depreciation is almost nothing. If you buy a new car and drive it for 5 years and then sell, depreciation might be your single biggest driving expense.

True, but there is a cost, albeit small, associated with keeping track of energy use. It's easier, for example, to leave the lights on instead of constantly turning them on and off as needed. It's been said that Americans worrying about peak oil is like buying ten times as many groceries as one needs and throwing away 9 parts out of 10. Then again, if you have that much food available, why bother conserving?

I got trapped in traffic due to a crash on Vine Street at McMillan for about 5 minutes today. I was thinking, "If the streetcar were here today, the entire line would be shut down until this wreck is cleared." A short tunnel under McMillan and Calhoun would do wonders for travelling time. I'm not sure how a stop at McMillian to interchange with the cross-town bus would work out.

"With a population of something like 550,000 people, Portland had 19 murders last years. Cincinnati has a population of 350,000, and we had over 80." I told you Cincinnati was different from Portland.

Waste is a matter of opinion. One man's dream vacation to Hawaii is another man's access to a job for an entire year.

Then why don't we see more electric cars today? Electric cars have been around since about 1900. There are certain advantages: they are smooth and quiet. The don't use energy when they aren't moving, as opposed to a gasoline car that idles. They can be charged at night, during off-peak periods. Electric technology is very well developed. I don't believe there is any conspiracy by oil companies to prevent electric car technology. Maybe they don't have enough power to run the heat and A/C? Or the range is just too short? Perhaps they are more expensive? In any case, electric cars are NOT new technology. There must be a reason why they are not more popular NOW. What do you think that reason is?

On page 159 of Raja Rooman's book "Urban growth and the development of an urban sewer system" there is a drawing labeled "Section at N. End Lock 7" which shows a 14' W x 12' H sewer adjacent to an 8' circular raceway. I don't know if that raceway is still there or not, but it was clearly underground in this drawing, which is not dated.

"I think we'll see that in the next 10-20 years, with increasingly rapid adoption after that as fossil fuel prices rise." Today, it is more economical to drive a gasoline-powered car than a hybrid or electric car. A theme of yours is that as fossil fuel prices rise, other forms of technology will become more competitive. You are correct in that they will be more competitive, but at the same time they will be less affordable. It takes fossil fuels to produce solar panels, electrical equipment, and hybrid and electric cars. Today, 150 million Amercians drive. I expect that number to go down. Miles driven more than DOUBLED between 1970 and 2008. No one seemed to notice the difference. If the curve is symmetric about 2008, we will decrease back to 1970 levels by 2046.

Here is a chart from one of the links that Gramarye posted. As an aside, note that vehicle miles driven decreased in 2008, the year that some are claiming is the peak date. The department of energy calculates miles per household instead of miles per driver: In 1988, the per-household average was 18,595 miles, compared with the 21,100 miles averaged in 1994. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/rtecs/chapter3.html

I agree with you that this project would not be as difficult in other cities, or in other countries. The City of Cincinnati tends to make things more complicated than they need to be. On top of that, Cincinnati has a lot of existing infrastructure to work around, and has no recent experience with rail. There is no local contractor that has built a streetcar project in the Cincinnati area in the past 50 years. I also agree with you that it's really not that bad, but I wouldn't call it "easy." The new Ludlow Viaduct built in the 1990's almost got stalled because of a last minute proposal to add bike lanes. I don't know what was there before in Tampa and Portland, but in Tampa the electric utilities seem to be pretty high, and the traffic signals are on masts. On Vine Street the wires are not as high, and the traffic signals are on wires. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=schwartz's+point&sll=39.116127,-84.515398&sspn=0.003746,0.006877&ie=UTF8&radius=0.22&split=1&filter=0&rq=1&ev=p&hq=schwartz's+point&hnear=&ll=39.116335,-84.51676&spn=0,0.006877&z=17&layer=c&cbll=39.116427,-84.51679&panoid=EqQOtoAIg_44SHXkB6db8w&cbp=12,356.91,,0,5