Eigth and State

Some historic Cincinnati West Side streetcar photos Eighth Street Elberon Queen City Sometimes I wonder what the advantage of modern streetcars over historic streetcars really is. ADA compliance? Capacity? Energy Efficiency? Abilty to carry luggage and bicycles? I am dissapointed that the ability to climb hills and make sharp turns is apparently NOT an advantage of modern streetcars.

I don't see the advantage of building rail parallel to an interstate, especially when the interstate is not normally congested. I-74 inbound backs up for maybe an hour in the morning rush each business day, and it already had decent bus service to downtown. In fact, I think the 74 bus from North Bend might be the most successful bus route in the entire system from the passenger's point of view. The bus commonly picks up 20 people - half of the bus capacity - at one stop at the West Fork Road park and ride - and takes them downtown at 60 mph with no additional stops. The only way that Light Rail is really going to improve this is a more comfortable ride and a little speed during the morning rush, since buses get stuck in traffic too.

"From time-to-time, I read where MetroMoves didn't have a viable plan of serving the West Side with light rail. That's untrue. It's was a suburban-oriented plan, and a lot of people objected to that, but it would have performed very well. It would have been third in line to be built after I-71 and I-75." You just proved my point. The I-74 line would have been built after the I-71 and I-75 lines. Using the stadium analogy, voters were promised a football stadium, a baseball stadium, and a new jail. They built a football stadium, a baseball stadium, and whoops, we ran out of money to build the jail. West Siders were certain that the I-74 line would never be built. Plus, West Siders don't really have a reason to go to Oakley.

"West Side/East Side stereotypes have nothing to do with the streetcar." I disagree. If we are going to use public money to build the streetcar, the streetcar is going to be a politcal issues whether we like it or not. The West Side is an example of strange politics. The West Side, as a percentage of Hamilton County, has only 20% or so of the population. Yet, because West Siders have a high voting percentage and conservative political views, the West Side can often control the outcome of an election. Steve Driehaus and Steve Chabot are both West-Siders. Bill Seitz, state representative, is a West-Sider. Some of these politicians are decidedely anti-city, even though many of their constituents live withing the City of Cincinnati municiple limits. Don't look to Bill Seitz for state funding for the Over-the-Rhine loop. Quite frankly, politicians who are not from the West Side mostly ignore the West Side, and vice versa. When the Metro Moves plan was proposed, west-siders knew that no one really intended to build light rail to the west side, but instead it was put in the plan just to get votes. The stadium vote failed in the west side about 3 to 1. In Green Township in particular, the democrats fail to field a serious candidate for trustee in most elections. The Republicans have been in control there for many, many years. And if you think that Green Township is out in the boonies, please note that Ohio's largest township by population is going to be a race between Colerain, Green, and West Chester in the 2010 Census, with each one having about 60,000. Am I leaning off-topic? Maybe. But saying that east-west sterotypes having nothing to do with it is clearly a mistake.

" I doubt that it was ever that high for maybe anything but a rare gusher." The 600% figure was quoted from a book published in 1913. Maybe they calculated returns differently, but the context was that they were looking at 600 to 1, and yes, there was at least one well in Ohio that paid off that amount. Ohio along with Indiana an Pennsylvania was once the oil producing capital of the world, before oil was discovered in Texas, Oklahoma, Saudi Arabia, Alaska, Nigeria, etc. I think this says a lot about why Ohio is in the economic condition that it is in.

West siders are more likely to be west side lifers.

Cultural experience? Please tell.

^---- It depends on who you are. If you are a manufacturer of soap, and population is increasing, you have the potential to increase sales simply by letting your market expand by default. If population is declining, it will be harder to expand your market. This also applies to every demographic segment. If your product is targeted to 5 year old children, your potential market will vary with the number of 5 year old children. Of course, the average income of your target demographic is important, too. Rich people will probably buy more soap than poor people. Population is just one component of the economy.

Gramerye, thanks for taking the time to read Hubbert's presentation. What I found most interesting is the discussion of the sharp decline in growth rates around 1910. For most of the 1700's and 1800's, America was growing by up to 10% by any measure - economic output, pig iron production, and population. After 1910, growth had slowed. America was still growing, but the rate of growth had slowed. "We think of the 1920's as a boom period, but we would have grown even more had not this event taken place." Also, "This was a major event in American industrial history, yet we are scarcely aware that it had happened." I have a feeling that the same will happen with peak oil. Of all the energy inputs we have today - solar, geothermal, petroleum, coal, nuclear - we have chosen to develop petroleum because it was easiest to get. When the petroleum is depleted, we may develop the others to a greater extent. However, I don't think the payoff is there for the others. Some of the early oil wells in Ohio paid off 600%. That is, if you invested 1 dollar, you got back 600. In terms of energy use, it took one barrel of oil to get 600 barrels. Suppose that it takes 1 unit of energy to get 1 unit of energy from photovoltaic cells. The payoff is zero. Ok, maybe in the future it will take 1 unit of energy to get 10 units. At least solar energy would support itself, but it's still not anywhere close to the growth rate that we got from petroleum. If somehow we manage to get photovoltaics to grow at 5% a year, but at the same time petroleum declines by 10% a year, that is a net loss. I bought a new clothes washing machine last year. It uses about half the energy that my old one did. How can it do the same work with just half of the energy inputs? It is more efficient because it wastes less energy. My old one had one big motor with a system of linkages and electromagnetic switches that varied the process between agitating, spinning, pumping, etc. My new one has one smaller motor that is controlled electronically. There are few moving parts, less friction, and a more controlled process. So, for a given amount of energy, I can now do twice the work. That represents a doubling of capacity in about 30 years. Compare to 1920, when capacity was doubled in about 10 years due to development of additional sources of energy.

If you can find something that has been superceded since 1974, please let me know.

^--- We all do.

Domestic migration is hard to track. Say a young couple has kids in a small town, and the kids grow up, go to college, and find jobs in a larger city. The birth is counted in the small town, but the kids end up in the suburb of a metropolitan area. Maybe Lexington and Louisville are getting domestic migration from more rural parts of Kentucky? And Cincinnati and Columbus are getting them from southeast Ohio?

For Gramarye: Here's a good presentation of Peak Oil topics including a discussion on how the interest rate is related to industrial production. Please allow several hours to take it all in, and let me know what you think about it. http://www.oilcrisis.com/hubbert/growth/ P.S. Please don't be alarmed by the word "crisis" in the URL.

Interesting that Pittsburgh has such a good reputation and yet shows such a decline. As a general trend, it looks like the farther south and west you go, the greater the population increase. Dayton is the odd one.

I think I have a relatively good understanding of the plan, though I don't know as much about it as KJP. At the same time, I think that there are folks on this board who have their own ideas of what they would like to see, and think that they can influence the plan. For example, some want to see passenger trains at Union Terminal in Cincinnati. That was simply not part of the Quick Start plan, at least not now. That doesn't mean that they are stupid; it just means that they like to be engaged in the discussion. Furthermore, there is enough discussion on this board about alternatives that sometimes it's easy to lose track of what the plan really is. Then there's KJP... It's all good. :-)

"I find it mindboggling people don't get what is trying to be done." I am not surprised. The average Ohioan does not follow UrbanOhio. He doesn't know much about railroads, he doesn't understand the difference betweek peak velocity and average velocity, and chances are, if he's from Cincinnati he's never even been to Cleveland and vice versa. Furthermore, he doesn't follow state politics, and he has no idea what it costs to build and maintain a highway. For that matter, he doesn't even know what he's spending to fund his own car, and anyway, if he's making payments on his car he sees no reason to make payments on a train on top of that. Chances are, he's never been to Europe to see the high-speed rail there. (Less than 50% of Americans have passports.) Chances are, he's never ridden a real passenger train in his entire life. If he's from Cleveland, he has some experience with the Rapid, but if he's from Cincinnati he doesn't know the difference between high-speed rail and light rail. He's disappointed with Obama, even if he voted for Obama, and he associated the 3-C with another failed government program. In short, he cannot imagine what the 3-C will be like. He sees KJP and other rail supporters as a bunch of activists. What he needs is renderings, photos of passenger rail in other places, and above all, personel experience, either directly or second-hand. With all respect to KJP, the message still hasn't gotten out effectively. It's not mind-boggling at all, really. Hey, there's people on this board who don't get what is trying to be done.

If it doesn't go well, then the feds are out $400 million and Ohio is stuck with an underutilized passenger railroad to maintain or abandon. There is no guarantee that this will pay off.

Good or bad, declining birth rates are a fact of life. You might as well get used to it.

High Speed Rail in Ohio will require new right of way in many places, new grade separations, new signalling, and new track. We can obviously not afford to do all of that for $400 million. Some other things that HSR requires are a market for HSR, which may be facilitated by better connections to the stations, high density development around the stations, and above all, support of the people. If all goes well, the Quick Start plan will lead to development of better connections, high density development around the stations, and support of the people. This could take 20 years, "Quick" being a relative term.

"Show me a healthy country with a population that is actually decreasing. You really have to wonder about a country in which no one wants to have a child." Japan is becoming a country with decreasing population. Italy is close. England, France, Germany, Canada, and Austrailia have decreasing native populations but the overall population is growning due to immigrants and their children. The World Health Organization (WHO) makes global population estimates. Years ago, a few countries that had very low growth rates or declining population were considered anomalys - something strange must be going on there. Since then, more and more countries are reaching peak population, or are projected to in the near future. Birth rates are declining worldwide. Whether these countries are "healthy" or not is your opinion. The fact is that birth rates are dropping worldwide, and the developed countries generally have the lowest birth rates. 123 countries have birth rates higher than the commonly accepted replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. 100 countries have birth rates lower than 2.1. As of 2009, the United States is at 2.05, just a tad under replacement levels. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html

"What can be done about these murders?!" There's another thread for this, but since the police will tell you that 90% of the crime is drug-related, I think the best policy will have to take on the drug problem. There may not be anything we can do to stop people from abusing drugs. However, there IS something we can do to stop the violent distributions of drugs: legalize the sale of drugs. Of course, this is controversial, because it sends the message that drug use is acceptable. Still, the reason why people are willing to break the law to deal in drugs is because the profits are so high. You don't see much crime associated with illegal sale of tobacco. More police, more jail space, or higher penalties for drug infraction is NOT the answer. All of that just drives drug prices even higher.

"Just yesterday morning I walked down vine st. and up ahead of me a group of about 15 black "loiterers" were just standing around occupying space on the sidewalk and talking to each other." True story: (This was over 10 years ago.) Was bicycling through Winton Place and came across about 30 people, all black, standing on the sidewalk farily close to each other and NOT talking or having any obvious reason to be there. Something didn't look right. I turned around and got out of there. This was one of the rare times that I did not feel safe in Cincinnati. I saw on the news that night that there was a drive-by shooting at that very spot within an hour or two. It's necessary to use good judgement. Statistically, most murders and other violence occurs between people who know each other, rather than between strangers. There are a few random acts of violence. Still, you don't want to get caught in the crossfire. For the record, I am generally comfortable in Over-the-Rhine in the daytime.

"I don't want to get bogged down in these tit-for-tat exchanges with the highway lobby through their third-party mercenaries in the GOP or sympathetic media types." KJP, you crack me up sometimes. That's like saying "I don't want to criticize my stupid, illiterate, lazy friend here."

"Is it set in stone that the viaduct is going to be replaced?" No. I am not sure that we can afford to replace it if we wanted to.

Went to an OKI meeting and someone brought up the point that you can't get from the Colerain Township area to the U.C. area easily without getting on I-75. The easiest way to get across the valley is on I-74, whether you come from North Bend, Montana, or Colerain. The trouble with I-74 is that you can't easily cross I-75 without getting on it. If you get off at Central Parkway, you have to go south and can't get to Ludlow. If you get off at Hopple, you have to make an awkward left turn and pass through one of the busiest intersections in Cincinnati at Hopple and Central Parkway. You can't get off at Harrison and turn left to get to MickMillan. If the U.C. area is Cincinnati's second largest employer after downtown, and Colerain township has 50,000+ people, I have to imagine that a significant number of Colerain folks are trying to get to the U.C. area, and many of them are contributing to the traffic at Hopple when they don't need to be. I counted that between downtown Cincinnati and the Butler County line, there are 36 roads that cross I-75 and 18 of them are interchanges. For east-west traffic in Cincinnati, I-75 might as well be a river with 36 bridges. The east-west traffic is contributing to all of the congestion at the interchanges, especially Hopple and Mitchell. Sometimes, as in the case of travelling from Colerain Township to U.C., the easiest way to cross I-75 is to actually get on the interstate. It is my opinion that a few more crossings would clear up some traffic at a better cost than adding lanes.