Eigth and State

KJP: "How about these European freight trains? Think they belong in the mix with passenger trains?" European freight trains are fast and light, more like passenger trains. Almost all of them are electric, too. There is no comparison. No one does freight trains like the Americans. They are the longest and heaviest trains anywhere. I didn't say that freight trains and passenger trains couldn't share tracks. They can. And I know that yard tracks carry slow traffic and take a lot of abuse. What I said is that ideally passenger trains and freight trains should travel on separate tracks. There are two reasons for this: 1. Accidents on passenger trains are unacceptable, and the track must be maintained in excellent condition. High Speed tracks cannot take the abuse of heavy freight trains. 2. Fast passenger traffic and slow freight traffic do not mix well. Japan purchased a lot of expensive urban property to build from scratch tracks for their bullet trains. Of course, conditions are different there. The fastest trains in Europe travel on separate tracks. The situation we have is less than ideal. That doesn't mean we shouldn't build it or that it is a bad plan. "Since we are so far behind the rest of the developed world (and now the developing world) when it comes to passenger rail..." Chill, dude. We have ALWAYS been behind Europe in transportation technology. (Ohio has been settled by Europeans for barely 200 years!) Americans are culturally less social than Europeans too. It's OK to look at the technology available in Europe and use it as an example of what could happen here, but the differences between America and Europe are vast. It is fair to say that we CANNOT successfully superimpose the European passenger rail system on top of America without changing everything else. If we are going to successfully build the 3-C, it has to be on it's own merit. It will not work just because passenger rail works in Europe.

^--- One that we cannot afford. There is an active plan to spend $2 billion over the next 20 years for sewers - and Hamilton County is resisting it every step of the way.

Excellent! Thanks for posting. Some more Falls of the Ohio State Park photos are in this thread. http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,19702.0.html

Ideally, passenger trains and freight trains should operate on separate tracks. Notice the wear on the track in the foreground. Derailment in Cincinnati near Hopple Street Viaduct Photo by Erik Landrum

"I think the most obvious riders are college students." Even more so if there are stops or at least connections to the universities.

There have been 5 homicides in the last 5 days, not counting the shooting in Price Hill. If they are related, I think it's related to weather. More people are spending time outside because the weather is good, and they come in contact with each other more. They say that bad weather is the policeman's friend.

^---"It's the speed that's determined by engineers based on what the geometry can handle." The legal speed is set by state law. It is somewhat related to geometry; the speed limit for a street in a business district is less than that on an interstate. Still, there are a lot of inconsistencies. Residential streets that are designed for 40mph are still 25 mph; school zones are 20 mph regardless of conditions, and some school zones are inappropriately slow. The interstates were designed for 75 mph based on geometry. Some county roads are designed to a higher standard then some state routes. Of course, a speed limit that isn't enforced isn't really a limit. On a typical highway, 90% of the drivers go faster than the speed limit and are technically breaking the law. 90 mph seems to be about the most practical speed limit for safe driving provided that the geometry allows it. Anything higher than that wastes excessive energy due to air resistance. High speed rail can go significantly faster than that due to a low coefficient of drag.

People do want curbside storefronts and the like. The problem is that given the current legal requirements of zoning, it is easier to preserve an old one under the "historic" designation than it is to construct a new one.

Looks sort of European. In some ways, the state lines are just political hassles. Our economies are based on cities and their metro areas.

Just wondering, Does the 25 months count planning, design, right-of-way acquisition, construction, and testing? Or just construction? And was this their first line? I admit that I don't know much about the vehicles, but I assume it takes some time between order and delivery. Cincinnati could order the vehicles early, before construction starts, for delivery in 2012, but I don't know what the duration is. In my humble opinion, the finish date of 2012 is very aggressive. Certainly it's not impossible, but optimistic, especially if the design work hasn't even started yet.

^---"I have yet to encounter an argument as to why "historic" is somehow a good thing". "Historic" is not necessarily good just because it is old. However, consider that when automobiles began to dominate the built environment, the ability to walk around in neighborhoods was lost. A few "historic" neighborhoods remain, and a few reproductions have been built. These neighborhoods are often more comfortable for pedestrians than new ones. Take the proposed Northside Walgreens for example. Walgreens proposed to build a new store complete with parking lot on a vacant lot on Hamilton Avenue. Residents opposed it. What they objected to was not the store itself, but the curb cuts. Residents did not want cars crossing the sidewalk. Northside is a "historic" neighborhood. The benefit isn't that the buildings are old; the benefit is that the neighborhood is walkable. Most of the buildings in Northside would be illegal today in most places in Ohio because of minimum setbacks, minimum parking requirements, etc., all developments that came with zoning and design of the built environment around cars.

^---"To my knowledge, there is no project schedule." "Seriously, this sounds like some John Cranley nonsense." I'm just being honest. If there is a schedule, I don't know about it. The only thing I know is that according to John Schneider, the streetcar is supposed to be running in fall of 2012. He refers to the City of Cincinnati. The City of Cincinnati publishes completion dates for projects all the time. Back around 1994, the Enquirer reported that the City of Cincinnati's Department of Transportation number one priority project was to replace the Waldvogal Viaduct. It still hasn't been replaced. The city lists funds in the Capital Improvemtments Plan for projects that have never gotten built. I don't mean to blame the fine people who work for the city - there's a situation in place that encourages games like this. So, judging from experience, just becase the city says that the project will be complete in 2012 does not mean that there is an active plan to actually do it. The construction drawings for this project will likely include hundreds of sheets. It is no small task to prepare the drawings, and this process could take 2 years, and that doesn't even include any construction. I realize that there are people on this board who might have inside information. I also realize that they might not want to share it on this board. Still, it would make me feel better to know that someone is actually working on this project other than fishing for funding. I can deal with the fact that this project has strong support even though we don't have a real plan yet. I don't feel as comfortable with a finish date without having a real start date.

I meant, "is there a project schedule?" not a route schedule. The project schedule will have a notice to proceed with mapping and design, an anticipated bid date and start of construction date, and an anticipated finish date. Some project schedules are more detailed than others, but at a bare minimum it has to have a starting date. A single completion date is not a schedule. To my knowledge, there is no project schedule. I apreciate listing the links. However, I have already seen those. A feasibility study or a map with lines on it is a start, but if that's the best we have, we still don't have a plan. Assuming that this project gets built eventually, we are still a long way off. In my humble opinion, fall of 2012 is very agreesive.

^Is there an official plan by the City of Cincinnati? May I see it? Is there actually a schedule?

"They have been saying an opening by September 2012, and I haven't heard anything different." Who is? Is there some kind of official plan behind the scenes that I am not aware of? That's just 2.5 years for mapping, design, relocation of utilities, right of way acquisition, construction, testing, and then opening. That is a very agressive schedule. Has an official schedule been published?

Sometimes I just have to spell it out. :-)

"Then Christ Hospital would be the the tallest because of elevation..." You missed my point. "Tall" refers to the distance from the ground to the top of the structure. "High" refers to elevation. "Tallest" is not the same as "Highest." Any of the radio towers are much, much higher than the top of the Carew Tower or QCS.

Figure at least a year and probably two or three for design. Just preparing a map of the existing utilities will typically take half a year or more.

The old inclines had to be counter-balanced, with one streetcar going up at the same time another one was going down. This would add operational complexity and travel time, since one car would probably be waiting for the other. It also required cross-overs at each end of the incline, so that the incline wouldn't have to travel empty. I won't say it's not do-able, but an incline would not be preferred.

I went to the observation deck of the Carew tower 3 weeks ago and sighted a level line to QCS. The top of the railing of the obsevation deck was still higher than the highest part of QCS other than the crane at that time. The tiara of course will increase the height of QCS to well above the roof of the Carew Tower, but according to my calculation not above the flagpole. (This would be fun to verify when QCS is finished.) The top of the Carew tower will still be the highest point occupied by people. It's kind of a shame that QCS will not have an obervation deck, at least that I know of. The Carew not only has an observation deck, but has an OPEN observation deck. The top of the Carew Tower is a special place. For the first time ever, it will not have a 360 degree view of the horizon - yet neither will QCS, since the highest floor is lower than the Carew Tower. For the record, I am not the wag that suggested that that the Carew Tower will remain the tallest because of the flagpole. "Tallest" refers to vertical distance measured from the ground. "Highest" refers to vertical distance measured from some common datum.

"I think an experiment in which one part of a city was given largely to market forces..." Consider Whitewater Township near Cincinnati. It is the only part of Hamilton County without zoning. Whitewater township has a lot of gravel pits, auto parts salvage yards, landfills, trailer parks, lumber yards, and a lot of medium to heavy industry. Officials have tried to establish zoning many times but it has always been rejected by business interests who are wary of excess regulation. One could perhaps say that Whitewater township IS zoned - it is zoned to allow all of the uses that are prohibited in the rest of Hamilton County. Thus, an experiment in which one part of the city isn't zoned might not really be a good experiment. A fair experiment would have anentire city unzoned.

Speaking of experiments, consider large institutional land users such as hospitals, universities, airports, shopping malls, etc. While they are still bound by the underlying zoning, they are less restricted than other users. A typical residential subdivision is controlled by zoning principally in this way: minimum street widths, minimum street curve radius, minimum frontage, minimum lot size, maximum building height, sometimes minimum building size, and prohibition of any other use other than single family residential. It's no wonder that all subdivisions look the same because they are all designed with the same geometry. Universities might be the least regulated, and just look at the results: A mix of building types including skyscrapers, pedestrian-only streets, lots of public green space and park-like areas, both narrow paths and wide avenues, mixed uses including retail and residential, parking garages, and usually good pedestrian access throughout.

Hey guys - thanks for the lively discussion. What's the projected operating cost per year of the 3-C again?

Congrats.

"Why this focus on buses, especially from someone who is so interested in speed?" Look at it from the Reagan perspective. Ronald Reagan once criticised a new mass transit line, in L.A., I believe, by dividing the construction cost by the number of daily riders. "It would have been cheaper for the government to buy each one a limo." Are there flaws in his argument? of course. The limo doesn't drive on air; the highway is funded with public money. Still, the basic person isn't an infrastructure nerd and doesn't know the difference. Are you not surprised that based on the calculations I presented that Ohio could initiate a new bus service with 33 departures per day for just $12 million a year? Yea, Yea, I know "never send a bus to do a train's job." Trains are definitely more comfortable. But hey, I'd take the bus to Cleveland. So what do you say to the politician who says, "It would be cheaper to initiate a new bus service?"