Eigth and State

In my humble opinion the 3-C quick start plan has not been sold as a step to high-speed rail in the future. "The 3-C quick start plan is the first step in the process to bring high speed rail to Ohio by 2030" or something like that is all that needs to be said. Instead, I am hearing "The quick start plan will bring 47 mph passenger rail to Sharonville and create hundreds of new jobs." Other than what I see on this board, I haven't come across any mention of future high speed rail.

"In 1993, only 28.8% of U.S. households reported that they had satisfactory public transportation available.." The other 71.2% probably lives in suburbs. They don't have public transportation available because they choose not to. The issue here with the 3-C is not a competition to see which mode is better, no matter how you measure it. The issue is how to choose between alternatives. One alternative is to build the 3-C line. Another alternative is to build nothing and continue with everything the way it is. The default alternative is to build nothing. There are some that say, "Doing nothing is not an alternative." Well, yes it is. A third alternative is to initiate a motorcoach service with 33 departures per day. I presented a cost estimate to do just that. I didn't get much response, but the cost estimate at least at a very preliminary level was quite favorable compared to constucting the 3-C line. In fact, I kind of surprised myself, and now I am leaning against the 3-C. As I see it, the main benefit of the 3-C lies in future enhancements to high-speed service and improved future connections. There is almost no immediate benefit when compared to new motorcoach service. So far, I am not convinced by the talking points, and I follow railroading. What do you say to the typical Ohio taxpayer who knows hardly anything about it?

^---No, automobile travel is not the only option available. People have choices where they can work, sleep, and shop, and had even more choices in the past. Folks who live in the suburbs where public transportation is not available chose to live there. They can move to the city if they want to. In Cincinnati, 30,000 people ride the bus every day. There are options.

"These are the top four travel priorities listed in order: 1. Low fares 2. Frequency of departures 3. Reliability 4. Speed" Then why is automobile transportion, which often the highest cost option, so popular? The typical American pays 20% or more of his income on automobile transportation! This is a loaded question, anyway, because "Frequency of Departure" and "Speed" are two components of travel time.

"At the Cincinnnati neighbhorhood summit, they asked 3 groups of Cincinnatians (total respondants were probably around 200-300) about what matter most to them in terms of transportation: Travel Time, Safety, or Accessibility. The results were: Accessibility- 53% Saftey- 33% Travel Time- 14%" Were they asked how they got to the neighborhood summit? I bet most of them drove automobiles, which probably minimized their travel time.

"Adding more trains/departures ... causes ridership to increase more quickly than travel time reductions." Umm, adding more trains / departures IS a travel time reduction. The passenger doesn't want to wait until the next bus. He wants to leave NOW. Travel time from the passenger's point of view is the amount of time expired between NOW and the time he gets to the destination, not the amount of time actually moving. This is why automobiles are hard to beat.

"They will learn that low cost is more important than speed." I disagree with this. People drive to save time, and they pay a premium for the abiity to drive.

"400 million in federal funds will create 399 good-paying jobs..." What would you say if someone pointed out that not one of the talking points gives an individual a reason to take the train versus driving? Suppose I don't care how many jobs it creates or what it costs. I just want to go to Cleveland. I can get in my car this minute and drive there in about 5 hours, or I can drive to Sharonville or CUT or wherever and wait for the next train. People drive cars to save time, period.

"There was never any effort by the city to keep anyone from building anything taller" Yes there was. There was a city ordinance that kept any building from being taller than the Carew Tower. The ordinance has expired. There were also ordinances to keep interurbans away from downtown, one to keep the Suspension Bridge from lining up with Vine Street, and all kinds of other nonsense. Sometimes government is used to stifle the competition. The real reason why the Carew Tower has been our tallest for so long is that it was built extraordinarly tall for the economy at the time. New York's Empire State was similar.

^---- You're the one pushing rail.

Oh come on. First paid professional fire department First professional baseball team Longest bridge in the world for 20 years Tallest skyscraper in the world excluding New York City First water works with activated carbon filtration Cincinnati is NOT behind the curve in everything. Cincinnati DOES tend to be conservative. I think this is because manufacturing is a prominent part of the economy, and manufacturing is conservative in nature.

More renderings are available here: http://www.usembassy.org.uk/new_embassy/new_embassy5.html "I thought that was the obvious psychological reaction to the word 'moat'" What can I say? The proposed building is surrounded by a real, honest to goodness moat. The purpose of the moat is to hinder attacks from the ground. In the old days, castle moats hindered siege engines such as battering rams, attack towers, and the like. I'm sure what they had in mind for this building was vehicle bombs. Not only is there a moat, but there is an embankment, too, and a bridge over the moat. This building was designed to withstand an attack! It really is a castle. "The US is a slave to terror and fear" After Beirut and Oklahoma City, how would you design an embassy?

Half a million dollars each for, say, 50 motorcoaches = $25 million dollars. Replace them on a 10 year cycle, and you have $25 million dollars/10 years = $2.5 million per year just for vehicles. Figure one trip each way per driver per day (not sure if this exceeds maximum hours per day or not.) 33 drivers per day, each driver works 240 days per year, and gets paid $50,000 per year. Assume the driver is half of the operation cost. 33 * 365/240 * $50,000 * 2 = $5,018,750 per year. So, $7.5 million per year could do the job. The average cost per motorcoach is $7.5 million / 50 buses = $150,000 per bus. According to the Queen City Metro web site, Metro operates 394 buses with a total budget of $94 million per year, for an average annual cost of $239,000 per bus; a little higher than the calculation above but in the same ballpark. Using the same unit cost for the 3-C line, a 50 motorcoach system would cost $239,000 * 50 = about $12 million per year.

"Buses are not an equal trade out." I didn't say that they were. I was just asking if there are any ridership projections to make a fair comparison. For the same cost, which will attract more riders, bus or rail? Alternatively, for the same ridership, which mode is less expensive?

If you rank cities by population worldwide, you will find that most of the largest cities are on the coast, especially the fastest growing ones. Coastal cities have access to the most trade.

481,000 / 40 people per bus = 12,025 bus trips per year or 33 trips per day. Suppose a new, state-funded bus route was initiated on parallel highways. Running speed 60 mph, 30 trips per day, or better than an average of one per hour. I know that people prefer rail, but what would the expected bus ridership be? What can we get for $400 million? Has anyone made a comparison? Just asking.

"We'll do it in five or six." From page one of this thread: "John Schneider December 08, 2006 That's correct. HDR Inc., an international transportation engineering firm based in Omaha, has commenced a study of a downtown Cincinnati streetcar." Well, we've been studying this streetcar for over 3 years already.

Sometimes the hardest part is getting started. I always thought that we could go ahead and build a line that is less than perfect, or study the issue for ten years and design a perfect system that is unaffordable. The Brent Spence Bridge project is getting nowhere because it expanded to the point of being unnaffordable. They have been studying that project for 15 years.

Maybe a picture will describe this concept better. Today, we have a workable plan to bring the 3-C line to Sharonville. The drawback is that it doesn't get to Cincinnati, either to CUT or downtown. Except for a few folks who live within walking distance of the station, everyone will have to drive or take a taxi to Sharonville. We don't even have a bus route there. In the through stop cities, Columbus, Dayton, Springfield, etc., the stop can be placed anywhere along the route. It might as well be in the center, to optimize access for the most people. In the terminal cities of Cincinnati and Cleveland, the optimal point isn't necessarily in the center. It is on the edge nearest the center of the 3-C line. The last thing you want your riders to do is travel in the wrong direction to get to the station. I am not familiar with the situation in Cleveland, but in Cincinnati we don't have a good route between Sharonville and Cincinnati. We are going to have to build a new route. I see our choices as: 1. Rehabilitate the Oasis Line from Sharonville to Downtown 2. Add a 4th main from Sharonville to CUT 3. Construct new light rail on a new right of way from Sharonville to Downtown including a stop at U.C. There is no reason why we can't build all three eventually. They do not exclude each other. The question is which one to build first.

^--- Tell that to the FRA.

"You neglect northern Kentucky residents." Neither the 3-C line nor the Cincinnati Streetcar are proposed to go to Kentucky. It is certainly feasible for a new light-rail line from Sharonville to downtown Cincinnati to be extended to Kentucky.

Cincinnati's stadium syndrome is affecting rail this way. The stadium fund was a blank check; for a while it wasn't even certain that the footbal stadium would go downtown at all. Confusion over the baseball park resulted in a second vote about the Broadway Commons site. A good plan would take some of the uncertainty out of any rail initiative.

Anyone else notice that the HSR plan from 1980 shows a new line in a tunnel section under Hopple Street? i can't figure out what the reasoning for the tunnel was. I assume that it was to avoid a grade crossing with either a street or another railroad.

Transfering between trains is much more comfortable than one trip through airport security. I don't think that most of the passengers are going to go from one core to the other anyway. A station at CUT would require a transfer to streetcar, bus, or taxi to get downtown anyway. HSR south is a very expensive proposition. The NS line is only single track in some places, and is very busy. My plan does not eliminate the possibility of HSR south in the future.

The feds put limits on highway speeds at one time, too, but the speed restrictions have been removed and are now set by the states.