Take away the purple line and your plan would best be charaterised as radial with downtown as the hub. This tends to encourage extremely high development right at the hub. This is the way Cincinnati was historically developed.

 

    The Moscow and Paris subways, two of the most popular in the world, are more widely distributed, and the development of those two cities reflects that.

 

    When I said that fountain square doesn't have a lot of room, I was thinking street widths rather than concourse space. If each line is one track in each direction, along with room for platforms, it is going to be really hard to fit a 4 track subway in the street, unless perhaps you were going to tunnel underneath buildings. Add the fact that you are proposing two levels of 4 tracks each - whoa!

 

    Does Hardinsburg still exist? Your plan is the first mention I have ever heard of Hardinsburg other than in a historical context.

 

    I like the two lines to Miamitown. Yay for Miamitown!

 

 

     

One of my first thoughts was that there's no way in hell that the city would rid the Fountain Square garage in favor of a transit center.  Maybe in 30 years, after it needs to be replaced again  Plus, where would all that parking go?

Take away the purple line and your plan would best be charaterised as radial with downtown as the hub. This tends to encourage extremely high development right at the hub. This is the way Cincinnati was historically developed.

 

The Purple Line is about the closest thing I have to a "crosstown" line that bypasses downtown, but even so, it runs under Central Parkway (using the old subway) and provides service to northern downtown and OTR.

 

With four lines coming together west of downtown in Queensgate, and with the Brent Spence reconstruction poised to open up that whole part of the city, the Queensgate transit hub could become a major focal point for future high-density development.

 

When I said that fountain square doesn't have a lot of room, I was thinking street widths rather than concourse space. If each line is one track in each direction, along with room for platforms, it is going to be really hard to fit a 4 track subway in the street, unless perhaps you were going to tunnel underneath buildings. Add the fact that you are proposing two levels of 4 tracks each - whoa!

 

The tunnels would be one track in each direction, with two "color" routes sharing the same tracks. This is pretty much how the Washington Metro does it. The only parts of the system that would be 4 tracks wide (aside from short segments near transfer hubs, such as Evanston) would be the express run between downtown Covington and a mile or two south of the Fort Mitchell station where the two airport lines branch off from the Orange Line.

 

With two tracks and a 30-foot-wide island platform, you'd need about 60 feet of street width between lot lines.

 

Plus, where would all that parking go?

 

The whole idea is for people to take the train downtown instead of driving.

Why do you end the line at Westchester?  Why not Union Centre?  Im thinking the challenge would be to integrate rapid transit into low density development areas like Union Centre.

 

 

 

 

I think the inclusion of the Mill Creek and tributary rivers helps with the wayfinding.

 

Also, I tend to think that instead of a 5th St. routing downtown you could everything come across Central Parkway, then under Walnut St.  Central Parkway obviously can handle four tracks and then a 2-level four track line could be built under Walnut, with the upper level tracks terminating at Fountain Square and the lower level tracks continuing south under the river.  It would be the same concept as the separate MUNI and BART levels under Market St.   

 

  I agree that showing the rivers on the map helps a lot.

 

  It's hard to imagine Queensgate as high density urban development. The urban renewal that wiped out the original neighborhoods there put in such wide streets that Queensgate became unwalkable.

I chose 5th Street and Vine Street for routing because of their adjacency to the garage structure at Fountain Square; the Fifth Third Center borders the garage on the north and east sides. The Walnut Street vehicle entrance to the garage passes between the 5/3 Center columns, but this passage wouldn't be able to accommodate transit service.

 

One of the major criticisms of BART is that so many lines are forced into a single corridor, which creates major bottlenecks in service and limits the area of downtown that's convenient to transit. While my plan has Fountain Square as the primary hub, I think the Riverfront Transit Center and the Gateway station (at Vine and Central Parkway, incorporating the former Race Street station) have important roles to play as secondary hubs, and would help encourage development throughout the urban core as a whole, rather than just at Fountain Square. With the exception of the express trains serving the airport, I made a point to avoid having more than two transit routes sharing a single corridor.

 

  I agree that showing the rivers on the map helps a lot.

 

  It's hard to imagine Queensgate as high density urban development. The urban renewal that wiped out the original neighborhoods there put in such wide streets that Queensgate became unwalkable.

 

Depending on how the Brent Spence / I-75 reconstruction turn out, we might not even recognize Queesngate in 15-20 years.

I really like your plan compared to the Metro Moves plan because of how much you incorporate the more dense and walkable areas of the city. The Metro Moves plan seems to play to the suburbs and seems more like a park and ride system. By including the older and more dense areas in your plan(Price Hill, Hyde Park, Mt. Adams, Clifton, St. Bernard, Northside, Avondale, Evanston, Newport, Covington) it would cause the population to come back to the city and keep all the great and distinctive neighborhoods we have. We have so many city neighborhoods that still are very walkable and we need to exploit that.

 

I really think all first developments of transit in Cincinnati should feed the neighborhoods in the city first and leave the suburbs out. I think commuter lines would be great in the future (down Rt 50& I-74, up I-71& I-75) to give people another option to get downtown. I just think it makes a lot more sense to feed the city than the burbs, and it would help reverse the trend of suburban sprawl.

Nice job, Gin.  I'm sure you had a blast doing this project (and got academic credit too)... Map is sexy; but like most planned transit systems (and their maps), much if not most don't get built -- unless you're D.C., San Francisco ... or Dallas.  But Cincy certainly merits rapid transit (no, not just street trolleys masquerading as rapid transit).  If the City were to settle on a core system that SHOULD be built, I'd focus on your yellow line from the Cincy (KY) Int Airport to somewhere NE towards the outer belt; some form of the purple and blue lines, to the N, NW (esp following and using the 82-year-old unused/intact subway tunnels into Walnut or Vine, but I'd turn sharply south a short distance into downtown, then east hooking back up with your green/purple lines to East Cincy and, perhaps, the branch SE into KY.

Thanks... The project is still a work in progress; there's much more to be done between now and the time it gets reviewed by my academic committee.

Can I get a rout to Oxford please?  I would love to be able to escape the rigors of my studies for a good night on the town in Cincinnati.  :-)

The Purple Line is about the closest thing I have to a "crosstown" line that bypasses downtown, but even so, it runs under Central Parkway (using the old subway) and provides service to northern downtown and OTR.

 

My biggest critique is the purple line as well, following up on what was said here.. it only serves a few unique stops, and while it's nice to have a line that bypasses the Fountain Square station (and using the existing subway tunnels is a huge plus) it seems like it would have a relatively low ridership in comparison to the other lines.  If it ever comes time to scale the proposal down some, you may want to reconsider that line.

 

I like imagining the centerpiece that the Fountain Square Station would be...

I know you based your system largely on the Washington D.C. metro. I feel that the strongest point of D.C.’s Metro is that the system hits the business district. I know that you are trying to use existing ROWs to make the system more feasible, but I feel the most successful areas outside of uptown and downtown would be the business districts. Hyde Park Square, Oakley Square, Mt. Lookout Square, O’Brienville, Ludlow, DeSale’s Corner, Peeble’s Corner, ect. have the most potential for successful stops because of the walkability of the areas. They also offer the most development potential  because the character and existing infrastructure.

 

I know that this might be an unpopular (outside of this forum) or unfeasible view of things, but by keeping the transit focused on the city we can start to reverse the effects of sprawl and get a strong push of urban renewal.

 

Thanks for the input... I'll look into maybe splitting the eastern section of the Green Line away from the Purple Line, and send it through some of those neighborhoods (O'Brienville, Mt. Lookout, etc.) on its way to Milford. That would also give the Purple Line more reason for being, as it would continue to serve the I-71/Gilbert Avenue corridor southwest of Evanston.

 

As things stand now, the proposed Walnut Hills station is at Peeble's Corner, and the Hyde Park station is only about a quarter-mile north of Hyde Park Square. NBDs such as O'Brienville and Mt. Lookout Square don't have direct access to heavy-rail metro stations, but they would have streetcar service connecting them to nearby stations.

 

As for the city vs. suburbs issue, I don't see it as a zero-sum game in which any transit service that benefits a suburb is necessarily a detriment to the city, or vice-versa. I'm designing with the assumption that the suburbs within the I-275 loop are here to stay, and that a certain percentage of people will continue to own cars and drive even if they're merely driving a couple miles down the road to a suburban transit station. The objective is to maximize transportation choices and encourage sustainable development patterns in both urban and suburban areas so that the region as a whole will benefit.

Plus, where would all that parking go?

 

The whole idea is for people to take the train downtown instead of driving.

 

I know that money isn't an object but parking requirements are a reality.  Is this whole thing IF there were no parking requirements, IF we got $1 billion for the railroad corridor, IF extremely recent investments can be completely ignored, and IF we could burrow miles of subway tunnels under a sea of utilities and infrastructure under the epicenter of the city?

 

I love the site, the presentation, and everything.  But if you're going to ignore the reality of the Fountain Square garage, think it can just be undone (even in fantasy world) for a subway station instead, all without having to dig up the park at all....I don't know, man.  Might was well treat the Interstates like they're no object either.  Seems like cherry picking to me.

 

Keep moving forward with it though.  I'd like it to be taken seriously (at least in some capacity) by people who make decisions around the city.

It's an underground parking garage, not a historic landmark. Temporary shoring can be used to support the plaza while construction takes place underneath; it's been done before elsewhere.

 

The subway terminal pictured below was carved out from under an existing parking structure at O'Hare Airport, while the garage remained open for business. If a multi-story parking garage can be temporarily supported while its foundation is dug out from underneath it, then surely an outdoor plaza and fountain can be supported.

 

 

And if somebody really wants to park near Fountain Square, there are plenty of other options. Hell, Fifth Third has a massive above-ground parking garage on the exact same block.

Pretty much @ this point, if you simply started a few of those tunnels at the midpoint and headed toward Fountain Square and out toward their end point, by the time you got to the point of dealing with the garage under Fountain Square it would be fifteen years old and ready for work anyway.

True. If $10B magically showed up in the city's coffers tomorrow and this turned into a real project, it would still have to go through years of much more detailed planning, design, environmental impact studies, ridership studies, construction documents, etc. before the first spade of dirt was turned. Fountain Square Garage wouldn't be looking so fresh at that point, and even the plaza itself might be due for yet another facelift.

I would move the Northside station over to the east side of Hamilton & have access in the proposed retail area over by the proposed American Can apartments.

If there was serious objection to using the fountain square garage, the Dixie Terminal would be an excellent alternative. I would love to see that building get a better use than low grade office space. The current parking deck in the rear would make a great spot for the next tallest building in Cincy!

Every rail project i've seen proposed (in whatever capacity) has a line following I-71.  Is that solely to take advantage of the ROW?

 

I guess what i'm getting at is that all the stations on the proposed route here (and in other plans) on the orange line would need to be park and rides.  I only pay attention to this because i live in PRidge and would love the option of taking the train downtown.  All the stations would end up being at Ridge and Duck Creek right near the Lateral.  I just wish the routes could take it up closer to the neighborhoods and not into these middle areas that require a park and ride.

True. If $10B magically showed up in the city's coffers tomorrow and this turned into a real project, it would still have to go through years of much more detailed planning, design, environmental impact studies, ridership studies, construction documents, etc. before the first spade of dirt was turned. Fountain Square Garage wouldn't be looking so fresh at that point, and even the plaza itself might be due for yet another facelift.

They can fast track anything if they wanted too. Just look at the Minneapolis bridge.  Cost 400 million and took only 1 year to complete.

PRidge is a hard nut crack. There is active ROW at the bottom of Lester and at Ridge just below Mapleleaf. Without seriously disturbing the neighborhood I have a hard time figuring out how to get any serious rail into the neighborhood without doing some serious damage to the current make-up of the environment. You could run a streetcar down Montgomery Road, but it would have to connect to serious rail pretty quickly because it would take too long to get downtown - though it would be great it stretched out to Kenwood for reverse commuters.

 

Now in a world with a bizillion dollars to spend, I might argue for a tunnel that roughly follows Ridge Rd. and essentially connects the Norwood Trough with the Reading and the Mill Creek Valley. It would have to be a tunnel because no transit could possibly traverse the hills on the Reading side of Ridge.

Exactly why i understand that any station would probably be down near Highland/Ridge and that it'd end up as a park and ride, or that i'd just drive myself.  I don't think i'm unique in that, either...unfortunately.  (a job that requires me to drive places every once in awhile, not an easy walk to the station to catch the train, etc).  Maybe if they offered a cheap transfer from Metro to the train something like that would work.

That's a pretty common dilemma, and I've been facing it more than a few times on this project. Let's say you have a pretty good right-of-way available through an area, like an expressway or railroad, but it doesn't directly pass through any of the neighborhood business districts that are located a short distance on either side. You could build an entirely new ROW (most likely a very expensive subway) and serve the neighborhood business districts on one side of the ROW while neglecting the NBD's on the other side (assuming that it's not feasible to build two completely new ROWs), or you put the transit line in the existing ROW and let it serve the NBDs on either side, albeit indirectly. I think some NBDs are big enough to merit the subway treatment, while others will have to make do with connecting bus and/or streetcar service.

 

Although I said cost is no object, I made an effort to utilize existing rights-of-way wherever it made the most sense. For example, I could spend a boatload of imaginary money building a subway under Erie Avenue to provide direct service to Hyde Park Square, but that's not really realistic when you already have the Wasson rail line available just a few blocks to the north, running parallel to Erie.

 

I think that underscores the importance of the streetcar component of the plan, which I think I need to do a better job of fleshing out. Heavy rail is good for going longer distances quickly, but I think the streetcars have an important role to play in filling in the gaps.

 

An analogy might be Paris, where you have a dense web of underground Metro lines serving every corner of the central city, and overlaid on top of that web is the RER system that provides sort of an intermediate level of service between the Metro and mainline commuter trains. In Cincinnati's case, I see the streetcars providing that interconnected web, while the heavy-rail transit lines provide fast service between downtown and the region at large.

 

Paris is special. It has the Metro, the RER, and 6 passenger railroad stations. Most of the main passenger railroads operate in a radial pattern with Paris at the hub, but the 6 stations are not connected. If you want to transfer to travel between, say, Germany and Spain, you have to get from one main station to another.

 

Formerly, the Paris metro was overloaded with these transfer passengers, so they built a whole new system, the RER, to connect the passenger railroad stations.

 

 

 

 

Does anybody know where I could find a map showing the old C&O line on the west side? Looking at Google Earth, there's a few spots where it looks like there may have been a railroad right-of-way, but it's hard to tell. How much of the right-of-way has been developed?

 

Right now I'm showing a deep-bore subway that follows Glenway Avenue, but I'm wondering if the C&O line would make more sense if enough of it is still there.

Here is the definitive map of everything that ever was:

 

http://homepage.mac.com/jjakucyk/Transit1/index.html#map

 

The C&O ROW is hard to see today because there has been so much transformation.  It's useful as a surface line between the Glenway Crossings shopping center and Bridgetown Rd., but if you want to head downtown via Price Hill, a line would have to diverge from the ROW for several miles and run on the surface to St. Lawrence Church.  The line would have to tunnel from approximately that point in order to reach the basin, then either tunnel all the way to downtown or run across the 8th St. Viaduct and 8th St. 

Wow... That's an incredible map. Thanks.

A few points:

 

In stations where 2 lines come together / split, it would be useful to have 3 or 4 parallel tracks (i.e., two platforms) instead of 2.  That way, trains can sit on the platform and unload/load while waiting for clearance instead of (as in Washington, DC) waiting in the tunnel or if outdoors, just in sight of the station. 

 

What are your thoughts on the transit agency owning the stations, and collecting rent (or bids) from businesses who occupy that space?  Examples being newsstands, coffee shops, McD's and the like.  How much could that go towards reducing fares and local government subsidies?  Or would the money be better spent on capital improvements?  I get the sense that many would not like the idea of a transit agency getting mixed up in or "meddling with" [gasp] free enterprise.  The idea being, if there's money to be made, it should be made by non-government entities.  Not my opinion...I'm just wondering what everyone's thoughts are. 

I'll look into the idea of having 2-platform stations where lines split... Depending on headways and how the trains are timed, I'm not sure the trains would have to spend much time waiting, though.

 

As for transit agencies collecting rent from businesses, it's fairly common to rent at least some retail space at transit stations... But then you get into issues of having food/drink inside transit stations, which brings litter and rats. I think the DC Metro has the right idea in that regard: zero-tolerance. Unfortunately for NYC, people have gone too long with the idea that subway stations can be treated like open sewers, and it would take a herculean effort to get the system half as clean as DC's.

 

The money angle is outside the scope of my project, but I don't have any ideological objection to transit agencies collecting rent or even being involved with real estate development near stations. Singapore's transit system is heavily involved with such activities, and as a result, is the only transit agency in the world that actually turns a profit.

The Munich U-Bahn has several stations like I describe with multiple platforms for lines that are splitting/coming together, which is why I asked.  That might be a good place to start investigating.  There is also one station I can think of where two lines simply cross, and instead of a Washington, DC style crossing (second platform is 1 level deeper than the first -- think Metro Center), the platforms are parallel, and trains are timed to arrive roughly at the same time and people just run across a platform to catch their connection. 

Still a work in progress (as always), but here is the project on Google Earth.

 

This KMZ file includes:

• Neighborhood business districts in Cincinnati and nearby suburbs
  
• Major transit destinations (such as universities, sports/concert venues, major tourist attractions, major shopping malls, etc.)
  
• Existing transit rights-of-way (Central Parkway subway, Oasis line, Riverfront Transit Center, etc.)
  
• Existing transportation hubs (CVG Airport, Union Terminal, Greyhound Bus Terminal, etc.)
  
• Proposed rapid transit lines and station locations
  
• Proposed and potential streetcar lines. (Individual streetcar stops not shown; streetcars generally stop every 2-3 blocks)
  

Free advice: turn off labels of the subway stops until you zoom in to about 5 km.  Leave the icons, of course. 

 

Lookin' good!

How does one do that in Google Earth? I couldn't find any settings that specify when the labels show up.

Good question.  I only know about that sort of thing with ArcView.  I don't see any obvious settings, either.

 

Looks like KML falls short... 

 

http://www.digitalearth.com.au/2005/08/17/google-earth-notes/

 

...There is no concept of minimum and maximum display scales. All data is displayed all the time. This is significant for network links (see below)...

Ah, well. The check boxes on the left can be used to manually turn various map elements off or on... I also have other versions of the map on my site that do a better job of providing a big-picture overview of the system than what Google Earth allows.

Quick update on the project: Even though I haven't posted here or updated the project's blog site for a while, I've actually been spending almost every free hour over the past few weeks working on the architectural portions of the project so that I'll have something to include in my portfolio for grad school admissions. I need to have it complete and printed by the middle of December, so the clock is ticking.

 

I'm concentrating on three rapid transit stations:

 

Highland Heights on the Red Line, which serves as a prototype for a typical elevated station in a suburban-sprawl type setting,

Corryville on the Orange Line, which is a typical deep-bore subway station in an urban setting, and

Fountain Square on the Red, Orange, Gold, and Green Lines, which is the primary transit hub downtown and the nerve center of the proposed system.

 

I've managed to draw up plans and sections of all three stations and I'm pretty satisfied with their level of development. They're not quite ready for public viewing yet, but they're getting there fast. Fountain Square is by far the most complicated one, but I think it will also be the coolest. (Think MARTA's Five Points station cross-bred with London's Westminster station.)

 

I'm also starting to crank out 3D renderings of all three stations, which is a particular challenge because I have almost zero 3D rendering experience. Luckily the geometry is fairly simple so modeling the shapes isn't too big a deal (no weird blobs or anything), but applying materials and lighting is a new ball game for me. Right now I'm doing everything in AutoCAD because I don't have the spare time to learn 3D Studio Max or Rhino.

 

Here's my first pass at what will eventually become the Corryville station, located about 150 feet below the intersection of Vine and Calhoun... There's still lots of stuff that needs to be added (stairs, escalators, mezzanine, platform flooring, etc.) and I'm still experimenting with the materials and lighting settings. My first task will be to beef up the ambient lighting so that the shadows aren't so harsh. But it's a start.

Cool! I wish that could someday be a reality...

A couple days ago I decided it didn't make much sense to show stations without trains in them (especially given that the station designs are closely based on the geometry of the subway trains), so this has been my project for the weekend:

 

 

The trains are closely based on the new 7000-Series railcars ordered by the Washington Metro, and have the same dimensions. I've made a few minor cosmetic changes, though. I also modeled the interior, but a rendering will have to wait until I'm on my work computer with its newer software and faster processors.

I'm not crazy about the WDC design.  Lots of wasted space between cars and could use 1 more set of doors per car.  Trainsets seem to be the wave of the future, even though they don't have the flexibility of paired cars. 

The DC Metro trains with 75-foot cars in married pairs are fairly standard in many US transit systems, although details vary by system. In my proposal (although it's not obvious in the image above), I'm showing the cars linked into 4-car trainsets with articulated links between the cars, rather than married pairs with drawbars like used on the DC Metro.

 

That said, the newest generation of DC Metro cars will eliminate the motorman's cab at one end of the married pair, substituting it with a hostler control panel that would be used only in yard moves or in emergencies. The configuration of a typical 8-car train will be something like this:

 

[ © A-Car ]-[ B-Car (H) ]=[ (H) B-Car ]-[ A-Car © ]=[ © A-Car ]-[ B-Car (H) ]=[ (H) B-Car ]- [ A-Car © ]

 

© - Cab

(H) - Hostler Panel

-  - Drawbar

= - Coupler

 

A typical 8-car train in my proposal would be configured as such:

 

[ © A-Car ]||[ B-Car ]||[ B-Car ]||[ A-Car © ]=[ © A-Car ]||[ B-Car ]||[ B-Car ]||[ A-Car © ]

 

© - Cab

|| - Articulated Link

= - Coupler

 

The number of doors per car is a balancing act between seating capacity and dwell time at stations. More doors means quicker boarding, but fewer seats. Some lines of the NYC subway have 75-foot cars with four sets of doors per side, but the trains generally make more frequent stops, run on shorter headways, and carry passengers shorter distances than the DC Metro. By way of comparison, most commuter rail systems have 85-foot cars with only one or two sets of doors per side. I think three doors on a 75-foot car is a decent compromise, as it still allows sufficient space for seating, but you're still never more than 12'-6" away from a door.

 

Also, it should be noted that the DC Metro was planned at a time when the Washington metropolitan area had roughly the same population as the Greater Cincinnati area has today (about ~2 million people). Today, though, the Washington metro area has greatly increased in population, and the Metro system is experiencing significant overcrowding. In many ways it's a victim of its own success. If a Metro-like system were built for Cincinnati, I think it would take a few decades for the regional population to increase to the point where overcrowding becomes as bad of a problem.

So I guess the question is, how concentrated is the system?  Will it be a hybrid subway/commuter system like DC, or will it be more like NYC?  I don't remember from your website if there's a system overlay on Google Maps.  This is one thing that a DC Blogger talks about a LOT.  The struggle between the stress suburb commuters exert on the system vs. the people who live close in. 

It's more of a hybrid/commuter system like DC, although with more frequent stops in the central core of the city. (One big advantage Cincy has over DC is that we actually have a real downtown.)

 

But while the heavy rail metro lines are the main focus of my project, the streetcar also plays an important role. Unlike the DC Metro system (although not for long), I see surface-running streetcar lines playing an important role as neighborhood circulators and as feeders into the heavy rail lines. To use the NYC comparison, the heavy rail metro lines would be the "express" trains, while the streetcars would be the "local" trains. Coordinated with the existing bus system, this would create a three-tier transit system that would effectively serve the entire region.

With Tuesday's victory. I hope they would  put light rail back on the ballet next year.

How was the MetroMoves plan to be paid for?  Sales tax or the like? 

Never-ending 1/2 cent countywide sales tax to cover capital and operations. This would, I believe, have raised approximately $60 million per year and reorganized Metro to provide comprehensive countywide service. Queen City Metro is funded by a 3/10 of 1% city earnings tax.

I would think that light rail wouldn't be on the agenda to the Streetcar is built, maybe get light rail by 2015, if we're not all dead by 2012 :)

I've heard 2012.  This is to coincide with the federal funding cycle.