^ A favorite criticism of red-state type transit opponents always seems to be "it doesn't even go to the airport."  As if that's some holy grail requirement of any successful transit line.  My understanding is that few flyers use transit to get to the airport (it's not that low, but it's not high), and most of the use is by airport employees.  Of course it's great to have a high-employment destination at the end of a transit line to help balance out , but it seems that it gets much more emphasis than it should, and that does drive the PR campaign and planning decisions to push for those routes. 

 

Exactly... I worked in Seattle for several months, and I decided to stay downtown one time instead of out in the 'burbs where my client's office was located. I mentioned to some of my coworkers that I was going to take light rail to get from the airport to my hotel, and their reaction was, "Why? Just take a taxi. You can expense it." The vast majority of business travelers are not going to take transit; their time is more important than the cost, and they aren't the one paying the bill anyway.

 

The main beneficiaries of rail to the airport are (1.) airport employees who could take it work, and (2.) people traveling for pleasure that could avoid airport parking fees. However, airports make a ton of money off of their parking operations, so don't expect them to be supportive of transit either!

That’s pretty much always the case with airport rail.  But pleasure travel is a significant subset of airport travel though much more elastic than business travel where, you’re correct, the travelers who are “expensed,” less familiar with a city and are on strict time restraints, will opt for some form of private transport or shuttle van.  Independent contractors or, often, convention goers will be more open to airport rail service although, even then, many fear confusion in a “strange” city and opt to foot the bill themselves for cabs and shuttle vans.  Out-of-state and long-distance in-state College students seem to be the biggest regular and most loyal users of airport rail, if Cleveland’s 46-year-old experience is an indicator.  But generally bigger tourist cities (Chicago, D.C. or even Philly) will generally have more airport rail usage than lesser tourist cities like Cleveland…

 

Still, the opportunity to tie in Cincy’s hub airport to downtown Cincy will hopefully not be overlooked – obviously, it was a key component in the doomed Metro Moves of the early 2000s.  The relatively close-to-downtown distance of the airport to downtown coupled with the light population density beyond Covington to the airport and the potential of ROW in I-71/75 and I-275 should make a fast LRT line tying into streetcar downtown attractive.

 

^One general exception to this is D.C.'s Metro, where a number of biz travelers seem to take it because of its higher profile and good reputation, as opposed to other city's transit that are often looked as simply "subways".  Part of this is, as we know, Metro being seen by many as a D.C. tourist attraction in itself.

^ Light rail to the airport was never part of MetroMoves. The simple reason for that is that MetroMoves was only on the ballot in Hamilton County.

 

But even if it had been on the ballot in Northern Kentucky, it was pretty much a loser. In the early-2000's, CVG had, I dunno, three or four times the number of flights as today. Christ, you could fly nonstop from CVG to Prague and Vienna for a while. I flew nonstop to Zurich once. During this period the Downtown-CVG "I-71 Light Rail" was studied extensively. An alignment was laid out, though entry on to airport property was going to be tricky. Some even wanted to enter the airport property from the south after serving Erlanger. I digress.

 

When they ran OKI's Travel Demand Model on this route, ridership to and from the airport was minimal. Perhaps the reason was that OKI's model is good at capturing work trips and not much else. So it showed the ridership was mostly restaurant and airline workers and not a lot of them for the investment. Hardly any travelers.

 

They tweaked the model and ran it again and again. And nothing. Just not much here. And probably a lot less today.

Rail to an airport makes sense if there is something beyond the airport.  In Minneapolis the Mall of America is beyond the airport station.  In Washington, DC, there will be two park & ride stations beyond the Dulles airport station.

Rail to Florence with a stop at the airport might make some sense, but it's hard to compete with I-75.

^ Light rail to the airport was never part of MetroMoves. The simple reason for that is that MetroMoves was only on the ballot in Hamilton County.

 

Not to dwell on or quibble over unhappy recent transit history, but this is misleading and not entirely accurate.  The initial MetroMoves starter line settled upon was an $875M, 19-mile line from Blue Ash to 12th street in Covington.  However, the project that became MetroMoves was the end result of an Ohio- Kentucky-Indiana compact (Regional Council of Governments) and the eventual 30-year plan called for a $4.2 regional (multi-line) LRT, streetcar, commuter rail, express bus/BRT project of which Ohio’s portion was $2.6M.  One of the future legs, which I recall being one of priority lines following the starter system, was expansion to the Greater Cincinnati Airport in KY.

There remains a lot of confusion about what was actually on the ballot then, and the pasage of time has served to muddy the waters even more.

 

I was intimately involved in shaping the regional rail plan for several years starting in the mid-1990's and chaired the 2002 MetroMoves campaign for better public transportation in Hamilton County. I wouldn't rely on Wikipedia or similar sources for a true accounting of what was in MetroMoves and what wasn't.

 

Plans for light rail in the I-71 Corridor including the heavily-studied segment from 12th Street in Covington to Blue Ash began in the mid-1990's. By around 2000, the I-71 Corridor plan was completed to 30% design including a mle-long tunnel through Mt. Auburn from Main and Walnut in Over-the-Rhine to Jefferson Avenue in Corryville. Another thing that came out of the I-71 Corridor Study was the plan to reconfigure Fort Washington Way (I-71) through downtown which also established light rail ROW's on Second and Third and on the Main an Walnut bridges over FWW which we will use for the Cincinnati Streetcar.

 

At the time, Kentucky jurisdictions had no ability to levy a local-option tax to pay for transit, so even though the inter-local compact adopted by SORTA and TANK in the early-2000's provided for a bi-state authority to operate light rail, Kentucky never had any prospect of building rail south of the Ohio River. TANK still has no dedicated funding source for operating its buses and must rely on annual approprations by the three judge executives of Kenton, Campbell and Boone Counties to stay in business. This a problem for any kind of passenger rail in Kentucky. The road builders locked-up the obvious sources of potential transit funding there a long time ago.

 

While the Covington to Blue Ash light rail plan was widely-publicized and well-known, what went to the ballot in November 2002 was just the Ohio part of the I-71 Corridor plus light rail corridors along I-75, the Wasson Line, I-74 and a short light rail connector between the I-74 rail line and Xavier that ran roughly parallel to the Norwood Lateral. The I-75 plan had a good deal of economic and ridership study, but no real design, and the other three rail corridors were just lines on a map with some ridership estimates.

 

The Mt. Auburn Tunnel was dropped a few months before the November 2002 election for cost reasons, and a Vine Street to MLK to I-71 streetcar was subsituted in its place. The plan also included the Ohio segments of a second streetcar line that would have served Covngton and Newport. There was no commuter rail in the plan -- SORTA's general manager at the time thought the Oasis Rail Plan was ridiculous and refused to support it. But as a courtesy to OKI leaders and Todd Portune, SORTA showed the Oasis Line and another wish-list commuter line to Lawrenceburg, IN on its maps, but neither of these were ever in the funding plan. There was no BRT in the plan -- the term wasn't even in the langauge then -- but there was a 25% expansion of Hamilton County bus service including several new coss-county routes and neighborhood hubs, longer hours of operations, better frequencies, and a third bus garage for Metro.

 

But getting back to the original question, even though light rail to the airport was heavily studied -- influential Kentucky members of OKI including its president and executive director, both Kentucky residents, saw to that -- there was no chance it was going to be built at the time MetroMoves was on the ballot in Ohio. And, with the decline of CVG, even less chance today.

Thanks for the background on that.  My knowledge of Metromoves was mostly limited to Wikipedia and a couple other sources I found awhile back.

 

I agree that having CVG as a destination on a route doesn't make sense anymore beyond getting people who work there to their jobs. 

 

Considering what you said about how much research was done on each line, and how most of it focused on I-75, how long do you think it would be before we could get another study like this that builds off of Metromoves on the table if something were to get started?  I really want light rail and or subways here one day, but am I just dreaming that it could happen in the next 10 yrs?

The light rail conversation has resumed here, in small rooms mostly. Remember, when the streetcar is complete, we will have built tracks suitable for light rail to Elm and Henry which can be extended to McMicken, Central Parkway and the I-75 Corridor where an alignment is being preserved today as part of the highway work there. And we'll have built light rail-ready tracks as far as Main and Central Parkway which can be extended along Reading Road to Elsinore to Gilbert to I-71.

 

Without anyone noticing, we are now constructing the spines of two light rail corridors through the heart of the region. Those are great building blocks for the future.

I was wondering, what do you think is most important to increase overall ridership numbers?

 

Will it be the uptown connector and loop of the streetcar, or extending the light rail to connect to the downtown streetcar loop?  Obviously the direction is heading towards the next phase of the streetcar, but I was just curious what you all thought of this.

 

Also, with light rail vehicles being longer, would they still be able to run through the OTR/Downtown Loop?  I wonder how the logistics would work with running out the light rail vehicle up 75 from Elm and Henry?

 

-LD

I was wondering, what do you think is most important to increase overall ridership numbers?

 

Will it be the uptown connector and loop of the streetcar, or extending the light rail to connect to the downtown streetcar loop?  Obviously the direction is heading towards the next phase of the streetcar, but I was just curious what you all thought of this.

 

Also, with light rail vehicles being longer, would they still be able to run through the OTR/Downtown Loop?  I wonder how the logistics would work with running out the light rail vehicle up 75 from Elm and Henry?

 

-LD

 

Just in terms of Order of Magnitude, the CBD/OTR streetcar is expected to have 3,000 riders per day. Expanding it to Uptown boosts ridership to 6,000 riders per day. In 2002, with much lower gas prices and fewer trucks to compete with for freeway space, the ridership in the I-71 and I-75 Corridors from downtown to Blue Ash and Tri-County respectively, was estimated at between 20,000 and 25,000 riders per day in each corridor. I suspect it would be higher today.

 

LRT vehicles can definitely operate on the streetcar tracks now under construction. The stops would have to be longer, the power boosted, and there would be more automatic controls and signals. The only really tight turn I'm aware of is the turn from Race to Elder in order to get the streetcar headed to Vine and on to Uptown. That is really, really tight, so tight the sidewalk on the west side of Race has to be narrowed to allow for the proper turning radius. But I don't think that's how we're going to get the streetcar to Uptown, so I'm not worried about it.

I was wondering, what do you think is most important to increase overall ridership numbers?

 

I think increasing ease of use is the most important thing you could do to maximize ridership.  For example, if they sold monthly passes for say, $30 or $45.  All of a sudden, you have people who are living and working in OTR/downtown who would hop on the streetcar several times a day instead of just when they're making a big trip.  Perhaps Metro already has something like this.  I don't get to use the bus very often.

The problem with tight turns is that they increase the chances of the sort of squeaks the NYC subway generates as it rounds each and every turn.  I heard the Portland Streetcar do it once...it was by no means on the magnitude of the old heavy rail rapid transit lines, but nevertheless quite annoying if it was happening all the time. 

 

Paul Grether told me that the new CAF streetcars "will not squeak" because the streetcars are programmed to release some sort of lubricant as they round each and every curve.  I imagine that new light rail trains can do the same thing. 

I was wondering, what do you think is most important to increase overall ridership numbers?

 

I think increasing ease of use is the most important thing you could do to maximize ridership.  For example, if they sold monthly passes for say, $30 or $45.  All of a sudden, you have people who are living and working in OTR/downtown who would hop on the streetcar several times a day instead of just when they're making a big trip.  Perhaps Metro already has something like this.  I don't get to use the bus very often.

 

The monthly pass for Metro is about $70/month.

The only really tight turn I'm aware of is the turn from Race to Elder in order to get the streetcar headed to Vine and on to Uptown. That is really, really tight, so tight the sidewalk on the west side of Race has to be narrowed to allow for the proper turning radius. But I don't think that's how we're going to get the streetcar to Uptown, so I'm not worried about it.

 

How do we get to Uptown if not via Elder and Vine?

The monthly pass for Metro is about $70/month.

 

Thanks.  There you go then.  Promote those as heavily as possible in the CBD.  Ideally, you'd like to give frequent riders the ability to see the streetcar rolling down the block and just hop on for short trips without having to think about whether it's worth the fare.

With the current political climate in Cincinnati, do you think it is easier to push the extension of the streetcar or push for a light rail service up the interstate corridors?

 

Or, we could just vote in a new, more progressive mayor in 4 years and push both  8-)

The light rail conversation has resumed here, in small rooms mostly. Remember, when the streetcar is complete, we will have built tracks suitable for light rail to Elm and Henry which can be extended to McMicken, Central Parkway and the I-75 Corridor where an alignment is being preserved today as part of the highway work there. And we'll have built light rail-ready tracks as far as Main and Central Parkway which can be extended along Reading Road to Elsinore to Gilbert to I-71.

 

Without anyone noticing, we are now constructing the spines of two light rail corridors through the heart of the region. Those are great building blocks for the future.

 

Sorry my street geography is off a bit with this - but I don't see Union Terminal playing a big role then if this light rail alignment is being built into the system. What is the general consensus on this? Will Union Terminal play a role in connecting suburban transit (light rail) to the downtown area and then the streetcar/buses shuttling passengers further?

There remains a lot of confusion about what was actually on the ballot then, and the pasage of time has served to muddy the waters even more.

 

I was intimately involved in shaping the regional rail plan for several years starting in the mid-1990's and chaired the 2002 MetroMoves campaign for better public transportation in Hamilton County. I wouldn't rely on Wikipedia or similar sources for a true accounting of what was in MetroMoves and what wasn't.

 

Plans for light rail in the I-71 Corridor including the heavily-studied segment from 12th Street in Covington to Blue Ash began in the mid-1990's. By around 2000, the I-71 Corridor plan was completed to 30% design including a mle-long tunnel through Mt. Auburn from Main and Walnut in Over-the-Rhine to Jefferson Avenue in Corryville. Another thing that came out of the I-71 Corridor Study was the plan to reconfigure Fort Washington Way (I-71) through downtown which also established light rail ROW's on Second and Third and on the Main an Walnut bridges over FWW which we will use for the Cincinnati Streetcar.

 

At the time, Kentucky jurisdictions had no ability to levy a local-option tax to pay for transit, so even though the inter-local compact adopted by SORTA and TANK in the early-2000's provided for a bi-state authority to operate light rail, Kentucky never had any prospect of building rail south of the Ohio River. TANK still has no dedicated funding source for operating its buses and must rely on annual approprations by the three judge executives of Kenton, Campbell and Boone Counties to stay in business. This a problem for any kind of passenger rail in Kentucky. The road builders locked-up the obvious sources of potential transit funding there a long time ago.

 

While the Covington to Blue Ash light rail plan was widely-publicized and well-known, what went to the ballot in November 2002 was just the Ohio part of the I-71 Corridor plus light rail corridors along I-75, the Wasson Line, I-74 and a short light rail connector between the I-74 rail line and Xavier that ran roughly parallel to the Norwood Lateral. The I-75 plan had a good deal of economic and ridership study, but no real design, and the other three rail corridors were just lines on a map with some ridership estimates.

 

The Mt. Auburn Tunnel was dropped a few months before the November 2002 election for cost reasons, and a Vine Street to MLK to I-71 streetcar was subsituted in its place. The plan also included the Ohio segments of a second streetcar line that would have served Covngton and Newport. There was no commuter rail in the plan -- SORTA's general manager at the time thought the Oasis Rail Plan was ridiculous and refused to support it. But as a courtesy to OKI leaders and Todd Portune, SORTA showed the Oasis Line and another wish-list commuter line to Lawrenceburg, IN on its maps, but neither of these were ever in the funding plan. There was no BRT in the plan -- the term wasn't even in the langauge then -- but there was a 25% expansion of Hamilton County bus service including several new coss-county routes and neighborhood hubs, longer hours of operations, better frequencies, and a third bus garage for Metro.

 

But getting back to the original question, even though light rail to the airport was heavily studied -- influential Kentucky members of OKI including its president and executive director, both Kentucky residents, saw to that -- there was no chance it was going to be built at the time MetroMoves was on the ballot in Ohio. And, with the decline of CVG, even less chance today.

 

OK, thanks for the clarification.

The only really tight turn I'm aware of is the turn from Race to Elder in order to get the streetcar headed to Vine and on to Uptown. That is really, really tight, so tight the sidewalk on the west side of Race has to be narrowed to allow for the proper turning radius. But I don't think that's how we're going to get the streetcar to Uptown, so I'm not worried about it.

 

How do we get to Uptown if not via Elder and Vine?

 

A tunnel.

Sorry my street geography is off a bit with this - but I don't see Union Terminal playing a big role then if this light rail alignment is being built into the system. What is the general consensus on this? Will Union Terminal play a role in connecting suburban transit (light rail) to the downtown area and then the streetcar/buses shuttling passengers further?

 

Doubtful.  It's pretty far out of the way, which means added expense with new track and increased travel times.  That also makes it less car-competitive.  However, Union Terminal would be perfect for enhanced Amtrak service one day.

No, Union Terminal has no roll in a light rail network* because light rail trains can't travel on freight tracks or even immediately next to them without a very thick and very expensive concrete wall.

 

*there is always the possibility of light rail/streetcar on Spring Grove/Dalton traveling through the tunnel under the front plaza, then on W. 8th to Downtown, but this wouldn't be a major line.   

The light rail conversation has resumed here, in small rooms mostly. Remember, when the streetcar is complete, we will have built tracks suitable for light rail to Elm and Henry which can be extended to McMicken, Central Parkway and the I-75 Corridor where an alignment is being preserved today as part of the highway work there. And we'll have built light rail-ready tracks as far as Main and Central Parkway which can be extended along Reading Road to Elsinore to Gilbert to I-71.

 

Without anyone noticing, we are now constructing the spines of two light rail corridors through the heart of the region. Those are great building blocks for the future.

 

I see.  That's pretty cool, and smart.  See when you guys were talking about those extensions earlier in the topic, I thought you were just talking about extending the street car routes.  When I think of light rail lines, I keep thinking that they would have to go underneath downtown to make use of the old subway tunnels.  I forgot you said the streetcar tracks can take light rail trains as well.  So then you could use that and then they can move into their own ROW if we wanted as it got out of the CBD.  Still how long would it take for planning/finding funding for these 2 corridors and is there anything we can do now to try to start pushing it along?  Or do we have to wait and see how the streetcar goes for a few years first?

^They could still use the subway tunnels for a rapid approach from an I-75 line to downtown, surfacing near and then transitioning to the "streetcar" tracks.  They're in good shape and worth about $50M for a federal match.  $50M isn't much when you're talking about a light rail network, but it could help get the first line off the ground.

^Unfortunately the tunnels were never extended south of Canal Street/Central Parkway, along Walnut St. to Fountain Sq. and even further south as projected in the 1910s plan.  This expansion, in tandem with using the existing tunnels, would seem a worthy FTA grant (with a local match (50%?)) since these areas are Cincinnati's main nodes of CBD activity, esp. given the high-density apartment growth near the river around the stadiums.  While I'm very happy to see the streetcar plan finally moving forward, I just think that Cincy's narrow streets and high density downtown make subway tunneling, in some form or fashion, a necessity, if the city wants to maintain its current downtown growth rate... Those early 20th Century planners had it right then, ... and they're just as right 100 years after the fact.

Cincinnati is a city of hills and valleys, so we're bound to have some transit tunnels and bridges.

I have ruminated before about the possibility of using eminent domain to turn University Plaza into a transit hub, with mixed-use TOD developed by the Port Authority. I was just ruminating about the possibility of turning the development portion over to UC instead, for student/faculty housing with ground floor retail. There would be other possibilities, too, like an on-campus hotel like the one on East Campus, or even offices and classrooms. Since UC is a public university, it seems legal (though IANAL, nor that familiar w/ the Norwood ED case).

 

Port Authority might be better, in order to have a more general variety of uses, though UC might build higher quality architecture. I envision some mid-rise buildings, and I'd think the potential views of Downtown could command pretty nice rents. But if they're unwilling or unable, UC is another possibility.

 

I don't know if there's a better thread for this, but UP has been discussed as the northern end of a tunnel, so that's why I'm posting this here.

Cincinnati is a city of hills and valleys, so we're bound to have some transit tunnels and bridges.

 

It's about density and narrow streets downtown, not hills.

Periodically people suggest Reading Rd. as a light rail corridor -- all the way from Downtown to Reading or even Sharonville.  I made this observation recently...Reading Rd. from McMillan all the way north to Sharonville appears to have been laid out with building setbacks that anticipated its widening to 90 feet (only about a dozen buildings would need to be razed, or an average of about one per mile).  This means that the street could be widened from its current 65 ft. to 90 ft. in order to permit a center reservation for streetcars or light rail.  The only major interruption is the Reading business district, where the street cannot be widened and rail would either mix with traffic, bypass the area, or travel in a tunnel. 

 

This is the only local example of a radial street where this is possible.  It of course would be extremely expensive, but would be the opportunity to bury utilities and bring a lot of new energy to the corridor. 

^ Seems like an exceptionally good place to invest in upgraded transit, considering the 43 bus that serves the Reading corridor has the highest ridership of any bus line in the city. It had 1,045,834 riders in 2012; for comparison, the second- and third-highest were the #4 and #17 buses with 839,402 and 825,584 riders, respectively.

Sydney's got plans for an unused underground rail line.

 

A disused railway tunnel to Sydney's station for the dead could be given new life transporting pedestrians and cyclists to Redfern.

An underground track to Mortuary Station on Regent Street has been flagged as a possible extension to the Goods Line, a former freight corridor between Central and Pyrmont that is being redeveloped as a civic ''spine'' to connect the city to Darling Harbour.

 

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/new-life-as-pathway-mooted-for-rail-line-under-sydneys-mortuary-station-20140202-31v05.html

The momentum is shifting in Cincinnati...We need to capitalize on it

 

Here's yet another Enquirer article that's pro-Light Rail...This time from a Conservative

 

'A Conservative argument for Light Rail in Cincinnati'

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20140203/EDIT02/302030020 …

Couldn't an automated system be used like the have at the airport in the tunnels?

Couldn't an automated system be used like the have at the airport in the tunnels?

 

Sure, but what would the automated system connect? You have to connect comething before you have a system at all. Look at the map of the existing subway tunnels and advised what you think could be automated and what they would connect to.

Couldn't an automated system be used like the have at the airport in the tunnels?

 

Sure, but what would the automated system connect? You have to connect comething before you have a system at all. Look at the map of the existing subway tunnels and advised what you think could be automated and what they would connect to.

 

The stops at Brighton and Linn have lots of potential for development, and the stops at Liberty and Race are pretty much in the midst of development already. I live about a 5 minute walk from the Linn St. stop, for instance. There's a ton of potential in the properties around Mohawk, for instance, that are still some of the worst areas in OTR.

 

Unfortunately the route is probably too parallel to the streetcar to be used as a circulator like that. It would be an interesting, inexpensive (compared to using the tunnels for rail, that is), and unique option, though.

URS did a plan and put costs on a plan to use light rail in tunnels and redo any of the platforms AND make any new underground station ADA compliant. The plan was funded by the transportation department I believe to also come up with a current day value of the tunnels themselves.

The value of the tunnel was pegged around $100 million and the cost to outfit it for light rail service was also about $100 million.  If we're lucky, we could get it retrofitted for free with an FTA grant, however it would have to be part of a larger project in order to win that award.  So at least in theory the city could not apply for a grant to run streetcars in the subway tunnel as far as the Brighton station and have that capital cost covered.  Instead it would have to be part of a line built at least as far as Northside. 

 

So here are the future options for the subway tunnel, in a clockwise direction:

1. west slde line to Glenway Crossings

2. light rail in median of I-74 to stations at North Bend and Rybolt/Harrison Ave.

3. light rail on Colerain Ave....hilltop connection to Mt. Airy on Colerain Ave. through Mt. Airy Forest, branch from I-74 line, or in ravine parallel to Kirby Ave.

4. light rail on Hamilton Ave....hilltop connection to College Hill on Hamilton Ave., parallel to Kirby Ave., or most likely on old interurban ROW in Lobateaux Woods

5. light rail on Spring Grove northeast from Knowton's Corner to Elmwood Place and Hartwell

6. bored tunnel from subway to UC area (actually proposed by OKI in the late 1970s)

 

Typically the maximum number of branch lines converging on a trunk line is 4.  BART does this and Boston Green Line does this.  So pick 4 of the 6 named above. 

 

 

 

^I'll add one more to the list. Surface alignment along MLK drive to UC area.

This isn't my idea. It was proposed in 1976.

I think for sure one should be tunnel through to UC, then anyof the other 3.  With a branch going west along 74 & 75 and then another along 71 through UC it would almost recreate the original rapid transit loop that the subway was planned to be.  I like the idea of finishing what we started, even if it is 100 years later.

This is where amateur speculation has to end and you have to have professional gathering of data.  There's simply no way for any of us to calculate ROI with enough precision to create a useful ranking of the options. 

 

What we can speculate about is political advantages and disadvantages of various extensions.  I also think it's important to understand that the best-performing lines are either ones that are far away from "competing" interstate highways (in this case west side to Glenway Crossing and Hamilton Ave. to College Hill/Mt. Healthy) or they travel parallel to to interstates or major roadways and have station locations that reinforce existing or logical future TOD sites.  So a transit line, even a rapid transit subway, that exists a mile or more from an interstate access point, has zero chance at motivating creation of a mixed-used TOD.  Sure, it might spur high density residential, but not office towers or other commercial use that creates much higher tax revenue in Ohio than does residential. 

Yeah, good points.  I hope that all of us talking about this more as well as the few places where it has been in the media spur more talk and actual professional work on it soon.

What we can speculate about is political advantages and disadvantages of various extensions. 

 

This is probably what needs to happen before the next plan is formalized.  Determine which lines win enough votes to get something passed on the ballot.  It's not the way I'd like to plan a rail network, but it may be the only way to get one started here.

We return once again to the issue of taxation, and the type of tax that would support a system dictates the actual form of the system.

 

County 1/2 sales tax...$60 million per year could fund 3 or 4 radial lines to county's edge over 30 years

County 1-cent sales tax...$60 million per year could fund 5-6 radial lines to county's edge + some subway construction over 30 years

City .03% earnings tax...about $45 million per year could fund several streetcar lines within city limits, maybe 30 miles total

Multi-County 1/2 cent sales tax (Hamilton, Warren, Montgomery, Butler)...hopefully enough revenue to build 1 or 2 rail connections between Cincinnati and Dayton

 

 

Very good article, makes me feel hopeful for the city's future.

This video of light rail plans in Baltimore illustrates the flexibility of the light rail mode as it presently exists, and many similar situations to what exists in Cincinnati:

 

Two bored tunnels...one under a hill with no stations, then a 3-mile subway under downtown with 5 subway stations. 

Awesome video. But I'm surprised they're building the downtown portion in subway. They could afford adding a station or two downtown by providing an at-grade, dedicated alignment and keep it speedy with signal preemption for trains. Love the linkages with MARC. Philly should be taking note of providing better linkages between their rail transit and commuter railroad lines.

Thanks, that was a really good example.  It definitely shows how it can transfer from street to running in the median to a subway, which is what we've been talking about with it possibly transferring from streetcar tracks to central parkway to the old subway tunnels.  I think this would be really cool, it would offer the flexibility we need, plus I'm sure it cuts a lot of the cost from doing old-school straight subways and boring miles and miles of tunnels.

The problem for Baltimore, like Atlanta and Miami, is that they have the 1970s-era heavy rail which is insanely expensive to extend.  It must be completely grade-separated, and those grade separations are much more expensive to build than light rail bridges, overpasses, and even retaining walls.  Compare the new Dulles Airpot aerials in Tyson's Corner, VA to contemporary light rail aerial sections in Los Angeles or anywhere building light rail lines right now.  Quite obviously much more concrete and steel, maybe twice as much.  Plus the rail itself is larger, again using twice or more than twice as much steel.  Compare the new light rail tracks being installed in Cincinnati to any nearby freight railroad and the difference is obvious. 

 

So they're unable to re-use the existing downtown subway in Baltimore for this new light rail line.  Think about that for a moment -- it's cheaper for them to build this brand-new 3-mile subway than it is for them to interline the existing subway and build extensions as heavy rail.  Granted, the new light rail subway will hit a few parts of town that are currently not served, but in the 30 years since that subway went into service the technology has advanced so much as to make such a radical departure from their original 1970s-era plan a sound move. 

 

Also, look at the way the video illustrates the line's entrance into the subway.  It illustrates it perfectly, it's just a shame that this video is almost 2 years old and has only attracted 3,000 hits. 

Also, look at the way the video illustrates the line's entrance into the subway.  It illustrates it perfectly, it's just a shame that this video is almost 2 years old and has only attracted 3,000 hits. 

 

First I've seen of it.

 

What do you mean by "interlined"? And why would the existing Baltimore subway need to be "interlined" to accommodate light rail, especially if a new light-rail route is being built from scratch? We operate heavy rail and light rail on the same tracks here in Cleveland. And the only reason why we have dual-height platforms at joint light-rail and heavy-rail stations is because of an ego-driven decision 30 years ago to continue our Red Line with a heavy-rail fleet, rather than re-equip it with more light-rail cars like the new Shaker lines cars. The general manager overruled the staff recommendation that a single, all-light-rail fleet be added because, in the GM's words, he said Cleveland should be on par with Boston or Philadelphia and Chicago and retain its heavy-rail status. The two people who headed-up those orders 30 years ago (one of whom is my cousin and the other is a close colleague) are today urging GCRTA to not make the same mistake twice.

 

So, it's not crazy to suggest that heavy-rail lines be converted to light-rail if there are sufficient cost savings to be had. It may be a matter of ordering a rail car that can serve both types of stations -- high and low-floor. Pittsburgh's light-rail fleet does that. And even if an all low-floor fleet is preferred, tracks can be re-tamped and raised up alongside high-level platforms to ensure level boarding exists at all stations to comply with ADA. This is not an insurmountable problem. Nor does it need to break the bank either.