46 minutes ago, Dev said:

too many people only think that easy, cheap parking is good for business and that safety only comes from speed humps and traffic enforcement

when it's all you know, how could you think any other way.  It's maddening.

 

There was a lot of consternation around just reducing Springfield Pike in Wyoming from 2-2 to a 1-1-1 a few years ago. 

"Just because we have federal/state grants doesn't mean they can come in here and tell us what the safest road pattern for our neighborhood is!"

"The traffic will use Winton Rd instead and completely bypass all our businesses"

"I travel this every day and this will slow me down significantly"

Even a councilmember said: "We can just re-paint it after a year according to our contract"

 

Fast forward 2 years and I have yet to see a crash on there (eye test, I know), and traffic is noticeably better flowing and potentially faster. And the councilman that claimed we would just repaint is gone.

 

Change is possible, and given Reading is 100% in the City of Cincinnati and is along the route with the highest bus ridership, we'll see it chosen first.  It's an easy win for the program and hopefully can lead to a quick choice to greenlight route #2. 

 

I also have 0 clue what happened to that study after council approved it 2 years ago...

 

 

1 hour ago, 10albersa said:

when it's all you know, how could you think any other way.  It's maddening.

 

There was a lot of consternation around just reducing Springfield Pike in Wyoming from 2-2 to a 1-1-1 a few years ago. 

"Just because we have federal/state grants doesn't mean they can come in here and tell us what the safest road pattern for our neighborhood is!"

"The traffic will use Winton Rd instead and completely bypass all our businesses"

"I travel this every day and this will slow me down significantly"

Even a councilmember said: "We can just re-paint it after a year according to our contract"

 

Fast forward 2 years and I have yet to see a crash on there (eye test, I know), and traffic is noticeably better flowing and potentially faster. And the councilman that claimed we would just repaint is gone.

 

Change is possible, and given Reading is 100% in the City of Cincinnati and is along the route with the highest bus ridership, we'll see it chosen first.  It's an easy win for the program and hopefully can lead to a quick choice to greenlight route #2. 

 

I also have 0 clue what happened to that study after council approved it 2 years ago...

 

 

Yes I absolutely agree. In fact I recently heard a leader in one of the west side neighborhoods railing against city staff for wanting to road diet some of their arterials by using the Springfield Pike project example of why they are bad! It is sad that the wealthier communities are going to be getting updated, safer infrastructure first just because they are actually asking for it. I think Fairfax was one of the first communities in HamCo with a road diet, while Madeira might be the first with a proper complete streets redesign.

 

As for the study for Reading Road itself, I have long assumed Cranley had it killed. It was only passed as a motion so it was not legally binding. It passed 6-2-1, with Smitherman and Mann as the noes, and Sundermann as the abstention. I don't think anyone asked for an update so it's easy for the city to just not do anything with it.

13 hours ago, thomasbw said:

This entire BRT project is operating under the assumption that the City of Cincinnati (and Norwood, Silverton, Mt. Healthy, North College Hill) are going to approve the removal of most (if not all) street parking along Glenway, Hamilton, Reading and Montgomery AND grant signal priority at intersections.

 

I don't know if this is a correct assumption. Cincinnati DOTE won't even change the signal sequence to speed up the streetcar, even under the new administration. 

The good news is that pedestrian safety remains constant and politically salient - if the city/council/administration choose to message it as part of pedestrian safety, which it should be, there's a better chance of fighting against parking and giving priority. If leaders frame it as buses speeding vs. traffic calming benefits of 24/7 parked cars, as Cranley chose to do back in 2020, it could get uglier. It'll also make it more important that the eventual BRT relies on infrastructure and design, not enforcement and paint, which I'm very worried about on a corridor like Reading. 

Quote

I also have 0 clue what happened to that study after council approved it 2 years ago...

@10albersaI don't know that it's worth completely re-litigating why Reading didn't move forward, because it's an almost entirely different cast of characters today and unfortunately became a political proxy battle at the time. The short of it is council eventually passed that 6-3-1 resolution but this was before SORTA even set rules for their infrastructure fund. Not a lawyer but the resolution was worded as asking for money from SORTA ('entities with spending authorization') but once the Transit Infrastructure Fund process was established, the city never applied for money for Reading and thus SORTA/the integrating committee didn't provide any.

 

The city definitely ignored the "City Council will support the expansion of the project through necessary legislative and administrative processes" part of the resolution and never did much of a 'study' at all. Now it seems to just pass the buck to 'BRT is coming' without acknowledging the reality that ROW decisions won't be entirely up to Metro. The disconnect between political leaders, city staff across departments, and Metro at the time was frustrating from the outside looking in. 

 

My hope would be that would be less of the case now and that having consultants deciding the routes will give a clear direction and remove some of the politics (i.e. east vs. west side, "I live in this corridor," parking, past streetcar battles, etc.) so it can focus on actual logistics. It's going to take a lot of attention from urbanists for the city to get BRT resembling what the city needs and bus riders deserve. 

Does anyone have access to or know where to find the total number of boardings at each Metro stop (either on an hourly, daily, weekly, or yearly basis)? Looking ideally for a shapefile with all of that info in it, or if not, a text file or csv file that can be used to create/modify a shapefile.

I looked through their site, but could only find info on integrating realtime info into apps.

Southbank shuttle returns in August

 

 

https://www.wvxu.org/local-news/2022-08-01/southbank-shuttle-returns-agust-20

That's great news, especially as all three riverfront's have really been hopping lately. I'm curious if the Newport route will change at all when Ovation opens more phases. Also I really hope (though it's doubtful) that TANK was able to fix up the trolley cars in the two year hiatus because the seats and suspensions on those things were pretty damn uncomfortable. 

On 7/26/2022 at 8:26 PM, ryanlammi said:

Does anyone have access to or know where to find the total number of boardings at each Metro stop (either on an hourly, daily, weekly, or yearly basis)? Looking ideally for a shapefile with all of that info in it, or if not, a text file or csv file that can be used to create/modify a shapefile.

I looked through their site, but could only find info on integrating realtime info into apps.

I don't think it exists by default but they are generally very accommodating of record requests or just contact attempts. I called and asked about data for the #1 specifically a couple years back and got a .xls of total boardings and alightings from each stop for a year. I was mostly just curious so I didn't pursue more specific formats or data but kinda remember them asking. 

 

The new shelter going in today looks great aesthetically, I'm glad we are getting more - and they're not black metal. 

This is going to be really interesting to see what happens 

On 8/12/2022 at 1:26 PM, thomasbw said:

This is going to be really interesting to see what happens 

As long as there isn't some big reactionary push back that takes over City Hall, like Cranley with the streetcar, then it'll work out fine. Right now there's no clear challenger to Aftab other than JMLK, and she will likely just wait her turn until after his second term. The design should be finalized in 2024, so the 2023 city council election might be the most important cycle that determines what it will look like, though the mayoral election of 2025 will coincide with beginning of construction. The Dem machine is so strong now that I doubt anyone will be able to successfully challenge them from the right, and the vast majority of the Reading route will not impact the rich and influential suburbanites who spend a lot of money on city campaigns.

The problem that I see is there isn't a 'champion' for BRT at City Hall and there's going to be a tremendous amount of pushback against eliminating virtually all parking and most left turns on the entirety of Glenway, Hamilton/Ludlow/Clifton, Vine St. Hill, Reading, Gilbert/Montgomery. 

Edited August 15, 20222 yr by thomasbw

1 hour ago, thomasbw said:

The problem that I see is there isn't a 'champion' for BRT at City Hall and there's going to be a tremendous amount of pushback against eliminating virtually all parking and most left turns on the entirety of Glenway, Hamilton/Ludlow/Clifton, Vine St. Hill, Reading, Gilbert/Montgomery. 

Off the top of my head Owens, Jeffreys and Harris are strong supporters of BRT and I'm not seeing any of the current leadership that will take on the strawman attacks like Mann, Cranley and Smitherman did for the proposed Reading Road bus lane.

All it takes is a vocal minority to yell at all of the councilmembers to get them to vote against good bills (like the increased density bill earlier this year). 

 

1 hour ago, ryanlammi said:

All it takes is a vocal minority to yell at all of the councilmembers to get them to vote against good bills (like the increased density bill earlier this year). 

Below is a map of Cincinnati's Neighborhood Business Districts. The ones that are circled in red are going to lose all (or most) of the on street parking on the major thoroughfare if "true BRT" is approved. 

Edited August 15, 20222 yr by thomasbw
Forgot to circle Jefferson

10 minutes ago, thomasbw said:

 

Below is a map of Cincinnati's Neighborhood Business Districts. The ones that are circled in red are going to lose all (or most) of the on street parking on the major thoroughfare if "true BRT" is approved. 

The Bond Hill Business District on Reading already does not have on-street parking.

5 minutes ago, JYP said:

The Bond Hill Business District on Reading already does not have on-street parking.

In that case it would prevent them from adding some 

Quote

Northern Kentucky's transit agency gets millions for electric-hybrid buses from federal infrastructure law

 

A Greater Cincinnati transit agency will receive $3.1 million from the federal infrastructure law, the latest award under the massive spending bill.

 

Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky will use the money to buy up to 14 hybrid electric buses, according to data released by the Federal Transit Administration. [...]

 

All of the region’s U.S. House members – Steve Chabot, R-Westwood, Warren Davidson, R-Troy, Brad Wenstrup, R-Columbia-Tusculum, and Thomas Massie, R-Garrison – voted against it.

 

On 8/15/2022 at 1:13 PM, thomasbw said:

Below is a map of Cincinnati's Neighborhood Business Districts. The ones that are circled in red are going to lose all (or most) of the on street parking on the major thoroughfare if "true BRT" is approved.

I'm worried that without physical separation, the "bus only" lanes would frequently be (mis)used by cars, which (from a pedestrian's perspective on the sidewalk) is much worse than allowing 24/7 curbside parking. I am supportive of "true BRT" but I fear we'll get half-assed, compromised BRT. 

3 hours ago, jwulsin said:

I'm worried that without physical separation, the "bus only" lanes would frequently be (mis)used by cars, which (from a pedestrian's perspective on the sidewalk) is much worse than allowing 24/7 curbside parking. I am supportive of "true BRT" but I fear we'll get half-assed, compromised BRT. 

Like Main St. today

19 hours ago, jwulsin said:

I'm worried that without physical separation, the "bus only" lanes would frequently be (mis)used by cars, which (from a pedestrian's perspective on the sidewalk) is much worse than allowing 24/7 curbside parking. I am supportive of "true BRT" but I fear we'll get half-assed, compromised BRT. 

From an enforcement or technical aspect, there are easy solutions. The issue fundamentally political. 

 

My biggest concern is we're going to end up with gold-plated bus lanes where we don't need them (for example Ludlow going down the hill from Gaslight to Cincinnati State) and nothing where we actually need it (no bus lanes or parking removals in business districts) and we end up with a "BRT" system that costs $100m a line but offers no real travel time savings over a Metro*Plus route. 

We also need to decide very early on whether we're going to have true, dedicated BRT routes (which would typically have center lanes and center platforms, requiring special buses with left-side doors that won't work on other routes) or if we're just going to enhance existing bus routes by adding some bus only lanes, improved curb stops, perhaps dedicated busways in some locations, etc.

 

I'm confused because Metro keeps saying "BRT" but I think what we're going to get is the later, not the former.

From conversations I've had with staff at SORTA, they are all about full BRT. DOTE seems to be moving in the right direction too, but I don't know about the senior management. Ultimately, it's all on city council to support it. Maybe SORTA needs to start selling the specifics now, instead of just mentioning that it is in the very early planning stages.

1 hour ago, Dev said:

From conversations I've had with staff at SORTA, they are all about full BRT. DOTE seems to be moving in the right direction too, but I don't know about the senior management. Ultimately, it's all on city council to support it. Maybe SORTA needs to start selling the specifics now, instead of just mentioning that it is in the very early planning stages.

It's effectively impossible to do centerline running without 50' of ROW. 

 

Hamilton and Glenway aren't wide enough.

Reading could work.

Montgomery is going to require cooperation from Norwood, Silverton and Sycamore Township 

 

 

3 minutes ago, thomasbw said:

It's effectively impossible to do centerline running without 50' of ROW. 

 

Hamilton and Glenway aren't wide enough.

Reading could work.

Montgomery is going to require cooperation from Norwood, Silverton and Sycamore Township 

 

 

I'm not seeing this. You say RoW needs to be at least 50' but your chart appears to be current distance between curbs. For example, Glenway @ Warsaw has a RoW of 60'. Same with Hamilton and Blue Rock. Plus, current community leadership in Northside and College Hill will definitely support this. The Price Hills have been demanding traffic calming and renewed investment in years. It shouldn't be hard to get them on board if it's framed right.

 

Norwood seems to be leaning hard into Strong Towns talking points, and want to re-pedestrianize their business district along Montgomery. Silverton just signed an agreement for TOD with SORTA, and are creating a land trust. I don't know why you think those two would not be on board with legit BRT. I definitely think that Sycamore TWP will be an issue so hopefully the turn around can be in Silverton.

I strongly doubt community councils will want to halve the widths of their sidewalks and eliminate all on street parking (I could be wrong, but I only included curb to curb distance because I assumed giving up sidewalk was a non-starter). 

 

Having a 5' sidewalk with no buffer with the traffic on Hamilton or Glenway seems like a bad idea. 

Streetmix flags anything under 6' for a sidewalk as not wide enough. 

37 minutes ago, thomasbw said:

Streetmix flags anything under 6' for a sidewalk as not wide enough. 

For a business district you need at least 10 feet of sidewalk but its recommended to have 15 feet. Removing on-street parking is going to be a real sticking point for many NBD's because that is convenience parking and a pedestrian buffer. If you remove the parking lane there needs to be something along the curb to emulate that effect. Bollards, trees, light poles, are helpful.

 

To Brad's point I looked at Indy's Red Line BRT where parts of the system share a single center travel lane. Even on those streets the curb-to-curb distance is 40+ feet. For true BRT in this city, there will be sacrifices. I don't see the willpower from supporters and Metro to do the heavy lifting needed to build underground tunnels or any of that stuff for gold level BRT.

BRT is cool, but I just don't think it's a good enough change to make it worth it in some of these business districts. If I were Northside, I'd prefer street parking with bumpouts and some streeteries over BRT. 

 

Providing bus bumpouts so traffic has to wait for buses to pick up/drop off passengers and they don't need to reenter traffic would save significant time.

 

I don't see true BRT through some of these business districts happening. And I don't know if it's "better" than pedestrianized business districts with some convenient street parking

I recreated the "example" street that Metro used in their public presentation and it's about 110 feet wide. 

I don't have the GIS chops for this, but could someone produce a map that color codes major arteries for every 10 feet of ROW? 50', 60', ..., 110'? With the provided evidence of just how much ROW would be needed to replace current bus lines with BRT, I think it would make more sense to only put BRT where it fits without compromising existing sidewalk widths.

17 hours ago, ryanlammi said:

BRT is cool, but I just don't think it's a good enough change to make it worth it in some of these business districts. If I were Northside, I'd prefer street parking with bumpouts and some streeteries over BRT. 

 

Providing bus bumpouts so traffic has to wait for buses to pick up/drop off passengers and they don't need to reenter traffic would save significant time.

 

I don't see true BRT through some of these business districts happening. And I don't know if it's "better" than pedestrianized business districts with some convenient street parking

Agreed on all this.

SORTA presentation on Metro Expansion plans- https://fb.watch/e-Ekq1Sd-4/

 

Below is the map of current and proposed routes. They clearly went with a "coverage" model instead of a "ridership" or "frequency" model. 

 

The 61 Galbraith crosstown is an excellent addition. The 67 route should be renamed the 91 to keep with the crosstown theme. 

15 hours ago, thomasbw said:

They clearly went with a "coverage" model instead of a "ridership" or "frequency" model. 

Is there another choice right now? Seems to me with operator hiring being as challenging as it is, a frequency model is tough to implement and they still have to add or at least maintain coverage to meet the political promises from the levy. 

 

Improved frequency in this climate is likely going to come from priority and efficiency gains like the bus bumpouts mentioned, and continued move toward tap cards and apps over cash. Was glad to see Jeffreys' response to your transit lane on Walnut proposal - hopefully the new streetcar director can provide some help with integration on Walnut and around Government Square. (Removing some express routes would also help frequency and reliability without sacrificing coverage but that doesn't seem likely). Walnut will also be a solid test for this council and current administration.  

 

That said, in my read of it, these changes could make it easier to ramp up frequency in the long-term as they seem to be consolidating branches and focusing on transfers at current or future hubs. 

5 hours ago, shawk said:

Is there another choice right now? Seems to me with operator hiring being as challenging as it is, a frequency model is tough to implement and they still have to add or at least maintain coverage to meet the political promises from the levy. 

 

Improved frequency in this climate is likely going to come from priority and efficiency gains like the bus bumpouts mentioned, and continued move toward tap cards and apps over cash. Was glad to see Jeffreys' response to your transit lane on Walnut proposal - hopefully the new streetcar director can provide some help with integration on Walnut and around Government Square. (Removing some express routes would also help frequency and reliability without sacrificing coverage but that doesn't seem likely). Walnut will also be a solid test for this council and current administration.  

 

That said, in my read of it, these changes could make it easier to ramp up frequency in the long-term as they seem to be consolidating branches and focusing on transfers at current or future hubs. 

In Jared Walker's parlance, a hypothetical "coverage" plan and a "ridership" plan both use the same number of service hours. Here's a quick hypothetical "ridership" plan I made in five minutes that would reduce reduce frequency north of Galbraith and in Anderson township and use those hours to make the 31, 21 and 4 more frequent (again this is just a quick one i made up to illustrate the difference)

 

 

Compared to SORTA's "coverage" plan 

Edited August 20, 20222 yr by thomasbw
added map

On 8/2/2022 at 11:05 AM, ucgrady said:

Also I really hope (though it's doubtful) that TANK was able to fix up the trolley cars in the two year hiatus because the seats and suspensions on those things were pretty damn uncomfortable. 

For anyone wondering, no the trolley's are the exact same and still pieces of crap... which is really frustrating because the reason they were built this way was to fit the Roebling's weight limit but since reopening this past week they are still not using the Roebling bridge at all, which started during the Roebling's extended closure/repair. I like the idea of a free/cheap shuttle around the basin but between the uncomfortable trolleys and the convoluted route (especially when using the Clay Wade) this thing really needs to be updated. 

Cincinnati Metro to vet where to build bus rapid transit lines

 

Metro is starting to narrow down potential corridors for bus rapid transit service in Hamilton County, launching a nine-month study and a series of public meetings to get input and narrow down which two of four potential routes will go first.

 

Bus rapid transit (BRT) is essentially a bus line that acts like a rail line, with frequent service. True BRT has dedicated bus lanes along at least part of each route, traffic signals that give buses priority over cars, stations, fewer stops and a fare system where a rider pays before boarding the bus.

 

In 2021, the Business Courier identified the potential BRT project as one of the region’s top infrastructure projects that could be funded by the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Cincinnati currently does not have any BRT routes.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2022/09/27/cincinnati-bus-rapid-transit.html

 

Unless it travels in dedicated lanes, there's nothing "rapid" about BRT. It would be cheaper in the long run to build light rail in these corridors. BRT might makes sense getting up the hill on Vine St.

GOP Hamilton County Commission candidate calls for repeal of one tax increase, public vote on another

 

In 2020, voters narrowly approved a 0.8% sales tax increase, with 75% of the funds going to expand Metro buses throughout Hamilton County and replace the city’s earnings tax as the source of local transit funding. That tax vote received strong support from the business community. The other 25% is going toward road projects in the county, including the replacement of the Western Hills Viaduct.

 

Later, O’Neill told the Business Courier that tax should be reduced to 0.3%, with funds solely going toward roads in the county. If the city wants a bus service, it can pay for it, O’Neill said, arguing most of the routes are in the city.

Glad he's going to siphon votes from Smitherman

21 hours ago, JaceTheAce41 said:

Unless it travels in dedicated lanes, there's nothing "rapid" about BRT. It would be cheaper in the long run to build light rail in these corridors. BRT might makes sense getting up the hill on Vine St.

How does the upfront costs compare? With the funding that is available, it doesn't seem like they'd be able to build all that much.

Getting one shorter LRT line, instead of two bronze BRT lines that reach into the inner ring suburbs, with more frequent service, doesn't seem to be a good tradeoff, especially since 2 lines were promised.

If Metro changes the Montgomery Road Corridor to run as part of the trunk and branch line down Vine, we could add a Crosstown BRT route that would only require 2.6 more miles of busway compared to the original proposal. For only about 6% more mileage, you can add a fifth BRT route

 

 

Did anyone attend one of SORTA's BRT study meetings?

11 hours ago, GHOST TRACKS said:

Did anyone attend one of SORTA's BRT study meetings?

I watched the zoom one. Informative, but basically BRT 101, so most of the people on this site already know everything that was in the proposal. 

 

Here's the timeline they laid out 

I'm extremely disappointed with this timeline. The levy passed in November 2020, so this means service would start *6 years later* in 2027. I understand that some elements of BRT will indeed take a while to plan and permit, but not starting construction until 2025 is unacceptable in my opinion. I think you really nailed it with your "Moneyball" proposal:

 

5 minutes ago, carnevalem said:

I'm extremely disappointed with this timeline. The levy passed in November 2020, so this means service would start *6 years later* in 2027. I understand that some elements of BRT will indeed take a while to plan and permit, but not starting construction until 2025 is unacceptable in my opinion. I think you really nailed it with your "Moneyball" proposal:

 

Thank you.

 

[Note- The gap is even longer as Issue 7 passed by 280 votes in a weird covid delayed election in Spring 2020]

I'm thinking this might be the best Downtown/Uptown alignment for BRT. It would require the elimination of a lot of on-street parking, but every single possible alignment will require the elimination of a lot of on-street parking. 

 

 

 

For all the praise that the Indianapolis Red Line is getting, their passenger productivity is pretty low. I threw in some Cincinnati standard routes for comparison.

 

[Note- the Federal BRT list is weird. It includes Orlando, which isn't really BRT at all and doesn't include Pittsburgh. I'm sure there's a lot of other outliers, but those are the ones I know about]

 

The Red Line in Indy kind of out kicks its coverage. Indy isn't a transit-first city, they haven't yet improved the network around the Red Line as planned, and the Red Line itself isn't built in a corridor anywhere near the ridership potential of any of our top routes. But their roads are wide and the priority is fairly well-executed, and they're doing pretty well with steps for infill/zoning reform now along the line. There are a lot of lessons to be taken from Indy - be careful with unproven technology/batteries, don't have an awful payment system, systems > lines in isolation, prioritize operators - but our BRT if well-executed should be leaps and bounds beyond Indy's in ridership. 

The Metro Plus light bars that were installed 5+ years ago are all in various states of deterioration.  In at least 2-3 cases, somebody jumped the curb and took a few of them out. 

 

Service improvements from "BRT" will come at the intersections, not in long sections where there is already little traffic congestion, like the Vine St. Hill.  There is no way to create signal prioritization for BRT buses at Schwartz's Point, McMillan/Calhoun, MLK/Jefferson, Hughes Corner, etc. without introducing Total Chaos.  So just having established that there is no way to do it, why are we doing it? 

 

In Cambridge, MA, the buses have a dedicated tunnel in Harvard Square.  Are we going to build a tunnel just for buses between Straight St. and W. Clifton at Atkins?  With a station under Thai Express?  Are we going to dig a tunnel just for buses from the Jefferson Ave. BP to the Home Base Tavern?  Under Vine from the EPA to University Ave.? 

 

The answer is no, as each of those would be $50+ million projects - maybe even $100 million each. 

 

 

 

 

10 hours ago, Lazarus said:

There is no way to create signal prioritization for BRT buses at Schwartz's Point, McMillan/Calhoun, MLK/Jefferson, Hughes Corner, etc. without introducing Total Chaos.  So just having established that there is no way to do it, why are we doing it?

Why are you so sure of this? I'm not a traffic engineer, but is there some reason you say signal prioritization can't work at these intersections?