17 hours ago, ryanlammi said:

They better not keep the "Metro*Plus" route and call the new service "Metro Pulse"

 

I imagine the plus route disappears when they open this new BRT lite service

I hope they don't. For the 'trunk' of the line, Metro*Plus could use all of the BRT infrastructure except maybe the station on Jefferson. The 'branch' BAT lanes aren't a huge benefit (and signal priority is a huge unknown), so Metro*Plus could end up having very similar operating speeds to the BRT lines

Watched someone defecate in the “bus only” lane this evening. To be fair, it’s never enforced or actually used so fair play to them. 

Edited October 4, 2024Oct 4 by Gordon Bombay

Here's a map of where BRT will have exclusive lanes. Signal priority is extremely important for this system. 

Edited October 6, 2024Oct 6 by thomasbw
updated map

On 9/26/2024 at 10:20 AM, Dev said:

It's more likely that the BRT will just stay on Reading given that SORTA is working on building their own transit center at Whittier. I don't know what the current status is but most of the land is currently owned by UCI and the Port. Also the Uptown Multimodal Center is planned by UC Health to be on Harvey at Hickman, not Burnet.

I was able to corner a planner at SORTA about this yesterday. They do prefer the BRT route to stay on Burnet given the existing numbers of workers. I did not have time to to clarify if/how the UC transit center on Harvey will stretch over to Burnet and if the transit center at Reading and Whittier is still moving forward. I was reminded that emergency vehicles can legally use bus lanes, which could help strengthen the argument for bus lanes on stroads like Burnet, Clifton, and MLK. Finally, I was told that they are working with Children's to get free bus passes for all of their employees soon, so that should help demonstrate whether or not running down Burnet would be advantageous.

On 10/5/2024 at 6:13 AM, thomasbw said:

Here's a map of where BRT will have exclusive lanes. Signal priority is extremely important for this system. 

Metro identified areas with the most traffic delays and here's what they're proposing for BRT

No exclusive bus lanes in the top three most congested spots on either route. 

Metro should consider making their new BRT proposal explicitly Uptown-focused and adding a third crosstown BRT line. If you ran each route at three busses per direction per hour, you'd have 10-minute service to or from Uptown with the University of Cincinnati Station acting as a central hub.

 

5 hours ago, thomasbw said:

Metro should consider making their new BRT proposal explicitly Uptown-focused

I would recommend changing the name of the "Uptown" stop on your map to "Hospitals" or something along those lines. "Uptown" is too large of an area, so labeling any individual stop as "Uptown" is confusing. 

21 hours ago, jwulsin said:

I would recommend changing the name of the "Uptown" stop on your map to "Hospitals" or something along those lines. "Uptown" is too large of an area, so labeling any individual stop as "Uptown" is confusing. 

Is that where they're building the Uptown transit center? That's my guess as to why they named it that

On 11/2/2024 at 11:17 AM, thomasbw said:

Metro should consider making their new BRT proposal explicitly Uptown-focused and adding a third crosstown BRT line. If you ran each route at three busses per direction per hour, you'd have 10-minute service to or from Uptown with the University of Cincinnati Station acting as a central hub.

 

 

Great idea.

From Councilman Mark Jeffreys-

 

"Great @cincinnatimetro engagement session on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). A few more sessions . BRTwill be like a train - more limit stops w/dedicated lanes; it will cut transit times by 13 minutes on Reading & 15 minutes on Hamilton. A better, cheaper & faster transit option."

 

If those time-saving figures are true, that would put the speeds of Reading BRT at 19 mph (up 62% from 11.7 mph currently) and Hamilton at 17.7 mph (up 48% from 11.9 mph). They would be the two fastest BRT routes in the country despite only having 18% exclusive bus lanes and not having full TSP. 

 

I don't see any possible way this could occur; however, if they somehow pull it off, it would be a model for every BRT program in the country to emulate.

 

Here's how the speeds would compare 

 

Edited December 3, 2024Dec 3 by thomasbw
added chart

10 hours ago, thomasbw said:

From Councilman Mark Jeffreys-

 

"Great @cincinnatimetro engagement session on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). A few more sessions . BRTwill be like a train - more limit stops w/dedicated lanes; it will cut transit times by 13 minutes on Reading & 15 minutes on Hamilton. A better, cheaper & faster transit option."

 

If those time-saving figures are true, that would put the speeds of Reading BRT at 19 mph (up 62% from 11.7 mph currently) and Hamilton at 17.7 mph (up 48% from 11.9 mph). They would be the two fastest BRT routes in the country despite only having 18% exclusive bus lanes and not having full TSP. 

 

I don't see any possible way this could occur; however, if they somehow pull it off, it would be a model for every BRT program in the country to emulate.

 

Here's how the speeds would compare 

 

 

Grateful for Jeffreys. Glad he's on Council

This is a much better example of setting reasonable expectations for BRT. 

 

“It’s a bus, it’s a little faster,” said Sharon LaCombe, senior director of Bus Rapid Transit. “So the stations are spaced further apart, and the stations are closer to the street car stations Downtown in terms of the size.”

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cincinnati-metro-taking-feedback-for-bus-rapid-transit/ar-AA1velZk

On 12/3/2024 at 8:49 AM, thomasbw said:

I don't see any possible way this could occur

 

I mean, there's just no way. On top of that—this city and its local transit authorities have never enforced the one, singular bus-only lane we do have, still don't have streetcar signal timing working, never got the Uptown "queue jumper" working for buses, and still can't track their streetcars properly in real-time. And they couldn't even accomplish any of these things even when the political climate wasn't hostile. 

We're going to to put some covered (but not too covered) stations along a Metro "plus" route, and call it "rapid" transit. 

 

Todd Portune would be proud. 

Edited December 4, 2024Dec 4 by Gordon Bombay

So it's rebranded MetroPlus then.

Fewer stations, but fancier.

 

Also, this quote isn't giving me much hope:

Quote

“We’ve gotten a couple of areas where there’s concern about existing congestion,” LaCombe said. “And we’re listening and hearing that and evaluating to make sure that what we’re doing doesn’t impede the other traffic and the other buses that are going to be on the same street.”

 "We need to make sure BRT doesn't get in the way of our congested streets"... Instead of, "fast and reliable BRT will reduce congestion and should be the priority"

 

How is this person the head of the BRT initiative? This is so uninspired. Even Indianapolis went all-out on their BRT infrastructure, but I guess we can't.

Edited December 4, 2024Dec 4 by 10albersa

On 10/12/2024 at 6:19 AM, thomasbw said:

Metro identified areas with the most traffic delays and here's what they're proposing for BRT

That literally is the plan  

Honestly, those of you that are Cincinnati City residents, ask Mark Jeffreys to square his comments (side by side) with the comments from the CEO of the BRT project... I'd love to hear his thoughts.

1 hour ago, 10albersa said:

Honestly, those of you that are Cincinnati City residents, ask Mark Jeffreys to square his comments (side by side) with the comments from the CEO of the BRT project... I'd love to hear his thoughts.

I would bet any amount of money he's just repeating what he was told by someone at Metro. 

5 hours ago, thomasbw said:

I would bet any amount of money he's just repeating what he was told by someone at Metro. 

Ugh. Sad but true.

I'd guess Mark Jeffreys' comments about time saving are probably repeating what he was told (is that supposed to be an own?), but that it's not about strictly miles per hour of travel. It's likely based on a measure that combines travel speed improvements via BRT with frequency improvements that are expected to occur as part of the BRT project (which, in theory, would be increasingly possible at a similar budget because of those speed improvements) for an overall improvement for the average trip in the corridor. 

 

If you think that's a disingenuous way to represent it, that's fair, but travel times from point to point are what matters at the end of the day if you're a transit rider and what you're comparing to when you're competing with driving. Jeffreys has been staunchly on the side of a well-executed BRT project.

 

I'd agree that the fairly tepid quotes are uninspiring, but watching the video it's pretty clear that she's still just trying to explain what BRT is for the average FOX19 viewer who have never heard of it, likely will never take it, and is concerned about congestion or change because that's always the concern. I'd certainly rather her advocate for the best possible project but I'm willing to guess that a 30-second clip is not representative of her full views and plans to make it better, or her competency to run the project more generally. 

 

I went to the session and made sure to write in comments about the need for more priority and removing parking - I hope others did too. 

^That's a possibility, but I don't think frequency is going to be that much better on BRT than it currently is on the 17 and 43 (which basically run 15 minute headways at present). In order to go from a 15 minute headway to 12 minute headway you need 25% more service. To go from a 15 minutes to a 10 minute headway, you need 50% more service. 

 

• The current cost to run the 17 and 43 is about $21m. 
• The estimated cost to run Hamilton BRT and Reading BRT is estimated to be $23m.
• SORTA's budget assumes the net increase will only be $10m.

 

Let's assume we can get 12 minute headways, so 3 minutes of the time saving is from a shorter wait. In order to get these total time savings, that still puts the Reading BRT as the fastest route in the country and Hamilton as tied for the second fastest in the country. 

 

I think improving bus service is good, but we need to set reasonable expectations. 

 

Edited December 7, 2024Dec 7 by thomasbw
added more

I guess I will just wait for whatever the original source is, because I don't think Jeffreys is the type to just throw out numbers without basis. My experience on the #43 is that there are a good amount of wheelchair users and cash payers, so as I've stated before, level-boarding and off-fare payment feel likely to make a difference as well. 

 

Very fun that one complaint is not being reasonable enough and another is that the agency is uninspired! I regularly hear Darryl Haley stating the desire to have one of the best BRT and bus systems in the country and that'd be my goal as well, so let's see what they end up with and push for the best result we can possibly get for transit users. 

CEOs and local politicians saying things that aren’t actually going to come to pass? Yeah, hard to believe.

 

It won’t be a well-executed BRT system, simply because it’s not going to be BRT. I appreciate that there are advocates in the city government and in SORTA leadership—but let’s look at the track record of both and the current realities of transit in this region + what’s been publicly proposed so far. 
 

That tells you all you need to know. 
 

I hope I’m wrong and I’ll gladly still be a Metro rider/transit advocate regardless, but my faith in the institutions of this city are at an all time low. 

 

 

Edited December 7, 2024Dec 7 by Gordon Bombay

5 hours ago, Gordon Bombay said:

CEOs and local politicians saying things that aren’t actually going to come to pass? Yeah, hard to believe.

 

It won’t be a well-executed BRT system, simply because it’s not going to be BRT. I appreciate that there are advocates in the city government and in SORTA leadership—but let’s look at the track record of both and the current realities of transit in this region + what’s been publicly proposed so far. 
 

That tells you all you need to know. 
 

I hope I’m wrong and I’ll gladly still be a Metro rider/transit advocate regardless, but my faith in the institutions of this city are at an all time low. 

 

SORTA has one of the best ridership recoveries in the nation. They've also been getting Federal pork barrel for improvements to every singlep stop. Cincinnati is the only local government in the region to implement upzoning, and there's even a recent article in the Courier talking about how NIMBYs are winning in NKY. Hell, Cincinnati has gotten so good on traffic calming that ODOT is copying them. So the recent track record is looking really, really good.

There were multiple comments on the board suggesting that the project should be routed down Whitfield and Dixmyth to serve Good Sam, instead of using Clifton and Ludlow. They were written in a way to try to sound like it was a constructive suggestion while anyone with a passing knowledge of that area should realize instantly that this is a horrible idea that is being suggested by NIMBYs who just don't want to see poor people in their neighborhood business district. This is the kind of rhetoric transit advocates need to push back against.

 

If you want the consultants to suggest a better implementation, and the elected/appointed officials to support one, they need the public response that gives them the ability to argue that position. I was told that the project is at the 10% design phase so there's plenty of time for this thing to change, it's just a matter of whether it will be for the worse or the better.

One issue that will eventually come up is the inequitable treatment of on-street parking along the BRT routes.

 

I haven't posted this before, but it looks like the die is cast at this point.

 

If we're doing real BRT, we should have bus lanes in the most congested areas (see previous posts)

 

So the majority black neighborhoods have the on-street parking removed for BRT.  The majority white neighborhoods do not.

 

It should be done in all areas.

Darryl did a great job and will be missed-

 

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2025/01/21/darryl-haley-retiring-from-metro/77845735007/

1 hour ago, thomasbw said:

Darryl did a great job and will be missed-

 

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2025/01/21/darryl-haley-retiring-from-metro/77845735007/

 

Agreed. A consequential CEO. Very hopeful we get a worthy leader with experience and a vision for rail transit to succeed him.

I believe Route 19 has seen the largest ridership growth of any Metro Route post-pandemic. In 2025 or 2026 it will pass Route 4 for the #5 spot for highest ridership. Depending on how much BRT cannibalizes the underlying routes, it might end up as #3 in 2028.  

 

Over the past five years, the limited-stop Metro*Plus service has seen a larger ridership drop, -48%, than any other major route operated by Metro.

 

Overall, Cincinnati is a national leader in ridership recovery, but this route is a huge outlier (the next closest is Route 6 at -15%)

 

If our "BRT-Lite" route is our worst-performing route, why is SORTA so optimistic about their new "BRT-slight less lite" proposal?

Metro*Plus is also one of the few routes that has seen substantial service drops over those same five years. 2024 vs. 2019 is jarring - it went from a solid every-15-minutes route to every 30 currently. Reduced service with no improvements in speed or reliability (if anything I think it's likely a longer trip, as Montgomery was narrowed), plus a general drop in express-type demand post-COVID, etc. makes that much less surprising than the #6 drop (which has increased over that window). 

 

If anything, that ridership drop shows the importance of execution and frequency to the eventual ridership on the BRT routes. If it gets watered down, it will disappoint, which means it needs support for priority and not death by a thousand cuts (or a lack of support from the community that should be rooting for BRT to be as successful as possible). 

With better marketing and real frequencies between uptown and downtown (5 to 10 min headways) metro plus would be very successful in serving the urban core but you still wouldn't see high ridership past Norwood. That area is just too auto centric.

22 hours ago, shawk said:

Metro*Plus is also one of the few routes that has seen substantial service drops over those same five years. 2024 vs. 2019 is jarring - it went from a solid every-15-minutes route to every 30 currently. Reduced service with no improvements in speed or reliability (if anything I think it's likely a longer trip, as Montgomery was narrowed), plus a general drop in express-type demand post-COVID, etc. makes that much less surprising than the #6 drop (which has increased over that window). 

 

If anything, that ridership drop shows the importance of execution and frequency to the eventual ridership on the BRT routes. If it gets watered down, it will disappoint, which means it needs support for priority and not death by a thousand cuts (or a lack of support from the community that should be rooting for BRT to be as successful as possible). 

I truly don't understand the logic of SORTA here. If they're saying that limited-stop service is the future and we're going to spend the most money in the organization's history on it, why are they intentionally kneecapping their only limited-stop service? 

 

The current BRT proposal only has 18% exclusive bus lanes and I'm extremely skeptical that they will introduce any meaningful signal priority aside from maybe a few 'hold greens', so you're looking at service very similar to Metro*Plus but with level boarding and (hopefully) all-door boarding. 

Edited January 27Jan 27 by thomasbw

I'm not anti-BRT overall because when it's implemented correctly, it can be successful. However, SORTA is going to half-ass BRT and when it's not successful it'll set transit back another decade. 

14 hours ago, thomasbw said:

I truly don't understand the logic of SORTA here. If they're saying that limited-stop service is the future and we're going to spend the most money in the organization's history on it, why are they intentionally kneecapping their only limited-stop service? 

 

The current BRT proposal only has 18% exclusive bus lanes and I'm extremely skeptical that they will introduce any meaningful signal priority aside from maybe a few 'hold greens', so you're looking at service very similar to Metro*Plus but with level boarding and (hopefully) all-door boarding. 

As far as I can tell, Metro*Plus is from an era that tried to rely strictly on branding, a slightly better stop experience (i.e. actually providing shelters in places they're needed either way), and specific (though now dated) buses to try and appeal to 'choice' riders. Any gains in ridership were likely actually due to improvements in underlying frequency and regardless haven't maintained over time as local service has started to trend back in the right direction. Limited stops in isolation don't really provide all that much speed benefit depending on your destination, and I believe Metro*Plus was also before FASTops happened throughout the system (which could likely use another round IMO). 

 

I think it's a fair argument to say that if BRT is not meaningfully faster and more frequent than underlying local service, it will not be effective. However, I don't think Metro*Plus is much of a comparison just because it's limited-stop service. 

 

My hope and belief would be that through the capital spending on infrastructure to support level, all-door boarding, prepayment, and priority along the ROW through lanes and signals, BRT will actually create a cycle of improved frequency, and thus service and trip times, through that improved infrastructure. That was never the goal of Metro*Plus and I don't think that service will be missed much if/when it is deprioritized along with other express routes. 

15 hours ago, thomasbw said:

Thanks for sharing this, helpful and interesting info. The #33 continuing a downward trend would be very bad news for overall system ridership. The Glenway diet has been a positive for pedestrian and roadway safety but I know they've talked in board meetings about the impact on trip times. The city/DOTE should explore submitting something in that corridor for the next round of the Transit Infrastructure Fund to actually benefit bus riders, it would be a shoo-in with the formula being so rooted in ridership. 

5 hours ago, shawk said:

Limited stops in isolation don't really provide all that much speed benefit depending on your destination, and I believe Metro*Plus was also before FASTops happened throughout the system (which could likely use another round IMO).

There's only one section where the 4 and Metro*Plus share a large enough section of overlap for comparison.

 

On Montgomery Rd., Metro*Plus goes 4.18 mi from time point 5 (Dana & Mongomtery) to time point 7 (Montgomery & Tyne) in 15 minutes (all times are based on the scheduled time departing from Government Square weekdays at noon). Average speed 16.7 mph.

 

On Montgomery Rd, Route 4 goes 4.29 mi from time point 5 (Dana & Mongomtery) to time point 8 (Montgomery & Kennedy) in 21 minutes. Average speed 12.25 mph. 

 

As far as I can tell, this is the only real comparison we have in the entire system, but Metro*Plus is 36.4% faster here. Now they're both scheduled times, not actual times, but it's presumably the same person making both schedules on the same road.

5 hours ago, shawk said:

As far as I can tell, Metro*Plus is from an era that tried to rely strictly on branding, a slightly better stop experience (i.e. actually providing shelters in places they're needed either way), and specific (though now dated) buses to try and appeal to 'choice' riders. Any gains in ridership were likely actually due to improvements in underlying frequency and regardless haven't maintained over time as local service has started to trend back in the right direction.

I tried to quantify this a while back, but it was difficult due to a number of factors. Metro Plus is kind of a Frankenstein of three different routes (4, 46, 78) and SORTA ridership fell consistently for two decades.

 

This chart shows how the three routes in the corridor as a percentage of total system ridership. 

 

 

 

This chart attempts to show how much the corridor would have lost anyways without Metro*Plus and how much of the ridership was potentially new riders (vs. migration from the other three routes). 

After Reinventing Metro was launched plus pandemic losses, I don't think going past 2019 would provide any insight. 

5 hours ago, shawk said:

The #33 continuing a downward trend would be very bad news for overall system ridership. The Glenway diet has been a positive for pedestrian and roadway safety but I know they've talked in board meetings about the impact on trip times.

I wonder how much of that is the road diet and how much is larger demographic trends. If you look at 2019 vs 2024, a lot of the red is west of the Mill Creek and the largest gains are roughly northwest of the City. 

 

Edited January 28Jan 28 by thomasbw

Saw that SORTA is finally seeking bids for the rail property in Blue Ash it bought in the 1990s' for the 2002 Metro Moves LRT.

10 hours ago, thomasbw said:

I wonder how much of that is the road diet and how much is larger demographic trends. If you look at 2019 vs 2024, a lot of the red is west of the Mill Creek and the largest gains are roughly northwest of the City. 

 

A good chunk of the more recent decline is also likely the implementation of the #36 to further reduce the need to connect downtown. But with Glenway not being chosen for any specific treatments (until maybe after BRT along with Montgomery? Still never seen any details on that) I still think the point remains that the city should start applying for projects that actually impact trip times for bus riders. They're not bad projects, they just haven't ever revolved around transit.

1 hour ago, GHOST TRACKS said:

Saw that SORTA is finally seeking bids for the rail property in Blue Ash it bought in the 1990s' for the 2002 Metro Moves LRT.

 

Bids to do rail stuff with it I hope

JK. I know they're going to make getting rail transit here harder on purpose.

6 minutes ago, JaceTheAce41 said:

 

Bids to do rail stuff with it I hope

JK. I know they're going to make getting rail transit here harder on purpose.

 

Although the core of the Metro Moves plan, built around the semi-active/semi-abandoned CL&N and Wasson Rd. freight railroads, was never going to be a transformative rail network.  It would have been similar to St. Louis's light rail network - nice to have but not enough good station locations or enough of an alternative to driving to attract a large number of choice riders.  The most-needed corridor is a fully grade-separated subway between UC, Downtown, and the Kentucky river cities. 

 

 

On 1/28/2025 at 5:03 PM, JaceTheAce41 said:

Bids to do rail stuff with it I hope

JK. I know they're going to make getting rail transit here harder on purpose.

They are being pushed by the FTA to dispose of the property. Stop it with the whiney reactionary non-sense. There's no grand conspiracy to make rail harder by SORTA or Cincinnati. It's just very expensive to build and we do not have the metrics to be competitive to win those federal grants to help pay for it. The state has a cap on sales tax at 8% so the extra 0.2% is not going to be enough for them to build much of anything.

59 minutes ago, Dev said:

They are being pushed by the FTA to dispose of the property. Stop it with the whiney reactionary non-sense. There's no grand conspiracy to make rail harder by SORTA or Cincinnati. It's just very expensive to build and we do not have the metrics to be competitive to win those federal grants to help pay for it. The state has a cap on sales tax at 8% so the extra 0.2% is not going to be enough for them to build much of anything.

Maybe I should have used the sarcasm font. My bad.

 

I don’t think that there’s any conspiracy or anything of the sort. After years of Cranley and Kasich one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise though. I don’t think SORTA or Cincy politicians have the wherewithal to do any conspiracies. Hell, they can’t even do true BRT.

 

As for rail. It’ll happen someday. It has to. Cincinnati can’t move forward indefinitely without it. The thing I really can’t stand about some people in this are is they have a can’t do attitude. Oh no MetroMoves failed. Let’s never try again. Oh no the streetcar got half of its length cut. Let’s never try to lobby council to expand it and take it away from SORTA because WLW has us convinced it’s politically radioactive.

 

Good thing that attitude is dying off and there are people doing some work to change things

1 hour ago, Dev said:

There's no grand conspiracy to make rail harder by SORTA or Cincinnati.

 

Cranley was mentored as a teenager by Tom Luken, who spent his entire political career harassing Metro and opposing any rail projects.  Cranley spent his whole time as mayor fighting the streetcar (he succeeded in having construction stopped soon after his election, plus he pulled all sorts of stunts to hinder its ridership after it became operational).  Cranley masterminded the purchase and then sell-off of the Wasson Rd. railroad property (including excess ROW to his buddies) to make it essentially impossible to convert the corridor to light rail, as had been OKI/Sorta's plan since the 1970s.  Cranley was behind the push to move Metro to county funding, which has never gotten service within the city back to the levels of the circa-2011 cuts since it's being wasted on cross-county routes that nobody rides. 

 

 

40 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

 

Cranley was mentored as a teenager by Tom Luken, who spent his entire political career harassing Metro and opposing any rail projects.  Cranley spent his whole time as mayor fighting the streetcar (he succeeded in having construction stopped soon after his election, plus he pulled all sorts of stunts to hinder its ridership after it became operational).  Cranley masterminded the purchase and then sell-off of the Wasson Rd. railroad property (including excess ROW to his buddies) to make it essentially impossible to convert the corridor to light rail, as had been OKI/Sorta's plan since the 1970s.  Cranley was behind the push to move Metro to county funding, which has never gotten service within the city back to the levels of the circa-2011 cuts since it's being wasted on cross-county routes that nobody rides.

This isn't some grand conspiracy. He's just a politician who made choices you don't agree with. 

He clearly was a DINO that put his own interests over the city's.

From Cam Hardy's twitter- 

 

There's going to be a lot of excess capacity on these. As far as I can tell, they're going to run about 40% more service on the two corridors and about 66% of the service is going to be on these larger vehicles. 

 

Currently both routes average about 22-23 riders per hour. 

Edited February 8Feb 8 by thomasbw
typo

 

Metro isn't even saying they will have signal priority now.

 

How much higher ridership is the 13mph bus going to get than the 11mph bus?