3 hours ago, shawk said:

In the world we have, there aren't going to be a lot of transit experts, which includes our politicians who may be calling it BRT-lite, or people like me who are only recently getting interested in transit. Regular people like my dad are going to tune out or have their eyes roll back into their head if they hear the acronym BRT, but he'll sure as hell complain about if it's not effective. 

 

We know that DOTE, SORTA, and our city politicians are not exactly progressive. So I think it'd be helpful if there are more people in the room advocating for or explaining the details everyone here seems to agree are crucial. I'm personally not an urban planner, Metro employee, or transit expert, so it'd be nice to know what to focus on or to know what to look for if it can help advocacy. 

 

No offense meant to those who are frustrated or skeptical, but I guess I'd rather see if there can be a renewed focus on what can be done in the short term now that this has passed that can make the long-term more possible. The defeatism makes lurkers like me want to tune out rather than engage or learn more. Maybe this isn't enough, but now it's done, and we have every member of council on record (other than Sundermann) as supporting improvements to the bus system and 70%+ of city voters agreeing. 

 

Realistically, what can be done on the city end to make Metro more effective ASAP (let's say 1-2 years)? Does a south-bound transit-only lane on Walnut still make sense? I know the city is still waiting on the (overdue) DOTE report on the Reading bus-only corridor. 

 

Whether you call it "BRT" or "better bus service" or whatever -- I understand that the normal population does not care -- it is not going to be any better than a normal bus route unless we do things like adding signal priority for buses at various intersections along the route and adding bus-only lanes in certain locations. Our current DOTE is unwilling to do anything that takes any street space away from cars or could potentially add a few seconds to a driver's commute.

 

So, trying to be positive here, what I would recommend that people do is show up at every SORTA board meeting they can, every City Council meeting where anything transportation related is on the agenda, and any public engagement meetings that may be held. Sign up to speak and tell them how important these things are to you.

 

Even more important is to make sure that we put politicians into office who care about transportation and urbanist issues, and most importantly, care about the public engagement process. I cannot express how different things were under Mallory compared to under Cranley. Mallory believed in the public engagement process and in letting experts do their jobs. During his administration, there were a number of ideas that started at the grassroots level, worked their way up through DOTE or other departments, and eventually got implemented. Cranley is the opposite, all decisions are made from the top down, and he literally doesn't care what some urbanist living in OTR or Northside thinks. So many projects that had years and years of public engagement ended up getting squashed at the last minute because Cranley decided he didn't like it. Hopefully our next mayor will return us to the former style of leadership.

As I mentioned here several months ago, all this public funding increase does is restore the pre-2012 cuts and add a minor amount of new service.  The larger issue was always the regressive tax shift - something Cranley has been aiming to accomplish for 15+ years. 

 

Also, these people fooled the Better Bus Coalition into thinking they came up with the whole idea.  I heard - verbatim - the transit + Western Hills Viaduct sales tax proposal more than ten years ago, during the early years of the streetcar struggle.    

 

 

Thanks for your responses, @taestelland @JYP. Feel free to move this or whatever but I'm just discouraged because I didn't live in Cincinnati from 2010-2017, the opposite of those "flushed out." If you don't try to help give a new guard a chance to care or ways to advocate and be involved, that base will never come back, and it's especially overwhelming when you're new to it. A great example is @jmecklenborg above talking about BBC being "fooled." I can say with confidence that no one at the BBC thinks it was their idea. But I can also say with confidence that relative to numbers, BBC punches beyond it's weight. So showing up matters and I'm happy to show up and pay attention. Looking foward to a new election, a new era at Metro with a new funding source, and a better future for Cincinnati. 

^There were quite a number of published quotes and tweets that came out of that camp that were quite insulting to people who had been involved in the issue for the past 20 years. 

 

The fact is that there was no intrusion on this local vote by national actors, as happened in 2002, and there was almost no meddling by COAST.  We went through a ton of pain here in 2009 and again in 2011 when COAST managed to get anti-transit charter amendments on the ballot.  Neither charter amendment passed, but they succeeded in delaying the streetcar project for years, which moved the time frame all the way back to a 2016 opening when the thing could have been fully operational early in Mallory's second term. 

 

What's more, as I have already explained, this is merely an incremental increase in public funding to Metro, not a sea change, as would have been the case with 2002's Metro Moves. 

 

I could go on and on. 

^ That's fair, and I apologize yet recognize that I don't know the history. For those of us who haven't been able to be involved for 10-20+ years, its hard to really understand the massive undertakings that were MetroMoves and the streetcar. 

11 hours ago, shawk said:

Thanks for your responses, @taestelland @JYP. Feel free to move this or whatever but I'm just discouraged because I didn't live in Cincinnati from 2010-2017, the opposite of those "flushed out." If you don't try to help give a new guard a chance to care or ways to advocate and be involved, that base will never come back, and it's especially overwhelming when you're new to it. A great example is @jmecklenborg above talking about BBC being "fooled." I can say with confidence that no one at the BBC thinks it was their idea. But I can also say with confidence that relative to numbers, BBC punches beyond it's weight. So showing up matters and I'm happy to show up and pay attention. Looking foward to a new election, a new era at Metro with a new funding source, and a better future for Cincinnati. 

 

Don't be discouraged. We need new blood. The "streetcar mafia" of 2007-2014 are worn out and cynical. We need new energy that is not hindered by the negative battles from that time. A part of what made this levy successful was Cam and the BBC's focus on buses, urgency and activism. They were able to get a seat at the table and get some wins. They didn't get everything they want but the stage is set for the next push. What Jake refers to is that the old school corporate players in this city are very powerful and very conservative. What made progressive urban policy successful under Mallory was that he ignored the corporate elites since they were not his political base (his opponent, David Pepper was a member of the P&G family). Our current mayor is very close to area corporate elites and local developers. So often times, policy decisions come from that perspective or with weighted input from those players.

 

In 2013, Cranley had to run against everything Mallory and Qualls stood for (the streetcar, bike lanes, form-based code, eliminating parking requirements, the parking lease, garbage cans, etc.) to win and when he won he sought to destroy all those things and drink urban progressive tears on everything. Most of this was political, the streetcar was personal. In 2017 when he ran against Simpson, she hurt herself so badly with the Children's Hospital zoning issue, that he didn't need to be against many progressive things. So in this second term we have the elimination of parking requirements in the core, pedestrianizing Court Street, some bike lanes being added, and even the bus levy. The Mayor is more concerned about his legacy this term and he see's the wind is changing. He will try to do what he needs to do to be remembered positively. 

18 hours ago, 10albersa said:

As everyone suspected as Reinventing Metro was evolving, they aren't mentioning BRT anymore, but are acting like they will be doing the other improvements even given the economy right now.

 

 

 

The Reinventing Metro plan is not evolving. It has been up on the website for months. BRT is still in there. It's not going anywhere. Just because he didn't mention it in this press release doesn't mean anything. He's talking about the most immediate changes. BRT was always going to be a few years down the road.

 

 

Metro shut down on Sunday night at 9pm and the #31 buses were used to transfer the rich kids from Findlay Market down to the justice center:

 

Plus, there was a lawyer ad on the side:

 

Statement from the transit union on their refusal to drive buses full of arrested protestors:

 

 

The president of the FOP is now attacking SORTA because their drivers weren't cool with turning Metro buses into paddy wagons. He is threatening to "get their funding back on the ballot" which I don't think is even possible.

 

 

This is so dumb.  

Under no circumstances should the police be renting buses when there are Metro buses available for them to utilize. At most, SORTA should invoice CPD for reimbursement for mileage.  Outright refusal to let CPD use them is a misuse of taxpayer resources. Imagine the Fire Department needing an excavator in an emergency and Public Services telling them "no, these are Public Services excavators, go rent your own."

 

Hopefully it's a moot point but the weather is going to be nice again this weekend, so we'll see.

SORTA did not refuse to let the police use their buses. The bus drivers' union demanded that their members not be required to drive the buses, so SORTA had non-union supervisors drive the buses instead. I heard that on one of the nights, cops were actually driving the buses. So again, SORTA didn't stop the police from using their buses. The police union is throwing a tantrum because the transit union won't lick their boots.

2 hours ago, taestell said:

 

 

 

 

 

Keep in mind that there was no tax increase when the police received raises under Harry Black, and then A SECOND RAISE A WEEK LATER courtesy of John Cranley.  The bonus Cranley bucks helped him win reelection but continue to strain the city's budget. 

 

 

 

Let's also not forget that Cranley's biggest accomplishment as mayor was the "Capital Acceleration Program" in which he swiped the city's credit card to pay for a bunch of things like accelerated road repaving and, of course, buying hundreds of brand new SUVs for the police department.

5 hours ago, Ram23 said:

Outright refusal to let CPD use them is a misuse of taxpayer resources. 

Disagree strongly and frankly I hope SORTA does refuse to let them use buses at all in the future. It's a terrible look for those who have a negative perception of police as it is, which can impact ridership and trust in the system. It would be just as much of a misuse of taxpayer resources to put buses and operators at risk both as they transport prisoners and in future normal circumstances if it leads to decreased ridership or increases vandalism or incidents with operators. The marginal cost savings are not worth that to taxpayers or riders.  

 

With that being said, I get that SORTA had to make a quick call and the use of non-union supervisors may have made sense for one night. I believe the progression went from supervisors (Sunday night) to police drivers (Monday night) and I don't believe there's been a need since, so I guess it's possible that today they straight up said no more buses whatsoever to the union. 

 

I didn't independently verify, so for those who were around - were buses used in '01? I heard secondhand that operators were attacked and there's now some well-deserved apprehension about driving during times/areas while civil unrest is going on. On Monday, I noticed an Express bus downtown that looked to be parked in a way such as to be blocking traffic from protestors near the courthouse, so maybe that's a way they're trying to regain goodwill. 

14 hours ago, Ram23 said:

Imagine the Fire Department needing an excavator in an emergency and Public Services telling them "no, these are Public Services excavators, go rent your own."

 

The Fire Department and Public Services are both departments of the City. SORTA is not a department of the City. Yes, the City currently has a majority stake of the Board appointments but that will change in January. SORTA needs to maintain its political independence. 

15 hours ago, taestell said:

SORTA did not refuse to let the police use their buses. The bus drivers' union demanded that their members not be required to drive the buses, so SORTA had non-union supervisors drive the buses instead. I heard that on one of the nights, cops were actually driving the buses. So again, SORTA didn't stop the police from using their buses. The police union is throwing a tantrum because the transit union won't lick their boots.

 

I was going off of what was in the post you linked. It sounds like SORTA would no longer let the police use the buses if they needed to. Hopefully they won't need to, anyway.

 

I can confirm that police officers did indeed drive the buses on Monday night - it was when the large group was arrested by the Imperial Theater. Which led me to another thought - couldn't the police just commandeer the buses if they needed to? Googling this resulted in finding this bizarre Ohio Supreme Court Case: Blackman v. City of Cincinnati. It seems like CPD could commandeer a bus, but SORTA could refuse and pay a $50 fine.

12 hours ago, shawk said:

With that being said, I get that SORTA had to make a quick call and the use of non-union supervisors may have made sense for one night. I believe the progression went from supervisors (Sunday night) to police drivers (Monday night) and I don't believe there's been a need since, so I guess it's possible that today they straight up said no more buses whatsoever to the union. 

 

I have heard that on Monday the police did in fact commandeer the buses. So it's really a win-win for all parties involved. SORTA and the transit workers union get to sit back and say "we had no part in this," and the police just drive the buses themselves. I'm not sure why this upset the FOP president to the point where he declared war on SORTA and threatened to go after their funding source. That reaction certainly doesn't give me hope that CPD wants to de-escalate the current situation in a peaceful way.

3 hours ago, Dev said:

The Fire Department and Public Services are both departments of the City. SORTA is not a department of the City. Yes, the City currently has a majority stake of the Board appointments but that will change in January. SORTA needs to maintain its political independence. 

 

Yes, this is another important point. After SORTA shifts from a city-run agency to a county-run agency, the city doesn't have the authority to demand that SORTA drive buses for the CPD. I've heard that there is also some debate as to whether the buses and other assets are legally owned by the City or by SORTA. So SORTA may have to "buy" the buses, real estate, and other assets that they currently use from the City of Cincinnati. The city could sell it all to SORTA for $1 as often happens with economic development deals, but given the city's current budget crisis, they may try to actually get the fair market value of those assets.

^Lolol of course. Classic Cranley would drive a hard bargain with SORTA as retribution for the union refusing to drive the buses as prisoner transport. I'm curious if his softened tactics would continue.

Cam has certainly been pushing for a board member that actually rides the bus on the regular. He has also been asking for suggestions on Twitter.

The buses were never really "run" by the city since almost half of the SORTA board was comprised of appointees from outside city limits, despite many county residents paying nothing whatsoever into the system.  

^ I think you answered your own question there. Hils wants to rile up his own union base (which apparently in our local agencies includes voting retired members...) with back-to-back posts on tax increases and dog whistles for black on black crime statistics. Reform and any level of defunding will be a slog, I'm not optimistic. 

 

I think it's been fairly apparent that Cranley said "do this" and SORTA leadership caved immediately. Speaking of taxpayer funds, the COASTies will be all over this because the decision does not appear to have come from either the CEO or from the board as a whole. 

 

I would find it hard to believe that the buses are owned in any way by the city because IIRC almost all capital funding is used from state and federal sources. I'm not sure about real estate. The Northside Transit Center, for example, was ~80% federal funds, and SORTA already paid market for Hogan Alley. I could see this being a bigger issue as they try to acquire more land within the city for other transit centers. 

5 minutes ago, shawk said:

I'm not sure about real estate. The Northside Transit Center, for example, was ~80% federal funds, and SORTA already paid market for Hogan Alley.

 

Interesting. Public records show that the western half of the Transit Center, the parking lot, is owned by the Northside Business Club. The eastern part, where the actual bus lanes and stalls will be, is owned by SORTA.

^ Correct, the Neighborhood Business Association maintained ownership of the western half because that will remain 87 spaces for parking. 

BTW the Northside Transit Hub construction is well underway.  I need to get the camera out and take some real photos.  My camera phone is weak.  

 

 

Quote

The selling price will be $7,500 per bus.

 

So much for budget deficits?

Correction, article updated to reflect $7,500 for all three buses.

 

https://2050.oki.org/recommended-projects/#map

 

I took a look at the OKI 2050 plan and map.  Here's what they have slated for SORTA.  Seems as though Glenway and Reading are prioritized as the BRT routes (2027) and Montgomery Rd is also planned (for 2035). 

 

Also of note, an actual dedicated platform for Amtrak at Union Terminal, which I imagine coinciding with some sort of regional service at normal hours, like CIN to CHI. (2035)

 

EDIT: Please provide feedback and let OKI know the importance of transit/bike improvements

Edited June 6, 20205 yr by 10albersa

They're saying that this is "going" to happen.  Just wait until it faces some "community opposition". 

20 hours ago, 10albersa said:

https://2050.oki.org/recommended-projects/#map

 

I took a look at the OKI 2050 plan and map.  Here's what they have slated for SORTA.  Seems as though Glenway and Reading are prioritized as the BRT routes (2027) and Montgomery Rd is also planned (for 2035). 

 

Also of note, an actual dedicated platform for Amtrak at Union Terminal, which I imagine coinciding with some sort of regional service at normal hours, like CIN to CHI. (2035)

I also found it interesting that a streetcar extension isn't mentioned anywhere except a Newport extension (2045). There's also a Hamilton BRT for 2035 paired with Montgomery. Overall, it's not exactly an overly inspiring list of non-SOV projects for the next 30 years. 

7 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

They're saying that this is "going" to happen.  Just wait until it faces some "community opposition". 

I don't think there will be much "community opposition" on Glenway and Reading, which is why I think they're doing these first.  Maybe the yuppie popularity of IndyGo's Red Line and Purple Line will pave the way for Montgomery in 2035.  I also doubt Hamilton faces much opposition unless Northside and College Hill become full of Hyde Park types.

3 hours ago, 10albersa said:

I don't think there will be much "community opposition" on Glenway and Reading, which is why I think they're doing these first.  Maybe the yuppie popularity of IndyGo's Red Line and Purple Line will pave the way for Montgomery in 2035.  I also doubt Hamilton faces much opposition unless Northside and College Hill become full of Hyde Park types.

 

I think the Glenway and Reading routes are completely within City limits. The other two are not. It might be a coincidence but you would think/hope that infrastructure planning would be easier since there is only one municipality involved with them.

The neighborhood business associations will tirelessly fight the elimination of on-street parking.  So the buses will have to travel in mixed traffic in the exact places where they need exclusive lanes the most.  But hey, we'll have "BRT", because whenever something is labeled BRT it's BRT, because the term means nothing specific whatsoever.  Then, after ridership doesn't increase much, everyone will wag their fingers and say Cincinnati just isn't a place where people use public transportation. 

23 minutes ago, jmecklenborg said:

The neighborhood business associations will tirelessly fight the elimination of on-street parking.  So the buses will have to travel in mixed traffic in the exact places where they need exclusive lanes the most.  But hey, we'll have "BRT", because whenever something is labeled BRT it's BRT, because the term means nothing specific whatsoever.  Then, after ridership doesn't increase much, everyone will wag their fingers and say Cincinnati just isn't a place where people use public transportation. 

This is what I don't understand.

Yes, Cincinnati has a conservative and corporate history and has traditionally hated transit.  But why can peer cities like Kansas City and Indianapolis get these things done and we can't nowadays?

 

It can't just be that their roads are wider. 

It can't just be that P&G, Great American, 5/3 and Kroger hate transit more than Salesforce and (checks Wikipedia for KC corporations) Hallmark.

It can't be that we have a high % of conservatives in the county (as of 2016-2018 elections).

 

The Cincinnati of 2002 is not the same one as today.  As much as Bill Cunningham wishes it would be.

Edited June 8, 20205 yr by 10albersa

Well the wider streets really are a big, big deal.  The scale of the O'Brianville and Ludlow Ave. street walls are roughly the same but one has a 40-foot wide street and the other had a 60-foot wide street.  It's not just eliminating on-street parking - it's also going to eliminate on-street loading zones.  That's a big deal for storefront restaurants and other types of businesses that have at least one truck visit per day. 

 

Plus, one of the big problems with "BRT" is that building a bus-only underpass at major streets means trouble since most transfers are at major streets.  That means you end up having to build a complicated underground bus terminal.  Such things hardly exist in the United States.  The underground bus transfer station beneath Harvard Square is one example.  That thing links directly with the T's red line subway. 

 

 

 

 

 

The issue of BRT through Neighborhood business districts isn’t an urbanist vs. car culture or 700 WLW debate or some kind of measure of progressiveness. It’s real trade offs within urbanism. If you dedicate the curb/parking lane for busses and make it wide open, there’s no barrier to the street for pedestrians on the sidewalk and drivers will go faster without any perceived obstacles around them. plus it would eliminate the possibility for curb bump outs for pedestrians that would otherwise extend into the parking lane. It needs to be carefully evaluated on a case by case basis 

 

 

Edited June 8, 20205 yr by thebillshark

On 6/8/2020 at 9:18 AM, thebillshark said:

It needs to be carefully evaluated on a case by case basis 

 

 

 

 

The Red Line Alewife extension was a no-compromise extension of the old Cambridge-Dorchester subway that rebuilt Harvard, the previous terminal station, into a world class underground multi-modal hub.  All bus traffic was taken out of Harvard Square and it's easy to transfer to the subway without going up into the weather.  The subway line was extended several miles to a new terminal park-and-ride station at Alewife, and new deep subway stations were built at Davis Square and Porter Square.  The Porter station interchanged with commuter rail, meaning commuter train riders don't need to ride all the way downtown and then take the subway back out to the same area they just passed.  

 

The project was built in the late 1970s and opened around 1981.  It still looks great because they had big federal money and they did the damn thing correctly.  No significant compromises. 

 

BRT, generally, is just a giant compromise, and the BRT plan itself gets watered down if not physically then in operations, i.e. the priority signaling in Cleveland being turned off. 

 

 

Developing story with thread but...is this good?

34 minutes ago, Dev said:

is this good?

 

Remember, "pre-pandemic" is post-2011 cuts.  So they are not obligating themselves to restore the bus service levels that existed pre-recession, which was significantly higher than what exists currently.  

Remember, the City of Cincinnati (not SORTA!) took over the old Cincinnati Transit system in the 1970s and turned it into Metro. That's why the city owns all of the physical infrastructure like the buses and the garages. The City essentially hired SORTA to run their bus system. That's why the current transit tax goes to the city, and then the city writes SORTA a check every year to operate Metro.

 

That's why it's so ridiculous that some people are claiming that the remaining money in the Transit Fund is "SORTA's money". It's the city's buses, it's the city's tax revenue, it's the city's money to spend on operating transit however they see fit.

 

By passing this new sales tax, SORTA is basically setting up a whole new transit system. In order to run that system, they're going to need to buy some buses. One solution is that they buy the city's buses. Another solution is that the city says, we'll just give you our buses, as long as you agree to certain terms and conditions. One of those terms should be that SORTA agrees not to fight the decision to use the remaining money in the city's transit fund to pay for streetcar operations.

Maybe the city can "lease" all of their assets to SORTA for $4 million/year, and then the city can use that money to fund the streetcar operations!

Boom, dedicated streetcar funding that technically doesn't violate the sales tax ballot language ?

Bus-only lane on Reading Road to get Cincinnati City Council vote

 

 

Cincinnati City Council will vote Wednesday on a measure urging the funding of a bus-only traffic lanes along Reading Road, which is host to several of Metro’s busiest bus routes, to speed up service and make it more reliable.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2020/08/05/bus-only-lane-on-reading-road.html

45 minutes ago, ColDayMan said:

Bus-only lane on Reading Road to get Cincinnati City Council vote

 

 

Cincinnati City Council will vote Wednesday on a measure urging the funding of a bus-only traffic lanes along Reading Road, which is host to several of Metro’s busiest bus routes, to speed up service and make it more reliable.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2020/08/05/bus-only-lane-on-reading-road.html

 

This would be great, but it needs to be a dedicated painted red bus lane.  None of this "maybe its parking, maybe its sometimes a bus lane" crap that they did on Main St.  Reading Rd doesn't need 2 vehicle travel lanes in that area.  Plus, this gets a jump-start on the Reading Rd BRT, making it slightly easier to get implemented when the time comes.

Also, to the surprise of no one, Cranley bashed this bus lane idea, claiming that Reading needs to be 2 traffic lanes.  Once again proving that his pro-bus statements he makes when someone brings up the streetcar are purely bad faith.

I'm really worried the opponents to a good bus network are going to chip away at the efficacy of this idea until it because a weak no-parking during rush hour deal that someone ignores every day, the cars won't be towed, and no one will do anything about it while the bus has to merge back into traffic.

 

The bus lane right in front of SORTA headquarters downtown isn't even enforced.

 

It's really unfortunately to see Mann take the anti-transit side. Almost no one parks on Reading anyway because it's such a busy thoroughfare. Most people probably don't know you're allowed to park on the street outside of rush hour for most of that stretch. You're not inconveniencing many people by removing parking.

1 hour ago, ryanlammi said:

 

It's really unfortunately to see Mann take the anti-transit side. Almost no one parks on Reading anyway because it's such a busy thoroughfare. Most people probably don't know you're allowed to park on the street outside of rush hour for most of that stretch. You're not inconveniencing many people by removing parking.

 

It seems like Mann has decided that he needs to take the anti-urbanist, anti-progressive lane in his Mayoral run. That's going to backfire on him big time.

Mann has had a very long career in politics because he's never done anything.  Laure Quinliven had a very short career because she attempted to do things (cut police funding before it was cool).  

8 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

 

It seems like Mann has decided that he needs to take the anti-urbanist, anti-progressive lane in his Mayoral run. That's going to backfire on him big time.

It didn't backfire on Cranley.