1 minute ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

Light rail is nice, but you need a transit system that serves the most people and that people will use.  You have to have a system people want to use first, then you can push light rail. Get more people to find transit worth it first. 

Colorado Public Radio has a great podcast series called Ghost Train discussing what went wrong with their regional commuter rail plan that was akin to our MetroMoves. While the BRT plan will face a stiff challenge due to the narrow RoW on most of our corridors, it only involves a handful of municipalities, and is fairly straight forward, which can help it from getting cut down in a million compromises.

19 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

Light rail is nice, but you need a transit system that serves the most people and that people will use.  You have to have a system people want to use first, then you can push light rail. Get more people to find transit worth it first. 

 

There's massive demand preference for rail, especially among infrequent transit riders or non-riders. In 2021 the City of Cincinnati did a statistically representative survey of city residents and by a 13 point margin, more Cincinnatians had ridden the streetcar than had used the Metro bus system. 

 

Here are maps of the two systems in city limits for comparison 

 

 

If you build high-quality transit, people will ride it. And once they're used to riding light rail, they'll be much more likely to try the bus. 

1 hour ago, thomasbw said:

 

There's massive demand preference for rail, especially among infrequent transit riders or non-riders. In 2021 the City of Cincinnati did a statistically representative survey of city residents and by a 13 point margin, more Cincinnatians had ridden the streetcar than had used the Metro bus system. 

 

Here are maps of the two systems in city limits for comparison 

 

 

If you build high-quality transit, people will ride it. And once they're used to riding light rail, they'll be much more likely to try the bus. 

I was a fan of Metromoves back on the day but the big complaint i heard was that it did not offer enough connectivity to certain parts of town, namely the west side (why vote on something you cant really get much use out of).  I would love to see a light rail system in town too, but it seems now the priority should be creating a transit system that works for as many people as possible and best connects people the people who most need to ride Metro to job centers and where they live. BRT seems like the best solution to do that at this particular time. Maybe at sometime in the future we could have a light rail line. However, it seems the most logical line would be to connect the city with the airport and that would be a much more difficult hurdle since you have to deal with Kentucky to make that happen. 

14 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

I was a fan of Metromoves back on the day but the big complaint i heard was that it did not offer enough connectivity to certain parts of town, namely the west side (why vote on something you cant really get much use out of).  I would love to see a light rail system in town too, but it seems now the priority should be creating a transit system that works for as many people as possible and best connects people the people who most need to ride Metro to job centers and where they live. BRT seems like the best solution to do that at this particular time. Maybe at sometime in the future we could have a light rail line. However, it seems the most logical line would be to connect the city with the airport and that would be a much more difficult hurdle since you have to deal with Kentucky to make that happen. 

Metromoves was a solid plan. Even for westsiders. Its a stupid trope people use to reason away no more taxes. It's always cries of it being the wrong plan. Or its too small. Or its tooo big. You simply have to start somewhere.

2 minutes ago, TheCOV said:

Metromoves was a solid plan. Even for westsiders. Its a stupid trope people use to reason away no more taxes. It's always cries of it being the wrong plan. Or its too small. Or its tooo big. You simply have to start somewhere.

There's a huge gap on the westside. It goes completely around Westwood and provides no direct service to West Price Hill either. When they show Hyde Park getting 2 lines it's pretty easy to see why westsiders would strongly oppose it.

 

Also, how much of that RoW was publicly owned at the time? Hindsight being what it is, it is very clear that MetroMoves was an overpromise that would have turned out as a massive under delivery of service.

That's why I think the next streetcar extension really needs to be sneaky light rail with fewer stops and dedicated RoW if possible. If you can use the old C&O of Indiana ROW on the west side, you could build a really nice line from west to east.

2 hours ago, Dev said:

There's a huge gap on the westside. It goes completely around Westwood and provides no direct service to West Price Hill either. When they show Hyde Park getting 2 lines it's pretty easy to see why westsiders would strongly oppose it.

 

Also, how much of that RoW was publicly owned at the time? Hindsight being what it is, it is very clear that MetroMoves was an overpromise that would have turned out as a massive under delivery of service.

As a westsider I agree with you. But I also felt we likely had no better opportunity to eventually get there via expansion. We had nothing before, and we still have....nothing. At this rate, we still won't have anything in my lifetime.

52 minutes ago, TheCOV said:

As a westsider I agree with you. But I also felt we likely had no better opportunity to eventually get there via expansion. We had nothing before, and we still have....nothing. At this rate, we still won't have anything in my lifetime.

You could look at the fact that the failed Metromoves led to the streetcar

On 8/18/2023 at 2:37 PM, TheCOV said:

As a westsider I agree with you. But I also felt we likely had no better opportunity to eventually get there via expansion. We had nothing before, and we still have....nothing. At this rate, we still won't have anything in my lifetime.

Fair enough

On 8/18/2023 at 2:21 PM, JaceTheAce41 said:

That's why I think the next streetcar extension really needs to be sneaky light rail with fewer stops and dedicated RoW if possible. If you can use the old C&O of Indiana ROW on the west side, you could build a really nice line from west to east.

It looks like that route had 8 bridges! It's a bummer none of them lasted into the modern era

On 8/18/2023 at 10:50 AM, thomasbw said:

 

There's massive demand preference for rail, especially among infrequent transit riders or non-riders. In 2021 the City of Cincinnati did a statistically representative survey of city residents and by a 13 point margin, more Cincinnatians had ridden the streetcar than had used the Metro bus system. 

 

Here are maps of the two systems in city limits for comparison 

 

 

If you build high-quality transit, people will ride it. And once they're used to riding light rail, they'll be much more likely to try the bus. 

 

 

Will the proposed BRT be in dedicated lanes? I worry that we are building BRT when we should be building LRT.

The city was only running two streetcars tonight and both became marooned in the gridlock on Elm St. between Washington Park and Findlay Market. 

 

I'm baffled that the city only ran two streetcars with a sold-out event and had absolutely nobody staffed to help reduce the gridlock on Elm, which in my observation could be eliminated by a)blocking cars from leaving the Washington Park Garage while b)holding the Liberty St. signal green until a streetcar passes north through that intersection. 

15 hours ago, Miami-Erie said:

 

 

Will the proposed BRT be in dedicated lanes? I worry that we are building BRT when we should be building LRT.

Some of it will be, some of it won't be. Public feedback will probably be the biggest deciding factor, although right of way width is also a limiting factor.

For example, Clifton businesses and residents want to maintain on-street parking in their business district so it's unlikely to be lanes through there.
On the other hand, it's possible public support in Northside could push for bus lanes through there.

In both cases, the RoW is so narrow, 60 foot, that they would probably need to require land acquisition at the stations.

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2023/08/23/expert-talks-whats-next-for-cincinnati-connector-streetcar/70650418007/

 

Interesting article from Deatrick on the Streetcar. Definitely a fan of expansion as long as it is the right type of expansion (i.e. sounds like he would push West End expansion).

 

 

Councilman Jeffreys was on Chanel 12's On the Move to discuss streetcar expansion, but I can't find the link; anyone know where that is?

15 minutes in on this video: https://bit.ly/47RPaDf

 

Here's the (not) Twitter link: https://nitter.net/ccc_jeffreys/status/1696209959959048392#m

The Cincinnati Streetcar has been the national leader for post-pandemic ridership growth. 

Cincinnati runs considerably fewer hours of service than comparable modern streetcar systems.

 

If we ran 3 cars all the time and expanded weekend hours to be the same as weekday hours, we'd still only be at the green bar. 

 

Edited September 1, 20231 yr by thomasbw
updated chart.

With four months to go we need to average 67,500 riders per month to hit 1,000,000 annual riders for the first time. 

 

In 2023, the lowest ridership month was January with 71,363 riders. Feeling pretty good about this one. 

The first four days of ridership in September are higher than then entire month of January 2018.

A telling episode from Kansas City:

On 9/7/2023 at 12:51 PM, Lazarus said:

A telling episode from Kansas City:

That happens every time you do a bus bridge. I asked the City if they kept similar records when we had a similar bus bridge in 2022, but they didn't count the bus riders 

https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/streetcar/latest-news/streetcar-celebrates-7th-anniversary-with-continued-record-ridership/

 

Edited September 15, 20231 yr by JaceTheAce41

Very possible September will break the July record. 

 

A history of ridership records

 

 

Really underscores how much goodwill the streetcar had at launch and how bad of a job the previous administration did. 

Absent any major system shut downs, the streetcar will break the 2022 record on or around October 1st and have the 1,000,000th rider some time before Thanksgiving. 

With three full months left in the year, the Cincinnati Streetcar beat the 2022 total 

The last couple weeks when I used the streetcar, the Transit app showed one streetcar on the whole loop and therefore a 20+ minute wait. I didn't trust it and sure enough a streetcar that wasn't on the app showed up sooner but it's really annoying that the app and/or station arrival screen continue to not be able to give accurate information. 

1 hour ago, ucgrady said:

The last couple weeks when I used the streetcar, the Transit app showed one streetcar on the whole loop and therefore a 20+ minute wait. I didn't trust it and sure enough a streetcar that wasn't on the app showed up sooner but it's really annoying that the app and/or station arrival screen continue to not be able to give accurate information. 

 

Did you report this to anyone? (not sure who you should report it to other than the streetcar director)

On 10/3/2023 at 11:21 AM, ucgrady said:

The last couple weeks when I used the streetcar, the Transit app showed one streetcar on the whole loop and therefore a 20+ minute wait. I didn't trust it and sure enough a streetcar that wasn't on the app showed up sooner but it's really annoying that the app and/or station arrival screen continue to not be able to give accurate information. 

Today both the transit app and the "scan for arrival times" sticker were both displaying different and incorrect information. 

http://cincinnatiideas.com/streetcar-to-fairmount/

 

http://cincinnatiideas.com/streetcar-to-northside/

 

It still baffles my mind that the City hasn't funded a study for possible extensions. 

It is quite annoying. But, right now a good chunk of the city council and the mayor are trying to sell off the railroad to fill potholes. It would be weird if they were also saying that they want to spend extra money on a streetcar at the same time that they're crying poor.

 

The streetcar could be expanded with at least half of the $ coming from Federal grants but the city council seems allergic to applying for those. The potholes could be fixed with Fed money too but they're all-in on selling the railroad. 

 

We're going to have to wait for another council and mayor IMO because this group has been a huge disappointment.

21 hours ago, Miami-Erie said:

It still baffles my mind that the City hasn't funded a study for possible extensions. 

Because it is still politically toxic due to the disaster of the rollout in 2016. As the mayor has said multiple times, their is a lack of trust in city government now given the Dennard, PG and Malone corruption mess. Given that this was such a political hot potato at the time and remained so until at least 2021, discussion of expansion is not politically feasible.

There is no evidence that it's politically toxic anywhere but the suburbs, which don't matter. The general sentiment that I've seen online and in public with people who live in the city is that it needs to be expanded and is a smashing success. 

On 10/21/2023 at 9:07 AM, thebillshark said:

http://cincinnatiideas.com/streetcar-to-fairmount/

 

http://cincinnatiideas.com/streetcar-to-northside/

As much as I love these ideas, especially the Northside route, I think the prevailing feeling around town is that it needs to go to Uptown first and connect downtown to the University and hospital population centers. 

49 minutes ago, JaceTheAce41 said:

There is no evidence that it's politically toxic anywhere but the suburbs, which don't matter. The general sentiment that I've seen online and in public with people who live in the city is that it needs to be expanded and is a smashing success. 

Define city? If you ask those who live and work downtown or OTR or even the Clifton area, they would like it expanded. If you ask those who live in Evanston, Madisonville, or Westwood; you may get different responses. 

I think it would be good to expand if you find the right route and right places to connect it too. Just building a line as an expansion is not the right thing to do, it has to have connectivity of points of interest/importance. Just building to Fairmont or Northside is not the best path for the Streetcar because those areas are probably better handled by bus service (or dedicated light rail). 

 

The other challenge you are seeing now with the city (and it impacts the Streetcar) is that even if there is a will to expand it, the trust in the civic leaders as at a low point, so that is also part of the calculus too. 

42 minutes ago, ucgrady said:

As much as I love these ideas, especially the Northside route, I think the prevailing feeling around town is that it needs to go to Uptown first and connect downtown to the University and hospital population centers. 

 

You could build a spur off the line to Northside up Straight Street to Clifton Ave to connect to UC. I've always thought that using the old rail RoW from the Casino to XU is the best route for expansion. A crosstown line connecting UC and XU would be great as well. Connecting to the West Side via the old C&O of Indiana route is also possible but expensive.

34 minutes ago, JaceTheAce41 said:

 

You could build a spur off the line to Northside up Straight Street to Clifton Ave to connect to UC. I've always thought that using the old rail RoW from the Casino to XU is the best route for expansion. A crosstown line connecting UC and XU would be great as well. Connecting to the West Side via the old C&O of Indiana route is also possible but expensive.

All would be nice, you just do not get the ROI for those types of projects. Better to serve the E/W routes by bus at this point. 

 

Connecting to the universities, zoo and hospitals would be a good addition to have because it offers connectivity to job and destination centers. People could live on or near the line, or they could drive and park at a lot near the line to use the streetcar and take to their employment/destination center. I do not think you get that in Northside or Fairmont, at least to justify an expansion of the line there right now. 

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/local/2023/10/25/cincinnati-city-council-who-supports-expanding-the-streetcar-route/71127766007/

 

To Summarize-

 

Albi- Unsure, needs to know route and cost

Cramerding- No, Focus on BRT

Harris- Yes, and also do BRT

Jeffries- Yes, Has a four step plan to determine how to expand

Johnson- Yes if there's funding

Kearney- Streetcar is good, but need to do a cost/benefit analysis first

Keating- No

Owens- Focus on Metro first? 

Parks- Yes, if there's funding

Walsh- No

39 minutes ago, thomasbw said:

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/local/2023/10/25/cincinnati-city-council-who-supports-expanding-the-streetcar-route/71127766007/

 

To Summarize-

 

Albi- Unsure, needs to know route and cost

Cramerding- No, Focus on BRT

Harris- Yes, and also do BRT

Jeffries- Yes, Has a four step plan to determine how to expand

Johnson- Yes if there's funding

Kearney- Streetcar is good, but need to do a cost/benefit analysis first

Keating- No

Owens- Focus on Metro first? 

Parks- Yes, if there's funding

Walsh- No

So what this says is that there is really not enough support for expanding the streetcar anytime soon. THere are very few strong yes people, most of the people interested are soft yes people who are essentially playing politics and do not wan to take a hard position either way. 

Great example of why this project should be managed by a transit authority and not a City Council that has a million other higher priorities.

Why isn't it handled by Metro? Probably some BS political reason.

17 minutes ago, JaceTheAce41 said:

Why isn't it handled by Metro? Probably some BS political reason.

The Streetcar was managed by Metro at one time when it first started. It was not managed properly. Metro wanted nothing to do with it and they essentially walked away from it 3-4 years ago and the city runs it solely by themselves.

 

From what I understood, the city always had an interest in it, Metro had to provide reporting to the city (separate than what they did to the bus system) and the city had to sign off on some items thus leading to a ton of red tape and a lot of inefficiency. Metro hated running it because it was a bit out of their wheelhouse and did not love the city oversight. Metro was glad to give up the management when they did and the city wanted Metro out of the picture too at the time.  So yes, politics.

 

Also, I think Metro was trying to pass their sales tax for BRT at the time and in order to help get support for that, they wanted to completely divorce themselves from the Streetcar which was an Albatross that could have sunk their levy. 

Edited October 26, 20231 yr by Brutus_buckeye

The BRT advocates pushed for the "streetcar divorce", where the operations were shifted from Metro to the city, claiming that the countywide transit tax wouldn't pass if Metro still ran the streetcar. It was a bad idea and now we're seeing the consequences with a City Council that has no interest in studying improvement or expansion.

 

On 11/19/2019 at 11:10 PM, ColDayMan said:

Streetcar divorce finalized by SORTA; agency gets new CEO

 

The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority’s board approved three measures on Tuesday aimed at handing over day-to-day management of the Cincinnati Bell Connector streetcar to the city. 

 

The board also made Darryl Haley the permanent CEO of the region’s largest transit agency effective Dec. 1, removing the word “interim” from his title. Haley has served in that role since the departure of Dwight Ferrell about 11 months ago.


 

“I have passion for what we bring to this community and the region,” Haley said.   


 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/11/19/streetcar-divorce-finalized-by-sorta-agency-gets.html

 

The city should not have allowed that to happen. I understand it was under a different regime and Cranley was desperate to make it fail but now we have a new council that should give Metro the resources it needs to improve the streetcar. If/when we ever get comprehensive rail transit, Metro will need to be the ones running it.

43 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

So what this says is that there is really not enough support for expanding the streetcar anytime soon. THere are very few strong yes people, most of the people interested are soft yes people who are essentially playing politics and do not wan to take a hard position either way. 

What I see is 6 or 7 council people wouldn't mind it being studied though? A study to just "finish" the original layout, determine how much of an issue the Vine street hill electrical main really is, looking into alternate routes up the hill etc. seems like it should be done just so this administration can have the optics of finishing something that the previous ones couldn't. From the subway, to the riverfront transit center, to the Banks, the FWW caps and a dozen other projects; the Cincy region has a long history of starting but not finishing our projects, so how about for once we just focus on finishing this damn thing and taking it the rest of the way up the hill to the campus/zoo/hospitals

Edited October 26, 20231 yr by ucgrady

1 minute ago, ucgrady said:

What I see is 6 or 7 council people wouldn't mind it being studied though? A study to just "finish" the original layout, determine how much of an issue the Vine street hill electrical main really is, looking into alternate routes up the hill etc. seems like it should be done just so this administration can have the optics of finishing something that the previous ones couldn't. From the subway, to the riverfront transit center, to the Banks, the Brent Spence and a dozen other projects; the Cincy region has a long history of starting but not finishing our projects, so how about for once we just focus on finishing this damn thing and taking it the rest of the way up the hill to the campus/zoo/hospitals

"study" is just political speak for kicking the can down the road.  Studies are always done, but if you look at the responses of say Jefferies and Kearney and parse how different they truly are. Jefferies - essentially says, we need to pursue my 4 part plan to study it and design the best path forward. - Jefferies is saying he wants to move forward with an expansion but has not settled on the exact right path so you study it. 

Kearney says - I like the Streetcar but we need to study it first to see if the costs of expanding it can justify an expansion. Essentially, she says, this is not a high priority to me right now and if we find money, then maybe we can do something, but expansion is a very low priority for me. 

 

They both are saying study it, but their statements have quite different meanings.

8 minutes ago, JaceTheAce41 said:

The city should not have allowed that to happen.

The city wanted it to happen. They did not like Metro's management and felt that Metro was not providing adequate service on the routes and causing much of the problems associated with the streetcar at the time. Both Metro and the city wanted this breakup.  In one sense, since Metro left the picture, the impressions of the Streetcar have improved. 

24 minutes ago, taestell said:

The BRT advocates pushed for the "streetcar divorce", where the operations were shifted from Metro to the city, claiming that the countywide transit tax wouldn't pass if Metro still ran the streetcar. It was a bad idea and now we're seeing the consequences with a City Council that has no interest in studying improvement or expansion.

 

 

 

Trick-or-Treat! They were rail opponents dressed up as BRT advocates! They still got their candy though

By my count, it's 7 "yes or need more info" & 3 "no"

 

Of those three I think there's only one strong no. 

 

The next step is to study potential routes, so I don't think that will be a problem to move forward on that.