^ Agreed.  This shouldn't be viewed as a Cincinnati-only project.  With Cincy out in front, and Columbus following closely with their own streetcar plan, these two cities can be examples for others in Ohio like Dayton and Toledo.  Seeing these systems in action in nearby cities will be more powerful than talking about what they've done in Portland, so getting this done right is extremely important if there's going to be any chance of it growing (here and elsewhere in the state).  My greatest hope is that this will lead to light rail in the bigger cities and regional passenger rail between them.

I was chatting with various folks over the weekend and the biggest negative most of them saw is that the streetcar doesn't connect anything and the idea that there are insidious money men behind this.

^ Doesn't connect anything - I hate that argument

 

It is completely demonstrably false.

 

^ Insidious money men

 

Again, isn't one of the purposes behind the line to spur redevelopment?  So, if there are money men, well it must be a scheme.  If there aren't money men, well its a bad idea.... Can't win.

I know. The worst part is that every person I was chatting with lives within the city and half of them worked downtown.

 

I would add that this needs to be contextualized more broadly as part of a plan for rail transit across the country. It seems a drop in the bucket.

^ Yes, that wider rail system context need to be mentioned for sure

 

However, I have a hard time not spitting out "we are taking baby steps here because most of you were too foolish to recognize a good thing when it came your way in 2002"

^ I had a similar conversation with a friend of mine last weekend.  He hates the idea of the streetcar, basically because it isn't light rail.  Guess what his answer was when I asked him if he voted for Metro Moves back in 2002...

However, I have a hard time not spitting out "we are taking baby steps here because most of you were too foolish to recognize a good thing when it came your way in 2002"

 

I respectfully disagree with the above opinion, and it seems to me that the streetcar is trying to do something completely different from what the MetroMoves plan was designed for.  I think this is a positive and that it is important not to equate all rail style transit projects with each other simply because they all don't run on wheels.

^I support the streetcar plan but not the old light rail plan. I completely agree with what you're saying.

Why are the "money men" by default evil? The homeless people haven't done a sterling job of turning downtown around now have they? Why is it so important they stay and we make sure no-one makes a dollar on anything?

The whole basis of the American way of life is making a buck.

If someone can make a killing redeveloping OTR well good for them, they are after all taking a risk that other people aren't willing to take.

 

We need to make it easier for money men to make a killing money wise in Cincinnati, not harder.

However, I have a hard time not spitting out "we are taking baby steps here because most of you were too foolish to recognize a good thing when it came your way in 2002"

 

I respectfully disagree with the above opinion, and it seems to me that the streetcar is trying to do something completely different from what the MetroMoves plan was designed for.  I think this is a positive and that it is important not to equate all rail style transit projects with each other simply because they all don't run on wheels.

 

Yeah, but the Metro Moves plan included a streetcar loop downtown as well.  So the big difference is that light rail to the suburbs isn't part of the plan this time.  I don't think that hohum is "equating all rail style transit projects", in fact he's doing the opposite, by emphasizing what streetcars don't do, and pointing out that many of us hope that the streetcar will usher in light rail at some point in the future.

 

Why are the "money men" by default evil? The homeless people haven't done a sterling job of turning downtown around now have they? Why is it so important they stay and we make sure no-one makes a dollar on anything?

The whole basis of the American way of life is making a buck.

If someone can make a killing redeveloping OTR well good for them, they are after all taking a risk that other people aren't willing to take.

 

We need to make it easier for money men to make a killing money wise in Cincinnati, not harder.

 

I couldn't possibly agree more with this.

Can one of you explain why you would support a streetcar but not light rail?

 

Streetcars were PART of the metromoves plan. 

Can one of you explain why you would support a streetcar but not light rail?

 

Streetcars were PART of the metromoves plan.

 

I'm not opposed to light rail.  I just think that the MetroMoves plan was kind of crappy.  I understand that we needed to pass a local tax so that there would be guaranteed local funding in place so that the feds would match us.  I also understand that there was real need for the I-71 corridor light rail system, and that it was the first part of the plan that was to be built.  The proposed route for the I-71 corridor wasn't bad, though I thought it was considerably less good than it could have been (obviously as planned it was also probably cheaper than other routes and designs I would have considered more comprehensive).  Also a regional transit system that doesn't take you directly to the airport is ridiculous.  I understand that there were difficulties to doing this, but that strikes me as being first priority- intracity to intercity.

 

I like that the streetcar is wholly capabale of being built by the City of Cincinnati.  I like that it is focused on connecting the two largest employment, cultural and entertainment centers in the City with an extremely dense urban neighborhood that is being underutilized currently and has been disinvested in historically.  I think the cost benefit ratio is better.

 

I don't want streetcars for the sake of streetcars, or light rail for the sake of light rail.  I want what they are capable of doing for the individuals of the City and the region, as well as for the City and the region as a whole.  I think that the current Cincinnati streetcar plan is better designed and accomplishes these goals better than the MetroMoves plan could.  You asked me the question and I explained myself- I'm not looking to turn this thread into a critique and defense of MetroMoves for the next page and a half.

No, thats a fine explanation. 

 

I wasn't trying to conflate light rail with streetcars, but the reality is, I want to see both. 

 

I just find it ultimately frustrating that people who tell me that they don't support the streetcar plan because it should be more comprehensive are also those who rejected a much more comprehensive system.  It can certainly be argued that the metromoves plan could have been better... this doesn't negate the fact that the very same folks who say they don't support the streetcar as a foray into rail based transit also voted down what was at least a pretty good comprehensive light rail plan.

 

I HIGHLY doubt that the people who fall into this category are really looking at the plan in ^ that way.  These folks see rail as rail as rail, its not that they are making some nuanced distinction between light rail and the streetcar.

These are the same guys piling on the streetcar. How low can they possibly go?

 

Does Shaking The Nozzle Give You More Gas?

 

 

^How Sad!

^^ I didn't see anything about the streetcar in that link.  What'd I miss?

Heh, nothing, it was just a comment on they are covering getting the most of your fuel dollar while at the same time talking down anything that keeps you from relying on fuel at all.

Oh, that was the most pathetic news article I've ever read.  I want to cry when I think about how much pain so many Americans are in, and how they are too distracted by that pain, and to stubborn, to allow someone else to help them.

These are the same guys piling on the streetcar. How low can they possibly go?

 

Does Shaking The Nozzle Give You More Gas?

 

 

 

That was an article written by halfwits, for halfwits.

Heh, nothing, it was just a comment on they are covering getting the most of your fuel dollar while at the same time talking down anything that keeps you from relying on fuel at all.

 

Oh.  I misread 5chw4r7z's comment.  That's what I get for doing 2 things at once. 

Can one of you explain why you would support a streetcar but not light rail?

 

Streetcars were PART of the metromoves plan.

 

Also a regional transit system that doesn't take you directly to the airport is ridiculous.  I understand that there were difficulties to doing this, but that strikes me as being first priority- intracity to intercity.

 

OKI estimated the daily ridership to the airport, and it was very low, like 2,000 boardings per day. Surprised everyone. It was mainly airport workers, not passengers. I'm sure it's even less today. If the hub goes, it would be much less.

 

Plus, it's unconstitutional in Kentucky to pass a local-option tax to fund transit projects. TANK survives by contributions to its budget from the three Kentucky counties; it has no dedicated funding source. There was, and still is, no realistic way to fund a light rail link to the airport.

^ What about private investment for just that one line, however unrealistic that might be? 

^also, I wonder with the new price of oil whether those projected ridership numbers will remain so low. 

I think a lot of Cincinnatians still feel burned by the Bengals tax, which was hoisted on them from out of nowhere. Oh we voted for it, but there was  strong argument that the Reds (who were still winning) got more votes than the Bengals (it's just unfortunate that Marge was in the downhill portion of her ownership and the team wasn't prepared to make sure they were first in line for a stadium).

 

But I digress, what I'm trying to say is that many Cincinnatians do not feel the streetcar (or Metromoves for that matter) came from an identifiable need. There is a way that it has developed that lends itself toward conspiracy. Who benefits? It plays into the core-versus the neighborhoods battle. OTR still carries the scars of the Maurice McCracken/Buddy Gray/ReStoc debacles of the 80s and early 90s, only this time in reverse, i.e. last time it was the poor trying to step out of bounds in seizing a neighborhoods, while this time it is the 'YP', neo-yuppies, R. Floridians who are behind it.

 

I honestly think there would be more support and excitement for a Madison road/Erie Avenue circulator than this.

 

To somewhat follow on LK, the I-71 corridor light rail is a solution to a problem in a way that a streetcar around OTR simply isn't. In fact, if there were a way to efficiently provide mass transit that isn't buses for the 75 corridor it would be even more popular.

Where is this conspiracy stuff coming from?

Am I that wacko in thinking that its the yuppies or whatever you want to call them that will turn OTR around?

Listen who has money for development?

People with money.

Is this really that hard to understand?

Of course the streetcar isn't going to benefit Madison Rd/Erie Ave directly.

But when Hyde Park and Oakley sell themselves to the world they can't sell Hyde Park Square, They are selling Fountain Square, the river and hopefully one day the banks and the streetcar.

^ I know where you are coming from man, but actually I think Hyde park is actually selling Hyde Park square (and implicitly a lack of a certain minority)

I'll be honest, I tend to agree with those who think downtown qua downtown is over-rated as a concept. People in many neighborhoods of the city don't actually care whether or not OTR ever comes back, especially people who have been around and in the city - not the basin - for the last 30 or more years and have seen the repeated attempts to save neighborhood fail.

 

There are people who actually aren't selling the river or Fountain Square, they are selling Hyde Park or Kenwood. Mostly that sale takes places within the region rather than to outsiders of course. There is some folly in that.

 

We've discussed this, but basically some Cincinnatians see this as spending their money on a tool that would benefit the land owners in a small area that has been in terminal decline for over a century. I didn't say I agreed, but what I've heard from people who you would assume would be in favor of streetcars.

 

    If I were to guess, I bet 50% of residents of Hamilton County have never been in Over-the-Rhine in their lifetimes. If you count the entire Cincinnati metro including West Chester, etc., the proportion would be even lower.

 

  To most people, downtown is Fountain Square, the Museum Center at Union Terminal, the stadiums and colliseum, and Riverfest. Over-the-Rhine is just a glimpse from the highway and riot images from 2001.

 

    To really appreciate Over-the-Rhine, you have to walk it.

I'll be honest, I tend to agree with those who think downtown qua downtown is over-rated as a concept. People in many neighborhoods of the city don't actually care whether or not OTR ever comes back, especially people who have been around and in the city - not the basin - for the last 30 or more years and have seen the repeated attempts to save neighborhood fail.

 

There are people who actually aren't selling the river or Fountain Square, they are selling Hyde Park or Kenwood. Mostly that sale takes places within the region rather than to outsiders of course. There is some folly in that.

 

We've discussed this, but basically some Cincinnatians see this as spending their money on a tool that would benefit the land owners in a small area that has been in terminal decline for over a century. I didn't say I agreed, but what I've heard from people who you would assume would be in favor of streetcars.

 

You can certainly sell people on the great neighborhoods once they're here...but the major businesses are attracted by the urban core (essentially what is there).  Something like 70-80% of the City's tax revenues are generated within Downtown, OTR, & Uptown...the success and vibrancy of these core neighborhoods directly relates to the success of the other 49 neighborhoods.

 

The fact is that without the high paying jobs in Downtown and Uptown, neighborhoods like Mt. Adams, Hyde Park, Clifton, etc wouldn't be possible.  You have got to keep the core strong in order to maintain those great neighborhoods...the fact of the matter is that they are not their tax situation is not self-sustaining AND the wealth of those neighborhoods is made entirely possible by the dense urban core.

I don't want to go too much off on a tax base discussion, but here goes.

 

Residential properties are accepted losers when it comes to taxes.  They simply demand way more services than they pay for in taxes.  Those services (i.e. trash, police, fire, schools, etc) are made possible by those that pay exceedingly more than they demand (i.e. office, industrial).

 

So obviously the commercial and industrial bases are the most important tax bases to preserve and grow in order to maintain service levels for your residential base.  With this said, residential properties can get close to offsetting their service demands.  This can occur in the most densely populated areas where economies of scale weigh in big time.  In Cincinnati's case there is no other neighborhood that has a potentially better return on taxes than Over-the-Rhine.

 

These most densely built areas need to be focused on first and foremost, and need to be populated with as many people as possible.  This allows you to grow your residential base without significantly growing the demand for services (in OTR's case you may actually decrease demand for services like police and fire by repopulating the neighborhood).

 

So while a streetcar line only serving Downtown, OTR, and Uptown seems to only benefit those 3 neighborhoods...it is really affecting the financial stability of the entire city, and allows for a growth in tax base without a significantly higher demand for services.  This means extra tax revenues can then be used for increased services and funding for the other 49 great Cincinnati neighborhoods.

I don't want to go too much off on a tax base discussion, but here goes.

 

Residential properties are accepted losers when it comes to taxes.  They simply demand way more services than they pay for in taxes.  Those services (i.e. trash, police, fire, schools, etc) are made possible by those that pay exceedingly more than they demand (i.e. office, industrial).

 

So obviously the commercial and industrial bases are the most important tax bases to preserve and grow in order to maintain service levels for your residential base.  With this said, residential properties can get close to offsetting their service demands.  This can occur in the most densely populated areas where economies of scale weigh in big time.  In Cincinnati's case there is no other neighborhood that has a potentially better return on taxes than Over-the-Rhine.

 

These most densely built areas need to be focused on first and foremost, and need to be populated with as many people as possible.  This allows you to grow your residential base without significantly growing the demand for services (in OTR's case you may actually decrease demand for services like police and fire by repopulating the neighborhood).

 

So while a streetcar line only serving Downtown, OTR, and Uptown seems to only benefit those 3 neighborhoods...it is really affecting the financial stability of the entire city, and allows for a growth in tax base without a significantly higher demand for services.  This means extra tax revenues can then be used for increased services and funding for the other 49 great Cincinnati neighborhoods.

 

I think this was an incredible post.  My sentiments exactly.

Found via The Nati Life blog, a survey put together by David Pepper seeking public input as to what should be built at the banks.

 

Go and tell him that you want a streetcar going to the banks ;)

 

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=CiM0mjqP0p9vVFBFXn7oBQ_3d_3d

^Just took it.  I stressed that a streetcar system connecting The Banks to NKY, OTR, and downtown was essential.  I was surprised to see a question about public transit, as I was planning to "write it in" on another question.  I expected this to be a pretty useless survey, possibly politically slanted to use for/against someone or the project itself.  But I actually thought it was pretty well done and covered most of the bases without asking leading questions.  I also indicated that Cincinnati chains should be well represented, including but not necessarily limited to: Skyline, Graeter's, Izzy's, Dewey's, and LaRosa's.  Since The Banks will be a showcase for the city, the most likely place that out-of-towners will go before and after events, I think it would be a great place for Cincy cuisine to get a boost, particularly since some of these chains have been trying to go regional.

Do you guys think that given the price of gas/oil coupled with the increasing focus on public infrastructure particulalry from Obama would allow Cincy to be able to get more $$$$$ from the federal gov't for the streetcar?

^ yes, but only once a new administration is in place

thats not too late is it?

How can anything be too late unless someone is planning to erase Cincinnati before a rail-friendly prez gets elected?

Actually I read (possibly here) that Congress is trying to change the funding formula for transit projects. 

 

Here's the link I was thinking about...

http://theoverheadwire.blogspot.com/2008/05/dragging-them-kicking-and-screaming.html

 

Actually I read (possibly here) that Congress is trying to change the funding formula for transit projects. 

 

Here's the link I was thinking about...

http://theoverheadwire.blogspot.com/2008/05/dragging-them-kicking-and-screaming.html

 

 

Also see.....

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,14971.msg286266.html#msg286266

You've probably all heard of Randal O'Toole, who travels around the country and lectures and writes voluminously against any new rail project, often seizing on the latest topic of the day to find a reason to criticize light rail or streetcars. Lately, he's been claiming that rail transit uses more energy than almost any other form of surface transportation. So Bill Becwar, an engineer from Wisconsin who knows a lot about this stuff, took the time -- and I mean a lot of time -- to completely contradict O'Toole's argument. I've been waiting for someone to do this. It's a long post with lots of links that you really should read. We'll hear this argument in Cincinnati and will need to counteract it.

 

O'Toole is an excellent writer, but he's an ideologue. He cherry picks the "facts" and make heroic and obtuse assumptions and linkages to support his basic argument that any kind of passenger rail is bad. He calls himself an economist, but he's really just a forestry studies grad. He's dangerous because he sounds so reasonable.

 

[bECWAR'S POSTING FOLLOWS]

 

 

It is no surprise that Randall the anti-transit troubador would come

calling to Milwaukee again. The only surprise is that otherwise intelligent

journalists believe his lies after all the crazy claims he has made over the

years. His carbon claim is only the latest in a long line of half-baked

analyses that fall apart once you figure out where he slipped in the ringer.

Someday you really need to ask him about the study that "proved" how small a

part of the population the Portland light rail serves by including the

entire Portland advertising ADI in his calculations. Places such as

Vancouver, Washington, which is not only many miles from any light rail

line, but in another state on the other side of the mighty Columbia River.

This is like claiming that the MCTS #30 route is unsuccessful because so few

of its riders are from Sun Prairie. He is widely known as Randall O'Foole

outside of his own little anti-tax, anti-transit circle. The claim that

transit is less energy efficient is just one of the latest, but a far

better question that never gets asked in interviews is why O'Toole is so

well published at right-wing think tanks and blogs and so poorly published

in peer-reviewed journals. Reality; his stuff is crap and he is a con man

with a built-in agenda. He cheats. And not even very well...

 

Why, you didn't even check Wikipedia to verify Randall's math:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation

 

Let's start with his energy claim. It took me a while to figure out how he

got the values he did, but by reading his junk science blogs in detail and

furiously berating his accolytes, I was able to figure out what he did. It

turns out that O'Toole calculates this value by taking the potential energy

in coal (rated at around 26 x 106 BTU / ton), then subtracts all losses of

heat, magnetism, electrical resistance and inductance along the way. Then

he wizards that result backwards into a different kW-hr number than

generally accepted in engineering manuals for the conversion. And

presented in BTU, so the average schmoe has no handle on what the hell he's

talking about. This is, how you say, not kosher. I can win any marathon

you like, out of shape as I am, by simply changing the rules as I go along

and redefining what it means to be first.

 

OK, so you don't believe it. Check his website:

http://www.ti.org/vaupdate59.html where he specifically choses 12,000 BTUs

for a kiloWatt-hour. He says, "The report assumes that one kilowatt-hour of

electricity is equal to about 3,400 BTUs. According to pages 260-261 of the

U.S. Department of Energy's Transportation Energy Data Book, after

accounting for generation and transmission losses the real figure is nearly

12,000 BTUs." What this is, in effect, doing is calculating in the

potential energy of the coal and subtracting all possible losses in

transmission to you, but then comparing it to the BTU value of gasoline AS

SITTING IN THE TANK. What happened to oil drilling, pumping, transporting,

refining, storing, transporting again, pumping and evaporation losses? See

the problem with O'Toole's magic numbers? Take a value that you don't like,

grab a different value that was calculated for a completely different

reason, merge them, then work backwards to prove what you set out to show.

A number that Randall simply pulls out of his caboose is substituted for a

reasonable number found in any engineering handbook. Just Google "+convert

+kwh +BTU" anytime to see the accepted number from a wide variety of sources

(it's that same 3,413 BTU per kWh that he so airily dimisses). Simply to

make sense as a reasonable comparison, the energy of gasoline in the tank

should be compared to the energy as delivered, something Randall's invented

conversion does not do. And, actually, this approach is completely invalid

simply because of the vast difference in rolling resistance between the two

modes. 100,000-pound boxcars in level rail yards have often been set

rolling by the wind, because the rolling resistance of steel wheels on steel

rail is so low. A far more valid comparison is how much energy is actually

used to propel the vehicle passenger per mile.

 

On the basis of his massive numbers for losses in electrical generation and

distribution, you would be lead to believe that electricity is extremely

inefficient and unworkable, with unsustainable losses. Were that really the

truth, our entire power generation and distribution network would be nothing

but a giant space heater, and would quickly melt into slag. So I have to

assume he writes these things by candle light using his kerosene-powered

computer. Let's go the other way once, to see how his magic works.

According to the EPA [ http://www.epa.gov/oms/rfgecon.htm ] "gasoline has

energy content of 114000 btu/gallon." That's 437.8 hp-hr at the usually

accepted conversions. Assuming a horsepower of 150 and steady speed of

60mph for one hour, that "proves" that an average automobile in the US is

very efficient because it gets 175 miles per gallon. See, we proved it

using absolute facts! All you have to do is completely ignore heat losses,

mechanical losses, road friction, wind resistance, lubricant viscosity and a

few thousand other factors of the sort that O'Toole has stacked into his

electrical magic conversion value. Aren't numbers fun?

 

Think maybe this is just another ad hominem attack on poor Randall O'Toole?

His extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, especially considering

his poor track record. Everytime one of his phantom number sets is exposed

to public ridicule by factual data, he shifts to a new matrix of doom. When

a schlub like me, who is by no means a transit professional, catches a

self-proclaimed guru like O'Toole in so many easily debunkable howlers, it

becomes kinda hard to trust anything he says. If he said the sky is blue,

I'd want to see an up-to-date report from the National Weather Service and a

Pantone Color Chart.

 

My point on mentioning his lack of peer reviewed articles in any respected

publication is that he really impresses only those who are already

financially, politically or socially inclined to his views, even though his

data is pretty shady. In his current example, O'Toole used only highway

mileage performance for automobiles, comparing that to the heavy urban

performance of rail transit vehicles. I had to email him to get that; it is

nowhere in his study. Now if I compare my little Scion XB (33mpg) stuck in

traffic to a Ford Explorer on cruise control on an empty highway in the

middle of Kansas, it is certainly going to "prove" that the Explorer gets

far higher gas mileage. Does that even pass the smell test? How is that

not misleading to the point of an outright, concious distortion? O'Toole

also includes the energy cost of construction for the light rails, but

tacitly assumes that the highway is already there and lasts forever. At $1

billion for the Marquette Interchange alone, is there some proof that

freeways come free? How much junk did the construction vehicles there emit

over the past three years? And won't we have to do the whole show again in

another 40 years?

 

Even his claim that the rail vehicles are impractical because they last too

long is ridiculous. This is an advantage? Requiring an all-new vehicle

every few years is an energy savings? Not likely. The energy used and CO2

emitted in the manufacturing process alone greatly outweights any supposed

savings there. Steelmaking, transportation, plus everything right down to

heating the factory and transporting the finished vehicles all adds up.

O'Toole has said that a rail line could never quite make up the CO2 emitted

in its construction. Like I-94 can? When it has to be rebuilt every 20

years?

 

Go to YouTube and watch the streetcar mechanic in Kenosha change the trucks

(the entire pair of motor and wheel assemblies) on a PCC car [

], which took him a whole two

hours, working alone. If someone develops newer, more efficient motors, its

no trick at all to put them on in nothing flat. And that's on older cars,

which are far less modular than the new ones. San Diego upgraded all of

their propulsion control units during the mid-life rebuildings in 2000-2002.

To do this, you put a key in the door under the front passenger seat of the

car, slide out the control box, and slide in the new, high-tech replacement

so it plugs in. You could do that job now with no further instruction.

 

His talk of hybrids is fascinating. It conciously ignores that streetcars

were the first vehicles to use such technology, and that this was developed

in the 1930s and used on nearly every car since. I cannot believe that he

does not know this, so I have to assume that it is more dissembling.

Kenosha's half-century-old PCC have had this feature since they were built

in 1951, and Chicago's CTA elevated cars have had it since the late-1940s.

In fact, because of the lower rolling resistance of rail vehicles, they

recapture far more energy than a Prius, which has to store what it can in a

battery at far lower efficiency.

 

Yeah, rail's supposed lack of flexibility. That's been argued so much by

the antirail crowd. One of the absolute downfalls of the late downtown

shuttle in Milwaukee is that no one knew where the heck it went. On one

memorable occasion, my son had to tell the driver what the route was. I-94

move anywhere lately? Hasn't been re-routed in decades, even as traffic

patterns have shifted wildly - around it. Better: State Street follows the

old Indian trail west of Milwaukee along the Menomonee River. To the foot.

175 years later, it's paved, but the same path. Flexibilty means adding to

or subtracting cars as needed, giving up to 600 additional seats, without

even changing the scedule. And still with just one operator. You cannot do

this with a bus, not even the heavily promoted Bus Rapid Transit, which has

been a poor substitute everywhere it has been tried. Houston completely

dropped plans to expand BRT for more rail after trying both.

 

I'm an engineer, and prefer the real world to such mathematical houses of

cards. According to the American Public Transit Association Factbook for

2007 [ http://www.apta.com/research/stats/factbook/index.cfm ] , in 2005

(latest year available) all of the light rail vehicles in the US consumed a

grand total of 570,718,000 kWh of electricity for that year. The same

reference says that total ridership on all light rails in the US was

17,000,000,000 passenger-miles. That works out to 0.336 kWh /

passenger-mile travelled. This is not theoretical, but actual power paid

for, actual miles travelled and actual passenger counts, which are gathered

from Federal Transit Administration numbers. You go to federal prison for

lying on those forms. According to those tables, a typical light rail

vehicle in the US consumes about 7.5 kw per mile, and compares pretty

favorably to an average US bus, which gets about 4 mpg on diesel fuel. At

the current $4.36/ gallon, the bus burns $1.09 every mile, and at the WE

Energies retail rate of $0.09 per kWh, the LRT runs on a whole $0.675 per

mile. This stuff starts to add up when you go a few million miles a year.

 

As seen above, gasoline is generally accepted to be the equivalent of

114,100 BTU/gallon. At the accepted conversion of 3,413 Btu = 1 kWh, this

implies that 1 gallon of gasoline equals 33.431 kWh. So, if a car gets

35mpg in the city, which is pretty darned good, that's 33.431/35, or 0.955

kw/mi. Oh dear... You mean Randall's numbers are crap? Yup. To equal the

rail vehicle, a car would have to do 2.8 times better than 35 mpg, which is

99.5 miles per gallon. When one of those cars goes on sale, let me know.

It is sure as heck nothing any Prius can manage, unless the car is being

pulled by a train.

 

It's the same for O'Toole's bald assertion that the people on taking the

train used to take the cheap old bus (which suddenly doesn't look so cheap).

Twin Cities Metro Transit ridership surveys found that 2/3's of riders would

have driven alone, and 40% were new to transit of any kind. More than half

(57%) rider the trains five days a week. Ridership on both buses and trains

has increased, with average daily ridership on the light rail there topping

29,000 riders. So - no surprise - O'Tooles pontification that mode doesn't

matter is also an empty assertion. On opening day in Minneapolis, riders

waited in a four-block-long line downtown to take a ride to Ft. Snelling.

Metro had parked a fleet of buses there to spare riders the long wait in the

unshaded parking lot. Buses that ran empty all the way back downtown as

riders waited patiently for the train, walking right past the buses (now

THAT was inefficient!). The Millennium Celebration in Salt Lake City had

precisely the same phenomenon, with riders walking between rows of empty

buses to crowd onto trains. This drives the anti-railers just nuts, so they

simply deny it.

 

Since I have criticized the derivation of O'Toole's numbers, let's look at

some facts. The Hiawatha Line in Minneapolis carries passengers at a cost

of $0.36 per passenger mile, and the same agency reports that a bus there is

$0.80 per pass-mi. (2006 FTA report -

http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/pubs/profiles/2006/agency_profiles/5027

pdf ). Surely Randy would say that's a bogus number, reported just to make

the rail look good. Sorry, all-bus Milwaukee is $0.96 for the same year,

and Racine is well over a dollar. For the year, the light rail carried

8,957,912 unlinked trips (the standard measure of transit ridership) to

Metro's total ridership of 73,356,649. And there are only 24 LRTs to 702

buses in the Twin Cities. It cost Metro $18,725,334 to operate the light

rail, out of a total operating expense budget of $226,974,595. The light

rail also provided 52,584,623 passenger-miles of service to the bus total of

261,745,530, but, since every mile on the bus costs $0.44 per passenger-mile

more, carrying those 52 million rail rider miles by bus would have cost an

additional $23,137,234.12 per year. On that single basis, even without any

of the other well-proven benefits, the entire $750 million price tag for the

Hiawatha Line would be paid off in 32 years, 5 months - faster than many

home mortgages. It is the same logic that has people buying high-efficiency

furnaces over cheap old gas burners; because they pay off in the long run,

even though they cost far more to buy.

 

Look hard at those numbers for Minneapolis again: that one, 12-mile long

light rail line, operating solely in Minneapolis, provides 12.2% of all

transit trips in the entire Twin Cities metro area on 8% of the operating

budget and using just over 3% of the transit vehicles. Is it any wonder

that a concrete-carrier like O'Toole would be scared to death of that?

Check around the country... [

http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/links.htm ] The numbers for Portland

and San Diego are quite comparable. There were about 5 light rail systems

of any kind in the US in 1979, now there are about 40 different cities with

some form of light rail. The anti-transit whiners like Wendell Cox and

O'Toole have been fairly successful at delaying first lines where there is

no rail, but they have had a notoriously poor record of stopping additional

lines and expansions when any rail operation is already running. You can't

lie to people twice, no matter how hard you try. Charlotte recently voted

to keep the transit tax to pay for more lines as their first line was

opening, and liberal old Denver voted to increase their taxes to pay for

more rail faster. On the seventh such vote, Kansas City elected to put in a

line, and both Seattle and Phoenix will be opening in a year. Dallas and

dozens of others are expanding. More telling, maybe, is that that O'Toole

is based near Portland and Cox in Belleville, IL; both places that have

added light rail lines over those antirailer's strenuous objections. Not

only can't Wendell and Randall stop other places from adding more rail, they

can't even convince their friends and neighbors. Obviously, all forms of

transit have their place, and rail is not suitable for corridors where there

is little ridership, but as a transit concentrator, acting as the spine of a

comprehensive network of trains and buses connecting places that already

have traffic, the real-world numbers are unbeatable.

 

Those lies certainly do come home to roost. In the Twin Cities, both the

furiously anti-rail state legislator Phil Krinkie and the transit-hating

mayor of St. Paul were on the unemployment line at the very next election.

That is when both the NorthStar commuter line (their KRM line) and planning

for the light rail to connect the Twin Cities started in earnest. On

opening day, Phil hilariously expanded on one of Wendell's earlier themes,

saying that it would have been cheaper to give every rider a brand new SUV.

Fortunately, his constituents were not impressed by such obvious, hollow

grandstanding. It is even the same in Kenosha, where the mayoral candidate

that promised to "shut down the trolleys" was creamed this April in an

all-time record landslide of 70% / 30%.

 

How long do light rail vehicles last? When one of the Cincinnati

anti-railers demanded that answer, I had to admit that I did not know. Not

that I don't have a grasp of the facts, or know where to look up the data,

but that there is no such complete data as of yet. Calgary and San Diego

(1979 and 1980, respectively) are still running their original light rail

cars. Portland, Danver, Dallas, St. Louis - all originals from opening day,

but with newer cars added for additional service. Kenosha does daily

service with their 57-year-olds that came second-hand after millions of

service miles in Toronto, and New Orleans is running only it's 1927 and

earlier Perley-Thomas streetcars after the newer ones were all destroyed in

the flooding. The South Shore (NICTD, Chicago to South Bend) is still

running on the Kawasaki cars they bought in the 1970s. "So," I told the

anti-, "when we wear out a few light rail vehicles, I'll let you know." On

average, a $750,000 bus lasts about 12 years. How long does the rail last?

It depends, but I can say that the freight line north of Kenosha, which

carries all of the coal trains to Oak Creek Power Plant as well as heavy

construction rock trains from Racine quarries, the rail was installed in

1937, and the heavily-used CP rail mainline west of Milwaukee just replaced

rail from 1947. If roads lasted anywhere near this long, we wouldn't have

had to pave I-94 until 2015, instead of being on the third reworking of that

road surface.

 

More bad news for rail opponents. Check out the recent reports that homes

near functioning transit have been holding their value pretty well, while

the sprawl-fest houses an hour out have been dropping like Bear-Stearns

stock. NPR had this a short while ago:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89803663 Economics

weighs in where good sense fails to prevail. Milwaukee, with its barely

functional transit system, does not fare well in this.

 

No one is denying that power plants could and should be cleaner than they

are. On this, O'Toole has it both ways, a right-wing president who has

specifically exempted existing power plants from required upgrades, and

being able to blame that polution solely on transit. Yes, light rail

vehicles do use about 570,718,000 kWh annually. That's a lot of power. But

the US generates over 16 trillion kWh annually (i.e. 16,000,000,000,000), so

the amount used to run light rail trains is a whopping 0.000035% of the

total. For comparison, one reputable source [

ttp://www.roughtype.com/archives/2007/09/the_electric_gr.php ] estimates

that US computers currently use 868 billion kWh a year, or 5.3% of US annual

generating capacity. Even if it is a tiny fraction of the whole US power

consumption, any pollution from electric rail vehicles is conveniently

located at the power plant, where cleaning it is at least feasible, rather

than spilling out of a million tailpipes, at least some of which are going

to be far dirtier than average.

 

This is not the first time the Journal has blown this question. Accepting

O'Toole's bogus assertions without really understanding where he fooled you

is just the latest in a long line of such slips. Point of fact is that I

cancelled my subscription to the Journal Sentinel when there was not the

slightest mention of the opening of the light rail line opening in

Minneapolis in June, 2004. When I questioned this, Sandler said it wasn't

relevant to Milwaukee. Really? A controversy that has its very own state

law? Other newspapers disagreed, and I traced the AP story in the Phoenix

Sun, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, The Detroit Free Press, and the

Edinburgh Sunday Telegraph, among hundreds of others. That's Edinburgh, as

in Scotland. NPR and all the networks also had it, as did two of the local

TV stations. The Hiawatha Line finally made the Journal in a passing

reference in Eugene Kane's column about six months later. I have to figure,

if the paper could miss that, how could I ever trust them to cover some

subject that I do not know so well?

 

Yours,

 

Bill Becwar

Wauwatosa, WI

 

P. S. For a look at the other side, though far more balanced and supported

than O'Tooles websites, check: www.lightrailnow.org The myths section

provides a pretty good analysis of the antirailer's outright lies.

 

Mr. Becwar's analysis of O'Toole's drivel is right on the mark.  But it's doubtful the general public (much less a local reporter) is going be able to follow what Becwar is saying, because it is way too long-winded.  I'm a former reporter and a long-standing rail & transit advocate who understands Becwar's counter-argument and even my eyes started to glaze over.

 

The thing that escapes most of O'Toole's critics is that what makes him so attractive to the average local reporter is that he not just cherry-picking his facts but packaging them into neat "sound bites" and quotes that make a good headline. The man is, afterall, a professional writer.

 

If you're going to use Becwar's crtique as a basis for blunting streetcar or light rail opposition, it will need to be distilled into some a lot more concise.  The folks at www.lightrailnow.com did that pretty well.  I think they also did the same in blowing up a lot of Wendell Cox's anti-rail / anti-transit arguments.

 

Also, I wouldn't wait for O'Toole or Cox to appear in Cincinnati.  I would be pro-active and start getting good, cogent and concise information in the hands of local reporters and editors now.  See if you can get invited to the morning newsroom briefing or editorial meeting at the local TV stations, or ask for a meeting with the editorial board at the Enquirer.  Don't go in with the intent of attacking the streetcar critics, but be prepared to answer the questions raised by the reporters and editors (and they will raise them).  I wouldn't even bring up O'Toole's name.  The most I would do (if it was necessary) is refer to them as "critics".

 

One reason O'Toole, Cox and the Buckeye Policy Institute gets the attention they do from the media is that they get a lot of free publicity from the rail & transit advocates.  These guys know what hot buttons to press and how to press them, and even if we can effectively refute the critics, we wind up getting their names in the paper or on a local newscast.

^ Good advice.

MLS# 1125160 1500 Race St Cincinnati, OH 45202 $79,900

 

Description

 

Great Corner Location! Former Tavern on 1st floor with Tin Ceiling! Apartments upstairs. Streetcars coming soon!

 

MLS# 1125504 1723 Race St Cincinnati, OH 45202 $75,000

 

Description

 

pc3681/4436 SF.Shell.Right next to Findlay mrkt.All brick(siding over brick in front) new rf,on proposed trolley line.Heavy termite damage 1st fl,already treated.Rest of building solid.5 units store front.Offstreet lot in rear.Make offer.

 

 

I'm not saying anything new to this crowd here but OTR has the potential to be one of the most vibrant and signifcant urban neighborhood in the entire country. Equaling that of the French Quarter and a like.

^this is the best and most compelling argument for the revival of OTR.  The streetcar, of course, plays an important role in connecting the re-emerging inner city.

You guys better put together a map showing several additional lines or a complete streetcar system to get it through peoples heads that this is only the first part of a much larger system. Our city paid the price for not listening to free advice when it comes to the general publics perception of the streetcar line. Oh well.

Coincidence?

LOL

 

I find it funny that even when gas prices go up, people still commonly get "6 on pump 5". I think it convinces people that overall they're not spending more money.

Speak up SW Ohioans....

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,4500.msg287215.html#msg287215

Speak up SW Ohioans....

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,4500.msg287215.html#msg287215

 

We are Cincinnatians, not to be confused with SW Ohioans. We are our own City-Nation-State. Get it right. ;)