maybe a bus can tow the streetcar up vine and it will be faster.

maybe a bus can tow the streetcar up vine and it will be faster.

 

Lol, there's an idea.  Why don't we just level the hill while we're at it?  Who needs Uptown?

OctoCincy, I think what John is saying is that the streetcar will MOVE faster than 10 MPH, so going up Vine will be no problem.  That 10 MPH figure is averaging stops into the trip speed, so it's a lot lower than the speed the vehicle actually travels.

Livable Communities committee voted on easing up parking minimums along the streetcar route 11/23.

Winburn voted against it. Somebody else voted against it but I couldn't tell who (on TV).

Seems kinda spiteful.

Bortz abstained/recused.

... In this country public transportation and all other modes of travel have been completely subjugated by the automobile for the past 60 years.  It's not too much to ask to allow the streetcar to rule ONE street out of the thousands we have.  This mindset of "how will it impede traffic flow" needs to die, because for too long that's been the only consideration, and it's been systematically destroying the places where we live and work.

 

I completely agree with this. That stretch of Vine street between OTR and University Plaza isn't a high-traffic thoroughfare anyways. Kill the parking lane?

^ Here's the problem with "killing the parking" on Vine Street Hill. There probably won't be more than one or two stops between the bottom and top of the hill simply because there aren't many places flat enough to stop a streetcar. So you're not going to have a lot of streetcar-oriented development on the Vine Street Hill; it will continue to be automotive-oriented. If the street parking gets taken away and isn't replaced by surface lots -- which could be done, there's some vacant land in places -- then you may just have a perpetual slum there.

^ Here's the problem with "killing the parking" on Vine Street Hill. There probably won't be more than one or two stops between the bottom and top of the hill simply because there aren't many places flat enough to stop a streetcar. So you're not going to have a lot of streetcar-oriented development on the Vine Street Hill; it will continue to be automotive-oriented. If the street parking gets taken away and isn't replaced by surface lots -- which could be done, there's some vacant land in places -- then you may just have a perpetual slum there.

 

Or just keep the parking lane, and just have two shared lanes and no exclusively-car lanes. Yeah, I thought about that right after I posted it :)

^ Here's the problem with "killing the parking" on Vine Street Hill. There probably won't be more than one or two stops between the bottom and top of the hill simply because there aren't many places flat enough to stop a streetcar. So you're not going to have a lot of streetcar-oriented development on the Vine Street Hill; it will continue to be automotive-oriented. If the street parking gets taken away and isn't replaced by surface lots -- which could be done, there's some vacant land in places -- then you may just have a perpetual slum there.

 

Or just keep the parking lane, and just have two shared lanes and no exclusively-car lanes. Yeah, I thought about that right after I posted it :)

 

I actually like that idea the best.  Having parking AND slowing down traffic on that hill is the best way to make it economically viable again.  People still have Sycamore and Ravine to cruise up and down. 

^ I agree that would be best--- those who don't like it can easily divert to take W Clifton up the hill.

Alright- It was worth a small discussion- :)

 

In other news, I think it will be interesting to see what happens to the development on Vine- I'm guessing there will be no stops (maybe one) between W Clifton & Vine and Vine & McMillan because of the hill (as John mentioned), but that street does need some help.  There are at least 6 good sized vacant lots and more than a few completely abandoned buildings. The view from the rooftops of any of those places would be wonderful. I could see the streetcar boosting development between Vine & McMicken and Vine & W Clifton.  The buildings are gorgeous in that area, and most are abandoned. 

 

This is one of my favorite buildings:

http://tinyurl.com/2eftycq

 

And it doesn't have really have a nearby lot to put cars in-  With the streetcar stop that will surely end up in this area, buildings like this one could be revived.  Thanks to the city's new rules regarding parking space requirements, the developer could simply provide a small lot for 3 or so cars and could charge a premium for them.

^I don't want to go all suburban on you, but if that storefront doesn't get redone, you'd have room for maybe 4 garages on the bottom.  At least it would eliminate the need for a surface lot.

Some idiot named Sachdev Navneet has owned that building for 26 years and has done absolutely no work:

http://www.citykin.com/2008/11/flatiron-building-still-vacant.html

a mechanical parking lift and you could fit 12 cars into the space just to the south of the building... of course you would need high demand but if the scale of redevelopment happens which we hope, then it could be feasible.

SCRABBLE'S TOTALLY GREAT IDEA THAT SOMEONE HAS PROBABLY ALREADY MENTIONED

is...

 

...naming the streetcars after famous local people (am I the only one who wants to call them trams?)

 

Nottingham, England's express transit system's (NET) trams have always been named after local people and up in Dayton I know a few old-fashioned looking "trolley" bus things are named after famous Daytonians like the Wright Bros, etc.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nottingham_Express_Transit#Tram_fleet

 

Plus, who wouldn't want to be able to say "I rode Marge Schott all night" with a straight face

 

 

Plus, who wouldn't want to be able to say "I rode Marge Schott all night" with a straight face

 

 

Umm.  Me.  Eww.

The "Pete Rose" wouldn't stop at traffic lights, it'd just plow right through whoever was in its way.

 

The "Jerry Springer" would always have an interesting crowd.

 

The "Mike Brown" line would cost twice as much to operate and ride as any of the others, for no reason at all.

 

etc.

 

You couldn't come up with any better candidates? I nominate:

 

Doctor Daniel Drake

Judge Jacob Burnet

Colonel Isreal Ludlow

Powell Crosley

Alphonso Taft

Joseph Strauss    :-)

How many streetcars will there actually be?

 

I'd put the names up to a vote and include names from the founding up through the present day.

I'd like to name one Tom Luken.

 

  There should be a special car named Maketawah.  :wink:

There should be a special car named Maketawah. :wink:

 

Or Hiawatha

I'd like to name one Tom Luken.

 

hahah- so good.

just call one the threeway in honor of our signature food....sure thats it

There should be a special car named Maketawah. :wink:

 

Or Hiawatha

 

Or Catawba Wine, this Song of the Vine...

Considering all the crime, death & mayhem that will follow the streetcar, naming one after Charles Manson would probably be appropriate.

Make one a flying pig.  :-D

 

You couldn't come up with any better candidates? I nominate:

 

 

Nope, and if there isn't a Pete Rose, I'm completely flip flopping my position on the entire issue ;)

More Challenges Ahead For Streetcar Plan

BY BARRY M. HORSTMAN • [email protected] • NOVEMBER 28, 2010

 

 

The Cincinnati streetcar, the controversial $128 million plan that has traveled a bumpy path from the start, faces more potential rocky spots in 2011, including a possible second attempt to derail it on the ballot.

 

The local NAACP, which led the push for an unsuccessful 2009 charter amendment that would have effectively killed the streetcar by requiring public votes on future passenger rail projects, is considering another ballot measure next year aimed at achieving the same goal.

 

 

I wonder what the NAACP is thinking.  Only in Cincinnati, i swear.  A black mayor is trying to improve a black neighborhood, not by spacial decoration of the poor but by providing them a legitimate means of transportation.  and they oppose it?  why would the NAACP be against police layoffs? The police started the the riots.  The police union doesn't support the NAACP.  this smeitherman guy...he's is getting paid i bet.

and the naacp said they wouldn't do this.  after they lost the last vote they said they was done.  flipfloppers.

The more this thing gets delayed or construction doesn't start, the more opportunity there is to derail it(pardon the pun)

 

Literally all the big media in this town is extremely opposed to it and they are using all their resources to fight this streetcar. 

 

Everything is just about in place, its just a matter of getting things started.  Or else clowns like Smitherman, Luken, and COAST will take advantage of their opportunity to end it

 

  Thinking back on the riots of 2001, it wasn't just the local media but the national media that jumped all over it. After a few days, the County Prosecutor remarked that a majority of the arrests were people coming in from outside the region. Apparently, the media attracted all the troublemakers, and the troublemakers made a story for the media. I guess this is how it works. 

 

  The 911 World Trade Center bombings, as horrible as they were, finally took the attention off of Cincinnati.

 

    Well, I think that the local media is tired of broadcasting bad news about the economy, and just needs a story to sell. Unlike the budget, or unemployment numbers, the streetcar is something that they can take a picture of.  And since proponents of each side are so passionate, there's a lot of human interest in it. Finally, it's a pet project of the mayor. I don't think there's any conspiracy going on; it's just news people looking for a story.

good points but i wouldn't be surprised if the NAACP isn't getting kickbacks from this.  i think one of the street cars should be named General Kabakka Abba.

 

So, if the NAACP actually decides to get this resolution on the ballot and succeeds in doing so, and the resolution passes, that means the streetcar will already have been under construction almost a full year when the referendum results would become effective. It would be the height of idiocy to kill the project when it's already halfway complete, but then, more idiotic things have happened here (see: Cincinnati subway). So then Cincinnati would proudly boast of a half-completed subway line, a half-completed streetcar line, a half-demolished train station in Queensgate, and an unused train station under 2nd Street. Making the streetcar out to be a "boondoggle" would have become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

 

There are also questions to be raised about the wording of any such ballot measure. There's no technical difference between a "streetcar" and a "light rail" line, so the measure's language would have to be sufficiently broad to cover all possibilities. What would the measure specifically outlaw? All passenger rail? See: Issue 9.

 

I'll reiterate a few things I said during the No on 9 campaign:

 

1) This highlights the problem with direct democracy, and is the reason this nation was wisely set up as a representative republic. If it were up to me, the entire citizen-led referendum process would be entirely scrapped, or at least overhauled so as to make it less likely for things like this to happen. If I got enough signatures, should I be able to amend the city charter such that each city resident gets a million-dollar check and a pony for their birthday? There has to be some legal mechanism for such measures to be struck down when they conflict with the government's fundamental ability to serve its core functions.

 

2) When Issue 9 was defeated, I warned on this forum that it wasn't yet time for Cincinnatians for Progress and other pro-streetcar groups to pat themselves on the back and simply ride off into the sunset. Unfortunately, that seems to have been exactly what they did (at least in CfP's case). Given COAST/Smitherman's utter lack of credibility, did anybody really believe they would simply throw in the towel after Issue 9, even when they admitted they lost the streetcar fight? The streetcar's opponents won't rest until the project is dead and every politician who supported it is out of office, and that means we can't rest either. Issue 9 was one battle, but the war won't be over until the day the streetcar makes its first revenue run with paying customers on board.

word up

^^ Well said!

Harriet Beecher Stowe would be a good name for a streetcar.

So, if the NAACP actually decides to get this resolution on the ballot and succeeds in doing so, and the resolution passes, that means the streetcar will already have been under construction almost a full year when the referendum results would become effective.

Assuming construction starts soon!!!

The story goes that kids put motor oil or grease on streetcar tracks and it made the vehicles slide & careen down hills & such.

I skimmed newspaper headlines from 1890-1950 & found nothing along those lines.

Lotta car/streetcar collisions, people getting run over, a couple derailments & a brake failure...

Is there any truth to the story?

There's a story about a CL&N train that couldn't get up the hill between Norwood and Kennedy Heights because of soap/grease on the rails. 

 

There were also a number of times that ice and frozen sand containers prevented streetcars from making it up Clifton Avenue.  In fact the hill up West Clifton seems to have hosted the majority of runaways and losses of control.  However, in many cases they managed to prevent a major accident through use of emergency brakes or other heroic measures.  The majority of the problems seemed to stem from brake failures, motors burning out, or the incompetence of the motorman.  Also, since most of these stories come from the early part of the 20th century, their definition of "careening" was a lot slower than how we'd describe it.

 

That said, yes there were lots of accidents involving buggies, pedestrians, and later with automobiles and streetcars.  There weren't really any "rules of the road" back then, and there were SO MANY streetcars around that it's not unlike the high numbers of automobile accidents we see today just because of sheer numbers.

I'm pretty sure there was only one major streetcar accident that resulted in many deaths (i think the number was 7) and it was again, in the 20's or something. 

 

I could be wrong though...

It's worth noting that rail safety has improved considerably since those days. The streetcar that was recently on display at Fountain Square is equipped with electro-magnetic track brakes that are capable of stopping the vehicle very quickly in case the normal air brakes fail. Going up the Vine Street hill after a major winter storm, I'd feel much safer on a modern streetcar than I would in a bus or my own AWD Jeep Grand Cherokee.

There were quite a few collisions resulting in multiple deaths. I would think that a prank that disabled a mass transit vehicle would get a headline, tho.

Unless it was a real common event, in which case people wouldn't have used the dang things.

It's starting to sound like one armed brakeman stuff to me.

Seems similar to kids cutting the brake lines on a bus today, but that never seems to happen. 

Seems similar to kids cutting the brake lines on a bus today, but that never seems to happen. 

 

This is what bothers me most about the nonsense people post about pouring oil on the tracks.  Arguing that this is something someone could do is at best promoting a life threatening act of sabotage and at worst terrorism.  If I were to post that buses are inferior to rail because they are susceptible to someone throwing shards of metal into the street I'd be considered a maniac.

Occasionally people do throw things at cars from highway overpasses. All of the green screens you see on overpasses in Cincinnati today stem from a rash of those incidents in the early 1990's.

I confess. I once put a nickel on a train track to see what would happen. About what I expected.

So, if the NAACP actually decides to get this resolution on the ballot and succeeds in doing so, and the resolution passes, that means the streetcar will already have been under construction almost a full year when the referendum results would become effective. It would be the height of idiocy to kill the project when it's already halfway complete, but then, more idiotic things have happened here (see: Cincinnati subway). So then Cincinnati would proudly boast of a half-completed subway line, a half-completed streetcar line, a half-demolished train station in Queensgate, and an unused train station under 2nd Street. Making the streetcar out to be a "boondoggle" would have become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

 

There are also questions to be raised about the wording of any such ballot measure. There's no technical difference between a "streetcar" and a "light rail" line, so the measure's language would have to be sufficiently broad to cover all possibilities. What would the measure specifically outlaw? All passenger rail? See: Issue 9.

 

I'll reiterate a few things I said during the No on 9 campaign:

 

1) This highlights the problem with direct democracy, and is the reason this nation was wisely set up as a representative republic. If it were up to me, the entire citizen-led referendum process would be entirely scrapped, or at least overhauled so as to make it less likely for things like this to happen. If I got enough signatures, should I be able to amend the city charter such that each city resident gets a million-dollar check and a pony for their birthday? There has to be some legal mechanism for such measures to be struck down when they conflict with the government's fundamental ability to serve its core functions.

 

2) When Issue 9 was defeated, I warned on this forum that it wasn't yet time for Cincinnatians for Progress and other pro-streetcar groups to pat themselves on the back and simply ride off into the sunset. Unfortunately, that seems to have been exactly what they did (at least in CfP's case). Given COAST/Smitherman's utter lack of credibility, did anybody really believe they would simply throw in the towel after Issue 9, even when they admitted they lost the streetcar fight? The streetcar's opponents won't rest until the project is dead and every politician who supported it is out of office, and that means we can't rest either. Issue 9 was one battle, but the war won't be over until the day the streetcar makes its first revenue run with paying customers on board.

 

What could CFP be doing at this point to prevent the enquirer and coast from going around slandering the project?  I mean, the city is ready to break ground anytime now right?  I'm just trying think of things we could be doing to keep this project rolling, but I can't think of anything other than pressuring the city to start construction already!  Anyone else have any ideas?

A real public education campaign is the only thing i see that is need. But IDK how to do that.

 

^Get something running! Put a diesel streetcar on the track by the boathouse, or alternatively, an electric streetcar towing a generator. The tourist traffic alone will keep the ridership going for a week at least.