This question is probably best for John. Will our Streetcars have the ability to chain together ala the MAX trains or is adding additional center cabins the only way to extend them?

 

You'd have to rebuild all the platforms if you did that so it doesn't really matter (unless we tie a light rail line into the system and we'll have to rebuild them all anyways).

Pretty sure I saw a photo of a CAF vehicle between disassembled and sections being added.

This question is probably best for John. Will our Streetcars have the ability to chain together ala the MAX trains or is adding additional center cabins the only way to extend them?

 

I'm pretty sure that's the case. Not cheap though.

 

Dallas added a center section to cars in its large LRT fleet. I don't have the cost readily available but I'm sure if you google it you can come up with a per-car estimate.

"Jefferson Ave."  Maybe someday.

This question is probably best for John. Will our Streetcars have the ability to chain together ala the MAX trains or is adding additional center cabins the only way to extend them?

 

I'm pretty sure that's the case. Not cheap though.

 

I'm a lot less interested in having bigger vehicles than having more of them operating at headways of less than 10 minutes.  With only 3 streetcars in operation, there will be many times when no streetcar is visible to those waiting at the stations south of Central Parkway.  People are much more likely to choose to ride a streetcar if they can see one coming.  Luckily the federal grant mandates a minimum level of operation since they anticipated the sort of chicanery Cranleyesque mayors might attempt. 

 

 

 

 

This question is probably best for John. Will our Streetcars have the ability to chain together ala the MAX trains or is adding additional center cabins the only way to extend them?

 

I'm pretty sure that's the case. Not cheap though.

 

I'm a lot less interested in having bigger vehicles than having more of them operating at headways of less than 10 minutes.  With only 3 streetcars in operation, there will be many times when no streetcar is visible to those waiting at the stations south of Central Parkway.  People are much more likely to choose to ride a streetcar if they can see one coming.  Luckily the federal grant mandates a minimum level of operation since they anticipated the sort of chicanery Cranleyesque mayors might attempt. 

 

 

 

 

 

Jake's right. Before Portland (over)expanded its system to 17 miles, it seemed like on the long streets there -- 10th, 11th, Lovejoy and Northrup, as you were boarding a streetcar at peak, you could almost always see another one coming. Not anymore.

 

Being down in Clifton Saturday made me realize how important it will be to get the streetcar line extended to Clifton as soon as possible.

 

I was with 7 friends, and wanted to down to the River to club Pulse. None of my 6 friends drive, and I was the only one who had a car. It just wasn't possible to fit everyone in the car.

 

None of us were really familiar with the metro bus at all, and were afraid we would just end up getting lost and end up in god knows where. Plus the time it would take to get there would be way to long.

 

An uber was out of the question because we didn't have enough money.

 

So it made me realize, damn if there was a street car line, we could have just hopped on and not worried about transportation. It's going to be VITAL to get the line extended to UC as soon as possible. I think the amount of ridership will increase significantly when you consider the population of young people and students who live there, don't have cars, and would like to go down to The Banks, or OTR and have fun. Sure, there's places to go in Clifton, but after a while the whole clifton bar scene gets old.

 

That's why, I really think the success of this street car will really hinder on getting the line extended to Clifton.

Being down in Clifton Saturday made me realize how important it will be to get the streetcar line extended to Clifton as soon as possible.

 

I was with 7 friends, and wanted to down to the River to club Pulse. None of my 6 friends drive, and I was the only one who had a car. It just wasn't possible to fit everyone in the car.

 

None of us were really familiar with the metro bus at all, and were afraid we would just end up getting lost and end up in god knows where. Plus the time it would take to get there would be way to long.

 

An uber was out of the question because we didn't have enough money.

 

So it made me realize, damn if there was a street car line, we could have just hopped on and not worried about transportation. It's going to be VITAL to get the line extended to UC as soon as possible. I think the amount of ridership will increase significantly when you consider the population of young people and students who live there, don't have cars, and would like to go down to The Banks, or OTR and have fun. Sure, there's places to go in Clifton, but after a while the whole clifton bar scene gets old.

 

That's why, I really think the success of this street car will really hinder on getting the line extended to Clifton.

 

I don't think "hinder" means what you think it means.

Honestly, for 7 people, an Uber XL might be cheaper and faster than a streetcar.

Being down in Clifton Saturday made me realize how important it will be to get the streetcar line extended to Clifton as soon as possible.

 

I was with 7 friends, and wanted to down to the River to club Pulse. None of my 6 friends drive, and I was the only one who had a car. It just wasn't possible to fit everyone in the car.

 

None of us were really familiar with the metro bus at all, and were afraid we would just end up getting lost and end up in god knows where. Plus the time it would take to get there would be way to long.

 

An uber was out of the question because we didn't have enough money.

 

So it made me realize, damn if there was a street car line, we could have just hopped on and not worried about transportation. It's going to be VITAL to get the line extended to UC as soon as possible. I think the amount of ridership will increase significantly when you consider the population of young people and students who live there, don't have cars, and would like to go down to The Banks, or OTR and have fun. Sure, there's places to go in Clifton, but after a while the whole clifton bar scene gets old.

 

That's why, I really think the success of this street car will really hinder on getting the line extended to Clifton.

 

I don't think "hinder" means what you think it means.

 

Okay.

Honestly, for 7 people, an Uber XL might be cheaper and faster than a streetcar.

 

That's assuming everyone has the app downloaded, and has experience with Uber.

 

None of us had the app downloaded nor had experience.

 

It might have been faster, but the street car would have been more simpler and think-less if that makes any sense.

 

How much are tickets projected to cost for the street car?

$1 for two hours or $2 for all day.

 

Uber is super easy. I had never even seen the app before the first time I heard of it and used it no more than 5 minutes after someone told me about it when I was in San Francisco a few years ago. It's about as intuitive as it gets.

Am I crazy for thinking that's really cheap? How do they expect to make money off of the street car?

Because ticket revenue isn't the point of a streetcar. And increasing the ticket price lowers ridership. Higher ridership is more important than higher ticket prices.

Because ticket revenue isn't the point of a streetcar. And increasing the ticket price lowers ridership. Higher ridership is more important than higher ticket prices.

 

Will be there monthly/year around passes for residents of downtown?

They have yet to announce those as far as I know. There likely will be, but a pricing structure has not been made public.

 

Streetcars make their ROI by providing as many people easier transportation as possible which leads to dense development around the line. Ticket revenue is not an important part of how a streetcar benefits a city.

Monthly Metro passes will get you on the streetcar. It's possible (and probably a good idea) to provide a discounted monthly pass for streetcars only that gets you on any bus for $1 or something but this has yet to be decided.

Didn't they determine that a $2 fare would only increase revenues something like 10% compared to a $1 fare because ridership would be lower?  Those might not be the exact numbers but it was similar. 

 

Even free has merits when fare box recovery is low (30% is pretty typical in the US).  There's a lot of expense incurred in the purchase, operation, and maintenance of payment kiosks, fare boxes, money handling, accounting, inspectors, and in subway systems access control like turnstiles and gates.  Sometimes it's cheaper just to forget about collecting fares at all because it's so much easier.  It's not without its problems too, but it's an interesting thought. 

They did indeed. Doubling the cost of tickets almost cut ridership in half and that would be harmful to the streetcar's success. I'd actually support revisiting ticket revenue in the future and pushing for the streetcar being free to increase ridership and further spur new lines and development.

You can get on basically any Metro bus heading south and it will take you to Government Square though.

Taking Metro from Clifton to Pulse would be faster and easier than taking a streetcar. I'm really not sure what's so difficult about catching a bus.

 

I was a huge proponent of the current streetcar loop, but I'm not yet sold on the uptown extension.  Economic development and creating an urban circulator were the main advantages I lauded. There's not much to develop on the hillside, so we really need to come up with some good reasons to make the investment. "I can't figure out how to use a bus" is not a good reason.

If a general understanding of where the streetcar would go once up the hill accompanied the extension I think more people and institutions would get behind it. Just getting up the hill will increase ridership due to UC students, but I'm not sure that will actually enhance development all that much. If it then connected into an east-west route that went from Clifton into Walnut Hills or something along those lines then I'd be 100% in support of climbing up the hill.

One of the major benefits of the streetcar is that it's going to get a lot of people to use transit for the very first time. So once they get used to the idea of taking the streetcar around the CBD and OTR, it's not a big leap to start taking the bus from other neighborhoods into downtown. Especially if we can add more Metro*Plus route that make it even quicker and simpler.

It may even make sense to have a few "Rapid" (limited stop) versions of existing routes with higher ridership in to downtown. I'm thinking the 17 (to capture campus, Northside, Mt Airy), 11 (Oakley & Hyde Park), 4 (Kenwood-Blue Ash-Norwood), and maybe the 33 off the top of my head. These would have stops only at major neighborhood nodes and transfer points. The 17 probably has the best business case for this.

It may even make sense to have a few "Rapid" (limited stop) versions of existing routes with higher ridership in to downtown. I'm thinking the 17 (to capture campus, Northside, Mt Airy), 11 (Oakley & Hyde Park), 4 (Kenwood-Blue Ash-Norwood), and maybe the 33 off the top of my head. These would have stops only at major neighborhood nodes and transfer points. The 17 probably has the best business case for this.

 

Yes. Please.

Being down in Clifton Saturday made me realize how important it will be to get the streetcar line extended to Clifton as soon as possible.

 

I was with 7 friends, and wanted to down to the River to club Pulse. None of my 6 friends drive, and I was the only one who had a car. It just wasn't possible to fit everyone in the car.

 

None of us were really familiar with the metro bus at all, and were afraid we would just end up getting lost and end up in god knows where. Plus the time it would take to get there would be way to long.

 

An uber was out of the question because we didn't have enough money.

 

So it made me realize, damn if there was a street car line, we could have just hopped on and not worried about transportation. It's going to be VITAL to get the line extended to UC as soon as possible. I think the amount of ridership will increase significantly when you consider the population of young people and students who live there, don't have cars, and would like to go down to The Banks, or OTR and have fun. Sure, there's places to go in Clifton, but after a while the whole clifton bar scene gets old.

 

That's why, I really think the success of this street car will really hinder on getting the line extended to Clifton.

 

Next time you decide to do this, please use google maps, it will save you money getting down there.  Google maps has a transit directions, just click on the train symbol when you bring up directions (its next to the car) and it will tell you how to get somewhere by transit using the nearest line and the best times.

 

Also pick up busdetective or transit for your phone, as these will give you real time departures for your bus.

 

What part of clifton were you in generally?

In regards to Cincinnati extending the streetcar / lightrail line uptown, I think it is very important to the future of the city.

 

I may be incorrect, but in my mind once Over The Rhine is fully re-developed, because of the cost of construction and rehabilitation of the existing structures, that a large area already around the streetcar will be unaffordable to most young professionals.  In theory, this is not entirely a bad thing for many reasons which we have spoken of for a long time and many of us already know.

 

Extending the streetcar with a tunnel like Mr. Schneider has proposed to me is the best way to move forward in a way that we will get the most out of our tax dollars and ensure a strong future for our children, etc.  Here are the reasons why I believe this:

 

1.) A quick, fast line to uptown will allow the redevelopment of the uptown area and also allow high density construction in a less expensive area to build than downtown or OTR, allowing many young professionals to locate not only close to many professional jobs in uptown themselves, but to live a car free lifestyle with a fast connection to professional jobs and service jobs in downtown and OTR.

 

2.) It will speed up the development in downtown and OTR for people who wish to live in the basin but work in Uptown but do not want to own a vehicle.

 

3.) It will allow Cincinnati to better compete with Chicago, the Twin Cities and even some cases St. Louis in the MidWest in regards to Midwestern cities with rail.  It will also distinguish it from peer cities such as Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville.  It will bring it more on par with Philadelphia, Boston, New York, DC, etc. on the East Coast in so as living a car free lifestyle, possibly slowing the stem of people moving to these other cities in the USA.

 

In all seriousness and by no means is this meant as disrespect, it is just a plain fact, many young professionals and even empty nesters and retirees do not want to ride a bus.  Certainly, people who are looking to move to Cincinnati from out of state or out of region aren't saying, "well I could move to Cincinnati and take the bus everywhere".  Peoples choices from out of state are more in lines with "I could move to Cincinnati or I could move to Chicago.  I pay more to live in Chicago but I can live without a car and possibly even save money in the long term and sell my car."  I know many people who have moved from Cincinnati just in my short time here and I have heard many times that the rail service is so much easier in Boston, Chicago or even Charlotte.

 

If Cincinnati wants to become a bigger regional and national draw, we have to get moving on a direct rail connection to uptown.

Yup that's basically it.

 

Riding a Bus is just weird. It's some weird stigma, don't ask me where it comes from, that makes riding the bus feel weird. Maybe it reminds me of being in grade school again, I don't know.

 

But I know plenty of people, who don't even consider a Bus as public transportation. Only subways, and street cars. Again, it's just a perception I notice. Alot of people I know just feel plain outright feel uncomfortable riding a bus.

^-I think riding the bus would feel less weird if more young professionals rode it.  Much of the transit I ride in Chicago is on busses and its a totally different feeling and part of this I feel is due to the far more diverse ridership.

 

I get a weird feeling on Cincinnati's busses when I'm in town, but I realize that one of the keys to breaking that is for people like me to ride it.  I know there is a large barrier in much of the city / region of the busses not running very often, but between Northside and Downtown with Clifton in between the bus service isn't too bad you can usually get a bus every 15-20 mins.

 

Some routes in Chicago have headways of 12-15 mins too which is usually how the 17 runs.

^^You've just hinted at a big reason why fixed rail helps spur development but bus routes, even BRT in many cases, does not. Buses do have a stigma, some of it warranted, some of it not.

 

Buses aren't as comfortable as trains. People will likely chime in and claim buses are perfectly comfortable and whatnot, but they have an objectively worse ride quality than trains and streetcars.

 

Buses are loud and dirty. Something that rumbles by making a bunch of noise and spewing out black smoke is never going to be decried as as modern asset. They have a perceptual negative quality to them that is audible, visible, and smellable. That's not going away unless we change to electric buses and at that point why not just go the extra step to electric streetcars?

 

Buses are not viewed as an option, even in the most transit oriented places in the country. Look at NYC for example. Areas connected by the subway are much more successful than those connected by the bus routes that replaced the streetcar lines that used to wind their way through Queens and Brooklyn for example. Look at how many people take the NQ to Astoria BLVD and refuse to get on the M60 bus for the last 5-10 minute leg of the journey to Laguardia. They'd rather hail a cab or call an Uber. Hell, I've done it because the M60 bus is a pain in the ass with luggage because of the constant top heavy swaying that occurs at every stop. It's just not an enjoyable experience.

 

Rail really is the future of transit. We figured out mass transit over 100 years ago then tried to reinvent the wheel and failed because the answer we had already come up with was the best option then, and still is.

Japan and Europe include busses are part of their strategy, but the difference is how they are implimented, generally they have fewer stops for instance and the cultural stigma against them dont' exist.

 

A well balanced transit system as a mix of both rail and buses, you can't run rail absolutely everywhere if you already dismantled your massive legacy streetcar system.

 

Chicago's transit proximate neighborhoods are the first to gentrify, but the busses still transport far more people - unlike NYC (except maybe Queens) there are giant gaps in the system - your going to use a bus to get somewhere - like from the west side to the north side for instance.

You're right. My wording sounded like I meant they should be eliminated which was unintentional.

 

A system of buses that quickly get people to more dedicated forms of mass transit such as light rail, streetcars, etc. makes the most sense. The way we use buses now though is a problem. Routes that don't necessarily make much sense, are hub and spoke, and make far too frequent stops aren't going to move people quickly or efficiently enough to make a real dent in how people move throughout the city.

Buses always do the heavy lifting in a transit system in terms of ridership, even in places with decent rail service.  We should strive to improve our bus system so that it attracts more ridership.  Buses should reliably running every 10-15 minutes on routes that make sense with clean, well lit, and safe shelters and vehicles with service on nights and weekends with low fares and smartphone apps that work etc etc.  We need to improve bus service to a point where any "bus stigma" is pure snobbery. 

But part of the bus stigma is based on real, tactile things. They aren't as nice of a ride, they do pollute, they are louder, they do rely more heavily on a human's decision making ,etc. These aren't going to go away because they are realities of buses.

 

Buses don't work well even if they do the heavy lifting. Stopping every couple blocks is a problem and routes that try to get to every single important business or intersection make routes more or less useless which is how you wind up with the only people riding those who have no other options.

 

Buses are important, but the problems inherent in buses are not going to go away. Just like rail has its problems that are inherent in its nature, so do buses and so does every other form of transportation out there.

In my opinion, if you want more people to use the bus, you have to first get the streetcar tunnel uptown in a way that is competitive with the car.  Keep pushing the system north on dedicated ROW with limited stops.  Create 2 or 3 BRT routes going East and West crossing the rail system to the north.  The one EW route I can think of now something starting  from East Hyde Park down Observatory (or Wasson and Madison Intersection) , then down Madison through O'Bryonville, pass by East Walnut Hills, stick on and keep West on MLK all the way to Westwood square, crossing the Light Rail / Streecar system on Jefferson Avenue.

 

Then you can have routes that are a little less frequent and infrastructure heavy from Northside to Ludlow District to McMillan / to Walnut Hills.

^agreed, a fast moving light rail trunk line with connections to bus lines would be incredibly useful.

I ride the bus every day to work and I think the biggest stigma of buses in this city is by far that people simply don't know where they go. In Chicago and New York and other properly gridded cities this isn't as much of an issue because you know the #9 goes up Ashland and down Ashland and that's it. When I first moved to Newport I had to do mild amounts of research to figure out which routes to take to work and which ones didn't go to my part of the city. Most people do not feel like doing that legwork of memorizing lines (which in our hilly city are usually crooked crazy lines) when it's easier to just call an uber/cab. This is why the streetcar is beautiful, because you see the tracks in the ground, you've seen them up by Rhinegeist or down by the Ballpark and you know that if you get on it will take you there, period.

I ride the bus every day to work and I think the biggest stigma of buses in this city is by far that people simply don't know where they go. In Chicago and New York and other properly gridded cities this isn't as much of an issue because you know the #9 goes up Ashland and down Ashland and that's it. When I first moved to Newport I had to do mild amounts of research to figure out which routes to take to work and which ones didn't go to my part of the city. Most people do not feel like doing that legwork of memorizing lines (which in our hilly city are usually crooked crazy lines) when it's easier to just call an uber/cab. This is why the streetcar is beautiful, because you see the tracks in the ground, you've seen them up by Rhinegeist or down by the Ballpark and you know that if you get on it will take you there, period.

 

That's exactly why this guy made this map: http://www.cincymap.org/files/Cincinnati_Transit_Map.pdf - it vastly simplifies the ridiculous official bus map SORTA/TANK put out making it a bit more like a rail map would be in cities with rail.  Again this is part of the stigma against buses that leads to maps being far less useful for buses than they are for trains... its weird.  Also google maps makes Cincinnati bus navigation stupid easy.

 

Though I will agree with you that apart from some weird downtown express/circulator buses the bus system is super easy to figure out in Chicago, the only thing you'll get caught with is getting a bus where one only runs like every 30 mins (the ever infamous Armitage bus for instance).  Grid cities are far better for large bus systems for that reason.

 

Even with the right tools Cincy's buses are still harder to figure out than Chicago, and you have to be aware of areas where multiple bus lines run (transit app/bus detective on android can help with this) nearby but at different schedules.  I think its everyone's responsibility to educate people about the tools that make figuring the darn thing out a lot easier though.

Basically everybody here is making good points. In summary:

 

- Buses have a number of disadvantages over rail, and they carry sigma that rail doesn't.

- Improvements can be made to bus service to improve the quality and speed, make routes easier to understand, or to help eliminate the stigma...but no matter what improvements you make or what type of PR campaign you run, buses will still have some disadvantages over rail.

- One of the most most effective things you can do to increase bus ridership is to introduce rail transit to get more people used to the concept of taking transit and help eliminate some of the stigma.

Using Nate's map, it's easy to see from which lines are most frequent which lines are also most used. A 'Rapid' version of these lines would probably be very successful:

 

4

11

17

43

78

 

Have the R version turn where the lines split OR go to which ever of the end nodes has the highest ridership (or another high ridership node after the split if the line is very long). I know Metro+ is a Rapid version of the 4 and a little of the 78, so there's already a case for those lines.

Using Nate's map, it's easy to see from which lines are most frequent which lines are also most used. A 'Rapid' version of these lines would probably be very successful:

 

4

11

17

43

78

 

Have the R version turn where the lines split OR go to which ever of the end nodes has the highest ridership (or another high ridership node after the split if the line is very long). I know Metro+ is a Rapid version of the 4 and a little of the 78, so there's already a case for those lines.

 

SORTA already has plans on the book to do just this, though sadly its going to take a ballot initiative to get passed to make it a reality.  See: http://www.urbancincy.com/2014/12/urbancincys-qa-with-metros-new-transit-boss-dwight-ferrell/metro-plus-corridors/

Using Nate's map, it's easy to see from which lines are most frequent which lines are also most used. A 'Rapid' version of these lines would probably be very successful:

 

4

11

17

43

78

 

Have the R version turn where the lines split OR go to which ever of the end nodes has the highest ridership (or another high ridership node after the split if the line is very long). I know Metro+ is a Rapid version of the 4 and a little of the 78, so there's already a case for those lines.

 

SORTA already has plans on the book to do just this, though sadly its going to take a ballot initiative to get passed to make it a reality.  See: http://www.urbancincy.com/2014/12/urbancincys-qa-with-metros-new-transit-boss-dwight-ferrell/metro-plus-corridors/

 

Hah! Well SORTA should just hire me then! ;-)

If you want to see a physical manifestation of why bus ridership has a stigma in Cincinnati, go to 4th street between Main and Sycamore at 5 pm. You'll see a couple things:

 

1. A large crowd of people waiting on the sidewalk outside of wendy's for a Tank bus to arrive.

 

2. No seating or shelter of any kind. One could wait in the wendys, but I'm not sure what their position on that is.

 

3. About 25 feet over everyone's heads, an enclosed skywalk that goes from Atrium 2 directly to the garage on the north side of 4th.

 

Rail by definition has to have physically built stops. For a subway, this obviously means underground, which is protected from the elements. Even at-grade rail seems to go hand in hand with a sheltered stop. On the other hand, a bus stop can be literally anywhere. Google Streetsblog's roundup of depressing bus stops.

 

If our transit agencies and cities invested money in making the bus stops more sheltered and noticeable, then I believe much of the stigma -- and the dehumanizing nature of standing in the heat or pouring rain -- would go away.

 

If you want to see a physical manifestation of why bus ridership has a stigma in Cincinnati, go to 4th street between Main and Sycamore at 5 pm. You'll see a couple things:

 

1. A large crowd of people waiting on the sidewalk outside of wendy's for a Tank bus to arrive.

 

2. No seating or shelter of any kind. One could wait in the wendys, but I'm not sure what their position on that is.

 

3. About 25 feet over everyone's heads, an enclosed skywalk that goes from Atrium 2 directly to the garage on the north side of 4th.

 

Rail by definition has to have physically built stops. For a subway, this obviously means underground, which is protected from the elements. Even at-grade rail seems to go hand in hand with a sheltered stop. On the other hand, a bus stop can be literally anywhere. Google Streetsblog's roundup of depressing bus stops.

 

If our transit agencies and cities invested money in making the bus stops more sheltered and noticeable, then I believe much of the stigma -- and the dehumanizing nature of standing in the heat or pouring rain -- would go away.

 

 

Even where sigmas against bus riding aren't as strong there is this problem - this is a bus stop at a transfer point between 2 buslines and a rail line in Chicago: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.896462,-87.6557777,3a,18.7y,237.05h,84.37t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sYLevFI7KycClOtWOfIlO7w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

I hate that glass building, no shelter at all from the elements and yet plenty of people go there on the way to work including a lot of professionals who work the Fulton River district which is only directly accessible by bus coming from the northwest.

 

There may be an inherant bias against bus riding, but it doesn't start at shelters.  One of the most bus oriented cities in the whole country is San Francisco and there are still muni stops that are marked by red paint on telephone poles there.  Metro has slightly upped their game by at least clearly marking all stops and building shelters at key transit nodes like the uptown transit district.

 

 

Being down in Clifton Saturday made me realize how important it will be to get the streetcar line extended to Clifton as soon as possible.

 

I was with 7 friends, and wanted to down to the River to club Pulse. None of my 6 friends drive, and I was the only one who had a car. It just wasn't possible to fit everyone in the car.

 

None of us were really familiar with the metro bus at all, and were afraid we would just end up getting lost and end up in god knows where. Plus the time it would take to get there would be way to long.

 

An uber was out of the question because we didn't have enough money.

 

So it made me realize, damn if there was a street car line, we could have just hopped on and not worried about transportation. It's going to be VITAL to get the line extended to UC as soon as possible. I think the amount of ridership will increase significantly when you consider the population of young people and students who live there, don't have cars, and would like to go down to The Banks, or OTR and have fun. Sure, there's places to go in Clifton, but after a while the whole clifton bar scene gets old.

 

That's why, I really think the success of this street car will really hinder on getting the line extended to Clifton.

 

 

Here's part of the problem with buses.  And I don't really think it has that much to do with the amenities provided at stops (ie shelter/ lack of shelter).  When you can see the infrastructure "your" vehicle runs on it eliminates the fear of getting on the wrong line.

Do the city and Metro have a plan to deal with the problem of vandalism on the streetcar shelters? Almost every day, I walk by a streetcar shelter that either has a shattered glass panel or a missing panel (awaiting replacement). I'm not sure whether it's neighborhood kids acting stupid or COAST members doing it. But I think there needs to be some security cameras at the stops to prevent this behavior.

Also, the streetcar shelters seem to be facing the same fate as the bus shelters which is becoming a place for people to panhandle, drink and do drugs.

How much does ride cost affect the demographic actually riding? There was a thread recently in the general transit subforum (can't find the thread) that discussed whether the line's goals should be maximum reinvestment or maximum ridership. I wonder what the demographic looks like of those willing to buy higher priced tickets and how will that affect ridership growth.

Also, the streetcar shelters seem to be facing the same fate as the bus shelters which is becoming a place for people to panhandle, drink and do drugs.

 

I see people hanging out at the streetcar shelter when it's raining, because they are covered unlike most bus stops. I actually think most of the loitering at stops will go away once the system is in use.

Also, the streetcar shelters seem to be facing the same fate as the bus shelters which is becoming a place for people to panhandle, drink and do drugs.

 

I see people hanging out at the streetcar shelter when it's raining, because they are covered unlike most bus stops. I actually think most of the loitering at stops will go away once the system is in use.

 

I'm not sure the streetcar stops will get any better once the system is running.  More and more I've seen people using loud boom boxes, sleeping, drinking, smoking crack, selling loose cigarettes and panhandling in the bus shelters downtown and in OTR.  Now I'm increasingly seeing the same behavior in the streetcar shelters.  If we really want to make mass transit a priority in the city there really should be some efforts to crack down on this behavior.