You do have to ask yourself though if there's a net positive in all this.  The whole "we have to do this" or "that's just how the world works" arguments are irrelevant if the net return is negative.  All the infrastructure and services cost the government (whether city, county, state, etc.) real cash money to build and operate.  If the return in taxes to the government from those investments are less than the cost to build, maintain, and operate them over the long term, then it's actually better to do nothing.  Yes there's issues of sunk costs, mindbogglingly complicated sources for construction and operation funds, taxes throughout multiple jurisdictions, and the like, but the formula:

 

(if: [cost] < [benefit] then [project] = "yes", else "no")

 

is fraudulent because only taxes on the benefit can be used to pay back the cost, so the formula is really:

 

(if: [cost] < {[benefit] x [tax rate on benefit]} then [project] = "yes", else "no")

 

That changes the cost/benefit analysis by a factor of 10x or 20x compared to how it's usually done.  So with all the abated property taxes AND income taxes, are employees going out to lunch a few days a week really going to generate enough sales, income, and property taxes from restaurants nearby to pay the millions of dollars these garages, sewers, new water lines, and other things cost?

 

Bringing this all back around, that's why the benefit:cost ratio for the streetcar itself is "only" 3:1 or thereabouts.  Because it's actually accounting for the fact that increased taxes, not just increased sales/business/income, are what's necessary to make it pay back.  If the same numbers were applied to a highway project they'd come up with a ratio of 60:1. 

I think the other factor you have to look at, and not sure what the number ever will be, is any spin off jobs that the GE Operations center creates.  So how many lawyers will they need, etc.  Maybe GE will also decide to throw some money into the 3CDC pot, etc.  But those are kind of add-ons to what you just posted.

These are true statements but you have to look at the intangibles as well.  What may become possible because we have this GE operations center? Maybe an employee there will start a business that becomes the next big thing, or maybe another company will come to Cincinnati when they see how successful the GE operations center becomes. All things that never would have happened if we never took the first step; all too often in this world if you remain static you fall behind.

You do have to ask yourself though if there's a net positive in all this.  The whole "we have to do this" or "that's just how the world works" arguments are irrelevant if the net return is negative...

 

This is really hard to determine on a case by case basis because there are so many variables and tangential effects that aren't always obvious, as pointed out by IAGuy39 and thebillshark.  I tend to take a broader view that adding jobs is always a win.  I don't know of any cities that cite having too many jobs as a problem, but there are plenty of cities where not having enough jobs is a major concern.  You want population to grow, not decline, and that only happens if there is job growth as well.

These are true statements but you have to look at the intangibles as well.  What may become possible because we have this GE operations center? Maybe an employee there will start a business that becomes the next big thing, or maybe another company will come to Cincinnati when they see how successful the GE operations center becomes. All things that never would have happened if we never took the first step; all too often in this world if you remain static you fall behind.

 

That's fine, but if they're all given tax breaks too, then it just keeps kicking the can down the road.  The whole property tax situation is seriously hurting the city now that increasing values should be bringing in more cash, but since the total amount is fixed and the rate is variable (which is totally backwards) the city is leaving a ton of money on the table. 

 

You do have to ask yourself though if there's a net positive in all this.  The whole "we have to do this" or "that's just how the world works" arguments are irrelevant if the net return is negative...

 

This is really hard to determine on a case by case basis because there are so many variables and tangential effects that aren't always obvious, as pointed out by IAGuy39 and thebillshark.  I tend to take a broader view that adding jobs is always a win.  I don't know of any cities that cite having too many jobs as a problem, but there are plenty of cities where not having enough jobs is a major concern.  You want population to grow, not decline, and that only happens if there is job growth as well.

 

It's true that it's very difficult to measure.  That said, many in the traffic engineering world say "you can't look at just one piece of the network, you have to look at the whole system."  Well, the whole system is so completely broke (both literally and figuratively) that it makes the dot com bubble notion of "lose on every transaction but make it up in volume" seem positively genius.  It's definitely a tough nut to crack, but just throwing up your hands and saying "it's too hard" won't make it any better either. 

^Fair enough.  I'm just saying it's too complicated for an off-topic discussion on an internet message board, that's all.  I'm sure it could be worked out with a real analysis of the numbers in this specific situation and/or a study of job growth's effect on cities in the US over the last 50 years.  But for our purposes in this setting, it seems to me that Cincinnati lost nothing and gained jobs.

You do have to ask yourself though if there's a net positive in all this.  The whole "we have to do this" or "that's just how the world works" arguments are irrelevant if the net return is negative.  All the infrastructure and services cost the government (whether city, county, state, etc.) real cash money to build and operate.  If the return in taxes to the government from those investments are less than the cost to build, maintain, and operate them over the long term, then it's actually better to do nothing.  Yes there's issues of sunk costs, mindbogglingly complicated sources for construction and operation funds, taxes throughout multiple jurisdictions, and the like, but the formula:

 

(if: [cost] < [benefit] then [project] = "yes", else "no")

 

is fraudulent because only taxes on the benefit can be used to pay back the cost, so the formula is really:

 

(if: [cost] < {[benefit] x [tax rate on benefit]} then [project] = "yes", else "no")

 

That changes the cost/benefit analysis by a factor of 10x or 20x compared to how it's usually done.  So with all the abated property taxes AND income taxes, are employees going out to lunch a few days a week really going to generate enough sales, income, and property taxes from restaurants nearby to pay the millions of dollars these garages, sewers, new water lines, and other things cost?

 

Bringing this all back around, that's why the benefit:cost ratio for the streetcar itself is "only" 3:1 or thereabouts.  Because it's actually accounting for the fact that increased taxes, not just increased sales/business/income, are what's necessary to make it pay back.  If the same numbers were applied to a highway project they'd come up with a ratio of 60:1. 

 

Taxes are transfer payments. They are neither benefits nor costs, so they really have no place in typical Benefit/Cost Analysis. If Cincinnati had done an Economic Impact Study of the Cincinnati Streetcar, taxes would have been measured as impacts along with wages earned on the project and enhanced by the REMI multiplier that was applicable to the type of project. I do recall in the 2007 study of the streetcar, the economists did estimate the increase in tax payments, but they did so by protest of the team, which believed it was in inappropriate as part of the B/C Analysis. A taxes-collected figure was calculated but not included in the estimate of the overall worthiness of the project. To place the 3:1 B/C ratio in context, I remember when we were studying I-71 light rail, which was found to have a B/C ratio of about 2:1. I asked the chief economist to put that in perspective. He thought for a while and said, "Well, I can't ever recall working on a highway project that had such a high (2:1) B/C ratio. But from the studies I've seen, if you were to add a third runway to Heathrow (he was a Brit), then that B/C ratio might be in the range of 2:1 because it would improve air travel all over the U.K., all over Europe and all over the world." In short, B/C ratios of 20:1, 40:1 or 60:1 do not exist in the real world. All these values are reduced to Present Value, so a 3:1 B/C ratio is sort of like we walk to Fifth Third Bank and open a savings account with an initial deposit of $1.00. Then we walk around the block and return to the bank and learn our $1.00 deposit is now valued at $3.00. Who wouldn't make such an investment?

If the return in taxes to the government from those investments are less than the cost to build, maintain, and operate them over the long term, then it's actually better to do nothing.

Wow - I have to say that is one particular view of the role of government -- that it is in business and defined by its balance sheet. Another view is that government is in the business of helping society, and thus its benefits should properly extend to those benefits at a society level, even if they are off the books (i.e. separate from tax revenues).

While I tend to agree with you thebillshark, it can quickly become a slippery slope. For instance, I would advocate that having a building on our riverfront with a GE logo plastered on top raises the profile of the city in the public's mind.

 

But where do you draw the line on objectivity?

If the return in taxes to the government from those investments are less than the cost to build, maintain, and operate them over the long term, then it's actually better to do nothing.

Wow - I have to say that is one particular view of the role of government -- that it is in business and defined by its balance sheet. Another view is that government is in the business of helping society, and thus its benefits should properly extend to those benefits at a society level, even if they are off the books (i.e. separate from tax revenues).

 

Government can't help society if it goes broke. 

If the return in taxes to the government from those investments are less than the cost to build, maintain, and operate them over the long term, then it's actually better to do nothing.

Wow - I have to say that is one particular view of the role of government -- that it is in business and defined by its balance sheet. Another view is that government is in the business of helping society, and thus its benefits should properly extend to those benefits at a society level, even if they are off the books (i.e. separate from tax revenues).

 

Government can't help society if it goes broke. 

This has nothing to do with the proper boundaries for accruing benefits. You're saying that if tax revenues don't go up sufficiently, then don't do the project. I'm saying that if the project results in a certain level of benefit to society, then it's only logical to consider those society-level benefits, when weighing whether government (i.e. "society") should fund them. The decision about whether to fund them, or not, is essentially societies' decision about how much to tax itself, and it's illogical to say that a particular, current, tax structure accurately defines an optimal budget for projects.

 

 

I get that, but my point is that if everything is a money loser (or more accurately, if more lose than win) then eventually the system collapses, no matter how "good for society" it is.  We see this in older, non-wealthy suburbs and small towns that can't afford to maintain any of their stuff, nor will the residents allow tax increases.  They're canaries in the coal mine, and all these subsidies and corporate welfare are only digging the hole deeper. 

I get that, but my point is that if everything is a money loser (or more accurately, if more lose than win) then eventually the system collapses, no matter how "good for society" it is.  We see this in older, non-wealthy suburbs and small towns that can't afford to maintain any of their stuff, nor will the residents allow tax increases.  They're canaries in the coal mine, and all these subsidies and corporate welfare are only digging the hole deeper. 

I completely agree with this.

 

This is getting off topic, but ... this occurs on two fronts. First, government fails miserably to account for the long term costs and benefits when it "sells" projects to society. Sprawl comes to mind here. I deal in buried infrastructure systems, and there isn't that much thought to the infrastructure strain (budget-wise) generated by low density development. For buried water infrastructure, the number of pipeline miles supported per capita has increased substantially over the past 50 years, both anecdotally and quantitatively. And then government fails miserably to actually convey what they are doing for society, so that we will actually consider supporting the taxes to pay for it. About the only thing I can think of, infrastructure wise, that government sells well is pothole repair. I really wish this weren't the case.

 

But anyway, for something like the streetcar, it seems completely different from those examples above. It's doing everything right by pushing for increased density, decreased stress on alternative transportation modes... so rather than worrying that the benefits are calculated too high, I worry much more that economists really don't have the toolbox to capture the benefits of any project that is a "link in the chain." I mean, if an economist were involved, they wouldn't have made the semiconductor.

 

I don't get it...

 

 

Why hasn't the city painted a double-white line indicating that the right lane is streetcar-only (similar to what they did on Race between Findlay and Elder)?

 

Shouldn't they repaint the stop bar to emphasize where cars need to stop, so they don't roll into the crosswalk (as the red Jeep has done here)?

 

Hopefully they will consider doing these things and not just leave it how it is now...

^ Yeah those stencils don't communicate "transit only" to me.  The double-white line and/or cross hatching, or even just adding an "ONLY" under the stencil is needed. 

^ I think they painted the double white since that photo was taken.

 

Also look at that tiny Southbank Shuttle!

Just guessing that because this is part of the IHS, they city has to get permission from ODOT and FHWA to change the lane markings on the bridge.

^ I think they painted the double white since that photo was taken.

 

Hmm, OK, that's looking better. I agree that "ONLY" should be added under the streetcar logo as well.

 

Also look at that tiny Southbank Shuttle!

 

Isn't it ironic that a "trolley" bus is smaller than a typical city bus, while the trolley streetcar carries 3x as many people as a bus?

^Assuming it is full.

 

^Assuming it is full.

 

I don't think I've ever seen anyone on one of those things. Ever.

I've used the Southbank shuttle before and after Reds/Bengals games.  It was fairly full, but not jammed.

I, and many Covingtonians, use it every morning to get to work, hopefully after people feel how smooth the ride is on the new streetcar they demand better from the south bank, because that thing is awful bouncy. Convenient and frequent, but man it's ride is only getting rougher as they get older, and I know it's because they need to be light weight to go over the roebling but I would rather have a rail vehicle and go over the clay-wade (or a new Brent spence).

Fair enough! Glad to hear it has some ridership. Still, it's hardly a modern form of transportation in comparison.

Southbank utilizes the Roebling. A streetcar would never be able to do that. It would have to go across the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge, right?

Southbank utilizes the Roebling. A streetcar would never be able to do that. It would have to go across the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge, right?

 

yes

Southbank utilizes the Roebling. A streetcar would never be able to do that. It would have to go across the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge, right?

 

Or the Taylor-Southgate Bridge if coming from Newport.

Southbank utilizes the Roebling. A streetcar would never be able to do that. It would have to go across the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge, right?

 

yes

 

Unless we close the Roebling to vehicular traffic. LOL. Good luck wth that.

 

I think a loop on 3rd/2nd in Ohio, CWB Bridge, 4th/5th in KY, and either the Taylor Southgate or Purple People would make a lot of sense.

Taxes are transfer payments. They are neither benefits nor costs, so they really have no place in typical Benefit/Cost Analysis.

 

In terms of tax revenues, yes. But expansion of the "tax base" is an all-encompassing definition of economic development. An increase in the "tax base" doesn't mean an increase in tax rates or tax revenues, but an increase in the wealth of people and/or the value of properties and other assets that can be taxed.

Southbank utilizes the Roebling. A streetcar would never be able to do that. It would have to go across the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge, right?

 

Roebling can't handle the weight of standard buses, let alone a modern streetcar. That's why they use the funky truck trolleys now.

yes

 

Unless we close the Roebling to vehicular traffic. LOL. Good luck wth that.

 

I think a loop on 3rd/2nd in Ohio, CWB Bridge, 4th/5th in KY, and either the Taylor Southgate or Purple People would make a lot of sense.

Southbank utilizes the Roebling. A streetcar would never be able to do that. It would have to go across the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge, right?

 

yes

 

Unless we close the Roebling to vehicular traffic. LOL. Good luck wth that.

 

I think a loop on 3rd/2nd in Ohio, CWB Bridge, 4th/5th in KY, and either the Taylor Southgate or Purple People would make a lot of sense.

 

Funding and political will aside, Covington and Newport need two separate streetcar lines that tie into a hub or loop in Cincinnati.  There isn't much travel from Newport to Covington or vice versa, but lots of people from both cities commute to Cincinnati.  If you try to get both cities on one streetcar loop, you can't go very deep into either city, so you end up serving the Covington riverfront area (near the Roebling, the IRS building, and fast food/gas station hell) and only NOTL (and Ovation if that ever becomes more than an overgrown field) in Newport.  It basically only saves people from walking the bridge.  But if you cut the connection between Covington and Newport, you can send each streetcar deeper into the neighborhoods and business districts, running down Madison in Covington and Monmouth in Newport.

^ I think that a single U-shaped line would be a good idea here. It could run on 2nd and 3rd in Cincinnati between the two bridges, and then up and down Monmouth/York in Newport and Madison/Scott in Covington via 4th and 5th. I agree there'd be no significant reason to connect those two lines on the KY side. This could also be operated as two shorter lines depending upon how the junctions with the existing steetcar lines on 2nd and Main and Walnut would be built.

^You've basically described exactly what I was about to type.

 

And if Bellevue and Dayton ever wanted in on the rail action they could build a line along Fairfield/6th that could tie into the line going across the bridge at Monmouth/3rd in Newport.

^ I think that a single U-shaped line would be a good idea here. It could run on 2nd and 3rd in Cincinnati between the two bridges, and then up and down Monmouth/York in Newport and Madison/Scott in Covington via 4th and 5th. I agree there'd be no significant reason to connect those two lines on the KY side. This could also be operated as two shorter lines depending upon how the junctions with the existing steetcar lines on 2nd and Main and Walnut would be built.

 

I'd wish they get on that, it would be an extremely valuable complement to our system raising its usefulness and value, and be a lot less complicated than some of the expansion plans we have on the Ohio side of the the river.

Kentucky may be thinking about it. I've been invited to join a panel in mid-January that's sponsored by Newport and Covington. Subject: getting the streetcar to KY.

^ I think that a single U-shaped line would be a good idea here. It could run on 2nd and 3rd in Cincinnati between the two bridges, and then up and down Monmouth/York in Newport and Madison/Scott in Covington via 4th and 5th. I agree there'd be no significant reason to connect those two lines on the KY side. This could also be operated as two shorter lines depending upon how the junctions with the existing steetcar lines on 2nd and Main and Walnut would be built.

 

That's a long track if you're going to go deep into Covington and Newport, though.  What you're describing would definitely work, but it's basically what the southbank shuttle does now.  You'd need a fair amount of trains to keep headways short.  Otherwise, you're stuck north of 4th street in KY, which isn't really giving you all that much for your trouble .

 

This is the slightly altered all star game route of the southbank shuttle, which was the best image link I could find:

 

 

Kentucky may be thinking about it. I've been invited to join a panel in mid-January that's sponsored by Newport and Covington. Subject: getting the streetcar to KY.

 

That's great news.  I'm not sure what the funding situation is in Covington, Newport, or KY as a whole, but I'm hoping for the best.  The citizens and businesses in the basin areas of each city definitely seem interested, which is a good first step.

I did a map a few years ago visualizing what the NKY route would be. Ultimately as was mentioned a few posts ago there would be 2 routes. One going west on 2/3rd to CW Bailey and then running east on 4/5th. A Newport leg would go west on 2/3rd down the Taylor Southgate bridge and connect over to the Covington spur. Additionally you could run a spur down Greenup and Monmouth or utilize the Purple People Bridge to some degree.

 

In order for a Covington spur to work it needs to adequately connect the Riverfront by the Roebling, Madison/Pike and Mainstrasse.

Covington's layout is a bit of a dilemma, in part because the city is bisected by the C&O freight tracks, and in part because the easier bridge crossing next to the Clay Wade Bailey bridge is much more circuitous than a new bridge connecting Madison & Race.  The best solution is a tunnel connecting Gov. Square and DT Covington.  This was proposed 45 years ago by OKI, back when the federal government briefly threw a lot of money at local rail transit projects, and we ended up getting absolutely nothing because Tom Luken was playing both sides of the public takeover of Cincinnati Transit. 

Ideally, if an extension was built to either Covington or Newport, and an extension was also built to UC, we could operate a service that would have a one-seat ride from Covington/Newport to UC. Alternatively, you could have one service from The Banks to UC, and another from Covington/Newport to Rhinegeist. If each of those services had 15 minute headways, both would overlap resulting in 7 minute headways in the CBD and OTR.

I know I have posted this before, but in my opinion this would be the best route. If it doesn't go deep into Covington or Newport it doesn't add the value and ROI necessary to make it worth it. The immediate riverfronts serviced by the Southbank Shuttle are already being developed, this would really help spur development further south to 11th/12th streets.

 

(The dashed lines show potential ways to connect Newport and Covington to each other, though I don't think either of those are necessary)

The biggest challenge with any of these is that half or more of the new track would be built in areas that don't necessarily have any redevelopment potential. Bridges, 2nd and 3rd under the highway jumbles, etc. and will therefore have a lower ROI for the entire system. That being said, a system from NKY to Uptown would greatly increase the strength of regional rail support.

Our streetcar system is unique in the fact that it has almost no non-revenue track and there is development potential along the entire route.

 

Contrast that with the underperforming Dallas Streetcar which basically just goes over a very long bridge. It has a single stop on one side, and three stops on the other -- almost zero development potential until future phases are built.

This is true. Maybe the fact that getting over the river wouldn't really be an issue because the first phase is basically entirely fronted by developable land with the exception of Main and Walnut over FWW.

The biggest challenge with any of these is that half or more of the new track would be built in areas that don't necessarily have any redevelopment potential. Bridges, 2nd and 3rd under the highway jumbles, etc. and will therefore have a lower ROI for the entire system. That being said, a system from NKY to Uptown would greatly increase the strength of regional rail support.

 

Need to quit talking in terms of ROI. it is not how these things are measured.

It's good to think in terms of nodes. You need to connect at least two strong economic nodes (in terms of jobs or dense population) in order to drive ridership (strong nodes in the "city of today", not the city that could be.) Then it's ideal to connect some weaker nodes that could develop over time from the connection to the strong nodes. Finally some portions of the line will just be traversing distance between nodes, which is really at the root of what transportation is. But hopefully in those portions (such as over the bridge) you can travel at a higher average speed.

Why? Is the point of fixed transit not to establish denser redevelopment of urban areas? To push people to live in a new manner along a fixed mass transit route? This can be measured and should be measured to sway naysayers.

I've always liked the idea of going south, especially if it means bringing TANK on board. For one thing there is already a proven cross-river transit ridership so nay- sayers  can't say "nobody will ride it". A Ky side streetcar could render the south bank shuttle obsolete, meaning that there's a savings there that could be rolled back into the streetcar project. And TANK could look at truncating other routes on the Kentucky side at the streetcar. I know people like one seat rides, but as a transit rider I personally would rather do my last mile on a streetcar, even if it means giving up my one-seat ride.  Huge savings for TANK...every TANK bus won't have to cross the river and navigate downtown.  Admittedly this would involve some complex politics, but if St. Louis can do a bi-state light rail we can probably do the same with a streetcar.  Any bridge we could get appraised for part of the local match?

*Crazy idea time*

 

What about a transit bridge? One that doesn't require going so far off to either side and over two bridges and instead puts the river crossing on one bridge and then branches off once in Kentucky?

A fully-funded bridge between Race and Madison had its funding redirected around 1995.  So TANK would have been able run all of their Covington buses on a new bridge rather than eventually being kicked off the suspension bridge.  Unfortunately a new bridge is always risks a disastrously ugly new bridge being built, especially one of the cable-stayed bridges which increasingly blight our country's landscape.  The new bridge in Louisville is unbelievably ugly. 

No offense Jake, but you just lost a ton of credibility by referring to cable-stayed bridges as a "blight." They're hardly that and are most often the lightest, least intrusive bridge designs. Sorry if you don't like things that are modern and show off modern construction methods, but they have a place in structural engineering and for really good reason. I'd actually be upset if a new bridge was anything other than cable-stayed for a transit river crossing.