^The thing behind this stuff about streetcars lately is some "expert" saying that a reserved right of way is necessary for project success. Well, reserved lanes help but they aren't essential.  A bunch of other local factors are involved, like connectivity to other parts of the regional transit system and population density.  Toronto is the most successful streetcar city in the western hemisphere and the only reserved right of way lines they have are St. Clair, Spadina, Harbourfront, and part of Queen.  About 70% of the system is mixed traffic.  (The Streetcar in the photo appears nearly empty because its at the end of the Bathurst line...believe me it will be packed by the time it gets near the Bloor subway connection.)  Just to keep on topic, what the Cincinnati Streetcar has going for it at this point is population density.  Now we need to focus on establishing better connectivity within the region by expanding the reach and focusing on extensions...go NKY, Uptown or Northside!

Reserved right-of-way is pretty well necessary for anything fairly long-haul, or if you want a streetcar to be more than just a bus with greater capacity.  Here's a great explanation of how street running rail transit worked fine in the pre-automobile days but gradually lost its advantages as street congestion worsened.  http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/09/transit-and-congestion-part-2-how.html 

 

(Still running Snow Leopard eh?  Get with the times ;) )

Since the average trip on streetcars in the U.S. is only a little over a mile, speed isn't that important. As we stretch the line to UC and beyond, it starts to matter a lot. Which is why we need a tunnel and dedicated lanes on Jefferson. And probably a bridge along all or part MLK

Anecdotal only of course, but in my travels north of the border I rarely heard natives criticize streetcars as "slow", probably because so many Toronto streetcar trips are just short subway transfers.  By far the biggest problem with the Toronto mixed traffic configuration is this: non-natives don't realize that a streetcar is just like a school bus--when the doors open all traffic has to stop, its the law.  Otherwise you'll nail a passenger getting on or off.  I gotta think this is a problem in Philly too except where they have the concrete safety islands. Cincinnati and most other modern streetcar cities wisely avoided this problem with side-of-the street rails, so what you sacrifice from on street parking you gain in passenger safety. And the side of the street running you can speed up with signal pre-emption or marking the rails as HOV lanes if you can enforce it.

Anecdotal only of course, but in my travels north of the border I rarely heard natives criticize streetcars as "slow", probably because so many Toronto streetcar trips are just short subway transfers.  By far the biggest problem with the Toronto mixed traffic configuration is this: non-natives don't realize that a streetcar is just like a school bus--when the doors open all traffic has to stop, its the law.  Otherwise you'll nail a passenger getting on or off.  I gotta think this is a problem in Philly too except where they have the concrete safety islands. Cincinnati and most other modern streetcar cities wisely avoided this problem with side-of-the street rails, so what you sacrifice from on street parking you gain in passenger safety. And the side of the street running you can speed up with signal pre-emption or marking the rails as HOV lanes if you can enforce it.

 

When the original streetcar lines were scrapped, it was partly to get the tracks out of the middle of the street, where they blocked the left-turn lanes that engineers wanted to put in everywhere.  Also, 2-way streetcar traffic couldn't happen on streets that planners wanted to make one-way.  Obviously, tons of Cincinnati now has one-way streets and left-turn lanes on two-way streets that it couldn't have if the original streetcar tracks had remained.

 

Also, many original streetcars only had doors on the right side.  This meant engineers didn't have the flexibility in designing new tracks on one-way streets that they do now. 

 

 

And do you know what?  I'm at risk of revealing my advanced age here, but I remember my parents saying "thank god they did away with rotary turns".  "Rotary turns" you say?  At many intersections it used to be illegal to turn left, even more commonly than today.  But it was perfectly OK to make a right turn and then...believe it or not...an immediate 'U'-turn, the overall effect being of course a very circuitous left turn.  I always wondered what kind of an idiot would design traffic patterns to encourage this maneuver, but your post above makes me think--this might have been partly to keep autos to the right thereby clearing the left lane/center lanes for streetcars. 

Huh, I've seen that rotary turn stuff in a lot of old TV and movies but thought it was just part of the show.

I saw a guy do it on a bike recently.  He biked off the sidewalk at the corner into the crosswalk, then stopped the bike right in front of my car and turned it in the direction I was heading.  I was like, um....okay. 

 

The modern version of this movement is called the Michigan Left:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left

There's an example of this 'Rotary Left' at Virginia Beach Blvd and Tidewater Dr in Norfolk VA. See the attached image.

^That is one bizarre intersection. After a quick look at Google Maps, Virginia Beach Blvd is horrendous. 

 

Even sections of road without intersections are convoluted: https://www.google.com/maps/@36.8553827,-76.2007995,3a,75y,81.81h,96.17t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1stP9opSO9BJIHx0l0CL3Ehg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

 

^That is one bizarre intersection. After a quick look at Google Maps, Virginia Beach Blvd is horrendous. 

 

Even sections of road without intersections are convoluted: https://www.google.com/maps/@36.8553827,-76.2007995,3a,75y,81.81h,96.17t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1stP9opSO9BJIHx0l0CL3Ehg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

 

 

Haha. Yeah - they have all those frontage roads in that area. The Boulevard pretty much sucks once you get east of Tidewater.

Oh now we're talking about Michigan Lefts. UO really has turned into AARoads.

Oh now we're talking about Michigan Lefts. UO really has turned into AARoads.

 

We did have one Texas Turnaround -- almost.  It was where Melish turned under the MLK overpass over I-71.  In an incredible turn of events, that turnaround is now becoming the SB ramp to WH Taft. 

Cleveland has a few Texas turnarounds on I-90 on the east side between the frontage roads.

 

Back to the streetcar - how often have they been taking them out for test drives? I've been going downtown fairly frequently with the hopes of catching them but I haven't lucked out since December.

Let's please stay on topic.

As far as I know they've only tested a couple times outside of an 8-5 schedule so if you work those hours you're out of luck.

 

I live directly on the line and still haven't seen it testing because I work in Hyde Park and am never home when it's out and about. Which kind of sucks.

Are we getting another streetcar delivered tomorrow afternoon (March 2nd)?

They've done brake and acceleration testing on Elm street @ Liberty a few times, which I've missed but understand is pretty exciting, at least for the first few trials.

Are we getting another streetcar delivered tomorrow afternoon (March 2nd)?

 

yes

Let's please stay on topic.

 

Yeah, since after a 9-year run this thread turns into a pumpkin at page 787. 

They've done brake and acceleration testing on Elm street @ Liberty a few times, which I've missed but understand is pretty exciting, at least for the first few trials.

 

Actually, the one time I did get to see the streetcars out and about they were doing some braking tests on Race. I filmed this back in December, but I just now bothered to upload it to Youtube:

 

 

Are we getting another streetcar delivered tomorrow afternoon (March 2nd)?

 

yes

 

So, as of tomorrow, we will technically have enough streetcars to start service (if something disastrous happens with the fifth one and it's delayed for a very long time).

Are we getting another streetcar delivered tomorrow afternoon (March 2nd)?

 

yes

 

So, as of tomorrow, we will technically have enough streetcars to start service (if something disastrous happens with the fifth one and it's delayed for a very long time).

 

Once the operators and mechanics are trained, we could start without a full complement of cars. Kansas City is doing that, which is how they are able to open ahead of us on May 6th even though we finished construction first and our vehicles came off the assembly line earlier. Problem, there is no money to start the service early at this point. Which will be an interesting point of debate this summer: "Shall Cincinnati allow a $150,000,000 capital investment to lay fallow?"

 

 

I saw this interesting article off a link from UrbanCincy, from greenlakebluecity.com about the M1 Rail Project in Detroit.

 

I am a huge fan of Cincinnati's streetcar project, but they really have done a good job with planning of the M1 Rail in Detroit.  It looks like a great project to me and that Woodward Avenue is perfect for it, especially connecting it with the People Mover, the Amtrack line, and building a new station.

 

It's also incredible to me how much backing the project has throughout the whole community, from top CEO Business leaders down to everyday people.  I am certain there are a ton of detractors like anywhere, but I wish we had a semblence of this in Cincinnati.  Think if the Mayor of this city was actually rooting for this to succeed instead of always having a negative opinion or comment about it.  Get on board Cincinnati!

 

http://greenlakebluecity.com/2016/02/27/meet-the-coolest-transit-project-in-america-m1-rail/

 

 

Dan Gilbert and a handful of other people own tons of property in DT Detroit and along Woodward.  In Cincinnati, the fact that Chris Bortz's family owned 3 or 4 buildings along the route was reason not to build it, according to Smitherman, et al.  In fact the entire route was changed from Race/Elm to Main/Walnut in part to get it away from the Bortz-owned apartments on Piatt Park. 

Dan Gilbert and a handful of other people own tons of property in DT Detroit and along Woodward.  In Cincinnati, the fact that Chris Bortz's family owned 3 or 4 buildings along the route was reason not to build it, according to Smitherman, et al.  In fact the entire route was changed from Race/Elm to Main/Walnut in part to get it away from the Bortz-owned apartments on Piatt Park. 

 

Never heard the Bortz angle before. The more important reason was that the Main/Walnut bridges over FWW were ready for rail, which would have cost $4,000,000 for each if the Elm/Race bridges had to b e retrofit and would have disrupted freeway traffic below for some time. The other reason was to serve bus operations @ Government Square and the office core which is centered at Fifth and Main. The key event for moving it off Elm and Race was when Dan Lincoln, CEO of our Convention & Visitors Bureau, came to one of the scoping meetings and said, "Don't build it for the tourists at the Convention Center and hotels, build it for ourselves." And so we did.

I know this has been touched on a little upthread, but I've read two articles recently talking about the shortcomings of mixed traffic streetcars.  One piece was an op-ed from a planner in Chicago who talked about the struggles Atlanta is having with their streetcar due to it operating without a dedicated lane.  There was another one about a planned streetcar in New York, and how its low projected speed would be a deterrent to ridership.  One of the articles said that Portland is taking out some of the stops from their streetcar line in an effort to speed up the streetcar.  I worry that Cincinnati's streetcar is also going to be subject to many of these same issues.  Our tracks cross lanes in some locations, and Cincinnati's small blocks means that the streetcar will be subject to getting stuck at lights often.  We also have a ton of stops, (way too many IMO) but I've raised that point here before, largely to deaf ears.  The one good thing we have going for our system is that traffic is usually pretty light in OTR and downtown outside of events or rush hours, but if development continues to increase, that surely won't continue to be the case. 

Cincinnati's blocks aren't small -- in fact they're twice as big as Portland's blocks.  Ours are 400x400 whereas Portland's are 200x200. 

 

The reason why the streetcars have been unexpectedly successful in Portland and will be in Cincinnati is because in-street running allows stations to be placed in the best locations at a fraction of the expense of a subway or elevated station.  A subway or light rail line using an abandoned railroad or otherwise prioritizing speed or distance above serving the center of downtowns and neighborhood business districts won't have the ROI that people expect.  Sometimes abandoned ROW's happen to intersect a business district at an ideal location, but often they are several blocks away in a railroad gulch or other area where little TOD is possible. 

 

For example, Cincinnati's subway used the canal for its western half, which was essentially the same as using an abandoned rail ROW.  The St. Bernard station would have been ideally located right in the middle of the St. Bernard business district (right where their city hall is today) but the Northside station was built at the top of the Ludlow Viaduct, near where the Cincinnati Police District 2 headquarters is now.  Not much potential for TOD there, and obviously not right where all of the buses and streetcars already interchanged at the bottom of the viaduct. 

 

Jake's right. Compared to Portland's first 3.9-mile line west of the Willamette, the average distance between the Cincinnati stops is 1.5 times the distance between the Portland stops. The citizen leader of the Portland Streetcar told one of our groups a couple of years ago that our spacing was just right. And Portland has adjusted -- the stops of the newest extension east of the Willamette are considerably further apart.

 

 

 

 

For example, Cincinnati's subway used the canal for its western half, which was essentially the same as using an abandoned rail ROW.  The St. Bernard station would have been ideally located right in the middle of the St. Bernard business district (right where their city hall is today) but the Northside station was built at the top of the Ludlow Viaduct, near where the Cincinnati Police District 2 headquarters is now.  Not much potential for TOD there, and obviously not right where all of the buses and streetcars already interchanged at the bottom of the viaduct.

 

Jake if I remember correctly the St Bernard stop was changed from a subway to out in the open to save cost, no? Would it have basically been in an open ditch with a stand alone structure for a roof? Sorry this is getting off topic.

The ROW was graded in St. Bernard around 1924-1925 but there was no overpass or short tunnel built under Vine St.  I believe that one of the very earliest plans envisioned that stop as a true subway station more or less perpendicular to Vine St. with a short tunnel up toward Ross Ave.  When the line was graded I believe that they changed to wanting to do and underpass under Vine with an at-grade station, however I remember reading that there were various issues with St. Bernard delaying that construction and it might have never been graded between Vine and Ross at all.  The path of the line is very easy to follow on Google Earth...everyone should be able to see how it turned northeast just east of Vine to the skate park and baseball field:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/St+Bernard,+OH/@39.1680129,-84.4995738,819m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m15!1m12!4m11!1m3!2m2!1d-84.4976104!2d39.1678715!1m6!1m2!1s0x8841b3362db04585:0xf99a70552e512b2a!2sSt+Bernard,+OH!2m2!1d-84.4985541!2d39.1670033!3m1!1s0x8841b3362db04585:0xf99a70552e512b2a

 

As for getting streetcars all the way to St. Bernard today...maybe it makes sense today if the #78 is completely replaced.  Ann Arbor, MI estimates that its 4-mile proposed streetcar will cost the same to run as its current bus shuttles, but the new streetcars will obviously be much higher capacity and might be a little faster since they plan to build about a mile of dedicated ROW in the undeveloped area between two parts of U of Michigan's campus. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jake - check St. Bernard City Hall for a framed photo on the wall showing the portal for a short tunnel / underpass.

 

Jake - check St. Bernard City Hall for a framed photo on the wall showing the portal for a short tunnel / underpass.

 

It's coming back to me now...I believe that photo shows Ross Ave.  I have seen a photocopy of that photo but not the actual one.  Vine St. was delayed and ultimately never built because they were going to integrate the station structure into the overpass similar to how the Ludlow Ave. station was built.  In its last year or two of existence The Rapid Transit Commission prioritized acquiring ROW in Bond Hill, Norwood, and Oakley over finishing the work in St. Bernard and building stations from Clifton Ave. on out to the planned terminus of the first operational segment at Madison Rd.  The maintenance facility was going to be integrated into the existing street railway barn and yards on the north side of the Mill Creek where Woody Sander Ford is today, so they saved money by not building a bridge over the Mill Creek for non-revenue track. 

 

The terminus of the first operational segment changed after construction began because the owner of Cincinnati Milacron was named to the commission and had the original loop alignment altered near Cincinnati Playing Card.  Instead of traveling in a new tunnel under Beech St. in front of Cincinnati Playing Card and then southward into what is now the I-71 gulch to a station at Smith/Edwards, he had the route changed to parallel the south side of the B&O tracks in the city-owned Enyart Ave. (it's a weird property ownership situation) over to a terminal station at Madison Rd.  The obviously set the stage for a continuation of the rapid transit line east to Madisonville.  Then when the eastern half of the "loop" was built, it wasn't going to loop anymore, but rather continue in the Duck Creek Rd. (now I-71) gulch to Enyart and then join the tracks to the Madison Rd. terminus.  So if it had been put into operation, it would have had a very strange operation pattern, with all trains leaving downtown in either direction terminating right in front of Cincinnati Milacron.  That obviously would have made that land very valuable, and so improved the book value of the company and therefore the stock value.  And that commissioner no doubt owned plenty of stock. 

 

 

 

Developer snatches up tiny downtown properties for $1M

 

Fred Kanter, partner with Rookwood Properties, said the properties were purchased as an investment. The properties include parking lot space at the corner of Central Parkway and Main Street. [...]

 

In January 2015, the Business Courier wrote about the Central and Walnut site as one of the best properties for development along the streetcar line. Rookwood has owned the 1-acre site for decades.

A quick Google search on Fred Kantar turned up a kind of strange eminent domain battle in 1998 between Kantar (Rookwood Property), the City, and Eagle Realty over a dispute about the idea of replacing the CVS in the Newberry building (at 6th and Race) with a Walgreens. I don't really know how it played out... but I know that today there's a CVS in that spot and Walgreens across the street in the newer building.

 

Mr. Tomain questioned the city's interpretation of public use in the case of Robert and Fred Kanter. The family development company, Rookwood Properties, owns the Newberry Building at Sixth and Race streets. The Kanters have redeveloped the building and plan to open a CVS drugstore there Aug. 31.

 

The city wants to take the property to relocate another drugstore, Walgreens, which must be moved from the site of another city-sponsored development. The city argues that another developer, Eagle Realty Group, will provide a better use for the property, although the city has no legally-binding commitments with Eagle to do anything other than relocate Walgreens.

 

The city is preparing to present Rookwood with a settlement offer, but the Kanters avidly say there's no chance. If the Kanters turn down the city's offer, the case will go to court.

 

"We really won't pay any attention to any offer they give us," said Fred Kanter, Rookwood vice president. "Our position is, it's not for sale at any price because they want to buy that property and terminate the lease with CVS, and we can't do that."

 

Added Robert Kanter: "I hope the city finds another location for Walgreens."

 

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/1998/08/23/bus_eminent23.html

Yeah that case went on and on. I can't remember all of the details of it, but I think what happened was that there was a Walgreen's at the former 5th & Race tower that the city tore down for Nordstrom's.  That never happened and the site sat as a parking lot until the Dunhumby building broke ground about 13 years later.  in the meantime, Walgreen's sued to get the location that the city had promised so the city had some hand in building the 20~ unit apartment building at 6th & Race with the Walgreen's in it.  They tore down a strip of small derelict row buildings to create that site. 

Did anyone go to the Cincinnati Streetcar meeting today at Christ Church Cathedral (318 E 4th)?  If so, were there any interesting revelations?

Did anyone go to the Cincinnati Streetcar meeting today at Christ Church Cathedral (318 E 4th)?  If so, were there any interesting revelations?

 

Revelations at a church? I hope so! ;)

Did anyone go to the Cincinnati Streetcar meeting today at Christ Church Cathedral (318 E 4th)?  If so, were there any interesting revelations?

 

Revelations at a church? I hope so! ;)

 

Ha, I didn't even mean to do that *blush*.  There was a Streetcar Community Meeting at 9am this morning that I was trying to attend, but of course workload today wouldn't allow.  Anyone go?

Nothing really new to report. Transdev had 400+ applicants for the first 10 streetcar operator jobs. Things are moving forward on all fronts; on time and on budget.

I live way north of Cincinnati so I don't get downtown or to OTR very often, so can anybody tell me when/where (days of week-time)

can I  see a streetcar on a test run?  I would think there's probably a pattern of times/days of the week. I know they gotta get a lot of non revenue hours in before they can carry passengers so they gotta be on the street now somewhere sometime.

I don't think there's a public schedule and I see them at random times. Earlier this week I was walking around at lunch and saw one go by.

^ wow so its in test runs. thats great to hear. post pics when you can catch this in action.

^ wow so its in test runs. thats great to hear. post pics when you can catch this in action.

 

Yup. There's no specific test schedule but they've been out pretty regularly running the tracks. Noel Prows has been catching it quite often and posting videos:

 

 

 

 

Has the WLW crowd been complaining about how noisy they are??

Has the WLW crowd been complaining about how noisy they are??

 

It's pretty amazing how quiet they are in normal operation. The other day I walked up 14th towards Race and didn't even realize a streetcar was coming until it played the chime. I have heard the locomotive horn a few times from my condo near 14th & Main, which made me irrationally happy.

From the city: "Elm Street will be closed between 14th and Liberty from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. tomorrow, Friday, March 11, so crews may perform streetcar tests. On-street parking also will be prohibited on the east side of Elm during the tests."

 

Usually the city only closes the street for very specialized testing like high-speed testing or brake testing.

Developer cites streetcar as motivation for midrise condo towers on Main St.:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/03/10/50m-condo-towers-planned-for-downtown-cincinnati.html#i1

Developer cites streetcar as motivation for midrise condo towers on Main St.:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/03/10/50m-condo-towers-planned-for-downtown-cincinnati.html#i1

 

But Jmeck, the streetcar is a boondoggle. A trolley to nowhere.  I can GD walk faster!  I bet they STILL don't get it.