Totally agree. Faux anything is not the ideal. However, it should be noted that a building's massing strategy can still denote 'different' masses that work together, to encourage vertical rhythms and make for increased destinations along a streetscape. These are the principles that faux grain urbanism try to apply, but as you can see the outcomes can be embarrassing.

 

But faux grained urbanism don't inherently create the need for parking garages. That's large block development that does that. The real travesty is large lot development with over scaled parking garages and not needing to be constrained by a fine grain of alleyways and lane ways. In 10 years it will be the alleys of OTR that demand high retail rents. Once OTR gets its main streets right you'll see them take off. Best to preserve them now, and not put massive parking garages on them that limit their appeal.

^And this is where it comes back to Streetcars because inherently areas with greater transit service should be allowed to have less parking requirements.

So better buildings could be made based on sort of transit influenced form based code.

 

^^Good news on funding. Now lets start planning Phase 2 & 3 so there is an actual network in place.

 

Delivery of last streetcar delayed

 

Cincinnati’s fifth and final streetcar will not be delivered until May – six months later than scheduled – the project’s leaders told the City Council’s transportation committee on Tuesday.

 

Chris Eilerman, the project’s manager, hopes that the last streetcar can be tested and broken in in time for the September start of public service. The last streetcar originally was supposed to be delivered on Dec. 17.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/04/12/delivery-of-last-streetcar-delayed.html

She looks pretty damn good!

 

 

 

It does really look great. Love the C I N C I N N A T I 

Are the breaks usually that loud? Or they were purposely testing quick stops instead of gradually stopping at stations?

There's a bit of enhancement that I think comes from the fact it's a phone camera. The brakes don't sound any louder or more quiet than any other light rail I've seen in person.

There was testimony on this in Amy Murray's committee today. They're making software patches to better control the oilers. I gather. One vehicle downloads the code from Spain and then passes it on to the other vehicles in the fleet.

Saw one by taste of Belgium tonight after dinner. Exciting!

Got to say... these things kick Portland Streetcar's ass. So nice.

"Cranley to veto the budget"

Article:

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2016/04/13/cranley-veto-streetcar-budget/82990976/

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

That article is already out of date. They referred the budget back to committee to appease some weird demand of Flynn. He stated he won't veto if 5 members come out of committee with a new budget plan. Probably a non-story overall.

Flynn appears to be afraid of his own shadow in everything to do with the streetcar.

Flynn appears to be afraid of his own shadow in everything to do with the streetcar.

 

Oh well. As long as his shadow had voting powers in December 2013, I'm cool with it.

Enquirer features yet another nutty letter to the editor on the front page of its website:

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/letters/2016/04/17/majority-those-paying-streetcar-wont-use/83162830/

He lives out in Anderson. Doesn't live in the City. Doesn't vote in the City. Insert "Old man yells at cloud" meme here.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Enquirer features yet another nutty letter to the editor on the front page of its website:

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/letters/2016/04/17/majority-those-paying-streetcar-wont-use/83162830/

 

And to think I helped pay for his children's education.

Enquirer features yet another nutty letter to the editor on the front page of its website:

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/letters/2016/04/17/majority-those-paying-streetcar-wont-use/83162830/

 

This is such a stupid letter. I'm sure he must drive Columbia Parkway or I-471 every day. I never do, but one way or another, I pay for them.

I LOL'd when I saw his opening sentence.  What an odd way to begin a letter.

^lol, it's like beginning it with "Now!"

In regards to the Uptown Route, if it did go up the hill via Vine Street, I have heard people say that there wouldn't be any stops along the way.

 

Theoretically, couldn't you create a level platform at some point along the route for the streetcar to level off for a stop?  I don't see how this would be too difficult or even extremely expensive.  If they could drop this somewhere along the middle of Vine Street, that would really increase the ROI value, you would think.  Especially if you could link it with a new staircase / walking path to the neighborhood areas to the east.  Think for a second to increase the grade up to a point where you can level off, and then the level platform and side walk up to this area attached:

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1226041,-84.5148024,3a,75y,116.01h,79.29t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s856byb-ZWGsm-BUDeo2KiQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

 

Then, you can build steps or a ramp on the sidewalk as well for the passenger entry, and then build a nice pathway (all fancy and stuff with maybe a fountain or garden area walk with some benches, etc.), going back towards that retaining wall where a set of steps are.  From there, you can connect it to the other side streets and really increase the immediate ROI of the hillside Vine Street Streetcar.

 

This would come out on the other side to Loth Street and open up this area.  Maybe you can even build a pathway extending further up to Rice Street and really opening up that area with a direct walkway to the streetcar stop?

 

Loth facing Vine:

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1227308,-84.5138668,3a,75y,257.6h,83.54t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sRK_nfSjkOgwB5_xd3XID1w!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DRK_nfSjkOgwB5_xd3XID1w%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D270.77563%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

 

Rice facing Loth:

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1225007,-84.5132074,3a,75y,244.94h,75.33t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s503YwC_4QWmC9hEpNzeKsQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D503YwC_4QWmC9hEpNzeKsQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D36.077713%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

 

 

Honestly, once you get the engineering down, this couldn't cost more than 1 million (I guess government contracts are always more expensive so I wouldn't know for certain).  But when I did concrete we did stuff like that all the time.  All you really got to do is get the measurements down for the platforms, tear out the old, tube up the foundations so it doesn't move, which i assume for the streetcar and on this hill side would need to be deep into the earth and well enforced with steel re-bar, and call it a day.

 

Is this workable?

There is no point on that hill where it comes close to leveling off.  In order to create a level platform, the grades to either end of the station would have to be significantly steeper than they currently are. 

Also, there are many sloped stations on transit stations around the world, but they're usually from the original systems (London, Boston, etc.).  The Blue Line in Boston has at least one pretty steeply sloped station platform, from what I remember.  But these platforms can't ever be ADA compliant, I assume. 

I thought the problem had nothing to do with ability, ADA, etc. but rather that stopping and starting at a station every time a train went up the hill greatly increased strain on the system and would increase maintenance on the trains.

^^Yeah, that's what I was wondering.  Would it be possible and would the streetcar have enough juice to get leveled up on a platform going up the hill?  Obviously, heading downhill would be a lot easier to level up as it glides right in, then it would need slowly grade down, but it would seem like a worthy investment if they could make it happen, IMO.  Of course, with the way government contracts are, this could cost $3 million for both North and South, and then the cost of extending a walk path and sets of stairs to the side streets, but to me, it seems it could be a worthy investment if it was possible to pull it off, engineering wise.

It would definitely be nice to figure out some manner to have a stop midway up the hill. There's a ton of potential for the Vine Street Hill but it's currently in such an interstitial space that it's unlikely to see much investment without something like a streetcar stop to spur it.

^I'm not all that familiar with the area, but couldn't you have the streetcar make a short detour onto Thill Street, then rejoin the main tracks just north or just south of Thill (depending on elevation and property availability)?  That would give you one stop in the middle of the hill, in a neighborhood, and adjacent to Inwood Park.  If not Thill, are there any other spots where a short east/west detour would allow for a level stop?

You probably could, but I have a feeling the benefits of a stop start to diminish when you start making the trip up the hill longer and turning onto other streets would definitely add to the time it takes to get to Uptown.

 

I'm all for the tunnel idea John Schneider has proposed if we also push for a second expansion. Well, a third expansion if you count NKY's which would also be awesome.

 

Basically it would go something like this. Use the turnoffs on Race to go north on Vine to McMicken, turn west on McMicken (I know this is somewhat circuitous), travel down McMicken to where the old brewery building is across from Brighton Place, use that vacant hillside to lower down to Central Parkway, travel on Central Parkway (or next to it rather) until just past the loops for the Western Hills Viaduct, then bridge over the highway in some manner to Colerain, and travel on Colerain through Camp Washington until Monmouth, move west to Spring Grove, travel on Spring Grove to Hamilton Ave, then travel up Hamilton Ave through the business district in Northside then have a turnaround somewhere there.

If you really needed level platforms, you could likely move the streetcar off Vine slightly and level out at the Old Rothenberg Academy Site at Vine/Mulberry (where there is currently a parking lot) and again at Inwood Park. Just curve the sidewalk onto the property to create a space where the streetcar can bump out and come back into the street once reaching grade again. Neither of those spots are at the steepest point in the hill.

 

As far as can the streetcar do it, yes it can. On the tour of the facility the other week they stressed how important it was that they bought cars that were capable of doing this. The biggest issue with maintenance would be brakes, which would wear much faster when going down the hill vs. staying in the basin. But that will be a problem regardless if we tunnel or take the hill. It eventually has to make the same elevation change at the end. Perhaps a slower incline of the tunnel would help the brakes a little, but it's still going to have a long downhill portion it will have to stop at.

A streetcar or light rail train would not necessarily need to slam on the brakes at the bottom of a sloped tunnel if the tunnel can be designed in such a way that it either levels out well before it reaches the portal or, preferably, dips significantly below street level before rising to street level.  Dipping below street level would permit future construction of a subway tunnel in Over-the-Rhine and in the short-term help brake downhill streetcars.

 

Also, the situation with the circuitous routing at Findlay Market is unacceptable.  It's certainly possible for the uptown extension to travel up Vine St. via Main/Walnut and McMicken, and even for the originally planned Findlay Market connection to be built, with two different streetcar routes beginning and terminating at the same locations.  So there would be "Uptown via Elm" and "Uptown via Main" streetcars, then "Downtown via Race" and "Downtown via Walnut".  If the tunnel is built with portals near Rothenberg School, it might be able to extend the tracks from Findlay Market using the exiting stubs to McMicken and create a routing identical to what I just described. 

 

Also, I've mentioned it before (3, 4, 5 years ago?) here that I think there should be a direct tunnel connection under Clifton Heights between the existing streetcar tracks and Clifton Ave. with portals around Hughes or Deaconess Hospital.  In addition to the existing tracks, this tunnel could also serve a streetcar line on Linn St. that would reach the tunnel portals via the McMicken at the Mohawk intersection.  The Linn St. streetcars would then travel downtown via Court St.  So the West End would enjoy uptown and downtown service of the same quality as Over-the-Rhine. 

 

 

Through various circumstances I have been looking at purchasing property in Northside and took a drive today from my place in OTR to Northside utilizing what I felt would be a great streetcar route with a TON of potential for reinvestment, connection, and property value increases. It then inspired me to actually get onto paper a bunch of other random ideas I've had in the past about streetcar extensions so I made an image to share for discussion. I'm by no means an expert on where the benefits of a streetcar end and the benefits of light rail with less stops begin so I'm sure this could use some tweaking.

 

This system has 32 miles of track (slightly more than Pittsburgh's light rail system for comparison), would have 102 stops, would definitely cost upwards of $1 billion, and would open up several vastly underutilized neighborhoods to reinvestment with several square miles of vacant land available in the catchment area.

 

The red, yellow, and orange lines in my mind would have the potential to just become one long line in this system. Either that or just a red and orange line that overlap in what's marked "yellow line" to create the frequencies necessary in the core without actually needing a specific line to do that loop. The blue line could also get in on that action to create really small frequencies to manage the increased need for trains in the core as more people can directly access the core via rail.

 

The green line would only directly connect with a transfer from an underground station that would lead right up the stairs to a surface level stop.

 

This system would connect most of the major institutions in the city to several hundred thousand jobs and have a catchment area of 10s of thousands of people.

 

^I don't know why you would hug the hill like that rather than take it through the West End.

McMicken presents a lot of opportunity for redevelopment, it could easily tie into the existing tracks at the north end of the existing loop, and can easily get into Camp Washington. Going through the West End results in you having to find a way back up to either Central Parkway or McMicken to get beyond the highway. At least that was the thinking when I laid it out.

 

Edit: Although I guess it could use that bridge thing that goes from down on Central Ave up to McMicken. Although I'm not sure what route through West End would be the most beneficial.

Through various circumstances I have been looking at purchasing property in Northside and took a drive today from my place in OTR to Northside utilizing what I felt would be a great streetcar route with a TON of potential for reinvestment, connection, and property value increases. It then inspired me to actually get onto paper a bunch of other random ideas I've had in the past about streetcar extensions so I made an image to share for discussion. I'm by no means an expert on where the benefits of a streetcar end and the benefits of light rail with less stops begin so I'm sure this could use some tweaking.

 

This system has 32 miles of track (slightly more than Pittsburgh's light rail system for comparison), would have 102 stops, would definitely cost upwards of $1 billion, and would open up several vastly underutilized neighborhoods to reinvestment with several square miles of vacant land available in the catchment area.

 

The red, yellow, and orange lines in my mind would have the potential to just become one long line in this system. Either that or just a red and orange line that overlap in what's marked "yellow line" to create the frequencies necessary in the core without actually needing a specific line to do that loop. The blue line could also get in on that action to create really small frequencies to manage the increased need for trains in the core as more people can directly access the core via rail.

 

The green line would only directly connect with a transfer from an underground station that would lead right up the stairs to a surface level stop.

 

This system would connect most of the major institutions in the city to several hundred thousand jobs and have a catchment area of 10s of thousands of people.

 

 

Looks about right. Kind of a dead zone for redevelopment on Jefferson north of Burnet Woods, but maybe that's the price you pay to get to Ludlow

 

Yeah I wasn't sure how to handle that. But at the very least there are a lot of people living over there that could make use of it to get to Ludlow or to UC/Calhoun?McMillan so it's not unused. Just can't make much use of that stretch in terms of redevelopment.

jmicha[/member] If you're only going as far as the Clifton Gaslight, you could probably save a lot of money just going up the Vine Street hill with the existing stub-outs. That's a short enough route to be tolerable at the speed of a local bus route, even with a Findaly Market double-back. The Mt. Auburn tunnel only makes sense to me as a way to travel a long distance.

jmicha[/member] If you're only going as far as the Clifton Gaslight, you could probably save a lot of money just going up the Vine Street hill with the existing stub-outs. That's a short enough route to be tolerable at the speed of a local bus route, even with a Findaly Market double-back. The Mt. Auburn tunnel only makes sense to me as a way to travel a long distance.

 

I see this plan as a streetcar circulator plan, not as regional rail. Tunnel could serve both. We probably need to get more streetcar miles on the ground before we can fully engage the region. But even something like this could easily take fifty years to build.

jmicha[/member] If you're only going as far as the Clifton Gaslight, you could probably save a lot of money just going up the Vine Street hill with the existing stub-outs. That's a short enough route to be tolerable at the speed of a local bus route, even with a Findaly Market double-back. The Mt. Auburn tunnel only makes sense to me as a way to travel a long distance.

 

I see this plan as a streetcar circulator plan, not as regional rail. Tunnel could serve both. We probably need to get more streetcar miles on the ground before we can fully engage the region. But even something like this could easily take fifty years to build.

 

But you could have that Blue Line today without having to fight a Tunnel War. Also going up Vine means there would be an at grade intersection with the Green Line meaning those streetcars could use the existing MOF.

jmicha[/member] If you're only going as far as the Clifton Gaslight, you could probably save a lot of money just going up the Vine Street hill with the existing stub-outs. That's a short enough route to be tolerable at the speed of a local bus route, even with a Findaly Market double-back. The Mt. Auburn tunnel only makes sense to me as a way to travel a long distance.

 

I see this plan as a streetcar circulator plan, not as regional rail. Tunnel could serve both. We probably need to get more streetcar miles on the ground before we can fully engage the region. But even something like this could easily take fifty years to build.

 

But you could have that Blue Line today without having to fight a Tunnel War. Also going up Vine means there would be an at grade intersection with the Green Line meaning those streetcars could use the existing MOF.

 

Tunnel War is worth fighting

I could see some different variation on all of these working equally as well or better with some tweaking. I could easily see the green and red lines as being served by longer trains (5 or 7 module CAF Urbos 3s) and having about half as many stops in order to more quickly engage further out areas.

 

My general train of thought (lol pun) was that this is basically the maximum extent that streetcars would serve and these would then all tie into regional rail that would capture further out areas and have transfers between regional and streetcar at key points. So basically this map shows what a fully built out Cincinnati streetcar system would look like and excludes anything regional which would be an entirely separate map.

 

Also looking at this again the orange line needs to be two different lines I think. Having it loop would make a return trip from Covington quite long to get back over into Cincy.

Playing Devil's advocate- if you ran the blue line through the tunnel you would only be adding the portion above MLK as new territory, since presumably any regional light rail would share the track as far as the stop at University.  And, you would be losing half the existing OTR stops (for this line)  plus any potential stop near the Vine St. Curve to do that. Is that really worth buying 3 streetcars at $3.5 million each and  the operating cost of running them to do that?

 

I suppose you use the tunnel time savings to run the blue line down Ludlow all the way to Northside...

The Mendahl hydro dam is now online.  So in response to circa-2007 criticism of the streetcar's use of power generated at coal plants, it's now possible to purchase clean energy from this local source.  Of course, the rights to this hydro plant have oddly been owned by Hamilton for 50~ years, so yet again we have the peculiar private ownership of Cincinnati's utilities to blame for not best serving the public interest. 

 

This is a small power plant but it could no doubt power an extensive electric transit network in Cincinnati.  And I'll again lob the suggesting I made 7-8 years ago that a transit system could be powered by UC's power plant, which is ironically located on a former streetcar barn site, and which is able to burn a wide variety of fuel sources.  I might be wrong but I believe UC Hospital's power plant can only burn coal. 

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2016/04/25/streetcar-budget-moves-cranley-wont-veto/83514208/

 

Looks like Cranley has decided he won't veto if there is only five votes.

 

On a side note: I just had a co-worker visit Portland last week and was impressed that the street car actually had ridership. He couldn't stop asking questions about our street car. I found It comical, but its evident to me we still need to educate Cincinnatians on the value of a streetcar.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

^It's because for years COAST and the anti-streetcar crowd had shills calling in to Cincinnati talk radio from "Portland" saying nobody rode the streetcar and that it was a financial disaster. 

This is true. I remember listening to WLW when they were building the Green Line light rail on Fifth Avenue, which was still several months from opening -- just beginning to test vehicles and train operators. A WLW listener said he was calling from the U.S Bank Tower on Portland's Fifth Avenue (as if) and said he could see "streetcars passing by empty all the time."

 

First, the project was incomplete and unable to board passengers. And second, it this was a light rail line, not a streetcar line.

 

But hey, it was a good story for the rubes ...

When the streetcar debate began, very few people in Cincinnati knew anything about modern streetcar systems. What's amazing is that over the past 8+ years, most of the streetcar supporters have been doing research, learning more about modern streetcars, visiting other cities with streetcars, and trying to figure out what lessons Cincinnati can learn from these other places. Meanwhile, the opponents have done absolutely no research and continue to dig in their heels and learn absolutely nothing... most of them don't even know what a modern streetcar system is, which is why so many of these were shocked when our vehicles showed up in Cincinnati and weren't trolleys. The opponents are going to look incredibly foolish in 5 years when it's obvious to everyone that this is a successful system.

Yeah I mean, you hear about things almost daily with openings of new shops, restaurants, apartment or condo rehabs and new builds, just so much going along the line.  Only people who are completely close minded *ahem* Smitherman, can deny it.  And now it sounds like Smitherman may even be indirectly acknowledging it's success by now accusing council members of gentrifying OTR.  He says success would have happened anyways, but if he really wanted to take a deep look into it, he would see that it will help poor people as well since many of these developments have low income thresholds in mind when they build it.  He also probably can't think critically enough to realize how parking will be less of an issue therefore the city will save it's money from the system over building parking ramps alone throughout the district to keep momentum moving.

 

 

The naysayers won't ever admit their faults. It can be seen now. When a developer or business owner says, "being along the streetcar line was critical to our decision" naysayers still refuse to believe it and tell the people investing that they aren't actually making that investment because of the streetcar. It's ridiculous. These people truly, honestly believe that they know better than those building condos, building apartments, opening shops, opening restaurants, etc. That level of delusion doesn't go away. It takes a certain type of brain in order to be that delusional and stubborn so don't expect those people to ever come around, even if reality punches them in the face.

On another topic, I wish I had for one the time to collect data, and not only that but run a time based regression analysis (I really am not sharp on this since it's been awhile since I graduated with my econ degree and haven't run the software in forever).

 

I am sure some urban planning grad student or Econ grad studen at UC could do this if they wanted, but if you could make a mathematical model to measure the money factor it could be a great student.

 

Something like, the money multiplier of the streetcar =

 

F:

 

F(cost of police enforcement in OTR and CBD per month, cost of fire and emergency EMT Services in OTR and CBD per month, average emergency demolition cost per month, etc.)

 

1.) Start from 2000 before the riots and the streetcar was announced, go to 2007 before the streetcar was announced and voted on, then run it

 

2.) Start from 2007 to most present time to collect data, run it

 

Add as a positive number

 

Then you add to it:

 

G:

 

G(tax collections in OTR and CBD per month via property owners, tax collections in OTR and CBD per month via construction starts in this area, # of employees per month in OTR and CBD, # of residents per month in OTR and CBD, average tax receipts per month from OTR and CBD companies)

 

1.) Start from 2000 before the riots and the streetcar was announced, go to 2007 before the streetcar was announced and voted on, then run it

 

2.) Start from 2007 to most present time to collect data, run it

 

 

--- Add F(1) and G(1), and F(2) and G(2)

 

The coefficient would come out as the multiplier for social / health services in the district + the multiplier of tax receipts and people and employee retention

 

You would get something like the money multiplier of the streetcar on the final coefficient.  So you could say that the overall money factor is 4x from 2007 to present vs. 1.5x from 2000 to 2007, something like that.

 

I think then you could see a pattern of acceleration from 2007 until present , proving the multiplier increased greatly coinciding with the announcement and build out of the streetcar, which shows it wouldn't have happened otherwise to the scale it would have without the streetcar.

Through various circumstances I have been looking at purchasing property in Northside and took a drive today from my place in OTR to Northside utilizing what I felt would be a great streetcar route with a TON of potential for reinvestment, connection, and property value increases. It then inspired me to actually get onto paper a bunch of other random ideas I've had in the past about streetcar extensions so I made an image to share for discussion. I'm by no means an expert on where the benefits of a streetcar end and the benefits of light rail with less stops begin so I'm sure this could use some tweaking.

 

This system has 32 miles of track (slightly more than Pittsburgh's light rail system for comparison), would have 102 stops, would definitely cost upwards of $1 billion, and would open up several vastly underutilized neighborhoods to reinvestment with several square miles of vacant land available in the catchment area.

 

The red, yellow, and orange lines in my mind would have the potential to just become one long line in this system. Either that or just a red and orange line that overlap in what's marked "yellow line" to create the frequencies necessary in the core without actually needing a specific line to do that loop. The blue line could also get in on that action to create really small frequencies to manage the increased need for trains in the core as more people can directly access the core via rail.

 

The green line would only directly connect with a transfer from an underground station that would lead right up the stairs to a surface level stop.

 

This system would connect most of the major institutions in the city to several hundred thousand jobs and have a catchment area of 10s of thousands of people.

 

 

Is Cincinnati that densely populated to support such an extensive rail network?

 

Is there any info on the fare structure and predicted ridership numbers for the initial Streetcar line opening in September?  Considering the current lackluster ridership numbers generally, curious as to how the Streetcar estimates were calculated.