Kansas City's streetcar will stay free. They don't even have fare machines.

 

Great ridership turnout for the Cincy streetcar!

^ah you are right. Their's is 2.2 miles from end to end. Ours is 1.8 miles with 3.6 being the full loop.

A few photos from opening weekend...

 

A group from Poznań, Poland made the roughly 4,500 mile trip to witness the opening of Cincinnati's modern streetcar system:

 

As well as supporters of the Kansas City Streetcar:

 

Mayor Cranley signs John Schneider[/member]'s shovel from the system's groundbreaking:

 

Mayor Cranley takes credit for extending the streetcar's hours later in the evening:

 

Mark Mallory speaks and calls for expansion:

 

Cincinnati Bell's CEO Ted Torbeck talking about how the streetcar fits the company's corporate motto of "Connecting What Matters":

 

Vice Mayor David Mann says he remembers taking the old streetcar from Kentucky into Dixie Terminal, and then from Government Square to Crosley Field:

 

PG Sittenfeld says he likes to make decisions based on facts (in response to his critics who claimed that Sittenfeld "promised" to kill the streetcar during his campaign, which he totally didn't):

 

Including Wendell Young just because of his awesome jacket and tie:

 

Four streetcars lined up ready to transport VIPs for the initial rides:

 

Instead of a ribbon cutting, audience members were selected at random and got on Red Bikes to "power up" the streetcar system. Two UrbanCincy writers got picked by chance:

 

Northern Kentucky Streetcar Committee wears shirts reading "Next stop, Northern Kentucky!"

 

 

I got to ride on car #4 along with Jim Tarbell:

 

Packed streetcars all weekend long:

 

 

 

Also check out my write-up on UrbanCincy.

I'm so sad I missed this. My Facebook feed has been blowing up nonstop with mostly positive things since the opening ceremonies. And 50,000+ riders is no small accomplishment. Yes, it was free this weekend, but that's a huge number of people. Can't wait to see and ride it in person.

Redirected from my photo spread of my streetcar visit...

 

Thanks for documenting your travels and experience, KJP. I love that we have the Ultimate Air Shuttle connecting the two cities. My sister just moved to Lakewood a few months ago and my parents have already taken the shuttle to go visit for a weekend and said its absolutely the way to go. As a transit expert, what did you think about the speed and stop spacing for the streetcar? Those both seem to be points of discussion now that it has opened. 

 

The stop spacing is good but the speed is low. Unfortunately you can't do dedicated streetcar lanes because of the narrow streets unless you make most of the streetcar's streets transit/pedestrian/bike only. I liked that the streetcar has traffic signal priority but signal preemption would make it even faster.

 

Several online articles have appeared in recent years deriding the new streetcar systems that don't have dedicated lanes, which is pretty much all of them.  A lot of the complaint about "streetcars" seems to originate in Washington, DC.  I haven't seen that thing but because most writers are centered on the east coast, that is the one system they are familiar with, and so have assumed that the rest are like that. 

 

There isn't an option to do a dedicated lane anywhere in DT Cincinnati (except maybe Linn St.), and the wide streets in uptown are all wide enough to permit construction of a 2-track line adjacent to them without disrupting many utilities or requiring any reconstruction of the street.  Clifton between the law school and Ludlow Ave., a distance of about 2 miles, could have streetcars on its east side on the UC campus and through Burnett Woods.  MLK could have streetcars on the north or south near UC, and on the north side from Vine to Reading (except for the 1970s Piedmont Apts).  There is also plenty of space along MLK between I-71 and Victory Parkway.  Jefferson has plenty of space on its west side for streetcar tracks and Vine has space on its east side north to the zoo, with the exception of one small VA building.  Replacing that building and the Piedmont Apts might be cheaper than reconstruction of those streets.     

 

Meanwhile on McMillan and Calhoun there will likely be a lot of push-back from individual business owners if the city sought to build a dedicated lane for streetcars on each.  That area needs to retain loading zones and at least one lane of on-street parking.  So if a lane is dedicated to streetcars, there is no way that there could also be a dedicated bike lane without some sort of remarkable change in attitude. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out this article from The Cincinnati Enquirer:

 

SORTA to city: We need extra $20K for streetcars during Oktoberfest

 

http://cin.ci/2clymbO

 

What is going on?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Redirected from my photo spread of my streetcar visit...

 

Thanks for documenting your travels and experience, KJP. I love that we have the Ultimate Air Shuttle connecting the two cities. My sister just moved to Lakewood a few months ago and my parents have already taken the shuttle to go visit for a weekend and said its absolutely the way to go. As a transit expert, what did you think about the speed and stop spacing for the streetcar? Those both seem to be points of discussion now that it has opened. 

 

The stop spacing is good but the speed is low. Unfortunately you can't do dedicated streetcar lanes because of the narrow streets unless you make most of the streetcar's streets transit/pedestrian/bike only. I liked that the streetcar has traffic signal priority but signal preemption would make it even faster.

 

Several online articles have appeared in recent years deriding the new streetcar systems that don't have dedicated lanes, which is pretty much all of them.  A lot of the complaint about "streetcars" seems to originate in Washington, DC.  I haven't seen that thing but because most writers are centered on the east coast, that is the one system they are familiar with, and so have assumed that the rest are like that. 

 

There isn't an option to do a dedicated lane anywhere in DT Cincinnati (except maybe Linn St.), and the wide streets in uptown are all wide enough to permit construction of a 2-track line adjacent to them without disrupting many utilities or requiring any reconstruction of the street.  Clifton between the law school and Ludlow Ave., a distance of about 2 miles, could have streetcars on its east side on the UC campus and through Burnett Woods.  MLK could have streetcars on the north or south near UC, and on the north side from Vine to Reading (except for the 1970s Piedmont Apts).  There is also plenty of space along MLK between I-71 and Victory Parkway.  Jefferson has plenty of space on its west side for streetcar tracks and Vine has space on its east side north to the zoo, with the exception of one small VA building.  Replacing that building and the Piedmont Apts might be cheaper than reconstruction of those streets.     

 

Meanwhile on McMillan and Calhoun there will likely be a lot of push-back from individual business owners if the city sought to build a dedicated lane for streetcars on each.  That area needs to retain loading zones and at least one lane of on-street parking.  So if a lane is dedicated to streetcars, there is no way that there could also be a dedicated bike lane without some sort of remarkable change in attitude. 

 

 

  ^ This is just the latest tactic of the opponents. They realize dedicated lanes in most Eastern cities are impossible, so they try to de-legitimatize streetcars by claiming they can't be successful without them. If, early-on, we would have starting planning dedicated lanes here, the opponents would have shut us down in an instant. Like Derek says, "just moving the goalposts."

Check out this article from The Cincinnati Enquirer:

 

SORTA to city: We need extra $20K for streetcars during Oktoberfest

 

http://cin.ci/2clymbO

 

What is going on?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Welp, can't let two days go by without another controversy. Here's the nut of it: There will be around 650,000 people downtown this weekend for Oktoberfest. On top of it, the streetcar is still new and a bunch of people are going to want to ride it. In order to meet the demand, we need to run extra streetcars. Metro has an operating agreement with the City that says that Metro runs 3 streetcars during peak times and 2 during off-peak times. Peak times are Mon-Fri 11am-7pm. Weekends are off-peak according to the agreed upon schedule. If the City wants Metro to operate two additional streetcars during Oktoberfest, the City either need to pay for it or get somebody like the Chamber of Commerce (which runs Oktoberfest) to pay for it. This is a solvable problem, it's just unfortunately that it hasn't been settled 3 day before the festival begins.

 

What's interesting is how the local media outlets are covering it...

 

WCPO: “Transit authority: We need more streetcars to keep up with Oktoberfest crowds”

 

Enquirer: “SORTA to City: We need $20k to run streetcars on time during Oktoberfest”

 

WCPO's headline clearly conveys that there are going to be a lot of people downtown this weekend and we need more streetcars in operation to move them. The Enquirer's headline is red meat for Tea Partiers. It's also incorrect because SORTA never said the streetcars wouldn't run "on time" without more funding. They said that they wouldn't have enough capacity to keep up with demand.

They're really only going to run 2 cars on the weekends and weekday mornings?  How long is the wait going to be if only two cars are operating?  And how did no one think they were going to need more then 2 cars running on the busiest weekend downtown has all year?  I love the streetcar but the people who planned and signed these agreements are showing to be more and more clueless everyday. 

Channel 12 just had a really positive report

I thought since we had 5 cars it would be 4 during peak and 3 all other times. This is crazy. Only 2 on the weekends? It's going to have to change

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

2 cars in service = ~15 minute headways

3 cars in service = ~12 minute headways

4 cars in service = ~10 minute headways

2 cars in service = ~15 minute headways

3 cars in service = ~12 minute headways

4 cars in service = ~10 minute headways

 

Wait how does that work?  2/15 means a 30 minute loop, 3/12 is a 36 minute loop, and 4/10 is a 40 minute loop, but frequency shouldn't have any impact on time to traverse the route, and in fact I'd think the lower frequency would have slightly slower times, not faster, due to making more stops and more people boarding, etc.  So wouldn't it be more like 2/15, 3/10, 4/7.5 or 2/20, 3/15, 4/10? 

 

Does anyone know what the full loop time is now during the week versus the 40-50 minutes it was taking over the weekend?   

Here's the Business Courier's article

 

My favorite line from the article, what the hell is "operationalization"?:

 

“[T]his is not our understanding of the OMIGA (operations and maintenance intergovernmental agreement),” Black wrote back. "Must say that I am disappointed in the overall lack of leadership on the part of SORTA in the operationalization of the streetcar in general. Appears as though SORTA is simply lacking in its ability to get this done on multiple fronts.”

 

City, SORTA spar over how many streetcars will run during Oktoberfest

Sep 13, 2016, 4:59pm EDT Updated Sep 13, 2016, 5:04pm EDT

Chris Wetterich

Staff reporter and columnist

Cincinnati Business Courier

 

 

The Cincinnati Bell Connector streetcar’s honeymoon was a short one.

 

After a successful opening weekend in which people took more than 50,000 rides, the city, which owns the streetcar, and the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority, which oversees its daily operations, are in a fight over how many streetcars will be on the tracks this weekend.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/09/13/city-sorta-spar-over-how-many-streetcars-will-run.html

...what the hell is "operationalization"?

 

It's like strategery, only with more actionable synergies. 

I'm concerned that SORTA is the agency we need to put our faith in to sell greater investments in transit to the city and the region.

Where do the fares go?  Directly to SORTA?  Unless there's some legal reason preventing it, it seems relatively simple for the city to kick in the $20k on weekends like this, with the condition that the first $20k in revenues go directly back to the city.  Just make a standard arrangement that gets implemented for big events like Oktoberfest and Taste.  We shouldn't have to hear about this problem more than once.

I think CM Black meant with operationilization or however you spell it that SORTA is having a hard time keeping the momentum in the right direction to keep it flowing. It's got phenomenal #'s these past 5 days with tons of issues and they need to keep it rolling and keep the public engaged without a bad first impression. #boom

I hope I heard this wrong, but on 700 wlw they were saying only 2 street cars operate on the weekend? That's not true, right?

I'm concerned that SORTA is the agency we need to put our faith in to sell greater investments in transit to the city and the region.

 

The problem is that the City owns the streetcar and SORTA has only been hired to run it. Going forward, SORTA should be responsible for the design, construction, and operation of the entire system, and should take ownership of the infrastructure. The feds don't want to deal with the City again, they would much rather deal with SORTA. Plus, I believe SORTA already has an intergovernmental agreement in place that would allow them to operate the extension into NKY if that ends up being the next phase.

^Oooh, I forgot the feds hate Cranley too.

^^that doesn't address my concern about selling to the region. You aren't going to get to the point of selling to the Feds without selling the region/city first. The problem as I see it is that the city, John Deatrick, the prime and subs did a great job designing and installing the infrastructure. Operating it will, however, ultimately be where the sell is made in the hearts and minds of the public. I do not get a feeling of confidence that SORTA is up to this task. I hope I'm wrong but I also think they need to be pressured by everyone to hold to a high standard. I mean this crap with octoberfest is just the latest and what terrible marketing it is. It's as if they do not take as job #1 the efficient movement of people and the expansion of their ability to do so throughout our region.

I don't understand why other mid sized cities in the US don't have this much headache, but here in Cincinnati it's like utter chaos. How the hell did it get like this? It's just utterly sad and somewhat disgusting that we aren't raising our voices more about this.

 

Other cities are size have far outgrown us in public transit, and it's normal for them. But here in cincinnati? It's like, why do you need anything other than a car and a bus? Who ever laid the foundation for that mentality needs a bruising.

^Other cities do have this much headache, we just don't hear about it because we don't live there. The Atlanta Streetcar has had terrible ridership numbers and wasn't well planned. The DC Streetcar was delayed for years after tracks were laid because it was so poorly constructed. From what I heard in Kansas City they had a similar (though probably not quite as intense) fight with the status quo asking why they should even build a streetcar.

 

One of the few exceptions seems to be Detroit in which private companies just said "f--- it" and built a streetcar themselves (oversimplifying it, but basically).

 

Change is hard.

^Other cities do have this much headache, we just don't hear about it because we don't live there. The Atlanta Streetcar has had terrible ridership numbers and wasn't well planned. The DC Streetcar was delayed for years after tracks were laid because it was so poorly constructed. From what I heard in Kansas City they had a similar (though probably not quite as intense) fight with the status quo asking why they should even build a streetcar.

 

One of the few exceptions seems to be Detroit in which private companies just said "f--- it" and built a streetcar themselves (oversimplifying it, but basically).

 

Change is hard.

 

To be fair though, Atlanta and DC already had quite an extensive line of rapid transit before the introduction of street cars. Honestly, if Cincinnati had an extensive network of rapid transit already laid out, that hit the key points of the city, I don't know if I would be totally on board with a street car system myself (mainly due to the high cost, and the long wait time for a street car per stop).

 

My point though, is that those mentioned cities (aside from KC, Detroit would've already been there if hadn't been in a economic coma for the past decade) already had a foundation laid out years ago that helped connect the city with rapid transit.

 

Cincinnati has only caught up in the most slightest way, with this new short street car route, and instead of saying, "Hey lets make this city great. Lets take it to new heights. Lets get this place to become rivals with places like Atlanta, Chicago, Philly. Lets build this city and have it soar."

 

Instead our leaders are like..."Why do you guys even want a street car? Don't you know we have great surface lots. We tear down old buildings about once a year for you guys to have more parking!"

 

 

I just guess I'm tired of this backward mentality. We are far behind with our public transit, and have caught him in a slight way. But even now, instead of pushing further. Instead of saying, okay, what's next, how do we increase ridership, how do we get extensions, how do we take this new form of public transit and have it soar? Instead, it's a constant back and forth of city leadership asking how the hell does this street car exists, and why we need to even run it all during big events.

 

 

I guess it's just disheartening that you have so many residents, especially millennials, have so much new found passion for this city, and want to see it continue to grow and become something truly great, but leadership is constantly asking why you want this city to be great when it can simply just be okay.

 

It's frustrating when you love your city so much, but we keep electing people who have this mentality, of "I don't give a damn about progress, I just want to maintain the status quo".

 

 

 

I don't understand why other mid sized cities in the US don't have this much headache, but here in Cincinnati it's like utter chaos. How the hell did it get like this? It's just utterly sad and somewhat disgusting that we aren't raising our voices more about this.

 

Other cities are size have far outgrown us in public transit, and it's normal for them. But here in cincinnati? It's like, why do you need anything other than a car and a bus? Who ever laid the foundation for that mentality needs a bruising.

 

Trust me, it's not just Cincinnati. Since moving to NYC I've begun noticing just how much of a headache anything related to the subway is. Everything comes in WAY over budget, way behind schedule, and then immediately has problems.

 

Or you have situations like the L tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan planned to be shut down for 18 months straight stranding hundreds of thousands of people from their jobs in Manhattan and the MTA's response so far has generally been, "lol not our problem."

 

Cincinnati is still new to fixed mass transit. It has been 5 days into operations. These things will get sorted out.

I don't understand why other mid sized cities in the US don't have this much headache, but here in Cincinnati it's like utter chaos. How the hell did it get like this? It's just utterly sad and somewhat disgusting that we aren't raising our voices more about this.

 

Other cities are size have far outgrown us in public transit, and it's normal for them. But here in cincinnati? It's like, why do you need anything other than a car and a bus? Who ever laid the foundation for that mentality needs a bruising.

 

Trust me, it's not just Cincinnati. Since moving to NYC I've begun noticing just how much of a headache anything related to the subway is. Everything comes in WAY over budget, way behind schedule, and then immediately has problems.

 

Or you have situations like the L tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan planned to be shut down for 18 months straight stranding hundreds of thousands of people from their jobs in Manhattan and the MTA's response so far has generally been, "lol not our problem."

 

Cincinnati is still new to fixed mass transit. It has been 5 days into operations. These things will get sorted out.

 

I hope so. It's just more frustration that instead of figuring out how to get this to uptown, we are still stuck on why we need more than 2 street cars running for a big event. I understand there are huge economics in play, and it's not a simple subject. But still, I wish we can move past the subject of whether this street car is even necessary, or will still be alive within a year, and we can have our city leaders start at least a small CONVERSATION about brain storming possible new extensions, and how to get the appropriate funds to do so.

 

I'm just tired of all this drama I guess.

Atlanta and DC have large heavy rail subway systems because the federal government paid for a large portion of them. They haven't really done that since Atlanta. You want a new highway? Sure, the feds will pay 70% of the cost. Buy, you want a new transit line? The city has to fund it themselves. That's why the vast majority of new rail systems built since the 80s have been much cheaper (but slower and lower capacity) light rail.

^Other cities do have this much headache, we just don't hear about it because we don't live there. The Atlanta Streetcar has had terrible ridership numbers and wasn't well planned. The DC Streetcar was delayed for years after tracks were laid because it was so poorly constructed. From what I heard in Kansas City they had a similar (though probably not quite as intense) fight with the status quo asking why they should even build a streetcar.

 

One of the few exceptions seems to be Detroit in which private companies just said "f--- it" and built a streetcar themselves (oversimplifying it, but basically).

 

Change is hard.

 

To be fair though, Atlanta and DC already had quite an extensive line of rapid transit before the introduction of street cars. Honestly, if Cincinnati had an extensive network of rapid transit already laid out, that hit the key points of the city, I don't know if I would be totally on board with a street car system myself (mainly due to the high cost, and the long wait time for a street car per stop).

 

My point though, is that those mentioned cities (aside from KC, Detroit would've already been there if hadn't been in a economic coma for the past decade) already had a foundation laid out years ago that helped connect the city with rapid transit.

 

Cincinnati has only caught up in the most slightest way, with this new short street car route, and instead of saying, "Hey lets make this city great. Lets take it to new heights. Lets get this place to become rivals with places like Atlanta, Chicago, Philly. Lets build this city and have it soar."

 

Instead our leaders are like..."Why do you guys even want a street car? Don't you know we have great surface lots. We tear down old buildings about once a year for you guys to have more parking!"

 

 

I just guess I'm tired of this backward mentality. We are far behind with our public transit, and have caught him in a slight way. But even now, instead of pushing further. Instead of saying, okay, what's next, how do we increase ridership, how do we get extensions, how do we take this new form of public transit and have it soar? Instead, it's a constant back and forth of city leadership asking how the hell does this street car exists, and why we need to even run it all during big events.

 

 

I guess it's just disheartening that you have so many residents, especially millennials, have so much new found passion for this city, and want to see it continue to grow and become something truly great, but leadership is constantly asking why you want this city to be great when it can simply just be okay.

 

It's frustrating when you love your city so much, but we keep electing people who have this mentality, of "I don't give a damn about progress, I just want to maintain the status quo".

 

TroyEros, I would say just take a deep breath, it's all going to get worked out.  People are excited and the media blows this up into something way bigger than it needs to be.  The numbers were great this past weekend and sounds like anecdotally they are looking really good so far with revenue service underway.

 

To be fair, SORTA needs to get these small things sorted out with the city.  IT should be no issue for the city to drop the 20k for extra service on weekends like this, and even beyond, they need to work something out. 

 

In my mind, there is a huge amount of induced demand.  The numbers are out of the ballpark, and it is going to do great.  This is going to keep getting pushed, they will get it uptown.  It may take awhile, but if we can get that subway tunnel up to Pill Hill, watch out.  Connected with the University and Christ Hospital and Childrens, etc., is going to make that whole corridor booming, while at the time now it is more or less in bad shape in between with bad traffic in uptown. 

 

This will make it much easier to recruit new businesses, immigrants, international companies, etc., because all the international communities want robust rapid transit, which is what we need to focus in bringing it to Uptown.  Bringing it to Uptown will also allow the redevelopment of downtown and OTR to happen much faster, because now all the nurses and PT's and high wage earners at the hospital can live downtown or uptown without the need for a car.  This will help even more with recruitment and retention.  I think the tide is turning in the city and even people who are major detractors may start to say, "Hey, they were right all along". 

If you want evidence of how quickly minds are changing, just read the latest Enquirer editorial. It feels so strange to hear the Enquirer speak so positively about the streetcar. As John Schneider has often said, once the system is up and running, it changes the perspective of A LOT of people.

 

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/editorials/2016/09/13/oktoberfest-no-time-pinch-pennies-streetcar/90324226/

Yeah TroyEros[/member], you have remember that this thread was started in 2006. We have had to show up to City Hall dozens of times, write our council members dozens of times, show up to vote multiple times, write dozens of LTEs, and spend hundreds of hours educating our friend and families about streetcars in order to get to this point. What we are experiencing now are minor hurdles. We can fix the GPS tracking. We can fix the ticket vending machines. We can fix the traffic signal timing. We can come up with a plan to get more streetcars running during major events. If we get through this year without going over budget, we might even be able to increase service levels for next year -- maybe make the peak period 11-7 every day instead of just weekdays.

I know I've said this many times before here, but after riding the streetcar this weekend I'm more confident in it than ever- there are simply too many stops. Being in mixed traffic is already going to slow the streetcar, and there isn't much that can be done about that other than signal prioritization, which apparently is being worked on. However, the excessive amount of stops, especially on Main Street, was entirely within our control, and it's something that should be addressed, imo. Going from The Banks to the 4th and Main station was great, and the streetcar really gets to accelerate because the next stop is decently far away. After that, though, it seemingly crawls until it gets to OTR. It stops at 6th, 8th (near no attractions/destinations), Court (essentially "10th St"), and 12th. There is really no reason for it to stop every two blocks on Main. The streetcar can never get moving very fast, and it's not even like there are tons of attractions in this section of downtown! Imo, the 8th Street stop should be decommissioned, and/or the 6th St. stop. Cincy has tiny blocks and narrow streets. Walking two flat blocks is nothing for the vast majority of the population. I know that speed isn't the point of the streetcar, but the constant stopping honestly reminded me of why I hate riding the bus so much.

Its still faster than the Portland Streetcar btw where the blocks are even shorter...

^Yeah, and when I was in Portland I thought the ride became painfully slow at points, too. Also, Portland has recently decommissioned stops to try to increase speed.

I think the 8th/Walnut and Court/Main stops are unnecessary. They are both one block away from another stop.

If the tunnel plan moves forward and Walnut & Main become the "light rail" corridor, you can expect that some stops on those streets will be eliminated and the remaining stops will be lengthened to accommodate longer trains. I would think that either the Library or Aronoff stop on Walnut would be eliminated and the other would be lengthened. Maybe the Fountain Square stop at Walnut would remain but be streetcar-only. Not sure which stops on Main would be the best candidates for keeping/eliminating.

I'm not sure what the hurry is -- you're not riding this streetcar if you need to be somewhere as fast as possible.  The fastest way to get from A to B anywhere downtown is by bicycle, but since that's not really socially acceptable for business, you're probably hailing a cab. 

 

 

I think it's important to differentiate between signal prioritisation and signal pre-emption. I think the streetcar needs preemption which would turn the traffic lights in the favor of the streetcar as it approaches.

^The worst feeling is the streetcar stopping at 12th/Vine to pick up passengers while the light is green. Then the streetcar inches forward and the light turns red. Then you get stopped at 12/Race at a red light. Then you get stopped at 12/Elm. Everything else until 12/Race again going southbound toward downtown is smooth. I haven't ridden it through downtown yet, but I can imagine the same frustrations exist but on a larger scale with the plethora of stops on crowded downtown streets.

I think it's important to differentiate between signal prioritisation and signal pre-emption. I think the streetcar needs preemption which would turn the traffic lights in the favor of the streetcar as it approaches.

 

It absolutely needs this. I imagine it would speed up headways by a couple of minutes as the streetcar, in theory, would only ever need to stop at stops, in lieu of stopping at stops and the majority of stoplights. Given how many stops and stoplights there are on the route, though, this might be very tough to pull off.

^The worst feeling is the streetcar stopping at 12th/Vine to pick up passengers while the light is green. Then the streetcar inches forward and the light turns red. Then you get stopped at 12/Race at a red light. Then you get stopped at 12/Elm. Everything else until 12/Race again going southbound toward downtown is smooth. I haven't ridden it through downtown yet, but I can imagine the same frustrations exist but on a larger scale with the plethora of stops on crowded downtown streets.

 

My experience over the weekend was in streetcar approaching 12th & Vine and we were close to platform but couldn't get all the way to station because a line of cars.  Then when we finally let passengers off and on, we pulled ahead and then we got stopped by a red light. Probably unavoidable to some degree but I was wondering why it was taking so long and then figured out the deal.

Signal pre-emption will definitely help. I thought I remember hearing something a few months ago about how since the construction project was under budget, it would allow for the funding of this work. Maybe I am mis-remembering. Anybody remember the details of that?

The traffic engineering bill for the whole route will be pretty large.

I'm not sure what the hurry is -- you're not riding this streetcar if you need to be somewhere as fast as possible.  The fastest way to get from A to B anywhere downtown is by bicycle, but since that's not really socially acceptable for business, you're probably hailing a cab. 

 

The real frustration happens when you pull away from the station and the next light immediately turns red. After being stopped, you pull forward a few feet and stop again. Another problematic point was the turn from Central Parkway to Walnut. When testing started, you would turn right onto Walnut and then immediately get stopped at Court. It's incredibly frustrating to be stopped at a red light, just one block behind the streetcar stop. Fortunately the city already tweaked the timing to resolve that particular issue. These are the kinds of situations that make the streetcar "feel" slower and it will be good from a PR perspective to fix them.

 

With that being said, the streetcar flies down Race and Elm in OTR. There are fewer stops and few traffic signals there so it's really fast.

See guys, it's a non-issue. Metro will run more streetcars during Oktoberfest.

 

"The additional cost of the service will be paid by the City, consistent with the contract between the City and the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority."

 

The city really should have written a clause into the contract that either specifically addressed using extra streetcars special events, or added an extra bucket of driver hours that SORTA could use as needed when they expect higher demand than normal.

City Manger Black sez: "For this weekend, we have worked out a way for this expense to be covered without any additional cost to taxpayers."

 

Funny thing is, you could say that about the entire streetcar project. If we just funded it using general funds, it would only be a half percent of the city's annual operating budget going towards streetcar operations. Not even in the ballpark of a tax increase that would require "additional cost to taxpayers." Instead we had to jump through all kinds of hoops and find special funding sources for the operations.

Just walked to the 4th and Main stop (7:18pm). Wait time according to the status board is 28 mins. Wanted to head to the Findlay Beer Garten to support it, but I might as well not use the streetcar.

 

 

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They should just turn off the real-time arrival signs for the time being since they're causing more confusion. There was probably one about 15 minutes away and one about 30 minutes away from you. But since it alternates between the two times, people see the longer time and get scared off.

^YES. I can't believe that SORTA couldn't figure that out by now

Actually there wasn't one 15 mins away. I walked the streetcar track to Washington Park at a normal pace. Got a beer. Drank about half my beer and then a streetcar showed up maybe around 7:55pm at Washington Park. Having two running in the evening is not enough. It was highly frustrating since I love this damned thing and want it to work. I used google maps, timed it out (supposed to arrive at 7:18) and got there at 7:17 to be let down. I wanted to use my token and support late hours Findlay. All of that stopped since the timing is all off. Without having a reliable system my plans were shot. So now I'm in Washington park after walking here.

 

 

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