I can confirm there were many groups of people who did not pay for their ticket. Not sure if this affects the streetcar attendance count. But some of the machines were not accepting credit cards, but did accept cash. Except it did not give change back if you had a large bill. I heard many chatter about how no one checks for your ticket, and went on for free. I can confirm that no one has checked since I've been on either.

 

Again if paid tickets are part of the attendance count then we might see quite a skewed number because of the machines, and the fact no one seems to think you need to purchase tickets since of how crowded the cars are, and how no one validate them on board.

I can confirm there were many groups of people who did not pay for their ticket. Not sure if this affects the streetcar attendance count. But some of the machines were not accepting credit cards, but did accept cash. Except it did not give change back if you had a large bill. I heard many chatter about how no one checks for your ticket, and went on for free. I can confirm that no one has checked since I've been on either.

 

Again if paid tickets are part of the attendance count then we might see quite a skewed number because of the machines, and the fact no one seems to think you need to purchase tickets since of how crowded the cars are, and how no one validate them on board.

 

That shouldn't be how official ridership is determined. The newest tech for counting ridership in transit (which I assume these vehicles are equipped with) are automated people counters (APCs) which count the number of persons who get on/off the streetcars at the door.

Can we please just make this system free? The  machines have confused quite a number of people, or is out of order. It's not as simple as 1, 2, 3. And seems like no one pays for them anyway.

Can we please just make this system free? The  machines have confused quite a number of people, or is out of order. It's not as simple as 1, 2, 3. And seems like no one pays for them anyway.

 

It's called a learning curve. It'll work itself out. Your ridiculous concerned hand-wringing is getting absurd.  :roll:

Can we please just make this system free? The  machines have confused quite a number of people, or is out of order. It's not as simple as 1, 2, 3. And seems like no one pays for them anyway.

 

It's called a learning curve. It'll work itself out. You're ridiculous concerned hand-wringing is getting absurd.  :roll:

 

Yeah, it really is. Eight days into a 100-year investment, we're going to change the whole financial model?

^ I rode a streetcar in another city, and couldn't figure out how the payment system worked. On my first ride, I didn't pay because I thought I had to pay on board. On my second ride, I accidentally paid twice. (I guess it worked out in the end). In any case, the system was just too complicated.  :oops:

 

 

 

 

Again if paid tickets are part of the attendance count then we might see quite a skewed number because of the machines, and the fact no one seems to think you need to purchase tickets since of how crowded the cars are, and how no one validate them on board.

I've ridden about 12 times, and I've been asked to show a validated ticket once. They are out there. Folks on board who had a ticket but it was not validated were asked to get off at the next stop and validate it, and then get back on.

TroyEros[/member] - This is the second weekend that the streetcar has ever been running. The streetcar is obligated to run for the next 30 years, meaning there will be 1,558 more weekends where people will figure it out. It's really not that complicated - it's only complicated for people that have never ridden transit before.

^If 50% of the users can't figure it out, then it IS that complicated.  :wtf:

Hit piece from Reason.com. This young woman clearly had marching orders to pull every bad piece of news over the past 9 years and cobble it together in an article. This is why I'm always telling my family: Get your news from your favorite echo chamber at your own peril. Whoever would casually read this piece would learn nothing about the actual process and history of this project.

 

http://reason.com/blog/2016/09/17/cincinnati-streetcar-launch-is-disaster

 

 

Riding the streetcar again today and this is the second time the AC has been busted. It's 90 degrees in here. Has anyone heard anything about the HVAC systems not working?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The AC struggles to keep up with the streetcar is packed and door are opening at every station.

They are going to beef up the a/c to overcome this

The AC struggles to keep up with the streetcar is packed and door are opening at every station.

 

It was warm in the car last Friday, and while it was not a cool day, it wasn't nearly as hot as it can be in July or August.  Anyway here's something cute:

 

I understand the the AC can struggle, but this was it flat out not working. It was hotter inside the streetcar than outside and everyone was dripping in sweat. In NY this would be the "empty car" that everyone avoids.

 

 

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Took the streetcar for my second time last night and came away with a few more thoughts.

 

1) There needs to be a route map in each of the cars.  I heard multiple people express a desire to see a map in the car so they could tell where they were going and what the closest stop was to different attractions.

 

2) This is my second time riding at night, and I think it's very hard to see out the window with the streetcar lights up at full brightness.  The man sitting a few rows down from me even said something like "you know, if they turned the lights down or off, you could actually see where you're going." If you're reliant on visual cues to know when to get off, it's very hard to see at night.

 

3) The route definitely moves faster in OTR than downtown, but it still felt slow at times despite very lite Sunday night traffic, especially from 6th and Main to 12th and Main (4 stops in 6 blocks).

 

4) Maybe this will correct itself as more people become familiar with the system, but I saw many people who didn't know they had to request a stop.  Conversely, the streetcar stopped at many stops where there was no one waiting and no one who had requested a stop or got off.  I figured the latter issue had more to do with staying on schedule, but there could be a relatively easy fix for the first issue of requesting stops.  Just put a similar message that the bus has- 'push/pull to request stop'.

 

 

5chw4r7z[/member] was saying that he rode if over the weekend and parents were telling their small children, "press the button!" and so the streetcar was stopping at every station even if no one was getting on or off. So apparently people are having a hard time understanding that those buttons actually do something.

Saturday night ...

http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/streetcar/news/29-000-rides-on-cincinnati-bell-connector-during-oktoberfest-weekend/

 

Based on the strong ridership, revenue exceeded the cost of operating the service this past weekend and no additional funds were needed.

So it's sounding like there were around 29,000 riders this weekend. That means we're at around 92,000-93,000 riders as of the end of service Sunday night. We should hit 100,000 total riders at the end of the day Wednesday or so meaning we'll have hit six digit ridership in 13 days of service. Not bad.

Interesting tidbit from that press release. Projected ridership is estimated at 3,000 on weekdays, 1,500 on Saturdays, and 990 on Sundays. I think that's way too low. And it also explains why we only plan to run 2 streetcars on weekends.

Interesting tidbit from that press release. Projected ridership is estimated at 3,000 on weekdays, 1,500 on Saturdays, and 990 on Sundays. I think that's way too low. And it also expects why we only plan to run 2 streetcars on weekends.

 

Did they use the projected ridership from 2007?  At that time there was only Findlay Market, Mr. Pitifull's, and Biff's north of Central Parkway. 

 

Those are good numbers!  So on there, once paid revenue service started, there was approximately:

 

41,740 paid riders from Mon - Sun = 5,963 riders per day during that time period.

 

Obviously Oktoberfest bumps that up a ton, but that is really good news about the ridership numbers.  Hopefully we can keep it up and then as we continue to grow the population of OTR and downtown with new residences that number starts bumping up closer to 4,000 - 5,000 per day

I think the people that did the ridership estimates were putting way too much emphasis on home-to-work trips. Yes, some people will take the streetcar to work, especially as more residential development occurs at the northern tip of the route. But that's only 10 trips out of the dozens of trips that the average urban dweller takes each week. I walk to work, but last week I took the streetcar to and from Findlay Market several times, I took it downtown to go to the bank, I took it to Walgreens, and I took it from Oktoberfest to Queen City Radio. I think we will quickly learn that the vast majority of trips aren't work-related.

 

The other interesting tidbit from this press release was the following: "Based on the strong ridership, revenue exceeded the cost of operating the service this past weekend and no additional funds were needed."

 

What that tells us is that Metro can run more streetcars if they know they're going to make it up with a high number of paying riders. They probably can't do that every weekend, but it's a good sign for future frequency increases.

Does anyone know if Metro plans to run more streetcars this weekend when MPMF is going on? 

Does anyone know if Metro plans to run more streetcars this weekend when MPMF is going on?

 

Bengals home opener too. Metro should get on it.

We had 12,433 riders in Saturday. So far the KC Streetcar has had more than that only 3 times excluding KC's opening weekend. Here is a brainstorming list of events that might be big ridership days/weekends for the streetcar:

 

Oktoberfest

Riverfest fireworks

Reds Opening Day

Taste of Cincinnati

Bunbury Music Fest

MPMF

Cincinnati Music Festival (formerly Jazz Fest)

Black Family Reunion

Bockfest

Beerfest(?)

If they ever do Tall Stacks again or bring Luminocity back to Washington Park

Washington Park events- City Flea, concerts, Taste of Otr, OTR block party

US Bank Arena concerts

Large conventions

Flying Pig events

Paul Brown Stadium- Bengals and miscellaneous college games

Reds games

Newport/Covington festivals(?)

 

I think the bottom line is someone is going to have their hands full keeping track of what's going on and adjusting services appropriately. And they need to have clear authorizations and procedures to do so worked out between the city and Metro.

Interesting tidbit from that press release. Projected ridership is estimated at 3,000 on weekdays, 1,500 on Saturdays, and 990 on Sundays. I think that's way too low. And it also expects why we only plan to run 2 streetcars on weekends.

I totally agree with this, much more of the ridership than planned is going to be "tourists" whether local or out of towners who come downtown and park once while doing weekend activities, going out to eat, going to bars/ breweries, going to Findlay market or any events downtown. Lunch time downtown will always be busy, but I think the streetcar needs three trains running from noon through dinner time on Saturday and Sunday to move around all the visitors who want to see and do things all around the basin without moving their cars. This will probably die down a bit when winter comes (except bengals games or other special events) but in the summer when all the parks and Findlay are packed with people we need three streetcars running on the weekend.

The 100,00th streetcar rider will probably step on board Thursday or Friday morning

We averaged around 3,100 riders per weekday last week. We ended Sunday with over 92,000 riders. That means, if we continue the average from last week we'll hit 100,000 Wednesday afternoon sometime.

 

I hope they make a big deal of that and talk about how quickly it has made it to that goal. It's good press to show people are embracing it in big numbers.

Are all these numbers just from ticket sales, or have people been doing manual counts too?  Since it sounds like fare enforcement has been rather lax so far, relying only on paid fares could mean a significant undercount.

People have said they are derived from sensors at the doors that I assume are paired with software to count people coming in and leaving, and sum up the number of people entering. At least the intent seems to measure use, not fares collected. But there's also been indications of software problems with these counts.

We averaged around 3,100 riders per weekday last week. We ended Sunday with over 92,000 riders. That means, if we continue the average from last week we'll hit 100,000 Wednesday afternoon sometime.

 

I hope they make a big deal of that and talk about how quickly it has made it to that goal. It's good press to show people are embracing it in big numbers.

 

And that means not long until one MILLION riders

We averaged around 3,100 riders per weekday last week. We ended Sunday with over 92,000 riders. That means, if we continue the average from last week we'll hit 100,000 Wednesday afternoon sometime.

 

I hope they make a big deal of that and talk about how quickly it has made it to that goal. It's good press to show people are embracing it in big numbers.

 

And that means not long until one MILLION riders

People have said they are derived from sensors at the doors that I assume are paired with software to count people coming in and leaving, and sum up the number of people entering. At least the intent seems to measure use, not fares collected. But there's also been indications of software problems with these counts.

 

Right, the number of people who have ridden is determined by automatic counters at each door. All of the streetcars have counters, but I guess a few of them aren't working properly right now, so they're using the data from the ones that work to estimate the others. This is similar to what is done to estimate bus route ridership. Only a few Metro buses have the passenger counters, so Metro rotates those around to different routes, and then it's multiplied out in a logical manner.

 

The number of people who pay fares is a different thing. Keep in mind that anyone with a monthly Metro pass gets to ride the streetcar for free while the pass is valid, and obviously some number of people are riding without buying a ticket.

This city is offering a deal for the Bengals game days. You can park in the Town Center (WCET) garage for $10 and the first 100 cars will receive 4 free all-day streetcar passes.

 

I have also been hearing that the parking lots near Findlay Market are starting to fill up a lot more as people are parking there and taking the streetcar downtown. It's good they started charging for those parking lots a few years ago.

^ I have parked on Liberty or other free street spots in OTR a few times and taken the streetcar to my destination. I don't know if that was one of the intended uses or not but I've been doing it. It worked well for Oktoberfest. I haven't noticed parking getting any harder to find over the last few weeks so I don't think a lot of people are using the streetcar that way.

This city is offering a deal for the Bengals game days. You can park in the Town Center (WCET) garage for $10 and the first 100 cars will receive 4 free all-day streetcar passes.

 

I have also been hearing that the parking lots near Findlay Market are starting to fill up a lot more as people are parking there and taking the streetcar downtown. It's good they started charging for those parking lots a few years ago.

 

Those Findlay market lots are pretty crowded to begin with on the weekends, I hope people don't start doing that too much!

This city is offering a deal for the Bengals game days. You can park in the Town Center (WCET) garage for $10 and the first 100 cars will receive 4 free all-day streetcar passes.

 

I have also been hearing that the parking lots near Findlay Market are starting to fill up a lot more as people are parking there and taking the streetcar downtown. It's good they started charging for those parking lots a few years ago.

 

This is a great idea. Since there's essentially no incremental cost for each additional parker or streetcar rider (until either is full) this is basically all new revenue for the City.

I wonder if Hamilton County will figure out it would be in its interest to offer a combined pass for the Banks parking garages and the streetcar.

I was talking with someone yesterday about the opening ceremony and let loose with two of my theories, which were:

 

1. Cranley stood at the podium with his wife so that news organizations wouldn't use any photo of him at the event as their "stock" photo of Cranley for unrelated stories.  They wouldn't be able to use a photo of him at the streetcar opening for future streetcar stories, especially future "ridership far exceeds estimates" stories, without the presence of his wife in the image nullifying whatever negative cast the story painted him in.

2. The bizarre red bike ribbon cutting -- there could be no traditional ribbon cutting because politicians would actually have to stand there and be in that photograph and be permanently associated with the project, should it go south.  Cranley, of course, did not want to be photographed in the ribbon cutting at all and it would have been impolite for him to simply stay under the tent in the event of a traditional photograph. 

 

Theory #1 never crossed my mind but I had the exact same thought regarding theory #2. I remember on Election Day 2013, someone said, "Just wait, Cranley will be cutting the ribbon for the streetcar with a big smile on his face." I guarantee the reason there wasn't a traditional ribbon cutting was so that Cranley did not have to be involved in it, and so there's no photo all of us can pass around of him cutting the ribbon.

Saw the streetcar passed 100k ridership today

Streetcar ridership by day:

 

Friday, Sept. 9 - 18,141

Saturday, Sept. 10 - 17,160

Sunday, Sept. 11 - 15,345

Monday, Sept. 12 - 3,273

Tuesday, Sept. 13 - 2,478

Wednesday, Sept. 14 - 3,841

Thursday, Sept. 15 - 3,148

Friday, Sept. 16 - 7,041

Saturday, Sept. 17 - 12,433

Sunday, Sept. 18 - 9,639

Monday, Sept. 19 - 1,625

Tuesday, Sept. 20 - 2,313

Wednesday, Sept. 21 - 2,842

Thursday, Sept. 22 - 3,653

 

Took my first streetcar ride Monday evening: ridership was very light (which meant that I got to my destination quicker, which was nice). The voiceover announcing the stops was ahead by one stop (called out 12th and Main when we were at Court and Main, etc.). That was very confusing, and I hope no one else has had that experience.

 

Walked by the Banks stop tonight (Friday), and it was absolutely bumping. I'd guess the median age of the ridership was around 45. Heard about three different conversations in passing that were very optimistic about the streetcar and downtown Cincinnati in general.

I wonder if Hamilton County will figure out it would be in its interest to offer a combined pass for the Banks parking garages and the streetcar.

 

This is a great idea. Heading to a bar to watch some soccer tonight and with OTR packed on weekend (with MidPoint Music going on as well), parking up there will be spotty. I'm planning on easily parking in that 2nd St. Garage and just riding the streetcar up. No hassle, perfectly easy.

Rode tonight to go to Quan hapa. A lot of clueless people were on it. My favorites were a guy who said matter of fact to his daughter who was maybe 10 or 12 "now the streetcar is here, all these buildings down here are worth something" and a lady who kept saying "we should get off at over the Rhine" not realizing most of where we traveled through was otr.

I rode the streetcar last night for the first time since the free opening weekend.

 

We boarded on Race by Washington Park and took it to the Banks and returned about an hour or so later.  A few observations:

 

1) The ticket machines, while not super complicated, weren't 100% straight forward either for first-timers.  It didn't help that the credit card reader didn't work, so I spend 5 minutes trying to swipe my card over and over before we gave up and walked to the Central Parkway stop.

 

2) Both to the Banks and from the Banks, the streetcar was crowded (standing room only).  So that's a postive sign.

 

3) Both time we rode, we were in the front by the driver.  If I was interpreting the driver's screen correctly on the return trip, this streetcar was running 17 minutes behind schdule.  On our earlier trip, we were 3-4 minutes ahead of schedule.

 

4) I think others have commented on this, but why is 'arrival' time noted on the electronic boards when they apparently have no relation to when the streetcar actually arrives?  On our departure trip, it said the next streetcar would arrive in 10 minutes when it pulled up????

4) I think others have commented on this, but why is 'arrival' time noted on the electronic boards when they apparently have no relation to when the streetcar actually arrives?  On our departure trip, it said the next streetcar would arrive in 10 minutes when it pulled up????

I've bitched about this to everyone I could think of, as well as (related) why it's important to have real time arrival info on the reader boards and on apps.

 

The short answer, I think, is "hey this is a new system and we will have it someday, so quit complaining, be patient, and stop pretending that your time is so valuable that you can't just sit and wait for the next streetcar. Plus we are working on signal preemption and can't really do two things at once."

 

I hope I'm wrong but if I were betting on when this is fixed it would be 6 months.

At some stations it seems like the (incorrect) real time info is turned off. That's what they need to do at every station until it's accurate.