^ How is that a statement of support for the streetcar?

 

Its not.  I didn't explain my post the best way I should have.  I was trying to relay his hypocrisy and clear pandering on the issue

How Cincinnati's Pro-Streetcar Campaigners Won in the End

 

Ryan Messer and his grassroots group Believe in Cincinnati never took no for an answer.

 

    Chris Bentley @Cementley

    Sep 23, 2014

 

Before last fall's municipal election, Ryan Messer's engagement in local politics amounted to little more than a seat on the board of the Cincinnati Opera. A few months later he was taking a phone call from Peter Rogoff, who was then head of the Federal Transit Administration.

 

"He was calling to ask very specifically, 'What do the people of Cincinnati want?'" Messer recalls. "That was a very interesting moment."

 

What the people wanted, Messer told Rogoff, was for the city to continue building its 3.6-mile streetcar loop. Messer was speaking on behalf of the grassroots advocacy group he founded, Believe in Cincinnati, which after sprouting almost overnight had become a political force in the city.

 

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/09/how-cincinnatis-pro-streetcar-campaigners-won-in-the-end/380452/

In several areas around Findlay Market they are replacing the entire road base. At first I thought it might be for reinforced slabs at bus stops but now they're doing it on the left side of one way streets. Was that always planned for or are they fixing issues they caused/found during construction of the rails? I thought they were just repaving streets at the end of construction.

^Meant to ask that question as well. From yesterday:

That's awesome. So we're getting a full rebuild, not just a resurfacing.

If that's Elm then maybe they wanted to remove what was left of the old tracks.  Seems like too crisp of a trench otherwise. 

That's awesome. So we're getting a full rebuild, not just a resurfacing.

 

The city just completely rebuilt Woolper Ave. in Clifton with a new 20"~ thick concrete base set in a mesh of rebar and new curbs, cutouts, and sidewalks.  It's taken about a month but it looks like it'll last for at least 50 years.         

 

They did remove the old tracks. Rebar is in as of today so we should see a concrete pour tomorrow.

I think it had to do with correcting a discrepancy between the elevation at which the tracks were installed and the elevation of the paving.

The city just completely rebuilt Woolper Ave. in Clifton with a new 20"~ thick concrete base set in a mesh of rebar and new curbs, cutouts, and sidewalks.  It's taken about a month but it looks like it'll last for at least 50 years.       

 

Jake - any idea why Woolper got the 20" concrete/rebar base? Seems like a relatively low traffic road, so do you think it's just because of the topography along the hillside? It rises ~120' over that .4 mile section, which is ~6% grade. I'm curious if that means that the rest of Cincinnati's 6% (or greater) roads should get that same treatment. 

 

 

The city just completely rebuilt Woolper Ave. in Clifton with a new 20"~ thick concrete base set in a mesh of rebar and new curbs, cutouts, and sidewalks.  It's taken about a month but it looks like it'll last for at least 50 years.       

 

Jake - any idea why Woolper got the 20" concrete/rebar base? Seems like a relatively low traffic road, so do you think it's just because of the topography along the hillside? It rises ~120' over that .4 mile section, which is ~6% grade. I'm curious if that means that the rest of Cincinnati's 6% (or greater) roads should get that same treatment. 

 

 

 

It's a major through-way for emergency vehicles (mainly firetrucks) and larger vehicles where the next nearest way from Clifton Ave to Vine that can accommodate them is Ludlow or Mitchell. I have friends who live on that street, and before hand the road was a mess. The city has also added bike lanes. The new structure should keep the street from needing resurfacing so quickly.

I'd add that many of the major and steep streets got significant full-depth construction/reconstruction done in the past.  Streets with important streetcar routes got huge concrete slabs and full track rehab done in the 1920s (like Erie, Delta, much of Madison and McMillan, Harrison, and others).  They're still completely solid bases for today's streets, under just one or two thin lifts of asphalt.  Many older streets like Gilbert, Delta, Harrison, Hamilton, Reading, etc. went through 2 or 3 phases in life, starting as dirt and mud, then getting a major regrading and basing in the 1870s-1890s, then a significant concrete rebuilding in the 1920s-1940s.  Many residential streets were upgraded straight from mud to concrete in that 1920s-1940s period.  Maybe Woolper never got that concrete rebuild, or it was an earlier one that finally deteriorated.  What I find interesting when looking through the street rehab photos from the 1920s-1940s is that virtually none of the streets are in downtown, OTR, or the West End.  Part of that may be the anti-urban biases of the time, where the focus was being put on building up outer areas for people to decant to, but at the same time the streets in the basin were already pretty heavily built anyway. 

This reconstruction of Woolper, the great job the city did rebuilding W. Clifton back in 2010 including the long stone retaining wall, and the recent repaving of Elm St. for the streetcar project illustrates that we still have the ability to create high quality streets and streetscapes but we are trapped in a cycle of accepting mediocrity in the by-far wealthiest country on the planet. 

Streetcar-linked OTR parking permit under fire

Sharon Coolidge

 

City of Cincinnati administrators are quietly shopping around a plan that shows residential parking permits in Over-the-Rhine would cost $300 per year - money that would go to help operate the streetcar.

 

Opponents say that is simply too much, possibly the highest permit cost of any city in the country. But Mayor John Cranley says the city has no choice; it needs the money and streetcar beneficiaries have to help pay for it.

 

"This all needs to be viewed in the context of paying for the streetcar," Cranley said. "These are choices the community need to make. But every time you lower the cost of the permit, you lower the operation frequency of the streetcar."

 

Cont

Okay, so $300 is a lot compared to parking rates in other cities.  Have they considered issuing a streetcar pass along with the parking pass for $300?  OTR residents being able to ride the streetcar without a fare would certainly take the sting out of that parking fee.

Imo,All part of the cranley Smitherman plan to try to make the streetcar fail.  Cranley makes the threat of lower operation frequency again.  This is precisely why I don't believe anyone who thinks cranley and Smitherman are trying to make this project succeed.  Is one thing after another. 

"Opponents say that is simply too much, possibly the highest permit cost of any city in the country. But Mayor John Cranley says the city has no choice; it needs the money and streetcar beneficiaries have to help pay for it."

 

This is the whole problem- residents parking on the street in OTR are not the only "streetcar beneficiaries"  and are probably not the ones benefiting finacially from increased property values.

 

Paying for streetcar operating costs, after fares and advertising, should be guided by the following principles:

 

1.  The burden should be spread out across as many beneficiaries as possible- THIS INCLUDES DOWNTOWN!  (yet somehow the streetcar is just an OTR issue)

 

2.  The burden should be bundled with as many other services as possible so no one feels like they're being targeted with a "streetcar tax"

 

The logic of these two principles leads one to the expanded SID as proposed by the Haile Foundation.  If you follow this logic to its extreme conclusion operating costs could come out of the general fund.  And that is fine by me!  It's a huge concession to Cranley to agree to his premise that the general fund cannot support.  Because the general fund will benefit from the growth and development along the line.  That's already happening. 

 

A parking permit is one piece of the puzzle.  It's not going to come anywhere close to raising enough money anyway so Cranley's statement that "But every time you lower the cost of the permit, you lower the operation frequency of the streetcar" is extremely disingenous.  Once again, $100 for a parking permit is reasonable.  People have to realize the young people and service industry workers that created OTR's renaissance in the first place live very close to the edge of their budgets and their rents are already rising.  $300 is strictly Cranley playing ridiculous games.

 

PS I usually park in the secure Washington Park garage but the one time I left my car on the street overnight this month (last Sunday) the window was broken in costing $120.  So folks who park on the street gotta deal with that too. 

"This all needs to be viewed in the context of paying for the streetcar," Cranley said. "These are choices the community need to make. But every time you lower the cost of the permit, you lower the operation frequency of the streetcar."

 

Man, what a false dichotomy: $300 parking permits or we're cutting the frequency. These are the options I'm giving you and there are no other options.

"This all needs to be viewed in the context of paying for the streetcar," Cranley said. "These are choices the community need to make. But every time you lower the cost of the permit, you lower the operation frequency of the streetcar."

 

Man, what a false dichotomy: $300 parking permits or we're cutting the frequency. These are the options I'm giving you and there are no other options.

 

So did we find out if cranley can legally do this?  Can he just stop the streetcars from running anytime he wants like he said?  Can he just park the streetcars during the weekdays and only run it for gamedays?  He seems to be bragging about this constantly

I'm really hoping that the progressives aren't actually going to fall for this "plan" because seriously, having the highest parking permit fees in the nation is going to HURT OTR and OTR doesn't need any more pain than the tons of crap that's been already thrown on top of it over the years.

Lemme see, $25 per month = four beers at Rhinegeist. Yeah, that's really going to hurt OTR.

From Jeff Speck's Walkable City, page 136, "Step 3: Get the Parking Right" chapter:

 

"It is one thing to put parking meters in front of a bunch of stores and quite another to put them on a street of houses.  That is why, where theory meets reality, we may need to bend the rules a little, by using residential parking permits.  These, too, can be priced at market value for maximum efficiency, but they must sometimes be deployed at a low cost to win over residents who stand in the way of a larger public benefit, like keeping affordable housing affordable.  And, you didn’t hear it from me, but once residents get used to the idea of paying for a coveted parking pass- even just a "processing fee" of twenty bucks a year- you would be surprised how quickly they are willing to pay considerably more."

 

A few points:

 

1.  In this example the "larger public benefit" to be funded would be the streetcar

 

2.  What is "priced at market value" for OTR? For meters it's a price that ensures 85% occupancy.  I'm not sure if that applies to the residential permits but I do know OTR isn't a filled out neighborhood when it comes to parking.  Anecdotally there are almost always open spots in the NW corner of OTR South of Liberty.  What is the occupancy rate at the present market value of $0, before we zoom up to $300?

 

3.  Am I one of the "residents who stand in the way"?  No, but I do agree with the sentiment of this passage of winning people over with a low fee to start with.  And the "low fee" I would be OK with, $100, would match some of the more expensive residential parking passes in the nation. 

Lemme see, $25 per month = four beers at Rhinegeist. Yeah, that's really going to hurt OTR.

 

You have a point here in the sense that some folks always seem to have that much money to drop at the bar no matter how broke they are... 

Lemme see, $25 per month = four beers at Rhinegeist. Yeah, that's really going to hurt OTR.

 

You have a point here in the sense that some folks always seem to have that much money to drop at the bar no matter how broke they are... 

 

And that's in one night, versus once a month.

It seems to me that if residential parking permits are established in an increasingly densely-populated neighborhood like OTR, then parking meters will end up being dominated by residents, even at the residential parking permit rate that Cranley proposes.  That means some businesses in OTR will suffer.  There will likely be increased demand for the development of more parking garages, which some on this thread and other boards concerning OTR issues have complained about.  There may even be more of an inclination to demolish OTR buildings in order to create off-street surface parking.  Are proponents of residential parking permits content with such a scenario?

A Blue Ash company is relocating to the CBD, and cites the streetcar as one reason why:

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2014/10/03/exclusive-fast-growing-blue-ash-business.html?page=2

Okay, so $300 is a lot compared to parking rates in other cities.  Have they considered issuing a streetcar pass along with the parking pass for $300?  OTR residents being able to ride the streetcar without a fare would certainly take the sting out of that parking fee.

 

This is a good idea. And there are others.

 

All of this is showing, again, that Cranley has the mind of a negotiator. He thinks that in the end the residents will pay $300 for a parking permit in exchange for living in our beloved neighborhood, and he's right. It's a neighborhood increasingly in demand, and we are not voting for him, by and large. That's a potent combination for him.

 

I wish that the prominent folks on "our side" were thinking more with a negotiator's mind, to match Cranley. We'd be asking for concessions in exchange for this high rate. A streetcar pass is a great one in my opinion. Another great one would be concessions that would ensure the neighborhood is a priority for enhanced sidewalks and street lighting (even if that includes nominal additional costs).

 

But the biggest concession would be to proceed forward with funding the studies and writing the proposals for the next phase of the streetcar. The more the route is expanded, the less will that $300 parking permit seem.

 

I'm big on taking over this conversation and these are some of the ways to do it. I wish that instead of complaining, some of our proponents on council and otherwise would negotiate. Otherwise we continue to sound like little kids wanting to have our cake and eat it too.

 

Okay, so $300 is a lot compared to parking rates in other cities.  Have they considered issuing a streetcar pass along with the parking pass for $300?  OTR residents being able to ride the streetcar without a fare would certainly take the sting out of that parking fee.

 

This is a good idea. And there are others.

 

All of this is showing, again, that Cranley has the mind of a negotiator. He thinks that in the end the residents will pay $300 for a parking permit in exchange for living in our beloved neighborhood, and he's right. It's a neighborhood increasingly in demand, and we are not voting for him, by and large. That's a potent combination for him.

 

 

 

I'm big on taking over this conversation and these are some of the ways to do it. I wish that instead of complaining, some of our proponents on council and otherwise would negotiate. Otherwise we continue to sound like little kids wanting to have our cake and eat it too.

 

Totally understand this pov and this would be an ideal solution.  To negotiate with good faith.  The problem is many believe cranley has demonstrated over and over again that he is incapable of doing this.  He's always scheming.  He's always thinking politics first. He's always thinking of ways to scuttle the project and divide it's support. 

 

He's stated numerous times he will not support phase 2 , planning or otherwise,  unless phase 1 is proven to be a success (which will never happen in his eyes)

Totally understand this pov and this would be an ideal solution.  To negotiate with good faith.  The problem is many believe cranley has demonstrated over and over again that he is incapable of doing this.  He's always scheming.  He's always thinking politics first. He's always thinking of ways to scuttle the project and divide it's support. 

 

He's stated numerous times he will not support phase 2 , planning or otherwise,  unless phase 1 is proven to be a success (which will never happen in his eyes)

 

That's slightly off my point. I'm not assuming that Cranley will negotiate in good faith. I'm saying, do to him what Monzel did. Develop the negotiating points. State them consistently and in response to any question that's asked. Put him on the defensive and having to answer questions like "The streetcar supporters say they will get behind a parking permit system for OTR, but in return they want assurances from you and council that the next phase of the streetcar will be planned now, in order to protect their investment."

 

That's instead of sounding like whining babies in the press, cause all we do is answer questions about whether we want to pay $300 for parking, and we say that we don't want to. Waah.

Streetcar supporters should be negotiating with swing votes on council instead of Cranley, who also behaves like a whining child. Figure out a plan that gets the support of Murray and/or Flynn. Or even Winburn.

Lemme see, $25 per month = four beers at Rhinegeist. Yeah, that's really going to hurt OTR.

 

Then make it a monthly fee.  Most of us would have some issues with paying $300 as a lump sum.  Anything less than 100 is generally ok, (unless we are talking about rent of course) but 300 is too high for that.

The problem with any kind of assessment or parking fee is that it concedes that public transportation above a twice-hourly bus is superfluous anywhere and where it exists it must be funded locally.

In several areas around Findlay Market they are replacing the entire road base. At first I thought it might be for reinforced slabs at bus stops but now they're doing it on the left side of one way streets. Was that always planned for or are they fixing issues they caused/found during construction of the rails? I thought they were just repaving streets at the end of construction.

 

According to the latest construction update, they will be resurfacing Elm Street over the next four weeks. It looks like they are only doing a complete rebuild on the parts of the streets where it's necessary.

 

 

 

(Notice the new traffic signals in operation.)

 

That explains my biggest question for that segment. Even with repeated grinding of the asphalt, it was still far too high to match the streetcar grade. I am assuming they will install a small asphalt overlay as there is still about 1" or so left to go on that final surface.

Also I'd bet that 12th & Vine will be resurfaced.  Right now a lot of people are damaging their front suspensions on the sudden dip to the tracks. 

The spot at 12th and Vine is bad. I've watched people going quite slow bottom out. Thankfully much of the asphalt has been scraped away by the earliest victims and it's a bit more gradual than it first was but it's still laughably bad.

So--

 

I have a tragic and sad revision to my Streetcar timeline.

 

Unfortunately, the Streetcar will stop all downtown track work around Nov 1 and begin again after the new year.  It's part of some annual effort to reduce road construction downtown during the holidays, which seems to date back to some time when downtown was packed during the winters (the way Kenwood is a madhouse in December).  Things have changed though, and downtown isn't a department store mecca like it was 40 years ago.  Instead, the Summer is most certainly the busiest time of year (probably May-July) yet construction can go at full pace.

 

So, with that- here is the updated construction Schedule:

 

Streetcar track will be completed to the intersection of  6th Street by the first week of November.

 

Elm St from Henry to Elder will be completed by the end of October.  Also, Race, between 12th and Green will be repaved this month.

 

Walnut from 6th to 3rd will occur in January 2015 and is expected to be finished by the end of February 2015 pending weather.  Main Street will likely begin in late Jan 2015.  Originally, construction was going to travel North ending at 12th, but apparently now that will depend on utility work and could go either way. 

^ Is this an ordinance? How did they get away with doing utility relocation work last year if this is something that is done annually?

^ Is this an ordinance? How did they get away with doing utility relocation work last year if this is something that is done annually?

 

Ya, it's not quite clear.  Utility work will definitely continue in some spots. John Deatrick in a streetcar presentation for the transportation committee said it's part of the "seasonal stoppage of major construction projects in downtown".  OTR related work, like the green to Elder lane change will likely continue, but the CBD seems to have "major projects" halted to help holiday shoppers.

 

It's strange and seems outdated and ridiculous.  We've had summer weekends with WAY more people than come down in December but construction doesn't stop.

Wait, then how is the most recent schedule in the Bizjournals update stating that track will be installed over Fort Washington Way in mid November?

 

Where did this information come from about stopping after November 1?

They seem to be way ahead of schedule so I wouldn't worry too much about the winter slowdown. As OCtoCincy mentioned, the only concern is Main Street, where streetcar construction crews are waiting for utility work to be completed before they can begin.

 

One more photo... Crossing Fort Washington Way on the Main Street bridge:

 

 

 

That explains my biggest question for that segment. Even with repeated grinding of the asphalt, it was still far too high to match the streetcar grade. I am assuming they will install a small asphalt overlay as there is still about 1" or so left to go on that final surface.

 

In several places, including 12th & Vine, the have put down a protective barrier over the tracks and put asphalt over that. So they will clearly be coming back and lowering the grade at some point

Hello all,

 

I consolidated my Uptown Five streetcar routing thoughts into a presentation on Dropbox: 

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70250228/The%20Uptown%20Five%2009302014.pdf

 

There's a few more directions I want to explore with this concept:

 

1.  I'd like to incorporate a job heat map and other maps that show the daytime population density of these areas.  Workers, students, hospital patients and visitors, etc.  I'll need help accessing this data though. 

2.  Dive deeper into the Plan Cincinnati to further look at streetcar potential impact on each neighborhood cluster.  Incorporate the Plan Cincinnati map of where people live without access to a car.

3.  Spell out variations on the concept.  Look at an option to extend the Hospital route down Rockdale to Reading Rd.  Look at option to extend Clifton route by turning left onto Ludlow through the Gaslight District and pointing towards Northside.  Look at an "Uptown Four" variation by combining the Short Vine and Auburn Ave. routes. 

4.  I'm currently reading Jarrett Walker's Human Transit.  It's a great read.  (Aside:  On Twitter, Walker has reservations about mixed traffic streetcars because of concerns that reliability can be upset by obstacles on the tracks.)  There is a chapter about how connections can aid in frequency, reliability, simplicity, and usefulness to many destinations and I'd like to incorporate some of this in the presentation regarding the Uptown Transit Center.  There's also some stuff about the connection point itself that I'd like to cite.

 

A word about this file:

I don't want to confuse anyone with this pdf.  This is not an official plan from the city, transit agency or streetcar project in any way.  I am not affiliated with any of the aforementioned entities.  I am not a transit expert, urban planner or civil engineer.  I'm simply an interested layperson and these are my thoughts regarding the Uptown streetcar.

 

I'm guessing that when all the shooting's over, Cincinnati will bite the bullet and build light rail north of 12th on Main and Walnut connecting to UC near Jefferson and Corry via a tunnel through Mt. Auburn and continuing from there through the hospitals to the city limits at Xavier where it can branch to the I-75, I-71 and Wasson Corridors.

 

And then see which suburbs want to take it from there.

 

When all three extensions are built perhaps in 20-25 years --  you'd have a train between the riverfront and Xavier every three minutes at peak -- subway frequency -- and it will dramatically change how our city functions. Living in the city without a car will be convenient. And cheap.

 

Bottom line: I think the connection between the region's two largest employment centers needs to be served by something more than a streetcar.

I also wanted to pose a thought experiment.  What if Elon Musk and Tesla could design a battery powered electric shuttle/bus incorporating the following positive attributes of a streetcar:

 

1.  Smooth and quiet ride

2.  Off board fare collection at well-designed stops

3.  Low Floor with platform level side boarding that would have the same ease of use for wheelchairs and bikes as a streetcar. Perhaps an automated system could take over from the driver when approaching a stop to line things up properly.

4.  Environmental friendliness: perhaps batteries could be quickly swapped out of vehicles during the service day and charged at a solar powered charging station

5.  Smartphone technology integration

 

But would avoid the following negatives of a streetcar:

 

1.  Expensive construction cost of track and catenary

2.  Vulnerability to obstacles on the track

 

I don't think something exists quite like this yet.

 

My question is would something like this be an acceptable streetcar alternative? 

 

I know from during our December debate that tracks lead to development because of the permanence of the route. They signify a such a large investment by the city that city government would be nuts not to run transit there with high frequency (Cranley excluded.)  So developers know that there will continue to be transit there at midnight on a Tuesday in February, even though the service may not catch on at first, giving them time to plan and build projects.  My question is, if elaborate stops with fare machines were built out for a vehicle on a route as described above, and there was a commitment to run with frequency, would that be enough to spark development?  I suspect it would have some effect. 

 

The reason I pose the question is that the Uptown Five plan I presented in the previous post is quite ambitious, and our city may not have the resources to build out all the lines as described for decades.  However, my thinking is that a single Uptown streetcar route would have to be winding and circuitous to reach fewer destination with longer headways.  Thus I am posing the question of what if the Uptown Five were not streetcar routes at all? (The downtown streetcar would terminate at the Uptown Transit Center where it would be possible to connect to this shuttle system.)

 

Please understand I am not proposing a Hop on Trolley.  That would have been like getting a handheld electronic Yahtzee game for Christmas as opposed to the Super Nintendo you wanted all year long (which would be the streetcar in this analogy.)  I am thinking something a little more like a Sega Dreamcast.

 

I think the main advantages of the rails are that they improve ride quality, energy efficiency, and reduce ongoing maintenance.  If you ride a modern high speed passenger train like the TGV in France, the trains glide over the rails like the puck on an air hockey table.  If you have ridden the TGV from Paris to Lyon, you have experienced feeling a train coast up a mountain.  No rubber-tired vehicle can operate as efficiently, at the high speeds of a bullet train or at the slow speeds of a city bus or streetcar.  This super-smooth ride means there is very little wear & tear on the streetcars themselves as compared to buses. 

^Those are some advantages a streetcar would still have.  Definitely lasting longer and easily providing a smooth ride although I was thinking perhaps technology could help with the latter.  Also I agree that providing power through the caternary would probably be more energy efficient than charging onboard batteries and also there's more friction between rubber and road.

One thing I don't like about Jarrett Walker's ideas, at least what I am familiar with, is he seems to assume every city can accommodate a grid. Which is obviously not true for Cincinnati. Rather than a grid format (which is impossible), I believe Cincinnati should focus on nodal transit, stringing together NBDs. Which is one of the reasons I think having an Uptown node at University Plaza (and a high-frequency trunk from Short Vine to Downtown) is a good idea. The hub-and-spoke system is a proven bad idea, but having some strong north-south and strong east-west trunks which hit nodes where transfers between many lines are easy is a Cincy-sensitive way of implementing the benefits of the grid.

 

I also think we should aim to keep our streetcar plans as lightrail-like as possible, and make them retrofitable to be faster, with greater capacity, and with dedicated ROW.

 

Edit: Another thing I don't like about Jarrett Walker's ideas is that he doesn't display much understanding of the political landscape of most American cities. We wanted to pass Metro Moves, right? Which is something he probably would have approved of. But we couldn't. So we started implementing a piece of it, the streetcar, hoping it could eventually all get done. But he doesn't like that -- even though it might be the best way to get to what he does like (popular support for more frequency and coverage).

I agree.  Spokes and hub no. Nodes yes.

I'd say the Uptown Five has some elements that are grid like and also some hub and spoke (radial connection) elements.  The quarter mile walksheds line up in a grid like fashion so that it is no more than a quarter mile walk to a streetcar line for much of Uptown.  However, there is no line going across the top of the map that would complete the grid.  It's true that all the lines come together radially into a hub and spoke single connection point.  However, the important thing to remember is, these are primarily neighborhood circulators.  Given the typical streetcar trip (I think 1 mile) a lot travel would be within the routes themselves, for example for the Gaslight District to Clifton Heights, or from Xavier to Walnut Hills.  This would especially be true if the development around the Uptown Transit Center turned into a real activity center.  But in regards to the hub and spoke configuration, the total distance and travel time of each Uptown Five line is not great. I think the hub and spoke has a bad reputation in Cincinnati because you have these huge, infrequent lines out to the suburbs and to travel from one suburb to another by transferring downtown can take 90 minutes or more.  In contrast you could get from one end of an Uptown Five Route to the end of another within 30 minutes. 

 

Chapters 12 and 13 of Walker's Human Transit really validated the Uptown Transit Center idea in my eyes.  In Chapter 12 he lays out a simple city with 3 residential areas and 3 activity centers to connect.  This immediately reminded me of the situation Uptown with the hospitals, UC, the Zoo, neighborhood centers etc.  Keeping the number of vehicles constant, using a connection could actually decrease the total trip time over using many direct routes because there is a higher frequency of vehicles going in your specific direction of travel via the connection point.  (Sorry if I'm not explaining this well, but there's a diagram in the book that will make some light bulbs turn on.)  Chapter 13 discusses the connection point, asking if it is a safe and pleasant place to wait and if the vehicles can access it free of obstacles and congestion.  That's why I think the connection point would be better off-road at University Plaza then it would be in the middle of the road (in the middle of Corry St. or Taft or something.)

 

I really hope we can at least partially utilize University Plaza for transit is some form and that we don’t blow this opportunity to think big regarding development there.  Could be a real plus for the owners as well as Kroger and Walgreens to take into account when considering renovation plans.