There are people who park on Van Meter and Wareham in Mt. Adams and walk downtown in order to get free parking. 

From Howard Wilkinson's end of year chat with the Mayor (http://wvxu.org/post/cranley-mid-point-his-term-has-ambitious-plans-2016):

 

As for a Phase 2 that would extend the streetcar to the Uptown area and connect it with the University of Cincinnati and the hospitals, Cranley said that’s not practical at this point.

 

“We can’t do a Phase 2 unless we know if Phase 1 is a success,’’ Cranley said. “I have no idea where the money would come from for a Phase 2. It’s certainly not going to come from our road-paving budget. I think that is a more important priority for most people than expanding the streetcar.”

 

The city plans to spend another $14 million this year to continue road improvements and replace worn-out vehicles in the city fleet.

 

He had a suggestion for those who want to expand the streetcar.

 

“You know, when I had some new ideas like the park tax, I put it on the ballot and asked the voters and abided by the decision,’’ said Cranley, referring to Issue 22, a permanent tax levy for the parks that was soundly defeated by the voters in November.

 

“I think the streetcar supporters, if they want to keep it going; they should ask for a tax and let the voters decide if that’s what they want,’’ Cranley said.

Well we certainly need a solid plan/engineering study before we can do that. Maybe Haile Foundation could fund a study of the city won't?

 

I think it would be smart to ask for a very specific amount if it ever goes to the ballot like Union Terminal did. For that we would have to be pretty far along in the process and know what we could get from the Feds etc. We're kind of stuck in a chicken and egg scenario. Or one of these:

 

Bill: Ted, while I agree that, in time, our band will be most triumphant, the truth is, Wyld Stallyns will never be a super-band until we get Eddie Van Halen on guitar.

Ted: Yes, Bill, but.... I do not believe we will get Eddie Van Halen before we have a triumphant video.

Bill: Ted, it's pointless to have a triumphant video before we have decent instruments.

Ted: Well, how can we have decent instruments if we don't really even know how to play?

Bill: That is why we need Eddie Van Halen!

Ted: And that is why we need a triumphant video!

Both: [think for a second] EXCELLENT! (guitar riff)

Whole bunch of NKY streetcar discussion on Facebook this weekend.  I made a map of the ucgrady[/member] route to go with the table from last week. I want to take a look at some other variations soon too.

 

We would need some studies to know for sure, but I think that a route that linked Covington and Newport directly would make a lot of sense. If you compare it to how Portland's streetcar operates, our original phase would be our "NS" route and the Newport-Covington-The Banks route would be our "A" and "B" loops. What you have above is more like the "CL" route before the opening of the new bridge.

Prepare for a barrage of negative streetcar comments. Portland Streetcar has temporarily shut down this morning due to icing on the wires. This happens there every few years, as the PNW is susceptible to ice storms. OTOH, the entire city government in Portland has shut down, and buses and cars are sliding all over the place. Sometimes during these events, the airport closes too.

We would need some studies to know for sure, but I think that a route that linked Covington and Newport directly would make a lot of sense. If you compare it to how Portland's streetcar operates, our original phase would be our "NS" route and the Newport-Covington-The Banks route would be our "A" and "B" loops. What you have above is more like the "CL" route before the opening of the new bridge.

 

That's a good comparison.  For anyone not familiar with the current state of Portland's system, here's the 2015 map (turned and flipped to make the topography and route resemble Cincinnati's more closely).  I like that your idea doesn't require a Newport<->Covington rider to snake through Cincinnati.  FYI, I'd advocate utilizing the 11th street bridge between Newport and Covington if this configuration were to be implemented, rather than the 4th street bridge.  Using 11th as the crossing ensures that you include the Monmouth and Madison business districts, and a lot of extra neighborhood as well.

Woah. I think Cincinnati is just a mirrored and rotated version of Portland. Even the aerial tram to Mt. Adams is in the right place.

Woah. I think Cincinnati is just a mirrored and rotated version of Portland. Even the aerial tram to Mt. Adams is in the right place.

 

I-5 (FWW) is on the wrong side of the river, but yeah, it's pretty close.  Wild.

I wonder how that scales up exactly.

 

Would be cool to see a side by side "Same scale different city" map, but with the Portland map flipped to the side like that and the systems drawn in.  Cincinnati seems to run more narrow in the core East to West wise (Hills on the East and rail yards to the West before the hills).  Portland looks like it is narrow to the West with hills and to the East with the river, with the hills locking in closer to the north than in Cincinnati.

Memo: Streetcar costs must be set by Feb. 1

 

The city has been given until Feb. 1 to set its final revenue projections for operating the Cincinnati streetcar – a deadline established by the regional transit authority in an effort to keep the system on schedule to open to the public this fall.

 

Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority CEO Dwight Ferrell told Mayor John Cranley in a letter Monday that the authority needs to know in a month whether the city plans to reduce the $4.2 million annual budget originally established to run the Downtown and Over-the-Rhine streetcar system.

 

If the budget is changed, Ferrell said, the authority would need additional time to seek the federal government's approval and renegotiate the contract with the private firm hired last summer to run and repair the streetcar. That most likely means Cranley and City Council can't afford to engage in another lengthy political battle over streetcar costs if the system is to remain on schedule to open to paying passengers on Sept. 15.

 

Cont

Operating hours have been set by the transportation committee.

 

Streetcar operating hours:

Sun 9A-11P

Mon-Thur 6:30A-12A

Fri 6:30A-1A

Sat 8A-1a

 

Streetcar frequency:

15 minute base (non-peak)

12 minute peak Mon-Fri 11A-7P

Almost a perfect starting schedule, IMO. We'll see how ridership figures turn out once the project has been operating for a while and further tweaks can be made.

I like the headways, but having 3 start times and 3 end times resulting in 4 different schedules is needlessly complicated.

I like the headways, but having 3 start times and 3 end times resulting in 4 different schedules is needlessly complicated.

 

Yeah, almost perfect.

 

I would probably prefer starting at 8am Sundays and ending at 11pm M-Th. But it's still a really good schedule.

I like the headways, but having 3 start times and 3 end times resulting in 4 different schedules is needlessly complicated.

 

I'm going to see if we can make both Saturday and Sunday 830am. Should be same cost/number of hours.

I like the headways, but having 3 start times and 3 end times resulting in 4 different schedules is needlessly complicated.

 

Yeah, almost perfect.

 

I would probably prefer starting at 8am Sundays and ending at 11pm M-Th. But it's still a really good schedule.

 

Definitely.  Considering that Cranley is in office, it could have been much worse.

Remember: there are passenger counters at every door. They will have reads on how many boardings they have at each stop whenever the streetcar is operating. Should be easy to adjust the schedule based on those data. I'll be shocked if there is every much ridership after Midnight, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

I'd imagine the hour between 6:30-7:30 am is going to be extremely slow as well. Very few people are up and about at that time.

 

Overall though I think it's a good starting schedule.

^I'd be interested to see those numbers, if they become public.  I'd bet that Rhinegeist's stop will do pretty well late night.

The interesting thing about the early morning or late night trips is that they're usually paired with another trip during more normal hours.  Think someone working an odd shift, or going bar hopping, or whatever.  If those fringe services aren't available then potential patrons might not use the system at all during the more normal hours because otherwise they'd be stranded.  That's maybe diluted a bit now with rideshare services, but it's illustrative of the ripple effect that can happen when service is limited. 

This is a question I also posed on Reddit, curious about professional opinions on this:

 

Why hasn't anyone suggested running a drunk run at 2:15 am? I don't think one extra streetcar run at that time would cost that much extra money. Regular service would end at 1am, and then a final run would take place then to help people get home from bars on Friday and Sat night.

 

 

Was thinking about how late night service worked on non 24 hour Chicago El trains, where the time table would say every 10-15 mins until... then it would show times for the last 3 train runs or so which weren't on as regular a schedule.

^ It's a question of staffing though.  Do you have a driver just sitting around for an hour and 15 minutes doing nothing?  The way these jobs work you can't just have them "do something else" in the meantime like cleaning or maintenance.  Plus the MOF would need to remain open with nothing going on too.  You could certainly argue for extended hours up to that time, but a one-off run has a lot of logistical issues. 

Btw, I'd make an argument to local brewers/bars to chip in towards allowing this final run ;)

^ It's a question of staffing though.  Do you have a driver just sitting around for an hour and 15 minutes doing nothing?  The way these jobs work you can't just have them "do something else" in the meantime like cleaning or maintenance.  Plus the MOF would need to remain open with nothing going on too.  You could certainly argue for extended hours up to that time, but a one-off run has a lot of logistical issues. 

 

If you were going to do that, the better way would be to have a single streetcar operating between 1 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. (rather than just having a driver sit around and then make a final sweep an hour later). So the frequency would be pretty bad during that time, but the only purpose would be getting people back to their homes or hotels after being out all night. It would be pretty cool if all of the breweries along the route stepped up and added funding for that.

^ It's a question of staffing though.  Do you have a driver just sitting around for an hour and 15 minutes doing nothing?  The way these jobs work you can't just have them "do something else" in the meantime like cleaning or maintenance.  Plus the MOF would need to remain open with nothing going on too.  You could certainly argue for extended hours up to that time, but a one-off run has a lot of logistical issues. 

 

If you were going to do that, the better way would be to have a single streetcar operating between 1 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. (rather than just having a driver sit around and then make a final sweep an hour later). So the frequency would be pretty bad during that time, but the only purpose would be getting people back to their homes or hotels after being out all night. It would be pretty cool if all of the breweries along the route stepped up and added funding for that.

 

Moerlein Lager House closes at 1am

Taft's closes at Midnight

Rock Bottom closes at Midnight

Rhinegheist closes at Midnight

Moerlein Tap Room closes at Midnight

 

Huh those closing times are very surprising (and makes me realize how little I am out past midnight...)

Being out past 1 is a rarity for most people. Vine Street is more or less dead by Midnight on a regular weekend, Race Street is sparse by 11 or so, and Main Street even has a noticeable drop in people after 12:30 or 1.

 

I think a lot of this is due to many places people like to go being food oriented instead of just bars. People start at dinner and by the time midnight rolls around 5 or 6 hours later it has been a long enough night. I know I'm generally walking back to my place by Midnight and it's pretty quiet with the exception of a handful of places.

Huh those closing times are very surprising (and makes me realize how little I am out past midnight...)

 

The crazy thing is that Rhinegeist closes at 7 on Sundays!  I found that out the hard way a few weeks ago when we met a bunch of friends who were back in town for Xmas.  We showed up at 6:30, thinking we'd stay until around 10, but ended up leaving after 1 round of beers.  They were doing great business, too, so we were all shocked when they did last call at 6:45.

Cincinnatians go to bed early because the town has a lot more 9-5 jobs than other Ohio cities.

Cincinnatians go to bed early because the town has a lot more 9-5 jobs than other Ohio cities.

 

Also the college bars are weak compared to the real party schools like OU. 

I've said this before on this thread, but I'm always amazed at how few people we've seen after 11:00p on the Portland Streetcar during our 35 trips there, and Portland has a 17 miles of streetcar and a much more developed food and bar scene. I just read somewhere that the bar scene in Portland was rated by someone to be the best in the nation.

I think a lot of that has to do with a lot of social scenes have moved to times earlier in the day. Much of the social scene in many cities revolves around food and drinking wine or craft beer rather than focusing on clubbing like many cities used to. Those activities make more sense earlier in the evening than losing your hearing at a club.

 

Hell, even in cities that have massive populations like NYC, in addition to its 4 am last call, you aren't seeing that many people out past 1. There are definitely still people, but there's a heavy decrease in people riding the subways, hailing cabs, etc. I've had many an empty train ride after staying out until 2-4 in NYC.

 

It just seems like "nightlife" has shifted more to "evening life" with more of a focus on things that happen around dinner time.

Operating hours have been set by the transportation committee.

 

Streetcar operating hours:

Sun 9A-11P

Mon-Thur 6:30A-12A

Fri 6:30A-1A

Sat 8A-1a

 

Streetcar frequency:

15 minute base (non-peak)

12 minute peak Mon-Fri 11A-7P

 

Cincinnati's planned streetcar schedule is better than Cleveland's RTA Rapid schedule in that, at least on the weekend, Cincy has the good sense to run service till 1a while RTA stubbornly shuts down at 12a.  Many rapid transit cities run much later on weekends.  The Washington, D.C. Metro runs to 3a on Friday and Saturdays, will Philly's SEPTA runs the Broad Street subway and Market-Frankfort el all night on weekend nights.

 

Whenever I bring this up, RTA declines to explain this policy.

Unless that changed in the last couple of years, DC's Metro most certainly did not run until 3am. They had some major bus routes that rain 24/7, but the subway typically stopped around midnight or 1am. Pretty frustrating for me when I was there.

 

EDIT: Wow, they did push their trains back to 3am. Pretty cool. Wish it was like that when I was there.

 

EDIT 2: Maybe I'm just thinking of the week day schedule? I could have sworn the Metro stopped around midnight. Maybe I just had a lot of experiences having to take the 24 hour bus on week days that I assumed it was weekends too. Weird. Either way, extended late night hours are appreciated by me.

Chicago's Blue and Red lines run 24/7, but everything else shuts down around midnight or 1. Real late at night on the Blue line gets lonely, I would always sit in the front car on the way home from studio late night, because the conductor was there and the rear cars looked like sleeping barracks (especially in the cold winters).

Cincinnatians go to bed early because the town has a lot more 9-5 jobs than other Ohio cities.

 

Also the college bars are weak compared to the real party schools like OU. 

 

Monocole confirms

Chicago's Blue and Red lines run 24/7, but everything else shuts down around midnight or 1. Real late at night on the Blue line gets lonely, I would always sit in the front car on the way home from studio late night, because the conductor was there and the rear cars looked like sleeping barracks (especially in the cold winters).

 

Actually the brown line runs until about 3am, the orange until about 1am, and the green until about 2am.  Plus what a lot of people don't know is that there is a skeletal system of overnight bus routes usually denoted by N##.  For instance Western, Ashland, Archer, and Chicago Ave buses run 24 hours - the routes may be altered (like the Ashland N9 runs from North/Clybourn Redline to 77th street instead of serving the north side).  Locals know these routes (and they have come in handy, I particularly liked the N9 because it was more convenient for me to get to where I lived at the time on the near northwest side than the daytime buses (that is if I was lucky to catch it as it only runs every 30 mins after midnight).

 

---

The crazy thing is that Rhinegeist closes at 7 on Sundays!  I found that out the hard way a few weeks ago when we met a bunch of friends who were back in town for Xmas.  We showed up at 6:30, thinking we'd stay until around 10, but ended up leaving after 1 round of beers.  They were doing great business, too, so we were all shocked when they did last call at 6:45.

 

No, the real crazy thing is that HALF OF OTR is closed on Sunday.  Its shocking and unacceptable in the 21st century for a city to have its hippest restaurant destination be pretty much shut down on Sundays.  Get with the 21st century Cincinnati!  Rhinegeist is fairly progressive with those hours... :/

 

Hell, even in cities that have massive populations like NYC, in addition to its 4 am last call, you aren't seeing that many people out past 1. There are definitely still people, but there's a heavy decrease in people riding the subways, hailing cabs, etc. I've had many an empty train ride after staying out until 2-4 in NYC.

 

Not really the case in Chicago - the red line after 2 am on a Friday/Saturday night in the summer is just as crazy now has it has been since I moved here.  It does slow down in the winter, but everything here slows down in the winter.  I'm wondering how much of NYC is just the fact that Manhattan has become overpriced for all but the wealthiest of 20 somethings and the overall age of people has gone up.  (that and the NYC subway gets super weird late at night where the 1 runs to the P and Q trains but then detours to the T trains and then  you have to take a shuttle, you get the idea...).

Haha, it does get weird. In more ways than just strange route changes. The people can get weird.

 

I remember accidentally falling asleep on my way to my friend's place in Bed-Stuy while taking the Q to Canal to transfer to the JZ but instead we completely didn't wake up and finally did at Coney Island. A bit away from where we wanted to be and at about 4:30 in the morning. We finally made it back to Canal and while waiting for the JZ for what seemed like an eternity a man with some sort of Asian noodles sat down directly next to us despite literally zero other people being in the station and proceeded to slurp every single noodle one at a time and compliment each one on how good it tasted. That half hour was the most uncomfortable I think I've ever been in my life.

Was "In the City" by Joe Walsh playing in the background?

I still remember riding the blue line late on a weeknight and hearing a developmentally disabled  guy sing Pink Floyd's the trial (specifically this line over and over again "Crazy, toys in the attic he's crazy") in response to a wannabe gangbanger who was cursing up a storm talking about how much of a bad guy he was and punching his handd along with other agressive posturing/gesturing.... fun ride.

 

I do support late night transit everywhere, but there is no doubt it can get weird.

Most important thing to learn while riding late night transit is to avert your attention from pretty much everyone and to keep your entire consciousness in your own space otherwise you might anger someone. I've seen multiple fights start just from someone accidentally looking up from the floor at the wrong time, followed by a, "what are you looking at, you got a problem?" then shouting begins.

I still remember riding the blue line late on a weeknight and hearing a developmentally disabled  guy sing Pink Floyd's the trial (specifically this line over and over again "Crazy, toys in the attic he's crazy") in response to a wannabe gangbanger who was cursing up a storm talking about how much of a bad guy he was and punching his handd along with other agressive posturing/gesturing.... fun ride.

 

 

That would have been the highlight of my week.

It was the highlight of my week  :-D .  It tops my crazy CTA stories (everyone has them too) ;)

Today for testing, two streetcars were linked together and driven around the loop. We will never actually run the streetcar in this manner, but it just goes to show that modern streetcars are fully capable light rail vehicles.

I didn't realize they had couplers.  Do they have to remove the front and rear "bumper" panels to get to them? 

I didn't realize they had couplers.  Do they have to remove the front and rear "bumper" panels to get to them? 

 

They just kinda 'flip up'

An example of how unobtrusive and unnoticeable the overhead wire is in most places:

 

I live in that picture and honestly rarely even notice the wire. I actually think the infrastructure for the catenary is actually somewhat attractive in a utilitarian sort of way. But for the most part it's just kind of invisible.It's so high up that it's out of your general field of view while just walking down the sidwalk.

For the most part, I agree... but that block on Race is the best case scenario: straight tracks, buried utilities, no parking meters, poles far apart from each other, trees. In places where the streetcar turns, the poles really break up the sidewalk in an unattractive way (especially corner of 12th and Elm).