Taste of Belgium bought the last available exterior advertisement. Kerry Toyota bought some interior advertisements.

Call me color blind, but they're orange... The steelers are yellow and black, bengals are orange, what's the big deal? If anything I crave a creamsicle every time I see the streetcar go by.

 

Yeah, it looks a shade or two lighter orange than the University of Texas burnt orange color.  That's a surprisingly underrated and underutilized color.

Call me color blind, but they're orange... The steelers are yellow and black, bengals are orange, what's the big deal? If anything I crave a creamsicle every time I see the streetcar go by.

 

Now THIS is Orange! :wink:

What person went, "you know what color we should use for Yellow? ORANGE!!! That'll look great and result in no questions being asked!"

At least they didn't call it purple!

"A shade of orange was selected to pay tribute to the 1951 Cincinnati Street Railway streetcar, which was colored dark orange and cream."

 

http://www.cincywhimsy.com/2013/10/cincinnati-streetcar-vehicle-reveal.html

I was in the color selection meeting, the vote was 15-2 in favor of the "orange" version, but Mayor Mallory was one of the two; that being said, I think the cars look great and the interiors are awesome.

 

 

I wonder how the old PCC colors would have looked- http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/1057-1057-cincinnati-oh/

Orange you glad they didn't call it purple!?

 

FTFY

ba dum cheeee

I wonder how the old PCC colors would have looked- http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/1057-1057-cincinnati-oh/

 

I do like the current color scheme, but I think I would have preferred a modern version of what you see in that link.

I wonder how the old PCC colors would have looked- http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/1057-1057-cincinnati-oh/

 

I do like the current color scheme, but I think I would have preferred a modern version of what you see in that link.

 

I argued unsuccessfully for that color scheme four years ago

Not a bad look

 

The orange doesn't really match the historic orange.  Aside from the color not matching, neither does the high-gloss finish.  And nobody remembers the old streetcar color anyway, and if they do, they might remember the yellow as much as the orange. 

one thing I like is that the yellorange shows exactly where the doors are

 

 

image 5hw4rtz

I wonder how the old PCC colors would have looked- http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/1057-1057-cincinnati-oh/

 

I do like the current color scheme, but I think I would have preferred a modern version of what you see in that link.

 

I argued unsuccessfully for that color scheme four years ago

 

Too bad.  Images of them side by side with the same color scheme would have made for some impactful marketing content for the launch of the new system.

I thought it was orange until I found out the official color was Daffodil or Daffodil Yellow, something like that. Then I started to see it as sort of yellow.

 

"Yellorange" is pretty accurate. Creamsicle as well.

 

I like it.

I was in the color selection meeting, the vote was 15-2 in favor of the "orange" version, but Mayor Mallory was one of the two; that being said, I think the cars look great and the interiors are awesome.

 

 

I wonder how the old PCC colors would have looked- http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/1057-1057-cincinnati-oh/

 

I always love when I see that car going up and down Market or along the Embarcadero. The color scheme is stunning.

I was in the color selection meeting, the vote was 15-2 in favor of the "orange" version, but Mayor Mallory was one of the two; that being said, I think the cars look great and the interiors are awesome.

 

 

I wonder how the old PCC colors would have looked- http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/1057-1057-cincinnati-oh/

 

I always love when I see that car going up and down Market or along the Embarcadero. The color scheme is stunning.

 

^ Actually a Philadelphia car painted in Cincinnati livery

SO sick of hearing "everything in Cincinnati has to be red." There's more to life than sports, people.

Yeah that's for sure. I can't figure out why some people need to view everything through the Reds/Bengals lens.

 

The bright and somewhat unusual color of our streetcars make me happy every time I see one.

 

It is not looking at it through a Reds Bengals lens. It is more about branding. When you think Sh*ttsburgh you automatically think black and yellow. Many of the bridges, buildings, busses and not to mention sports teams are branded in the same color.  This was an opportunity for Cincy to do something similar. So it is not about sports (although it does play into it a bit) but more about overall branding. While they look very nice, they do not scream Cincinnati.

Black and yellow were the family colors of William Pitt, so they have a reason for their consistent color scheme. It is used on everything from their city flag to all the sports teams and even in the infrastructure. I always liked that Lexington and the surrounding bluegrass areas painted their overpasses and bridges blue and that most things in Louisville are red. That said I'm not sure what color really screams 'Cincinnati'. When I see red, I think of Ohio State and Louisville before I think of Cincinnati, in fact the University of Cincinnati is moving to more of a black and white color scheme to separate their brand from the nearby red schools.

 

All that being said, I like the creamsicle. If we ever add a NKY Streetcar, it can be light blue (to match the Roebling Bridge), and an uptown line could be red etc.. think about this as just the first of many colors.

If there's ever a NKY streetcar, it should be green.

Pretty sure you're going to want a unified system using the same livery on both sides of the river -- if you want it to cross the river

Black and yellow were the family colors of William Pitt, so they have a reason for their consistent color scheme. It is used on everything from their city flag to all the sports teams and even in the infrastructure. I always liked that Lexington and the surrounding bluegrass areas painted their overpasses and bridges blue and that most things in Louisville are red. That said I'm not sure what color really screams 'Cincinnati'. When I see red, I think of Ohio State and Louisville before I think of Cincinnati, in fact the University of Cincinnati is moving to more of a black and white color scheme to separate their brand from the nearby red schools.

 

All that being said, I like the creamsicle. If we ever add a NKY Streetcar, it can be light blue (to match the Roebling Bridge), and an uptown line could be red etc.. think about this as just the first of many colors.

 

 

I like the orange too in real life but it does not photograph well.  The combination of today's digital cameras and today's phone and computer screens incorrectly portray the color as lower saturation and contrast than it is in real life and they get the texture of the streetcar body and the glass wrong.  I haven't done it but I'm certain that shooting color slide film of the new streetcars would get a significantly improved image. 

 

In Portland they have a dozen streetcars in a dozen different colors -- it's pretty obvious out there that the yellow and the lime green are the best colors.  The colors look good in real life and in print or on a screen.  The different colored streetcars mean that you can do a layout of photographs with different streetcars in different parts of the city and it will hold a viewer's interest.  When all of the streetcars are the same color, it looks like the same streetcar is in every photograph or video shot. 

 

 

Personally, I feel we missed out on a good branding opportunity for the city, even if it meant the opportunity to create a new, unique brand.  The paint scheme could have been different too.

I am not big on the yelloworange color.  As said, it doesn't photograph well, looks a bit... "pale", when the city colors are very vibrant.

 

I would have much preferred almost an all white streetcar.  To me, Red is the color of Cincinnati because of all the brick.  Even a red and dark gray color, or red and black, I think that would be a good Cincinnati color.  Or more so a solid red with white and grey tones and lines

If there's ever a NKY streetcar, it should be green.

 

Pretty sure you're going to want a unified system using the same livery on both sides of the river -- if you want it to cross the river

 

I'm pretty sure if would be a terrible idea to paint the actual streetcars different colors for different routes. You need to have the flexibility to share rolling stock between the different routes. Routes would be identified by the lettering on their signs, not by the color of the streetcars.

If there's ever a NKY streetcar, it should be green.

 

Pretty sure you're going to want a unified system using the same livery on both sides of the river -- if you want it to cross the river

 

I'm pretty sure if would be a terrible idea to paint the actual streetcars different colors for different routes. You need to have the flexibility to share rolling stock between the different routes. Routes would be identified by the lettering on their signs, not by the color of the streetcars.

 

Look at the Metro*Plus, every time they have to use a regular bus on that route, it's confusing

Many cities do the color scheme based on the various route, especially for subway systems.

 

Boston has its trains colored based on the line it is on. Same with Cleveland, etc.

Many cities do the color scheme based on the various route, especially for subway systems.

 

Boston has its trains colored based on the line it is on. Same with Cleveland, etc.

 

Except Orange Line trains can't physically operate on the Red Line, etc. 

 

 

Yeah, that's fine for legacy systems that have incompatible lines. But if we're building a brand new streetcar/light rail network from scratch and all of the track and stations will be compatible, why would we use different rolling stock for each route? It gives us so much more flexibility to have everything standardized. If one of the streetcars on the NKY route breaks down, we should be able to swap it out for the hot spare that we have waiting, not worry about whether it's a "green" streetcar or an "orange" streetcar... or risk confusing people when an orange streetcar rolls through NKY when they're expecting a green one.

Feel the color is fine, but as an alternate using the city flag colors would have been good, or even just having the logo from the flag on them somewhere. I love the design of the city flag.

Pretty sure you're going to want a unified system using the same livery on both sides of the river -- if you want it to cross the river

 

It's hard to imagine a unified system as long as the funding comes from separate sources. Metro and Tank have only limited cooperation after all these years.

Creation of a bistate agency, such as what exists in St. Louis/East St. Louis, requires an act of Congress. 

Local transit agencies already have permission to cross state lines. TANK enters Downtown Cincinnati to pick up and drop off passengers. An agreement already exists between SORTA and TANK that allows that. Extending the streetcar into NKY would use a similar arrangement... TANK (or the individual cities) could pay SORTA to operate streetcar service into NKY.

Local transit agencies already have permission to cross state lines. TANK enters Downtown Cincinnati to pick up and drop off passengers. An agreement already exists between SORTA and TANK that allows that. Extending the streetcar into NKY would use a similar arrangement... TANK (or the individual cities) could pay SORTA to operate streetcar service into NKY.

 

But taxing the whole region at the same rate (i.e. a sales tax or property tax) to support regional transit or other regional projects would probably require creation of a federal agency.  As I have speculated repeatedly elsewhere, I don't think that Cincinnati's blue bloods who control the big office towers are going to permit a high quality transit link between Cincinnati and Covington, be it a bridge or tunnel, since all of their actions for the past 25 years have indicated that they perceive Covington as a competitor.  Scuttling the Race/Madison bridge that was fully funded in the mid-90s, eliminating direct access from I-71 to the Suspension Bridge during the FWW rebuild, attempts to get the 5th St. exit eliminated in the Brent Spence project all indicate that there is an effort afoot to completely maroon the Covington riverfront from convenient highway access or transit service.

 

I personally completely disagree with that aim.  The effort to keep office towers from taking root in Kentucky is starving the huge Covington and Newport basin areas from better connectivity with Downtown Cincinnati and UC and the hospitals.  Most of Covington and Newport are in states of mild abandonment and all of that would cure itself with construction of rail trainsit connections that bring commuters into Cincinnati in a much faster and more direct fashion than TANK buses can currently.  A real rapid transit subway of the sort that exists in 200 other cities around the world would enable people to travel from Covington's MLK to Cincinnati's MLK in just 10-12 minutes. 

Rhinegeist will also sponsor ads on the Streetcar, putting the total over $300k:

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2016/06/28/sorta-streetcar-ad-sales-top-300000/86468176/

 

Does anybody remember what was the revenue goal for ads/sponsors? Just curious how many more sponsors are needed. I like that the advertisers are (with the exception of Toyota) all interesting, local businesses that will presumably put out nicely designed ads.

 

Here are the sponsors to date: Rhinegeist, Richter & Phillips Jewelers, Four Entertainment Group, Taste of Belgium and Kerry Toyota.

^To be fair to Kerry Toyota, that IS a local business.  It's not like Toyota itself is sponsoring the streetcar.  I'm actually pleasantly surprised to see a car dealership sponsoring the streetcar.

^To be fair to Kerry Toyota, that IS a local business.  It's not like Toyota itself is sponsoring the streetcar.

 

Yeah... I get that. But the ads will still show Toyota cars... which won't seem at all "local". In other words, their ads won't show off anything unique to Cincinnati. Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy that they are a sponsor!

 

I believe we already hit the first year goal before the Rhinegeist announcement was made.

taestell[/member] - that's great! Obviously, the more ad revenue it generates, the easier it will be to expand service. I wish one of the larger local companies (that have MUCH larger marketing budgets) would step up.

Why no JACK Casino advertisements I wonder?

taestell[/member] - that's great! Obviously, the more ad revenue it generates, the easier it will be to expand service. I wish one of the larger local companies (that have MUCH larger marketing budgets) would step up.

 

They have had some big fish on the line, but the idea of advertising on the streetcar was killed by top management. Too controversial, they say.

Too controversial until proven to be successful. Then they will be all over it.

Too controversial until proven to be successful. Then they will be all over it.

 

Yep

^To be fair to Kerry Toyota, that IS a local business.  It's not like Toyota itself is sponsoring the streetcar.

 

Yeah... I get that. But the ads will still show Toyota cars... which won't seem at all "local". In other words, their ads won't show off anything unique to Cincinnati. Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy that they are a sponsor!

 

...designed and built in KY!  (at least currently  :-D)  But yeah, I know what you're getting at.

Does anybody remember what was the revenue goal for ads/sponsors?

 

The most recent figures I can find are as follows and are for calendar years (so only a few months in 2016):

 

2016 Advertising: $40,731

2016 Streetcar Naming Rights: $49,729

2016 Station Naming Rights: $40,688

2016 Total: $131,148

 

2017 Advertising: $139,650

2017 Streetcar Naming Rights: $170,500

2017 Station Naming Rights: $139,500

2017 Total: $449,650

 

2018 Advertising: $139,650

2018 Streetcar Naming Rights: $170,500

2018 Station Naming Rights: $139,500

2018 Total: $449,650

 

Keep in mind that Advertising Vehicles keeps a percentage of the revenue (I think 30%) so when they say we're over $300,000 in advertising, we're actually at $200,000 net (I believe). Still far above the advertising projections.

^To be fair to Kerry Toyota, that IS a local business.  It's not like Toyota itself is sponsoring the streetcar.

 

Yeah... I get that. But the ads will still show Toyota cars... which won't seem at all "local". In other words, their ads won't show off anything unique to Cincinnati. Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy that they are a sponsor!

I think this is a PR move/sales push for Kerry. You have to remember they are losing almost two thousand customers with Toyota's move to Plano. They all had there lease cars serviced and maintained at Kerry.

 

I am also curious if Toyota sponsored FC because of the move of local jobs.

 

 

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Bad news: the chamber requested to halt the Streetcar service for Oktoberfest.

Good news: it's just a precaution as they hope to move the festival's location: http://www.wcpo.com/entertainment/local-a-e/will-oktoberfest-zinzinnati-relocate-to-accommodate-the-streetcar

There are already 50+ police officers working that event.  They just need the half dozen already hanging around those intersections to yell at people to get out of the way.  It's not as if the streetcars would be traveling at anything faster than a walking pace.

 

Back when they had the first Riverfest, around 1977 or thereabouts, the freight line through what is now Sawyer Point is now active and a train came through during the fireworks and then stopped.  Many people crawled under the train to get back to their cars. 

Received today at work:

 

Good afternoon.

 

Please see the below information regarding streetcar traffic safety from Captain Mike Neville, Cincinnati Police Department.

 

 

Attention Downtown Stakeholders:

 

The streetcar has been tested Downtown the past few weeks in preparation for fare operations to begin in early September.  During the testing phase, the streetcar operators have encountered numerous vehicle operators failing to yield in front of the streetcar as the streetcar begins to move from their stops.  While this is illegal, an added concern is the streetcar does not function like other vehicles; their stopping time is much longer than most drivers are used to.  Please let this message serve as a warning for your safety, to prevent citations being issued, from accidents occurring, and from someone getting hurt.  When changing lanes please yield to a moving streetcar as law dictates.   

 

As the streetcar operation approaches, more public service awareness messages will be publicized.  Thank you for your cooperation.

 

Captain Michael U. Neville

Cincinnati Police Department

[email protected]