OC17, I honestly don't think you know much about the history of this project. You do understand that an anti-streetcar mayor took over right after construction began, attempted to cancel it, and then failed to do so, right? And you know he is constantly overheard in public badmouthing the project, right? And you know that he's refusing to make simple, inexpensive changes that cities like Detroit and Kansas City made very quickly after their streetcar systems opened, in order to make the streetcars faster and more reliable? There has been nothing but sabotage from our current elected leaders.

[/member] all those above who have been posting about using Dayton trolleys as de-icing vehicles; glad to help out!  Two copies in our electric fleet have full diesel power as well as electric.  That’s what we loaned you, one of them. The de-ice tool at the end of the pole can degrade the wire, so use sparingly. The 2 diesel electric dual modes did not quite live up to expectations in testing; I’ve seen reliable reports they may be retrofitted to be all electrics. GDRTA has said future purchases of rolling stock for the electric system will be all-electric with high capacity batteries such as LTO.  We are also gradually upgrading the infrastructure. More info at daytontrolleys.net if you’re interested.  We also have a Facebook page.

Why hasn’t Cincinnati released its ridership numbers for ‘the connector’ yet? Still noticeably absent from the list cited here.

 

What are you even talking about? The ridership numbers are released every month. The media frequently reports on the ridership numbers.

 

There’s nothing readily available as to ihe connector daily avg ridership 1 year+ since opening.  Wonder if CIN bikeshare is easier to use?

When did KC voters pass a tax specifically funding the KC streetcar extension?

 

You must be getting your news from your personal rail obsessed agenda as you spread more false news than CNN. The taxing district approval doesnt count btw.

 

Shifting the goalposts, as usual.

 

I re-looked it up.  The failed expansion ballot issue was in 2014, before the initial segment opened.  That ballot issue was for several light rail lines, not just an extension of the now-functioning streetcar line.  Since then the streetcar authority has ordered 2 more streetcars and approved a short northward extension that will not require a tax increase.  The plan to extend the line south to The Plaza and UMKC is a separate and much more expensive (7-10x) effort. 

 

You can read about it here, then shift the goalposts once more:

http://kcstreetcar.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/FAQ_MainStreetExtension_071816.pdf

 

 

 

 

When did KC voters pass a tax specifically funding the KC streetcar extension?

 

You must be getting your news from your personal ‘rail obsessed’ agenda as you spread more false news than CNN. The taxing district approval doesn’t count btw.

 

Shifting the goalposts, as usual.

 

I re-looked it up.  The failed expansion ballot issue was in 2014, before the initial segment opened.  That ballot issue was for several light rail lines, not just an extension of the now-functioning streetcar line.  Since then the streetcar authority has ordered 2 more streetcars and approved a short northward extension that will not require a tax increase.  The plan to extend the line south to The Plaza and UMKC is a separate and much more expensive (7-10x) effort. 

 

You can read about it here, then shift the goalposts once more:

http://kcstreetcar.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/FAQ_MainStreetExtension_071816.pdf

 

 

No need to shift the goalposts again since I never did as my post related to voters turning down an extension of the streetcar...which they did.  Shifting the goalposts is your specialty since you go with the streetcar authority approving a short extension with a larger extension not happening without tax $$.

 

Thanks for “re-looking it up” though.

OC17, I honestly don't think you know much about the history of this project. You do understand that an anti-streetcar mayor took over right after construction began, attempted to cancel it, and then failed to do so, right? And you know he is constantly overheard in public badmouthing the project, right? And you know that he's refusing to make simple, inexpensive changes that cities like Detroit and Kansas City made very quickly after their streetcar systems opened, in order to make the streetcars faster and more reliable? There has been nothing but sabotage from our current elected leaders.

[/quot

OC17, I honestly don't think you know much about the history of this project.

 

Sure he does, from listening to WLW. That's where he adopted his language regarding the project as well.

OC17, I honestly don't think you know much about the history of this project. You do understand that an anti-streetcar mayor took over right after construction began, attempted to cancel it, and then failed to do so, right? And you know he is constantly overheard in public badmouthing the project, right? And you know that he's refusing to make simple, inexpensive changes that cities like Detroit and Kansas City made very quickly after their streetcar systems opened, in order to make the streetcars faster and more reliable? There has been nothing but sabotage from our current elected leaders.

 

Sounds like the planning of this thing sabotaged it as it should have been properly studied before building it then you wouldn’t have to worry about an anti streetcar mayor especially with the controversial history of this project.

 

No traffic study was done pre-construction? That’s streetcar 101.  Then after this thing has immediate problems with slowness there’s a calll for a traffic study, among other things? That’s ineptness 101.  A better route would have helped possibly.

 

Again there’s a reason ridership spikes on warm weather weekends; it’s called demand.

OC17, I honestly don't think you know much about the history of this project.

 

Sure he does, from listening to WLW. That's where he adopted his language regarding the project as well.

 

Nope. Just relying on the fact that CIN is now the poster-city of how not to build and operate a streetcar. The connector has better ridership on warm weather weekends; dismal ridership otherwise.  The history of this project or listening to WLW has nothing to do with this fact.

 

Mechanical and operational issues from the get-go due to ineptness only exacerbate the mess.

^ OK he's now repeated his only three points at least three times each. I'm quitting.

^ OK he's now repeated his only three points at least three times each. I'm quitting.

 

OK, that’s fine, quit, but my repeated responses relate to the fact that no one, including you, has stated that the streetcar-connector ridership qproblems are related to anything else but its controversial history and politics.  If its ridership met or exceeded projections, its history and politics wouldn’t be mentioned but then again, something or someone has to be blamed. Be thankful that at least people ride this thing on summer weekends.

are related to anything else but its controversial history and politics.  If its ridership met or exceeded projections, its history and politics wouldn’t be mentioned but then again, something or someone has to be blamed.

 

If Roxanne Qualls had defeated John Cranley in 2013, not only would the streetcar have much more ridership, many other things would have changed around town for the better.  There would have been no "pause" in Dec 2013 which cost the city $1 million.  The audit discovered zero improprieties. 

 

1. Revised zoning would have been enacted in OTR, enabling developers to build more units on available lots and with less parking.

2. Qualls would not have wasted the last TIGER grant applications on pet projects for donors like the needless Castellini Viaduct or the Wasson bike trail, which fell outside the scope of what those grants pay for.  So Cranley intentionally wasted two chances for federal money that could have expanded our streetcar system. 

3. Qualls would not have starved streetcar operations.  The system would be well funded with more streetcars operating at all hours, shortening headways. 

 

 

Believe it or not OC17, about two dozen people who post on this thread have followed the project very closely for 10+ years.  We know what we're talking about.  You don't. 

 

^ OK he's now repeated his only three points at least three times each. I'm quitting.

 

OK, that’s fine, quit, but my repeated responses relate to the fact that no one, including you, has stated that the streetcar-connector ridership qproblems are related to anything else but its controversial history and politics.  If its ridership met or exceeded projections, its history and politics wouldn’t be mentioned but then again, something or someone has to be blamed. Be thankful that at least people ride this thing on summer weekends.

 

OC17,

 

Maybe it wasn't completely clear but what everyone is talking about isn't more or less speculation or conspiracy in regards to the numbers.  It can go long in the explanation for you to completely understand the issues which is the problem with a lot of suburban and uniformed people and certain media (Cincinnati Enquirer or WLW, etc.) which is there for clickbait and to prey on the uninformed.

 

That said, there are multiple things over the past 4 years which have been done by the current administration in regards to follow through on the project, and I'll just name a few to start off:

 

1.) The previous administration before the current was going to use excess funds from City Casino Revenue which was earmarked for operations in addition to fare box funds.  The current administration (Cranley) axed this and said "There is no money to fund this on-going expense". Level headed council members then brokered a deal with a local philanthropic non-profit to fund any cost over runs on the expenses.  They then increased parking meter rates along the areas where the streetcar ran, imposed a fare (not unusual there) and then created a program which is basically Value Capture Tax for new developments along the line which otherwise would receive tax abatements for the value of new construction / rehabbed save for Public Schools (so basically 75% of new value would be abated for a certain amount of time on the new value).  But now, I believe the abatements are 60% total with 15% of new value going to the streetcar operations fund and 25% going to the public school district.

 

So in this sense, it is breaking even currently and will most likely have a surplus in the near future.  You can imagine how much work this took and negative press but nonetheless this is what happened

 

2.) The previous administration had in place a traffic study which was axed and not followed through with the current administration and still hasn't pushed through (I don't know the current status) but it should have been ready to go 3 years ago but it's caught up somewhere on Plum Street.  This is very important because it would give green light status and let the traffic flow better along the line which would speed up service during business hours.

 

3.) Real time arrival has failed to work and there is no consistent app that actually works for people to know exactly when the streetcar is arriving at a stop.  The administration has failed to fix this easy fix as I believe the words were in essence at some point by the administration "We won't throw another penny on this project". 

 

Points 2 and 3, as you can imagine, have a huge detrimental effect on the business week as you can imagine, as workers can't rely on the streetcar showing up when it says it should and since there is no app and the real time arrival doesn't work correctly, workers can't use it as reliable transportation when they are on a tight schedule.  Fixing points 2 and 3 would significantly increase the reliability of the streetcar and then people could use it during their business hours to go to lunch, go to meetings, go run errands.  Right now, it can't even be considered to do this.

 

Lastly:

 

4.) Form Based Codes were discussed as well as reduced parking requirements in downtown and Over The Rhine because having reliable transportation would reduce the # of parking spots needed.  From based codes and the reduced parking requirements in these areas were axed by the administration because, verbatim quote by our administration (Cranley) "Form based codes are scary".  So basically one of the big benefits of the streetcar if it ran reliably would be reducing apartment and housing costs as we all know parking and structured parking is very expensive in the core to build (and anywhere).  This reduces the amount of investment and as we see now a lot of developments are getting caught with this issue because of the requirements of the zoning code which were in the process of changing to form based code and reduced parking requirements before the new administration axed them.

 

Now, you can say all this is simply a conspiracy that the current administration wants to the streetcar to fail so that they look good, but if anyone had one iota of business sense, this is a complete sabotage and anyone that could "roll up their sleeves" could figure this problem out and a way to fund it to make it reliable enough for business workers to use this during the work week.  In fact, most people would be fired from their jobs if they couldn't figure something out this simple. The fact is that the administration has failed to do any of this because they wanted to cancel the project in the first place and they rely on it looking bad so they can further their careers and say "I told you so".  Also, the administration is currently trying to fill the transit board with anti-streetcar people and stack the deck even more against it and that isn't even an assumption it's a fact.

Cincinnati Police have closed several streets close to the Ohio River due to flooding. They have been posting on Twitter all day, there is a $2000 fine for driving around the barricades and on to flooded streets.

 

Meanwhile, there is still only a $50 fine for parking on streetcar tracks and delaying dozens or hundreds of transit riders.

I imagine the $2k fine is because you may be putting your and your potential rescuer's lives at risk.

Qualls would not have wasted the last TIGER grant applications on pet projects for donors like the needless Castellini Viaduct or the Wasson bike trail, which fell outside the scope of what those grants pay for.  So Cranley intentionally wasted two chances for federal money that could have expanded our streetcar system.

 

It should also be noted that our regional governmental organization, OKI, often gets federal CMAQ (congestion mitigation / air quality) money and spends it on questionable projects like upgrading traffic light controllers in the suburbs, instead of spending it on transit projects. You would think that improving transit would be the most obvious way to, you know, reduce congestion and improve air quality in the region. By making the streetcar more frequent and more reliable, they could dramatically increase the number of people who take the streetcar instead of Ubers from point-to-point in the downtown area, and also increase the amount of people living near the route and relying on driving less of the time. By making our Metro*Plus route into real BRT with signal priority and adding weekend service, you could increase the number of people using that instead of driving. But none of that is even on OKI's radar.

Qualls would not have wasted the last TIGER grant applications on pet projects for donors like the needless Castellini Viaduct or the Wasson bike trail, which fell outside the scope of what those grants pay for.  So Cranley intentionally wasted two chances for federal money that could have expanded our streetcar system.

 

It should also be noted that our regional governmental organization, OKI, often gets federal CMAQ (congestion mitigation / air quality) money and spends it on questionable projects like upgrading traffic light controllers in the suburbs, instead of spending it on transit projects. You would think that improving transit would be the most obvious way to, you know, reduce congestion and improve air quality in the region. By making the streetcar more frequent and more reliable, they could dramatically increase the number of people who take the streetcar instead of Ubers from point-to-point in the downtown area, and also increase the amount of people living near the route and relying on driving less of the time. By making our Metro*Plus route into real BRT with signal priority and adding weekend service, you could increase the number of people using that instead of driving. But none of that is even on OKI's radar.

 

 

It should be noted that the recently deceased Tom Luken spent much of his political career cheaply attacking OKI and even calling for its abolishment, not unlike how Republicans frequently call for the abolishment of the EPA.  OKI drew up a rapid transit plan in 1970...Luken, as Mayor, purposefully advocated the tiny transit tax Cincinnati still has which was incapable of funding the minimal local match necessary to get big rail dollars.  Atlanta did and they got MARTA build for almost free.  Same with Miami Metrorail and the Baltimore subway. 

 

It take a special kind of fool to be fooled -- for a lifetime -- into thinking that starving public investment in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy is the best way to go about things.  But Cincinnati's self-declared pragmatic population is a sucker for this sentiment.   

 

 

 

Well if you are all the only experts on this topic, knowing its contentious history and politics, what was Plan B in case the anti-streetcar political leadership (ie. the mayor) changed hands (ie. like it did)?

 

A new ridesharing pickup/dropoff location has been created on Elm Street just north of Henry. This should help reduce the number of Uber drivers stopping on the tracks in front of Rhinegeist.

A semi truck got stuck trying to back into the Aronoff Center's loading dock off of Main St. Blocked all vehicular traffic.

 

What does the Enquirer report?

 

Streetcar suspended: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/03/01/streetcar-service-temporarily-suspended/385778002/

That's not a news story. That should be a retweet.

That's not a news story.

 

Correct. It's the Enquirer.

That's not a news story.

 

Correct. It's the Enquirer.

 

In related news, I drove from Findlay Market south on Race St. this morning during rush hour all the way to 4th without hitting a red light.  So full signal priority for a single-occupancy vehicle, but the streetcar gets zero priority. 

 

 

Jason Willams, er "PX", gives Cranley a free pass in this clickbait hit piece.

 

Time for Cincinnati City Council's streetcar supporters to step up and 'fix it'

 

Good luck, Greg Landsman.

 

God bless the Cincinnati City Council newbie, but why is he left to shoulder the thankless – and probably impossible – job of fixing the streetcar? Landsman chairs the Major Projects and Smart Government Committee, which will begin to tackle the streetcar's myriad problems in Tuesday's meeting.

 

Instead, why aren't P.G. Sittenfeld, Chris Seelbach, Wendell Young and David Mann leading this effort? These Democrats voted for the project in December 2013 and were re-elected last year.

I didn't realize that the mayor was only the mayor over the projects that he supports. I thought he was supposed to be mayor of the whole city.

The Coasties are back on the warpath again, smelling blood in the water with the Cincinnati Streetcar troubles induced by Mayor Cranley and his sabotaging city administration. This time they've descended on the All Aboard Ohio twitter page....

 

Five years ago, COAST insisted the streetcar would be full of homeless thugs riding it around in circles all day. Now they're making fun of how "gentrified" OTR is. The stereotypes have changed but the ignorance is still the same.

 

Don't worry too much about what COAST is saying to their echo chamber of followers on social media.

Monthly Ridership reports here:

 

http://www.cincinnatibellconnector.com/about-the-streetcar/about/overview

It was just revealed at City Hall that the updated traffic light timing plan will not go into effect until this fall.

 

Detroit and Kansas City made traffic light changes to speed up their streetcars within 2 weeks of those systems opening. And both eventually agreed to add traffic signal priority.

 

Cincinnati's streetcar will be up and running for 2 full years before the city administration makes basic tweaks to the traffic lights to make the system run more efficiently.

 

Tell me again how our current city administration is not complicit in the poor ridership numbers...

Nashville mayor resigns over theft of $11,000 and abuse of security overtime amounting to $45,000. 

 

Cranley blew $1 million in December 2013 on an audit that uncovered zero improprieties. 

Does anyone know if the obvious and much needed improvements will be made by this council? I sure hope so. It's frustrating to see the streetcar back in the news again which leads to negative articles by Jason Williams and others. WLWT sent out a mobile alert that was "Streetcar to start losing money this summer" last night. All this does leads to negative talk around town, on reddit and don't even click on the new city-data thread. Point is, I hope all this will lead to actual improvements, hopefully the votes are there to override Cranley.

It was just revealed at City Hall that the updated traffic light timing plan will not go into effect until this fall.

 

Was there any discussion of what those changes would be? Increasing green light length on Main/Walnut and signal prioritization to Metro, or giving priority to highway on ramps at 5th and 6th... Do we even know if this will be positive for the Streetcar or positive for automobiles getting to the highway? Sorry if this sounds overly pessimistic.

^Everything I read actually said the results wouldn't be in until Fall, so they won't even start to make suggestions until the results are shown in the fall.

 

Somethign I thought of and wondering if anyone or we could alert any news outlet to check like City Beat:

 

Open Records Request on e-mails and communications with the firm which is being contracted to carry out the study

 

When was the RFQ sent, what was the timeline on the RFQ, why does the study take so long, what were the communications from the city to them on it?

 

Lastly: Why was there no discussion in regards to making certain the app works correctly and accurately, and also making certain the real time arrivals are working correctly and accurately? Why no discussion on that?  It seems City Hall is completely out of the loop and honestly the only good thing PG and the management group said was to simplify the leadership to one person.  The other stuff won't do squat really IMO.  The main thing in my mind is make it realiable and predictable for business workers.  It seems they are leaning towards abandoning that completely which IMO sets it up for complete failure, exactly what Cranley wants.

I saw a guy installing a traffic radar pole at the corner of Winchell and W. Liberty yesterday afternoon. I bet they expanded the scope to incorporate a quick traffic study of the West End for FC.

I saw a guy installing a traffic radar pole at the corner of Winchell and W. Liberty yesterday afternoon. I bet they expanded the scope to incorporate a quick traffic study of the West End for FC.

 

Good insight and all the more reason to FOIA.

I saw a guy installing a traffic radar pole at the corner of Winchell and W. Liberty yesterday afternoon. I bet they expanded the scope to incorporate a quick traffic study of the West End for FC.

 

Good insight and all the more reason to FOIA.

 

There is also a traffic count strip on Main Street near 13th right now, but I'm not sure if it's related to the streetcar traffic study. It may be related to the potential conversion of Main Street to two-way north of 12th.

It was just revealed at City Hall that the updated traffic light timing plan will not go into effect until this fall.

 

Was there any discussion of what those changes would be? Increasing green light length on Main/Walnut and signal prioritization to Metro, or giving priority to highway on ramps at 5th and 6th... Do we even know if this will be positive for the Streetcar or positive for automobiles getting to the highway? Sorry if this sounds overly pessimistic.

 

I believe that the new council will be more willing to actually fix problems than the previous council. Amy Murray was absolutely useless as Chair of the Transportation Committee. While she is a very reasonable person in private, and even spoke at one of the All Aboard Ohio meetings about her experiences taking Amtrak across America; when it came to her actions on council, she opposed every idea that would help the streetcar in any way. The streetcar now belongs to Greg Landsman's committee, and I believe he will take a more level-headed approach towards fixing streetcar problems.

There is some information on the signal timing study RFQ and contract on line at https://data.cincinnati-oh.gov/Fiscal-Sustainability-Strategic-Investment/Procurement-Opportunities-and-Contract-Awards/pid3-z56k/data

 

I've attached a filtered spreadsheet of the transportation and engineering awards that includes the "Central business district signal system evaluation" --- which I assume is the "traffic study" we've all been waiting for.

 

Also attached the original RFQ, as well as the contract that was awarded to Brandstetter Carroll on September 11, 2017.

 

Under "Task E Work Items" in the original RFQ, item 2 was "Investigate areas of potential signal prioritization for streetcar and other transit operations to improve reliability and travel times."

 

This task was modified in the contract to add "The parties acknowledge that a complete analysis of implementing streetcar priority throughout the entire network would require additional resources necessitating a change in contract scope and compensation. The consultant will track streetcar travel time data on two days during the AM and PM peak and utilize any other additional travel time data from the City of stakeholders should that data exist."

 

There remains item 3 (and weirdly, item 4 that is identical to 3) in Task E that states "Perform the calculation necessary to determine impacts of streetcar transit prioritization timing and include it in the submittal with the alpha-numeric intersection designation clearly labeled." Maybe someone who understands this better can explain the relationship between items 2 and 3, and what the possible impact of the lack of a "complete analysis" in item 2 would have.

 

I'd think that it would be very fair game for our community to request updates on this study, which is now nearing its 6 month point, perhaps making those requests at the council subcommittee meetings.

traffic_study.zip

"Under "Task E Work Items" in the original RFQ, item 2 was "Investigate areas of potential signal prioritization for streetcar and other transit operations to improve reliability and travel times."

 

This task was modified in the contract to add "The parties acknowledge that a complete analysis of implementing streetcar priority throughout the entire network would require additional resources necessitating a change in contract scope and compensation. The consultant will track streetcar travel time data on two days during the AM and PM peak and utilize any other additional travel time data from the City of stakeholders should that data exist."

 

There remains item 3 (and weirdly, item 4 that is identical to 3) in Task E that states "Perform the calculation necessary to determine impacts of streetcar transit prioritization timing and include it in the submittal with the alpha-numeric intersection designation clearly labeled." Maybe someone who understands this better can explain the relationship between items 2 and 3, and what the possible impact of the lack of a "complete analysis" in item 2 would have."

 

I think it's saying the whole route isn't being looked at, simply the spots where they itemized earlier in the document, so they are saying "What can you do in these spots that we have asked you to look at for everything including the streetcar", but they haven't looked at the whole route of the streetcar for signal prioritization.

 

I would have to look back here to see what exact spots they were going to look at, but just there shows that they aren't even looking at the whole system of the streetcar for signal optimization.

 

^ Does the traffic study only consider the CBD / south of Central Parkway? If that's the case, the bit about "implementing streetcar priority throughout the entire network" might be talking about the OTR portions of the route. But the streetcar doesn't really need signal priority in OTR anyway. It would be nice if the lights on 12th Street could be tweaked so that the streetcar doesn't get caught at 12th & Walnut, and 12th & Elm, but traffic flows pretty well on Elm and Race.

^ No. I recall reading language that specifically mentions the Banks, downtown/business district, and over-the-rhine.

^So maybe then the language refers to specific ideas for just specifically the streetcar while this contract is looking to improve flow for cars, pedestrians and transit together?  I have no idea

I saw a guy installing a traffic radar pole at the corner of Winchell and W. Liberty yesterday afternoon. I bet they expanded the scope to incorporate a quick traffic study of the West End for FC.

 

Good insight and all the more reason to FOIA.

 

There is also a traffic count strip on Main Street near 13th right now, but I'm not sure if it's related to the streetcar traffic study. It may be related to the potential conversion of Main Street to two-way north of 12th.

 

Several traffic counters were placed on Central Parkway, both north and south of Liberty, over the last few days.

^So maybe then the language refers to specific ideas for just specifically the streetcar while this contract is looking to improve flow for cars, pedestrians and transit together?  I have no idea

 

I was previously told that several options will be presented to council. One option would be simply re-timing the lights to improve the flow of traffic; under this plan, Main and Walnut would likely get longer green lights to move more buses and streetcars per cycle. That's basically the minimum we should be doing, and is what other cities did within 2 weeks of their systems opening. Another option would be to actually give the streetcar and certain bus routes signal priority, where the normal traffic light cycle would be interrupted in order to give the transit vehicle a green light as soon as it's safe to do so. The previous council passed a motion supporting signal priority for Metro Plus and the streetcar; hopefully the new council would support this option as well.

 

Also, my understanding is that most traffic lights downtown do not give adequate time for pedestrians to cross before they start the blinking "don't walk" signal, per current federal regulations. So expect those to be lengthened as part of these changes.

Allow me to suggest reversing the direction of the 1-way block of Findlay between Vine and Race and to make Elder 2-way between those same north/south streets.  That would eliminate the risk of cars cuing back into the 5-points intersection, which I suspect is the reason why Findlay St. is given ridiculous signal priority at present over Race and Vine.  Back when they made Vine 2-way around 2002 they did nothing to change the 1-way configurations around Findlay Market. 

 

Right now when you wait for the streetcar at the Race St. stop you can hear it sounding its happy chime coming up Elm St. and so you straighten up thinking it's going to come around the bend in 30 seconds.  Instead it's 4-5 minutes if the thing ends up having to stop at Findlay St. twice.  There is some corollary between this end of the line and The Banks, but at the south end of the line I think we can all concede that the streetcar does have to give an inch given the importance of Second and Third streets. 

^A picture is worth a million words!

A clumsy and useless conversation regarding the streetcar on WVXU this afternoon -- it's painfully obvious that pretty much zero local media figures understand what Cranley is doing.  Sharon Coolidge was on there talking about how Kansas City doesn't have the problems Cincinnati has but refused to point the finger right at the man responsible -- John Cranley. 

It is infuriating how the mainstream narrative has become "the streetcar is having problems" when the only real problem it faces is extreme mismanagement from City Hall.

It is infuriating, and it's also true that media doesn't know who really to blame. However what's happening now is actually much less infuriating than it has been to watch the streetcar go over the metaphorical cliff in slow motion over the past year and a half, when nobody seemed to give a sh*t.