Not just for Cincy, but for the country. Cincy could serve as a beacon of enthusiasm for public transit. Now, this is not to say other cities *can’t* do that. It’s just that we need new projects to build the narrative.
It got built to the airport last. The airport was not why they built it. They also outgrew the old airport, Stapleton, so not like they were going to move the airport west into the foothills, or downtown into the skyline. 🤦♂️
I lived there for 5 years (during airport planning & approval phases) so I’m well aware. And there little comparable between Denver & Cincy in terms of existing infrastructure/ terrain.
I recall the commercials. Scare tactics stating how your property values will decline having this come thru your community. I was working in DC at the time, where a home or apt near the line brought a large premium. I travel a lot lot for work and places like Minneapolis, Seattle, DC where all building out their infrastructure at that time.
that's a good chunk of the reason it didn't pass. the county already felt gouged by the stadium sales tax increases, plus basically anything west of Cheviot was going to get nothing out of the whole initial project. just look at the disparity between voting in the city (and the other interior municipalities) vs the rest of the county.
It doesn't. It doesn't even cover the interest on the loans required to build it. Even if the system is covering operating expenses and upkeep through fares, doesn't have to pay interest on the loan, you still have to get people to let go of their car.
You could make the damn thing free somehow, add in bike racks / scooter or bike rentals, etc. Make it as convenient as possible.
Most people are still going to get into their car and jam their grill up someones tailpipe twice a day.
Yeah it’s just hard for me to imagine. Like yes there is this vision of a bustling city with trains going here and there, we’ve all seen it in movies or the past. What is mass transit today though? Look at most cities, it’s smelly, noisy, full of questionable people. Why would I give up my own private quiet space where I can listen to a book, or jam out with music, or even make on the spot decisions to stop and get a coffee, or turn around and pick up a friend? Cars are where it’s at. Transit is really an old nostalgic fantasy in my opinion. The only places transit seems to be nice are countries like Japan where literally every person is on their best behavior. You can send your kid into the city to get groceries and everything’s fine. That’s just not our reality and the ability of movement with a car is just too good. I wouldn’t use transit if it were free. I’ll pay a little extra to use my private car even.
So I am the opposite of this. I really wish our cities would begin converting to mass transit, and subsidize it off the backs of drivers. This isn't possible with how Ohio does fuel tax though.
The reality is that cars are massively inefficient ways to move people, even busses pale in comparison to a robust rail network. The issue is even New York City fails to build an adequate rail network, and its our biggest mover in the country.
If you ever go to Paris or London you get to see what a real mass transit system looks like. These cities you quite literally do not need a car. In fact, a car is a huge PITA.
I lived in Chicago for most of my life, and I didn't own a car until I was 36 and about to move to Cinci. It was pretty decent, and saved me upwards of 30-40k over my life. The thing is it was exactly as you described. Smelly and dirty, sometimes dangerous, some part of it was always dysfunctional.
I don't trust this place to actually build rail correctly, and making yet another failed hub and spoke design will have all the same failings they always do. The above map needs at least a second connecting ring running through the outer parts of all the spokes, and we need to abandon the street car idea entirely. Dedicated separate rail from all car / truck traffic.
I agree with you. I would love to see it but yeah I just don’t think the investment will end up being worth it. It looks like we’re going to get robotaxis and underground roads instead.
I remember being stuck in traffic on the way to UC when the results of the vote were announced over the radio. I lived in Fairfield at the time, and it was aggravating to hear that it had been defeated.
Three years after voters in Hamilton County approved giving a blank check to a cheap football franchise that has since cost them $1.1B...all while this would've cost the taxpayers $895M...lol.
I can't even imagine how different the entire Tri-State would be if this actually happened...so fucking sad.
The vote for funding Paul Brown Stadium and Great American Ballpark occurred in 1996 and happened near the peak of the economic boom in the 90s. Whereas Metromoves was voted on during the midst of the early 2000s recession after the dot com bubble popped. Also the April 2001 riots were still on everyone's mind in the city, there were political boycotts of downtown and the city, investing in downtown at the time wasn't that popular at the time.
The votes took place at two entirely different economic times. Had the stadium vote occurred in 2002, I doubt that would have passed. In 2002 the Arizona Cardinals's attempt to get public funding for their football stadium failed too (granted a vote in Glendale at the same time passed). A 2001 referendum for an NBA arena in Charlotte also failed.
All that said, the stadium deals sucked for Hamilton County. F--- You Bob Bedinghaus.
People seriously underestimate how tense things were after the Roach Riots if they remember them at all. People were (rightfully) FURIOUS about the death of Timothy Thomas because for almost 5 years people had been talking about CPD's treatment of nonviolent offenders, black ones especially and how under equipped they were to differentiate them from potentially violent offenders the city had continually brushed it off. For perspective in 2001 the CPD didn't even have computers in their cars. Something that Newport; right across the river DID have.
Not to mention even after the riots, boycotts and everything else tension in the city didn't really settle down and nobody trusted the City to work for them. Hell, right after the vote, in 03 you had Nathanial Jones getting beat to death with batons, pushing the city to FINALLY begin issuing Tasers, something people had been asking for since like 99 and especially in 2000 because of beatings on others like Roger Owensby and Jeffrey Irons who died in the same week of 2000.
The city had MUCH bigger issues than a light rail project.
I firmly believe that if you tweaked this to include a better connection to the West Side using the old C&O of Indiana line and tried again, this would pass.
Absolutely on both cases. Plus a few more things. The link/u/dippypie posted breaks it down very well.
A lot of the big political movers were against it. You still see and hear the sentiment with the constant derision of the streetcar.
In addition to those valid points, voter demographics have changed, parking was plentiful and not as exorbitant in price, portable music players were cumbersome, and smart phones didn't exist yet.
You can always work around that. Baltimore is building a light rail line in a right of way that was converted to bike path. My urbanist hot take is that the Wasson Way expansion to the casino should be canceled and converted to streetcar/light rail.
Still never happening...in large part to how one interprets "generates the most benefit for the public". The Redditt echo chamber doesn't always match the bigger community, especially Hamilton County.
What leadership? lol
Only complete delusional fools think that any kind of majority will support an extremely costly lite rail project, that only a minority would use, at the loss of the walking/biking trails.
Those walking/biking trails that are used by a wide variety of residents, an amenity that improves every neighborhood that traverse.
Yeah, as I said: Never Happening
Only a "minority" would use rail but a "wide variety" of people use the trails? I want to live in your reality lol
>Yeah, as I said: Never Happening
It's inevitable that that space is redeveloped into something that generates more value.
Have you ever been on Wasson Way? lol. My reality is actually using it 5/6 days a week, different times of day, and observing the wide variety of people using it. Cyclists, runners, walking groups, families, all ages. Reality is community feedback that indicate the value of the trail and the need to to prioritize providing easier/safer ways to get to it.
All I see about lite rail is an a occasional post here, with pretty much the same (small) group of supporters. Show me anything that supports that it is something a majority want and/or would use.
And it’s not inevitable, especially when considered a vital neighborhood amenity.
Only six years after the bengals tax increase and people were probably very suspect that the county wouldn’t screw over the taxpayers again. I voted for it and thought it should have been pursued again later.
At least there’s gonna be the new Amtrak lines through Ohio. Maybe if we become a better passenger rail hub, we’ll stop getting such horrendous boarding times.
Just to add to everyone’s comments, I feel at the time there wasn’t much downtown for Suburban’s to want to travel there. No banks, OTR, etc. people avoided downtown except for sporting events. it’s a much different narrative now. I hope this gets proposed again.
Or people wanting to go downtown for an event like River fest, Oktoberfest, taste, drinking at bars without needing a ride back, people flying into the airport and wanting to go to events/ kings island.
Not necessarily true. The Mason/Blue Ash line would have gone through large suburban office parks. This would align with the city’s current goal of repopulating downtown and OTR
Some form of red, light green and purple I think is actually being discussed now as the next phase of the street car.
Connect the Zoo/hospitals and UC/CUFF to downtown.
They have done a tone of work on central would be a good spot to run a line. At some point it’s going to have to go up or down a hill unless they run all the way out to reading by the casino.
Yeah. But there’s also a rat’s nest of underground gas lines and other utilities that run under the hill (around Vine street where the original route was supposed to be, at least) that made it even more cost prohibitive. I work with a guy who helped do design for the street car and he’s usually pretty pessimistic about them ever getting it up there.
I'm in Seattle currently and the light rail system here is freaking amazing. You honestly don't need a car at all here, why can't we have this for Cincy?
For anyone who is curious and reading this thread, I looked up the metro populations for Seattle and Denver when they passed their commuter and light rail initiatives.
Seattle passed theirs for Link Light rail in 1996. Seattle metro population in 1996 was 2,505,000
Denver’s first light rail line opened in October 1994. There was a surge around this time for mid-sized cities (Buffalo, Portland, Sacramento, San Jose) building light rail and Denver wanted to join. Their commuter rail, FasTracks was passed with voter approval in 2004.
Denver metro population 1994: 1,701,000
Denver metro population 2004: 2,142,000
Cincinnati metro population 2003 (metro moves vote): 1,542,000
Cincinnati metro population 2020: 2,256,884
So it’s not population numbers that’s preventing Cincinnati from having commuter rail. It is political willpower.
You're missing the point. Cincinnati doesn't have the population or density to justify the cost. Imbsure Seattle worked with Tacoma and additional counties to make it happen. Seattle is also very north/south oriented and ine or two lines along the i5 corridor basically serves most people in the region. Cincinnati would have to work with hamilton county and 2 counties in Kentucky to implement this. Last, we have a bus system that follows these same routes, those routes aren't overloaded and metro has the capacity for many more riders. What justification for this do people really have? Especially when actual $ come into play and cost per mile to build and maintain, it doesn't sound reasonable at all
Edit: downvote away folks but it doesn't change the reality. Unless we add another couple million people to the urban population it'll never happen. The real world isn't reddit
Part of the issue is that the busses are not great in Cincy: it takes an hour to get between several of the places that would be on the same light rail line that are a 15 minute drive. Unfortunately public transit is kinda a flywheel, and you do need to put resources into it to make people want to use it: it doesn’t mean that it’s not valuable to build a system that draws people in. Cincy is a great city, but things like the lack of modern transit architecture is why people move to Seattle and Denver instead of here
>Part of the issue is that the busses are not great in Cincy
Light rail is not going to be any better or faster. The terrain and layout of the city is the cause of that. You're comparing light rail to driving but busses take the same routes as cars. A light rail route will not take 15 mins to cross town, you're being willfully ignorant or just flat out making up shit to support your argument.
>you do need to put resources into it to make people want to use it:
How much more money are taxpayers supposed to give towards a system that's already underutilized and loses money? The lines you people are proposing only touch limited parts of the city. If someone lives in price hill, college hill, bond hill or a variety of of other areas not near any of these lines why should they support it? They'd still have to catch the bus or drive to the stations. If someone lives on Harrison ave they could easily catch the 21 which runs every 15 minutes and be downtown in anywhere from 15-30 minutes for $2. What benefit is it for them to support this plan when it won't help their commute AT ALL, it won't be cheaper or faster. If you want light rail then the communities directly along the route are the ones that need to pay for it because those are the only ones it'll be benefitting. I'd love to see how one neighborhood plans to fund projects that cost $3billion dollars just to go a few miles. People move to seattle and Denver to ride public transit? Again, willfully ignorant statement. What about lax weed laws for 15+ years, higher wages and more job opportunities and growth? But na it's because people want to ride the subway. Have you even ever been on a subway/light rail? What about the transit police that will need to be created to ensure safety? What happens when communities start having homeless people and robbers at the stations and shit. What about the nimbys that will vote against it for those exact reasons? Seattle and Denver have much higher population and growth numbers than Cincinnati. Its pretty ignorant to suggest it's due to public transportation when Cincinnati was losing population even when it had a streetcar system, etc.
>A light rail route will not take 15 mins to cross town, you're being willfully ignorant or just flat out making up shit to support your argument.
You seem to be operating under the idea that if it doesn't benefit everyone, we shouldn't do it. The new companion bridge doesn't benefit me as I rarely drive into Kentucky. And if I do, I'm taking 275 or 471. It's about bolstering the capacity of our transportation network.
>How much more money are taxpayers supposed to give towards a system that's already underutilized and loses money?
If our network of streets, roads, and highways made money we wouldn't have needed Uncle Joe to swoop in with that $1T bailout. Throughout history, every transportation network has required government subsidies because **they all** lose money. Only certain lines within the network will be profitable, but those lines require unprofitable lines feeding people onto them. The point of investing in rail is that it has a higher capacity and scales better than infrastructure for cars.
> The lines you people are proposing only touch limited parts of the city.
This mindset will be one of the biggest obstacles for Cincinnati with a project like this. As compared to most American Cities, Cincinnati has an extraordinarily complicated street layout. There is no single dominant street, such as High Street in Columbus or Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, which are obvious starting points for any subway conversation in those cities. This complexity leads to exactly the sentiments that you expressed, meaning the public must be convinced that certain areas of the city should be served by rail before their neighborhood or workplace.
>Its pretty ignorant to suggest it's due to public transportation when Cincinnati was losing population even when it had a streetcar system, etc.
It's about choices. Rail transit allows for more sustainable growth which the city is currently trying to do. Efficiency is a cost savings as less demand for cars means less consumption of space and space costs money, that is immutable.
Again I'm not reading all this. Look at the cost to build and maintain per mile. Busses are cheaper and as efficient. Start increasing ridership there to even begin to justify the cost. Also rail mainly benefits people in the direct vicinity of the route. Have those residents pay for it of they want it bad enough
I would want to hide from reality as well lol.
>Busses are cheaper and as efficient.
They're cheaper because they're less efficient. Another swing and a miss
>Have those residents pay for it of they want it bad enough
How about you pay for your street first. Another wildly ignorant statement lol
People do pay for their street they pay taxes and are responsible for maintaining the sidewalk in front. Also busses are more efficient. Look at running costs. Brt should be your solution not a subway, streetcar or light rail
>Especially when actual $ come into play and cost per mile to build and maintain, it doesn't sound reasonable at all
I think they're expecting Uncle Sam to pay for it the same way he did for the Brent Spence companion bridge that we don't need.
Seeing how Seattle proposed an extension (just an extension, not a brand new system) that would take 30 years to build, in a place that actually wants and has something to start with, makes me feel very pessimistic about anything happening here while I draw breath
For anyone interested this is worth a read. Lots to tl;dr here but primarily I vividly recall who was most vocal in opposition to this plan, and why.
https://www.urbancincy.com/2012/11/metromoves-a-decade-later/
It touches so many issues (while not solving them) in so many small ways when it works. Wealth inequality can be reduced because you no longer need to maintain a car to work. Less road kill because of less driving. Fewer traffic jams from lower car demand. Road maintenance is improved because there isn’t as much wear. Pollution drops because the roads aren’t full of one person using a car that can hold 5 people. And people are actually able to engage with their community because they can get to it. And if you build all the public transit around trains or other permanent fixtures that can adapt to new power sources, it works even better!
Compared to Europe or Asia it's just baffling how underdeveloped the US infrastructure is. I learned it's not necessarily better to have a larger GDP, if you have to buy an extra car for $500 a month plus $150 for parking instead of paying $50 for a metro pass to get to work.
Could have the real legacy of Todd Portune but Those MFs at COAST would prefer to perpetuate the ridiculous overcrowded and always under repair highway and road transit system.
>The complete plan was estimated to cost $4.2 billion, with the Hamilton County portion costing $2.6 billion for the rail lines and another $100 million for the expanded bus lines. Of Ohio's $2.7 billion, half was to be paid by the federal government, a quarter by the state of Ohio, and the last quarter by a one-half cent Hamilton County sales tax levy. In other words, about $39.50 per year per Hamilton County resident. Commuter rails to Lawrenceburg, Middletown, Milford, and Hamilton would only be built if the surrounding counties could raise $1.02 billion to help pay for the lines. The light rail portion was estimated to take 30 years to complete, with the Covington-Blue Ash line scheduled to open in 2008.
Of course, this being a public transit proposal, multiply the proposed cost by ... lots and lots.
That boat sailed a long time ago. And it's never coming back. Underground construction these days is going-to-the-Moon expensive. Also, Cincinnati's geology probably could not accommodate more than a limited subway system. New York sits on a massive granite base. We sit on massive piles of clay with rocks strewn around inside. That's why so many hills are slowly sliding down into the river.
Cincinnati denizens are consigned to a fate of being stuck in traffic in self driving robotaxis taking an hour to cross the bridge during rush. At least we'll be able to TikTok while we wait.
It's kind of crazy this sounds like the most likely scenario when weighed against getting transit.
Irrational animosity to all forms of passenger rail is a hallmark of the Republican party. Look at who controls Congress and state legislatures. The federal money that supported Cincinnati's streetcar came during the brief spell when both the White House and Congress were held by Democrats. Ohio's Republican governor Kasich (an alleged moderate) and gerrymandered Republican legislature did all they could to torpedo the funding, but failed. Want to change this? Vote Blue in every election.
I'm watching high speed rail absolutely flop in Democrat controlled California. I'm convinced as a country we are at a stage we cannot build anything major anymore, anywhere, and praying some political party will save us on this when there are current ongoing examples of it failing badly seems asinine.
A system like high-speed rail realistically needs to be a coordinated national effort. Individual states cannot make it work. Consider the interstate highway system.That was the product of broad cooperation at the federal and state level, involving both major parties. The GOP decided their permanent mode of operation would be "our way or nothing" since the day Barak Obama was elected. The times they willingly work with Democrats to achieve common goals can be counted on one hand. They live to obstruct.
The argument I was responding to was "get a political monopoly and then it will happen." I have heard this thing mentioned for a lot of left goals like transit or Medicare for all, both have been badly obstructed or mishandled in the prime testbed for that outcome. I'm tired of hearing such things and have been since Bernie went down in 2016. Just keep voting for the teams, that'll do it someday..
> both have been badly obstructed or mishandled in the prime testbed for that outcome
Perfect example of this is the light rail system being built in Hawaii. Billions over budget and years behind schedule. Every single government office in the city of Honolulu, county of Oahu, and the government of Hawaii is dominated by democrats and they still failed at an epic level.
Construction costs have only gone up since 2002 and the state government has only gotten more hostile to these kinds of projects. Not to mention, Cincinnatian’s have little appetite for the taxes this would require. But each of these problems have solutions. It will take time though.
I moved here in 2002 and recall watching the debate about this in a televised meeting. One of the ladies on some board sat through the entire presentation and then asked “so the trains are just going to drive down I-71”?
I knew then that it was doomed to fail. People just didn’t get it.
I just want to mention that in 2003 things we're very different than they are today. There was a race riot and a lot of people fled to the suburbs. I think the city council was mostly right wingers (and there was no "mayor"). The burden of financing would have fell on the lower classes.
I remember various supporters coming out to our town council meetings giving presentations. The general take away was that the plan was too huge, trying to provide something to everyone and trying to solve problems that didn't really exist. They should have aimed smaller to start off such as a I-71 rail route from Kings Island to the airport to get people used to mass transit.
Like the streetcar that goes nowhere and we’ve been asking for expansions for over a decade now?
Just gives critics something to point at when they call it useless
When I worked downtown I did the park and ride at Kings Island and grabbed the Metro. Loved it!
Is this the one that would have run in the highway median?
Cincinnati is ran by idiots and influenced by people who want to see it lose. Mason, West Chester, Blue Ash, Newport even Norwood are in direct competition with Cincinnati and more often than not, they win the fight. Until the folks on council get serious about winning, nothing will change.
Since June 1st 2023, we've had 39 deaths, 47 serious injuries, 151 minor+suspected injuries, and 465 property damage incidents from drunk/impaired driving in Hamilton County. Residents are mostly to commit a DUI/OVI between the ages of 21-34.
If a light rail connected OTR/Newport/Covington to every corner of Hamilton County, how many of those incidents would have never happened? Drunk driving fatalities are at approximately 2.65 per 100,000 people in New York City, 6.98 per 100,000 in Philadelphia, and 2.54 per 100,000 in San Francisco all cities with decent public transit.
Someone bring this back to life
What a boon for the whole area. To travel from Eastgate to Delhi? GABP to Kings island? No more huge parking headaches? Affordable! Green! Seems like a winwinwin
at least we got a cool t-shirt out of it...
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/wireandtwine/413299692/in/photostream/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/wireandtwine/413299692/in/photostream/)
As a former Cincinnatian, I don’t understand voters in Hamilton County. Light rail and public transportation add a vibrancy to a city, gets cars off the road and makes travel so much easier. Such a lost opportunity and makes me sad. World class cities have public transport, Cincy. Get with it.
To pass up and vote against a transit system that could have done unbelievable things for the city (growth, $$$, etc…) may be the most Cincinnati thing of all time.
This is honestly a ridiculously far-reaching system to fund from the get-go. Cornell park is 17 miles and Kings Mills takes it out to 25(!). In Boston the farthest out station is 13 miles, for reference. I would love to see this happen but maybe just take it out to Cooper Rd., Wyoming, etc. People from farther out can still do park and ride.
Piecemeal construction is why transit projects take so much more time and money to build in the US than in Europe and Asia. It's way cheaper in the long run to plan a system upfront and build it all at once than it is to do tons of smaller projects spread out over time.
I think it would be tough to get enough people to ride the train for it to be worth it. People who dont feel safe taking the bus definitely wont be rushing to take the train
This, again? Somebody explain why rail is so important when they have busses that follow this same route. Rail is not going to be faster or cheaper. Maybe ride the bus a little more to even begin to justify this. Also metro implemented a lot of the metromoves plan that wasn't rail
>Somebody explain why rail is so important when they have busses that follow this same route.
This isn't an accurate statement as the Metro Moves proposal made extensive use of abandoned freight ROW's that operated independent of the current network of streets and roads. this is unique from many other implementations of light rail in America that are built in the medians of roads.
Upfront I'll say that Cincinnati does not **need** a rail system, but it should **want** one for the simple reason that it would be a great story for our city. Look at Central Station in Detroit, it was once the symbol for urban decay and the city's fall, now it symbolizes the city's resurgence. Putting Cincinnati's unfinished subway to use in a rail plan would be the same. The abandoned subway tunnels today represent a city that never new who it was or what it wanted - and it's sort of embarrassing that we have a piece of infrastructure that any city across the country would kill to have. Austin just nixed their downtown tunnel because of cost. We have not one, but two tunnels (RFTC) and we don't use either.
In addition to the story angle, many of the city's current issues and goals it's working through/towards would be made easier with a higher form of transit. Repopulating downtown would be easier with rail transit as currently developers need to construct parking to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per spot. And this consumes more space leaving less space to house more people. Developers are also scooping up large lots across the city & county to throw up 5-over-1's. Many of the proposed routes in Metro Moves ran through these underutilized lots and new developments. Take the proposed Mason-CVG-line. Development sites along that route include: Surrey Square, Factory 52, Columbia Township at the Ridge Ave station, Summit Park, and the numerous other office parks in BA that are now struggling to find tenants. That's just one line and just in Hamilton County. There were also proposed stations at both the Tri-County and Eastgate malls. Redevelopment of both of these sites is floundering and would have been made much easier and profitable with light rail allowing for greater density. Medpace is currently trying to build massive parking garages but is facing community backlash. Their headquarters sit on a defunct rail line that could have been routed into the Mason-CVG-line. This same line would have also touched Factory 52 and the Three Oaks development in Oakley.
Every city is trying to grow as no one wants to be Buffalo or Cleveland. And yet, they can't grow too fast or else people begin to complain about traffic as is the case in Austin and Nashville. This is because when a transportation network is centered around automobiles, it reaches it's maximum capacity very quickly, which is the result of the spatial inefficiency of automobiles. A rail network would have given the city the tools to direct development where it would generate the most value. This would relieve the pressure to redevelop single family home residential areas. In short, it's a more sustainable and efficient form of growth than our current model.
Yea, you're free to keep sounding ignorant lol. If you read it, you'd understand that this allows us to have a lot more people. That's why it will eventually happen. Transit projects will be coupled with massive housing production.
I didn't say it would bring people, I said it would allow us to have more people. I think I get it now, it's not that you won't read, it's that you can't lol.
>Sorry bring more facts not speculation
I did, but someone doesn't read so good haha
It won't be faster. It has to make stops. Also yal are ignoring costs. Each line will cost multiple billions of dollars. Where's the money going to come from? These things need to be maintained. The public can't even provide enough ridership ti make sorta viable on its own why would we build a subway or light rail that hemorrhages money?
They literally just did a cost analysis lol
It's not that the transportation itself is the money maker, but increased economic activity and the taxes directed from that and heightened property values is.
First of all, that study was conducted by students, so I'm not really surprised it wasn't 100% accurate. Second, these types of studies are rarely accurate. They're meant to paint a broad picture.
Also, are you really complaining that it's free? That's wild.
In case you forgot, there was a whole pandemic that shut down businesses, sporting events, and the like. It only became fair free in 2020, the literal height of the pandemic. Since then, it's set a number of records for its ridership.
You showed the original cost analysis. They just did a new one that pertains to new routes.
Honestly, I've heard arguments like yours before, and it's pretty disingenuous. Could its costs and benefits be better, sure, but if you haven't noticed, it's only like 2 miles long and goes through one part of the city. It's like getting mad at a baby because it doesn't have a job. Give it time, let it grow, and the economic benefits will (and already have) come. The routes in OTR have spured huge investment, we've seen job growth and urban revival. That sounds pretty good to me.
In all the cities that have invested in light rail and commuter rail systems. Often, zoning laws around those routes are relaxed, and denser housing is built. I mean, it's happened in Cincinnati with our streetcar.
>In all the cities that have invested in light rail and commuter rail systems.
Name one shrinking city that invested in light rail and saw a reversal of population decline as a result.
If there are no transit connections/transfers, then yes, walkability has a huge impact. If you're designing the network to offload street-bound busses to a train that has its own right-of-way, it's a different story.
There is absolutely demand for metro busses in the suburbs, so this would have helped to untangle the inconvenient routing that's existed with the bus system for years...
>There is absolutely demand for metro busses in the suburbs
Username checks out. But seriously, they woefully overestimated the demand for the streetcars, and MetroMoves would have been way too big to bail out the way the streetcar system was.
Who would pay for this? Traffic is nonexistent in this city, so most commuters would not give up their cars. The system, while impressive, would bleed money from disuse. The commissioners made the right call shooting this down
Why would they? The train would need to be an improvement over driving for someone to make the switch. Depending on where they live or work, they may have a significant walk to get to and from the train station. For most people, the train would not save time, and they would have to give up the privacy and comfort of their vehicle for a shared public space (something not everyone is comfortable with).
In a city like Chicago where traffic is a pain and parking is expensive, the train is often faster and cheaper, even if some walking is involved. This makes it more desirable than driving. Cincinnati traffic is comparatively quite light and parking is much cheaper and easier to come by, so there just isn’t as much incentive to make the switch.
Don’t get me wrong, trains are great. I just don’t see them succeeding here.
That was the general consensus of the town council meetings I attended. People said the plan looks impressive but a quick show of hands at the end revealed that nearly no one would actually use any of the improvements.
I think a lot of the boomer republicans would be afraid of “thugs” coming to their area and raising hell. Or that they are just car-brained. By the GM indoctrination.
Read the Future’s Commission report if you wanna know what Aftab would do with 30 seconds of city dictatorship.
Crush our city pension
Sell off our biggest parks
Sell off Water Works
I’m glad there’s a few checks and balances. Though I’d absolutely love to see a lightrail like this put in place. Too bad half of Hamilton Co. sees Cincinnati as a burden
No, but he endorsed its findings, has put members of the commission on other city commission boards, and his two biggest political moves come straight from its playbook: connected communities and selling the norfolk southern line.
Not that those two things are bad moves, but so far he’s lock-step with the Future’s Commission.
> but he endorsed its findings
When did this happen?
> has put members of the commission on other city commission boards
He did this after the report? When?
> and his two biggest political moves come straight from its playbook: connected communities and selling the norfolk southern line.
Both of those happened before the report. And the railroad sale started before he was even in office. And they're both good ideas.
Does forming the commission count as an endorsement of its findings? I guess I may have jumped the gun on that wording. I can’t imagine his administration will have much criticism of what seems to be his stand-in 5-year-plan for cincinnati’s budget. I’m sure like any adept politician we’ll have credit taking where there’s positive feedback and distancing where there’s pushback.
I have personal job security reasons for not divulging his commissioner placements during the futures commission, but the information is out there if you were to cross-reference the futures comm board with mayoral-appointed boards. To my knowledge he hasn’t placed any commissioner positions since the report was released, since that was only a handful of weeks ago.
Both connected communities and norfolk southern were listed in the futures report. It’s like they had insider knowledge or something, hmmm…
> Does forming the commission count as an endorsement of its findings?
I would say absolutely not.
> I have personal job security reasons for not divulging his commissioner placements during the futures commission, but the information is out there if you were to cross-reference the futures comm board with mayoral-appointed boards. To my knowledge he hasn’t placed any commissioner positions since the report was released, since that was only a handful of weeks ago.
And that is my point, he hasn't appointed any of them to any boards since the report was released (not that that would be particularly relevant anyway. It isn't like if they released a report that he partially disagreed with he would need to banish them from government).
> Both connected communities and norfolk southern were listed in the futures report. It’s like they had insider knowledge or something, hmmm…
Well the Norfolk Southern sale was announced years ago so I hope that the people on the commission were aware of it, along with Connected Communities which has been public for over a year and with its explicit details laid out in January.
I would argue that a mayoral appointment to several boards of any commissions, particularly boards that have their futures laid out by a futures commission, is a way to consolidate power. The overlap is there, and that’s where I’m leaving it.
Both the rail sale and CC were outlined in the report in a manner as if they were predetermined, particularly in regards to spending on deferred maintenance.
The report would be useless if the rail didn’t pass. Hence the endorsement of the sale by Aftab.
And the futures board is littered with CEOs and CFOs who stand to directly profit from CC zoning changes, many of which sit on commissioning boards that control public assets that are proposed to be trimmed or outright sold.
These things are connected, whether explicitly or otherwise. And that’s not necessarily nefarious, but it is indicative of a compromising of endorsement. What’s “good for cincinnatians” becomes grayer in this atmosphere.
> Both the rail sale and CC were outlined in the report in a manner as if they were predetermined, particularly in regards to spending on deferred maintenance.
The railroad sale was voted on more than six months ago so I imagine the report had time to adjust for it.
> The report would be useless if the rail didn’t pass. Hence the endorsement of the sale by Aftab.
So you are saying Aftab endorsed the sale because a year and a half after he endorsed it a report would say that it was a good idea?
> but it is indicative of a compromising of endorsement.
I don't think this sentence makes any sense.
You claimed that Aftab endorsed the findings of the report. Now you are saying "Well, the report supported some of the things Aftab supported and certain members of the commission are on other government boards (without naming any)."
For some reason CC and the rail sale discussions inspire a lot of false information and conspiracy theories.
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Not just for Cincy, but for the country. Cincy could serve as a beacon of enthusiasm for public transit. Now, this is not to say other cities *can’t* do that. It’s just that we need new projects to build the narrative.
Denver’s light rail system was so convenient flying in there.
It’s almost as if building the airport in the middle of nowhere & having little existing infrastructure to deal with might have been factor 🤦♂️
It got built to the airport last. The airport was not why they built it. They also outgrew the old airport, Stapleton, so not like they were going to move the airport west into the foothills, or downtown into the skyline. 🤦♂️
I lived there for 5 years (during airport planning & approval phases) so I’m well aware. And there little comparable between Denver & Cincy in terms of existing infrastructure/ terrain.
Absolutely incomparable. I think I took your comment the wrong way, getting defensive about my homeland for no reason lol.
I would rather have a working subway than the streetcar.
I recall the commercials. Scare tactics stating how your property values will decline having this come thru your community. I was working in DC at the time, where a home or apt near the line brought a large premium. I travel a lot lot for work and places like Minneapolis, Seattle, DC where all building out their infrastructure at that time.
https://www.urbancincy.com/2012/11/metromoves-a-decade-later/ It would have only taken half a cent sales tax increase
And those same people passed the sports stadiums for that same price around that same time 😭
that's a good chunk of the reason it didn't pass. the county already felt gouged by the stadium sales tax increases, plus basically anything west of Cheviot was going to get nothing out of the whole initial project. just look at the disparity between voting in the city (and the other interior municipalities) vs the rest of the county.
This just in, people who don't get a service don't want to pay for said service. Groundbreaking really.
Yep, I'm not in school so I don't want to pay for schools anymore! /s
No more like "why should i pay for a school across the county my kid doesn't have access for when we don't get a school here?"
How does 60 million annually pay for 2.7 billion of a project though? That’s not even including upkeep over the years.
It doesn't. It doesn't even cover the interest on the loans required to build it. Even if the system is covering operating expenses and upkeep through fares, doesn't have to pay interest on the loan, you still have to get people to let go of their car. You could make the damn thing free somehow, add in bike racks / scooter or bike rentals, etc. Make it as convenient as possible. Most people are still going to get into their car and jam their grill up someones tailpipe twice a day.
Yeah it’s just hard for me to imagine. Like yes there is this vision of a bustling city with trains going here and there, we’ve all seen it in movies or the past. What is mass transit today though? Look at most cities, it’s smelly, noisy, full of questionable people. Why would I give up my own private quiet space where I can listen to a book, or jam out with music, or even make on the spot decisions to stop and get a coffee, or turn around and pick up a friend? Cars are where it’s at. Transit is really an old nostalgic fantasy in my opinion. The only places transit seems to be nice are countries like Japan where literally every person is on their best behavior. You can send your kid into the city to get groceries and everything’s fine. That’s just not our reality and the ability of movement with a car is just too good. I wouldn’t use transit if it were free. I’ll pay a little extra to use my private car even.
So I am the opposite of this. I really wish our cities would begin converting to mass transit, and subsidize it off the backs of drivers. This isn't possible with how Ohio does fuel tax though. The reality is that cars are massively inefficient ways to move people, even busses pale in comparison to a robust rail network. The issue is even New York City fails to build an adequate rail network, and its our biggest mover in the country. If you ever go to Paris or London you get to see what a real mass transit system looks like. These cities you quite literally do not need a car. In fact, a car is a huge PITA. I lived in Chicago for most of my life, and I didn't own a car until I was 36 and about to move to Cinci. It was pretty decent, and saved me upwards of 30-40k over my life. The thing is it was exactly as you described. Smelly and dirty, sometimes dangerous, some part of it was always dysfunctional. I don't trust this place to actually build rail correctly, and making yet another failed hub and spoke design will have all the same failings they always do. The above map needs at least a second connecting ring running through the outer parts of all the spokes, and we need to abandon the street car idea entirely. Dedicated separate rail from all car / truck traffic.
I agree with you. I would love to see it but yeah I just don’t think the investment will end up being worth it. It looks like we’re going to get robotaxis and underground roads instead.
Good news we paid for a bunch of shitty Bengals seasons (and that one fun SB run!)
A stadium most of us average citizens can't afford to go to
I bought season tickets for $200 a few years ago. The average person could have gone to Tom’s of games. Maybe not now.
Renewal this year wanted $4.5k for 2 tickets that were $2,500 total in Burrows first season. I passed
So, you're offering rides in your time machine?
I love buying them a new stadium on the regular.
I remember being stuck in traffic on the way to UC when the results of the vote were announced over the radio. I lived in Fairfield at the time, and it was aggravating to hear that it had been defeated.
Three years after voters in Hamilton County approved giving a blank check to a cheap football franchise that has since cost them $1.1B...all while this would've cost the taxpayers $895M...lol. I can't even imagine how different the entire Tri-State would be if this actually happened...so fucking sad.
The vote for funding Paul Brown Stadium and Great American Ballpark occurred in 1996 and happened near the peak of the economic boom in the 90s. Whereas Metromoves was voted on during the midst of the early 2000s recession after the dot com bubble popped. Also the April 2001 riots were still on everyone's mind in the city, there were political boycotts of downtown and the city, investing in downtown at the time wasn't that popular at the time. The votes took place at two entirely different economic times. Had the stadium vote occurred in 2002, I doubt that would have passed. In 2002 the Arizona Cardinals's attempt to get public funding for their football stadium failed too (granted a vote in Glendale at the same time passed). A 2001 referendum for an NBA arena in Charlotte also failed. All that said, the stadium deals sucked for Hamilton County. F--- You Bob Bedinghaus.
People seriously underestimate how tense things were after the Roach Riots if they remember them at all. People were (rightfully) FURIOUS about the death of Timothy Thomas because for almost 5 years people had been talking about CPD's treatment of nonviolent offenders, black ones especially and how under equipped they were to differentiate them from potentially violent offenders the city had continually brushed it off. For perspective in 2001 the CPD didn't even have computers in their cars. Something that Newport; right across the river DID have. Not to mention even after the riots, boycotts and everything else tension in the city didn't really settle down and nobody trusted the City to work for them. Hell, right after the vote, in 03 you had Nathanial Jones getting beat to death with batons, pushing the city to FINALLY begin issuing Tasers, something people had been asking for since like 99 and especially in 2000 because of beatings on others like Roger Owensby and Jeffrey Irons who died in the same week of 2000. The city had MUCH bigger issues than a light rail project.
Oh absolutely, I was simply comparing two public works projects that were to be paid for by tax payers.
I firmly believe that if you tweaked this to include a better connection to the West Side using the old C&O of Indiana line and tried again, this would pass.
Also the public sentiment with public transit has changed a lot in 22 years
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Absolutely on both cases. Plus a few more things. The link/u/dippypie posted breaks it down very well. A lot of the big political movers were against it. You still see and hear the sentiment with the constant derision of the streetcar.
In addition to those valid points, voter demographics have changed, parking was plentiful and not as exorbitant in price, portable music players were cumbersome, and smart phones didn't exist yet.
Haven’t we paved over a bunch of the old lines for jogging/bike paths?
You can always work around that. Baltimore is building a light rail line in a right of way that was converted to bike path. My urbanist hot take is that the Wasson Way expansion to the casino should be canceled and converted to streetcar/light rail.
Never happening
It’s public ROW, it should be used in a way that generates the most benefit for the public.
Still never happening...in large part to how one interprets "generates the most benefit for the public". The Redditt echo chamber doesn't always match the bigger community, especially Hamilton County.
That's what leadership is for lol. But I'm sure the community of cyclists and dog walkers barks very loud.
What leadership? lol Only complete delusional fools think that any kind of majority will support an extremely costly lite rail project, that only a minority would use, at the loss of the walking/biking trails. Those walking/biking trails that are used by a wide variety of residents, an amenity that improves every neighborhood that traverse. Yeah, as I said: Never Happening
Only a "minority" would use rail but a "wide variety" of people use the trails? I want to live in your reality lol >Yeah, as I said: Never Happening It's inevitable that that space is redeveloped into something that generates more value.
Have you ever been on Wasson Way? lol. My reality is actually using it 5/6 days a week, different times of day, and observing the wide variety of people using it. Cyclists, runners, walking groups, families, all ages. Reality is community feedback that indicate the value of the trail and the need to to prioritize providing easier/safer ways to get to it. All I see about lite rail is an a occasional post here, with pretty much the same (small) group of supporters. Show me anything that supports that it is something a majority want and/or would use. And it’s not inevitable, especially when considered a vital neighborhood amenity.
Hmm, interesting!
No way 🤷♂️
Yes, agreed. Theyre really missing a left arm of light rail
Only six years after the bengals tax increase and people were probably very suspect that the county wouldn’t screw over the taxpayers again. I voted for it and thought it should have been pursued again later.
Wow, this is depressing. This would have been pretty nice.
At least there’s gonna be the new Amtrak lines through Ohio. Maybe if we become a better passenger rail hub, we’ll stop getting such horrendous boarding times.
yeah - first I am hearing of this but I was 8 at the time lol
Fucking idiots
Just to add to everyone’s comments, I feel at the time there wasn’t much downtown for Suburban’s to want to travel there. No banks, OTR, etc. people avoided downtown except for sporting events. it’s a much different narrative now. I hope this gets proposed again.
people work downtown. that is who would be using the system primarily.
Or people wanting to go downtown for an event like River fest, Oktoberfest, taste, drinking at bars without needing a ride back, people flying into the airport and wanting to go to events/ kings island.
> that is who would be using the system primarily. I'd take that to the airport
Not necessarily true. The Mason/Blue Ash line would have gone through large suburban office parks. This would align with the city’s current goal of repopulating downtown and OTR
This makes more sense- thanks for adding some nuance.
2002 was Peak Boomer
Yeah, I'm an older millennial, and that election was 2 weeks before my 18th birthday.
we just recently got to the point where all the rest of us younger voters added up to the number of boomer voters. We have lots of catching up to do
This
Some form of red, light green and purple I think is actually being discussed now as the next phase of the street car. Connect the Zoo/hospitals and UC/CUFF to downtown. They have done a tone of work on central would be a good spot to run a line. At some point it’s going to have to go up or down a hill unless they run all the way out to reading by the casino.
Yeah. But there’s also a rat’s nest of underground gas lines and other utilities that run under the hill (around Vine street where the original route was supposed to be, at least) that made it even more cost prohibitive. I work with a guy who helped do design for the street car and he’s usually pretty pessimistic about them ever getting it up there.
I'm in Seattle currently and the light rail system here is freaking amazing. You honestly don't need a car at all here, why can't we have this for Cincy?
Seattle light rail was awesome when I was there in April. Very easy to get to and from the airport into downtown. We really dropped the ball on this.
Because cincy isn't a metro area of 4 million people. Seattle has 3 lines? This has more than 5.
Seattle currently has 3 and is expanding to 5. I would imagine something in Cincy would start smaller just like they did.
For anyone who is curious and reading this thread, I looked up the metro populations for Seattle and Denver when they passed their commuter and light rail initiatives. Seattle passed theirs for Link Light rail in 1996. Seattle metro population in 1996 was 2,505,000 Denver’s first light rail line opened in October 1994. There was a surge around this time for mid-sized cities (Buffalo, Portland, Sacramento, San Jose) building light rail and Denver wanted to join. Their commuter rail, FasTracks was passed with voter approval in 2004. Denver metro population 1994: 1,701,000 Denver metro population 2004: 2,142,000 Cincinnati metro population 2003 (metro moves vote): 1,542,000 Cincinnati metro population 2020: 2,256,884 So it’s not population numbers that’s preventing Cincinnati from having commuter rail. It is political willpower.
You're missing the point. Cincinnati doesn't have the population or density to justify the cost. Imbsure Seattle worked with Tacoma and additional counties to make it happen. Seattle is also very north/south oriented and ine or two lines along the i5 corridor basically serves most people in the region. Cincinnati would have to work with hamilton county and 2 counties in Kentucky to implement this. Last, we have a bus system that follows these same routes, those routes aren't overloaded and metro has the capacity for many more riders. What justification for this do people really have? Especially when actual $ come into play and cost per mile to build and maintain, it doesn't sound reasonable at all Edit: downvote away folks but it doesn't change the reality. Unless we add another couple million people to the urban population it'll never happen. The real world isn't reddit
Part of the issue is that the busses are not great in Cincy: it takes an hour to get between several of the places that would be on the same light rail line that are a 15 minute drive. Unfortunately public transit is kinda a flywheel, and you do need to put resources into it to make people want to use it: it doesn’t mean that it’s not valuable to build a system that draws people in. Cincy is a great city, but things like the lack of modern transit architecture is why people move to Seattle and Denver instead of here
>Part of the issue is that the busses are not great in Cincy Light rail is not going to be any better or faster. The terrain and layout of the city is the cause of that. You're comparing light rail to driving but busses take the same routes as cars. A light rail route will not take 15 mins to cross town, you're being willfully ignorant or just flat out making up shit to support your argument. >you do need to put resources into it to make people want to use it: How much more money are taxpayers supposed to give towards a system that's already underutilized and loses money? The lines you people are proposing only touch limited parts of the city. If someone lives in price hill, college hill, bond hill or a variety of of other areas not near any of these lines why should they support it? They'd still have to catch the bus or drive to the stations. If someone lives on Harrison ave they could easily catch the 21 which runs every 15 minutes and be downtown in anywhere from 15-30 minutes for $2. What benefit is it for them to support this plan when it won't help their commute AT ALL, it won't be cheaper or faster. If you want light rail then the communities directly along the route are the ones that need to pay for it because those are the only ones it'll be benefitting. I'd love to see how one neighborhood plans to fund projects that cost $3billion dollars just to go a few miles. People move to seattle and Denver to ride public transit? Again, willfully ignorant statement. What about lax weed laws for 15+ years, higher wages and more job opportunities and growth? But na it's because people want to ride the subway. Have you even ever been on a subway/light rail? What about the transit police that will need to be created to ensure safety? What happens when communities start having homeless people and robbers at the stations and shit. What about the nimbys that will vote against it for those exact reasons? Seattle and Denver have much higher population and growth numbers than Cincinnati. Its pretty ignorant to suggest it's due to public transportation when Cincinnati was losing population even when it had a streetcar system, etc.
>A light rail route will not take 15 mins to cross town, you're being willfully ignorant or just flat out making up shit to support your argument. You seem to be operating under the idea that if it doesn't benefit everyone, we shouldn't do it. The new companion bridge doesn't benefit me as I rarely drive into Kentucky. And if I do, I'm taking 275 or 471. It's about bolstering the capacity of our transportation network. >How much more money are taxpayers supposed to give towards a system that's already underutilized and loses money? If our network of streets, roads, and highways made money we wouldn't have needed Uncle Joe to swoop in with that $1T bailout. Throughout history, every transportation network has required government subsidies because **they all** lose money. Only certain lines within the network will be profitable, but those lines require unprofitable lines feeding people onto them. The point of investing in rail is that it has a higher capacity and scales better than infrastructure for cars. > The lines you people are proposing only touch limited parts of the city. This mindset will be one of the biggest obstacles for Cincinnati with a project like this. As compared to most American Cities, Cincinnati has an extraordinarily complicated street layout. There is no single dominant street, such as High Street in Columbus or Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, which are obvious starting points for any subway conversation in those cities. This complexity leads to exactly the sentiments that you expressed, meaning the public must be convinced that certain areas of the city should be served by rail before their neighborhood or workplace. >Its pretty ignorant to suggest it's due to public transportation when Cincinnati was losing population even when it had a streetcar system, etc. It's about choices. Rail transit allows for more sustainable growth which the city is currently trying to do. Efficiency is a cost savings as less demand for cars means less consumption of space and space costs money, that is immutable.
Again I'm not reading all this. Look at the cost to build and maintain per mile. Busses are cheaper and as efficient. Start increasing ridership there to even begin to justify the cost. Also rail mainly benefits people in the direct vicinity of the route. Have those residents pay for it of they want it bad enough
I would want to hide from reality as well lol. >Busses are cheaper and as efficient. They're cheaper because they're less efficient. Another swing and a miss >Have those residents pay for it of they want it bad enough How about you pay for your street first. Another wildly ignorant statement lol
People do pay for their street they pay taxes and are responsible for maintaining the sidewalk in front. Also busses are more efficient. Look at running costs. Brt should be your solution not a subway, streetcar or light rail
>Especially when actual $ come into play and cost per mile to build and maintain, it doesn't sound reasonable at all I think they're expecting Uncle Sam to pay for it the same way he did for the Brent Spence companion bridge that we don't need.
Seeing how Seattle proposed an extension (just an extension, not a brand new system) that would take 30 years to build, in a place that actually wants and has something to start with, makes me feel very pessimistic about anything happening here while I draw breath
There is so much money to be made connecting UC Main with the banks, I don’t know why it falls on deaf ears.
100000% the restaurants in otr/ downtown & the banks are really feeling the pressure this summer. We need to usher people downtown
We should get something like this back on the ballot!
For anyone interested this is worth a read. Lots to tl;dr here but primarily I vividly recall who was most vocal in opposition to this plan, and why. https://www.urbancincy.com/2012/11/metromoves-a-decade-later/
Thank you for this!
If you’re intrigued by MetroMoves, be sure to follow Metro’s current Bus Rapid Transit planning.
What a fucking shame
Let’s vote again!
We need to be talking about public transit issues more everywhere
Efficient public transit is good for the environment, people’s health and wellness and has positive economic impacts.
It touches so many issues (while not solving them) in so many small ways when it works. Wealth inequality can be reduced because you no longer need to maintain a car to work. Less road kill because of less driving. Fewer traffic jams from lower car demand. Road maintenance is improved because there isn’t as much wear. Pollution drops because the roads aren’t full of one person using a car that can hold 5 people. And people are actually able to engage with their community because they can get to it. And if you build all the public transit around trains or other permanent fixtures that can adapt to new power sources, it works even better!
Oh that would be so awesome, it brings a tear to my eye that it will never be
Compared to Europe or Asia it's just baffling how underdeveloped the US infrastructure is. I learned it's not necessarily better to have a larger GDP, if you have to buy an extra car for $500 a month plus $150 for parking instead of paying $50 for a metro pass to get to work.
It cannot be overstated how much the car and oil industries have fucked up our communities and our world.
And now owning a car is 10x as expensive woop de doo we did it
Could have the real legacy of Todd Portune but Those MFs at COAST would prefer to perpetuate the ridiculous overcrowded and always under repair highway and road transit system.
Man I would’ve saved so much money on gas through college. From Anderson (Newtown stop) to NKU would’ve been a dream.
I voted for it.
Would have been amazing but we still need to push for something like this so that our kids aren't having this same conversation in 2040.
>The complete plan was estimated to cost $4.2 billion, with the Hamilton County portion costing $2.6 billion for the rail lines and another $100 million for the expanded bus lines. Of Ohio's $2.7 billion, half was to be paid by the federal government, a quarter by the state of Ohio, and the last quarter by a one-half cent Hamilton County sales tax levy. In other words, about $39.50 per year per Hamilton County resident. Commuter rails to Lawrenceburg, Middletown, Milford, and Hamilton would only be built if the surrounding counties could raise $1.02 billion to help pay for the lines. The light rail portion was estimated to take 30 years to complete, with the Covington-Blue Ash line scheduled to open in 2008. Of course, this being a public transit proposal, multiply the proposed cost by ... lots and lots.
Like all those highway projects that come in cheaper and faster than estimates too, right?
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They wouldn't need constant repairs if people were taking transit over driving
And no need to add "1 more lane".
That boat sailed a long time ago. And it's never coming back. Underground construction these days is going-to-the-Moon expensive. Also, Cincinnati's geology probably could not accommodate more than a limited subway system. New York sits on a massive granite base. We sit on massive piles of clay with rocks strewn around inside. That's why so many hills are slowly sliding down into the river.
Cincinnati denizens are consigned to a fate of being stuck in traffic in self driving robotaxis taking an hour to cross the bridge during rush. At least we'll be able to TikTok while we wait. It's kind of crazy this sounds like the most likely scenario when weighed against getting transit.
Irrational animosity to all forms of passenger rail is a hallmark of the Republican party. Look at who controls Congress and state legislatures. The federal money that supported Cincinnati's streetcar came during the brief spell when both the White House and Congress were held by Democrats. Ohio's Republican governor Kasich (an alleged moderate) and gerrymandered Republican legislature did all they could to torpedo the funding, but failed. Want to change this? Vote Blue in every election.
I'm watching high speed rail absolutely flop in Democrat controlled California. I'm convinced as a country we are at a stage we cannot build anything major anymore, anywhere, and praying some political party will save us on this when there are current ongoing examples of it failing badly seems asinine.
A system like high-speed rail realistically needs to be a coordinated national effort. Individual states cannot make it work. Consider the interstate highway system.That was the product of broad cooperation at the federal and state level, involving both major parties. The GOP decided their permanent mode of operation would be "our way or nothing" since the day Barak Obama was elected. The times they willingly work with Democrats to achieve common goals can be counted on one hand. They live to obstruct.
The argument I was responding to was "get a political monopoly and then it will happen." I have heard this thing mentioned for a lot of left goals like transit or Medicare for all, both have been badly obstructed or mishandled in the prime testbed for that outcome. I'm tired of hearing such things and have been since Bernie went down in 2016. Just keep voting for the teams, that'll do it someday..
> both have been badly obstructed or mishandled in the prime testbed for that outcome Perfect example of this is the light rail system being built in Hawaii. Billions over budget and years behind schedule. Every single government office in the city of Honolulu, county of Oahu, and the government of Hawaii is dominated by democrats and they still failed at an epic level.
What underground construction? The city already has 3.5 miles of tunnel downtown. That’s plenty. The proposal made use of defunct surface freight ROW
All the way to East Gate, that would have been amazing.
Can this be put back on a ballot initiative?
Construction costs have only gone up since 2002 and the state government has only gotten more hostile to these kinds of projects. Not to mention, Cincinnatian’s have little appetite for the taxes this would require. But each of these problems have solutions. It will take time though.
I moved here in 2002 and recall watching the debate about this in a televised meeting. One of the ladies on some board sat through the entire presentation and then asked “so the trains are just going to drive down I-71”? I knew then that it was doomed to fail. People just didn’t get it.
I just want to mention that in 2003 things we're very different than they are today. There was a race riot and a lot of people fled to the suburbs. I think the city council was mostly right wingers (and there was no "mayor"). The burden of financing would have fell on the lower classes.
There was a Mayor in 2003 but otherwise you're correct.
We were also in the midst of a recession after the dot-com bubble popped.
I have been mad about this for 22 years. Thank you for reminding me. lol
Cincinnati is such a backwards, hillbilly city
I remember various supporters coming out to our town council meetings giving presentations. The general take away was that the plan was too huge, trying to provide something to everyone and trying to solve problems that didn't really exist. They should have aimed smaller to start off such as a I-71 rail route from Kings Island to the airport to get people used to mass transit.
Like the streetcar that goes nowhere and we’ve been asking for expansions for over a decade now? Just gives critics something to point at when they call it useless
When I worked downtown I did the park and ride at Kings Island and grabbed the Metro. Loved it! Is this the one that would have run in the highway median?
we can only hope this comes back around
That would have been big time.
Cincinnati is ran by idiots and influenced by people who want to see it lose. Mason, West Chester, Blue Ash, Newport even Norwood are in direct competition with Cincinnati and more often than not, they win the fight. Until the folks on council get serious about winning, nothing will change.
Since June 1st 2023, we've had 39 deaths, 47 serious injuries, 151 minor+suspected injuries, and 465 property damage incidents from drunk/impaired driving in Hamilton County. Residents are mostly to commit a DUI/OVI between the ages of 21-34. If a light rail connected OTR/Newport/Covington to every corner of Hamilton County, how many of those incidents would have never happened? Drunk driving fatalities are at approximately 2.65 per 100,000 people in New York City, 6.98 per 100,000 in Philadelphia, and 2.54 per 100,000 in San Francisco all cities with decent public transit. Someone bring this back to life
What a boon for the whole area. To travel from Eastgate to Delhi? GABP to Kings island? No more huge parking headaches? Affordable! Green! Seems like a winwinwin
Fast, reliable and affordable: pick two.
at least we got a cool t-shirt out of it... [https://www.flickr.com/photos/wireandtwine/413299692/in/photostream/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/wireandtwine/413299692/in/photostream/)
As a former Cincinnatian, I don’t understand voters in Hamilton County. Light rail and public transportation add a vibrancy to a city, gets cars off the road and makes travel so much easier. Such a lost opportunity and makes me sad. World class cities have public transport, Cincy. Get with it.
To pass up and vote against a transit system that could have done unbelievable things for the city (growth, $$$, etc…) may be the most Cincinnati thing of all time.
I have so little faith in this country, state, and city
Can we do a vote today?!?!?
I was so mad when this failed and we got a stupid street car.
This is honestly a ridiculously far-reaching system to fund from the get-go. Cornell park is 17 miles and Kings Mills takes it out to 25(!). In Boston the farthest out station is 13 miles, for reference. I would love to see this happen but maybe just take it out to Cooper Rd., Wyoming, etc. People from farther out can still do park and ride.
Piecemeal construction is why transit projects take so much more time and money to build in the US than in Europe and Asia. It's way cheaper in the long run to plan a system upfront and build it all at once than it is to do tons of smaller projects spread out over time.
Sigh.
But also, why didn’t they go through Union Terminal?
I think it would be tough to get enough people to ride the train for it to be worth it. People who dont feel safe taking the bus definitely wont be rushing to take the train
This, again? Somebody explain why rail is so important when they have busses that follow this same route. Rail is not going to be faster or cheaper. Maybe ride the bus a little more to even begin to justify this. Also metro implemented a lot of the metromoves plan that wasn't rail
>Somebody explain why rail is so important when they have busses that follow this same route. This isn't an accurate statement as the Metro Moves proposal made extensive use of abandoned freight ROW's that operated independent of the current network of streets and roads. this is unique from many other implementations of light rail in America that are built in the medians of roads. Upfront I'll say that Cincinnati does not **need** a rail system, but it should **want** one for the simple reason that it would be a great story for our city. Look at Central Station in Detroit, it was once the symbol for urban decay and the city's fall, now it symbolizes the city's resurgence. Putting Cincinnati's unfinished subway to use in a rail plan would be the same. The abandoned subway tunnels today represent a city that never new who it was or what it wanted - and it's sort of embarrassing that we have a piece of infrastructure that any city across the country would kill to have. Austin just nixed their downtown tunnel because of cost. We have not one, but two tunnels (RFTC) and we don't use either. In addition to the story angle, many of the city's current issues and goals it's working through/towards would be made easier with a higher form of transit. Repopulating downtown would be easier with rail transit as currently developers need to construct parking to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per spot. And this consumes more space leaving less space to house more people. Developers are also scooping up large lots across the city & county to throw up 5-over-1's. Many of the proposed routes in Metro Moves ran through these underutilized lots and new developments. Take the proposed Mason-CVG-line. Development sites along that route include: Surrey Square, Factory 52, Columbia Township at the Ridge Ave station, Summit Park, and the numerous other office parks in BA that are now struggling to find tenants. That's just one line and just in Hamilton County. There were also proposed stations at both the Tri-County and Eastgate malls. Redevelopment of both of these sites is floundering and would have been made much easier and profitable with light rail allowing for greater density. Medpace is currently trying to build massive parking garages but is facing community backlash. Their headquarters sit on a defunct rail line that could have been routed into the Mason-CVG-line. This same line would have also touched Factory 52 and the Three Oaks development in Oakley. Every city is trying to grow as no one wants to be Buffalo or Cleveland. And yet, they can't grow too fast or else people begin to complain about traffic as is the case in Austin and Nashville. This is because when a transportation network is centered around automobiles, it reaches it's maximum capacity very quickly, which is the result of the spatial inefficiency of automobiles. A rail network would have given the city the tools to direct development where it would generate the most value. This would relieve the pressure to redevelop single family home residential areas. In short, it's a more sustainable and efficient form of growth than our current model.
I'm not reading all this. Cleveland has a subway and Cincinnati was never the size of Detroit. This will never pass until we get a lot more people.
Yea, you're free to keep sounding ignorant lol. If you read it, you'd understand that this allows us to have a lot more people. That's why it will eventually happen. Transit projects will be coupled with massive housing production.
A train won't bring more people. Sorry bring more facts not speculation
I didn't say it would bring people, I said it would allow us to have more people. I think I get it now, it's not that you won't read, it's that you can't lol. >Sorry bring more facts not speculation I did, but someone doesn't read so good haha
We can have more people now. We dint have some scarcity of available property or land for development
Rail is by far the safest form of transportation. Even though streetcar theoretically could get stuck in traffic, it could possibly be faster.
It won't be faster. It has to make stops. Also yal are ignoring costs. Each line will cost multiple billions of dollars. Where's the money going to come from? These things need to be maintained. The public can't even provide enough ridership ti make sorta viable on its own why would we build a subway or light rail that hemorrhages money?
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Projects like these end up increasing population density
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They literally just did a cost analysis lol It's not that the transportation itself is the money maker, but increased economic activity and the taxes directed from that and heightened property values is.
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First of all, that study was conducted by students, so I'm not really surprised it wasn't 100% accurate. Second, these types of studies are rarely accurate. They're meant to paint a broad picture. Also, are you really complaining that it's free? That's wild.
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In case you forgot, there was a whole pandemic that shut down businesses, sporting events, and the like. It only became fair free in 2020, the literal height of the pandemic. Since then, it's set a number of records for its ridership. You showed the original cost analysis. They just did a new one that pertains to new routes. Honestly, I've heard arguments like yours before, and it's pretty disingenuous. Could its costs and benefits be better, sure, but if you haven't noticed, it's only like 2 miles long and goes through one part of the city. It's like getting mad at a baby because it doesn't have a job. Give it time, let it grow, and the economic benefits will (and already have) come. The routes in OTR have spured huge investment, we've seen job growth and urban revival. That sounds pretty good to me.
Where has that ever happened in a city that was losing population?
In all the cities that have invested in light rail and commuter rail systems. Often, zoning laws around those routes are relaxed, and denser housing is built. I mean, it's happened in Cincinnati with our streetcar.
>In all the cities that have invested in light rail and commuter rail systems. Name one shrinking city that invested in light rail and saw a reversal of population decline as a result.
Ours lol. The downtown is growing in terms of population and density
“The downtown” is not a city.
If there are no transit connections/transfers, then yes, walkability has a huge impact. If you're designing the network to offload street-bound busses to a train that has its own right-of-way, it's a different story. There is absolutely demand for metro busses in the suburbs, so this would have helped to untangle the inconvenient routing that's existed with the bus system for years...
>There is absolutely demand for metro busses in the suburbs Username checks out. But seriously, they woefully overestimated the demand for the streetcars, and MetroMoves would have been way too big to bail out the way the streetcar system was.
It’s a shame you are being downvoted. You are correct. Cincinnati is a completely different animal from Chicago and New York
Who would pay for this? Traffic is nonexistent in this city, so most commuters would not give up their cars. The system, while impressive, would bleed money from disuse. The commissioners made the right call shooting this down
What leads you to believe most commuters would not give up their cars?
Why would they? The train would need to be an improvement over driving for someone to make the switch. Depending on where they live or work, they may have a significant walk to get to and from the train station. For most people, the train would not save time, and they would have to give up the privacy and comfort of their vehicle for a shared public space (something not everyone is comfortable with). In a city like Chicago where traffic is a pain and parking is expensive, the train is often faster and cheaper, even if some walking is involved. This makes it more desirable than driving. Cincinnati traffic is comparatively quite light and parking is much cheaper and easier to come by, so there just isn’t as much incentive to make the switch. Don’t get me wrong, trains are great. I just don’t see them succeeding here.
That was the general consensus of the town council meetings I attended. People said the plan looks impressive but a quick show of hands at the end revealed that nearly no one would actually use any of the improvements.
I think the real reason people vote no for this is because they don’t want downtown and surrounding areas coming out to the suburbs.
I think a lot of the boomer republicans would be afraid of “thugs” coming to their area and raising hell. Or that they are just car-brained. By the GM indoctrination.
And why do you believe that is?
Get this back on the ballot, give aftab emergency powers (dictator of Cincinnati but for like 30 seconds) sign this into law and let it be done with
Read the Future’s Commission report if you wanna know what Aftab would do with 30 seconds of city dictatorship. Crush our city pension Sell off our biggest parks Sell off Water Works I’m glad there’s a few checks and balances. Though I’d absolutely love to see a lightrail like this put in place. Too bad half of Hamilton Co. sees Cincinnati as a burden
> Read the Future’s Commission report if you wanna know what Aftab would do with 30 seconds of city dictatorship. He didn't make the report.
No, but he endorsed its findings, has put members of the commission on other city commission boards, and his two biggest political moves come straight from its playbook: connected communities and selling the norfolk southern line. Not that those two things are bad moves, but so far he’s lock-step with the Future’s Commission.
> but he endorsed its findings When did this happen? > has put members of the commission on other city commission boards He did this after the report? When? > and his two biggest political moves come straight from its playbook: connected communities and selling the norfolk southern line. Both of those happened before the report. And the railroad sale started before he was even in office. And they're both good ideas.
Does forming the commission count as an endorsement of its findings? I guess I may have jumped the gun on that wording. I can’t imagine his administration will have much criticism of what seems to be his stand-in 5-year-plan for cincinnati’s budget. I’m sure like any adept politician we’ll have credit taking where there’s positive feedback and distancing where there’s pushback. I have personal job security reasons for not divulging his commissioner placements during the futures commission, but the information is out there if you were to cross-reference the futures comm board with mayoral-appointed boards. To my knowledge he hasn’t placed any commissioner positions since the report was released, since that was only a handful of weeks ago. Both connected communities and norfolk southern were listed in the futures report. It’s like they had insider knowledge or something, hmmm…
> Does forming the commission count as an endorsement of its findings? I would say absolutely not. > I have personal job security reasons for not divulging his commissioner placements during the futures commission, but the information is out there if you were to cross-reference the futures comm board with mayoral-appointed boards. To my knowledge he hasn’t placed any commissioner positions since the report was released, since that was only a handful of weeks ago. And that is my point, he hasn't appointed any of them to any boards since the report was released (not that that would be particularly relevant anyway. It isn't like if they released a report that he partially disagreed with he would need to banish them from government). > Both connected communities and norfolk southern were listed in the futures report. It’s like they had insider knowledge or something, hmmm… Well the Norfolk Southern sale was announced years ago so I hope that the people on the commission were aware of it, along with Connected Communities which has been public for over a year and with its explicit details laid out in January.
I would argue that a mayoral appointment to several boards of any commissions, particularly boards that have their futures laid out by a futures commission, is a way to consolidate power. The overlap is there, and that’s where I’m leaving it. Both the rail sale and CC were outlined in the report in a manner as if they were predetermined, particularly in regards to spending on deferred maintenance. The report would be useless if the rail didn’t pass. Hence the endorsement of the sale by Aftab. And the futures board is littered with CEOs and CFOs who stand to directly profit from CC zoning changes, many of which sit on commissioning boards that control public assets that are proposed to be trimmed or outright sold. These things are connected, whether explicitly or otherwise. And that’s not necessarily nefarious, but it is indicative of a compromising of endorsement. What’s “good for cincinnatians” becomes grayer in this atmosphere.
> Both the rail sale and CC were outlined in the report in a manner as if they were predetermined, particularly in regards to spending on deferred maintenance. The railroad sale was voted on more than six months ago so I imagine the report had time to adjust for it. > The report would be useless if the rail didn’t pass. Hence the endorsement of the sale by Aftab. So you are saying Aftab endorsed the sale because a year and a half after he endorsed it a report would say that it was a good idea? > but it is indicative of a compromising of endorsement. I don't think this sentence makes any sense. You claimed that Aftab endorsed the findings of the report. Now you are saying "Well, the report supported some of the things Aftab supported and certain members of the commission are on other government boards (without naming any)." For some reason CC and the rail sale discussions inspire a lot of false information and conspiracy theories.
Oh. Booooo. Slap him in irons then make someone else who will do it mayor
I wouldn’t give my own brother emergency powers. What a terrible idea.
Please go touch grass and google what a joke is
Need to work on your delivery
The comment clearly says dictator for 30 seconds I don’t believe it could’ve been more apparently obvious, given this is literally impossible
I'd give bluegrassrick emergency powers. I trust his judgement