Cincinnati Light Rail News

[UncleRando]

^Not only is it MUCH cheaper, but I think that Lilly Pad project is funded by some group (not city money).  For transit you are limited to what your community is willing to spend on it.  We could have had light-rail well underway right now, but the voters said no...you can not blame local government for that.

[NBow37]

Yup, blame the suburbs for shooting down light rail...

[John Schneider]

By the way, did you read that Air France is going to start selling European rail tickets part and parcel with its air tickets? In other words, someday if you want to travel from Paris to Milan -- say-- the reservations agent or the web site will give you all of your options -- both by rail and by rail. That's a breakthrough.

[jmecklenborg]

^Well I don't see how that would be possible in the US with so many competing airlines.  France runs both its solitary airline and its passenger rail network so the government doesn't really care which mode people take.  Also, a big advantage of rail versus air is the weird elevator music they play on Air France!

I drew out a comparison of the two ways to get to the airport...as this illustrates crossing at Anderson Ferry is roughly the same distance as following I-75 and I-275, however the interstate alignment has an advantage south to Florence.  Hard to believe it's four miles from the airport terminal to the Florence Mall area, however this run would be very cheap to construct with the exception of the tunnel.  There would also have to be an overpass over the access road to the interior of the airport, there is actually a pretty large tunnel under the east runway which is extra high to allow for those big airport firetrucks and at about 1,200ft. in length the longest vehicular tunnel in the region. 

[noozer]

jmecklenborg.... very interesting alternative.  Did you also know that the City of Cinciannti owns the rail line between Cincy and Nashville?  Don't know if that comes near the airport.  But I was also thinking of rail connecting with the Cincy-NKY airport, but a rail connection to Chicago-O'Hare... which is a major hub for international flights to the Pacific Rim nations.

John Schneider.... Hasn't Lufthansa been doing something similar for a couple of years?  Forget where I heard that, but I understand you can book your flight and air travel in one package with them and sit on a dedicated rail car to the airport where they get you right to your plane... as you've already been through security at the train station. 

[jmecklenborg]

>that the City of Cinciannti owns the rail line between Cincy and Nashville?


Yeah, it's actually between Cincinnati and Chattanooga, but close enough.  It's way too busy to use for commuter service and it climbs the Kentucky hills on a route that would be pretty costly to parallel with two more tracks.  This is the line just a mile south of the river (I stole this photo off Montecarlos's site): 

 
There used to be a bridge like this on the now abandoned westside C&O line, one of my grandfather's friends got caught out on it when a train came and got his arm severed.  Not sure exactly how he managed to lose an arm and not fall off but that's the story I always heard.

[noozer]

Why I bring up the city-owned line is that city and state officials recently toured the line by rail and the impression brought back was fairly positive about possibly using the line for passenger rail south of Cincinnati at some point.  Even though a Class-1 railroad operates the line (NS, I believe), the city (as the landlord) would seem to have the say as to what else can run on the line.  And the NS is one of the more passenger-friendly railroads.... it was their engines that hauled the recent tour of the line.

One to keep in the back of your head at least.

[jmecklenborg]

^I think something like 30-40 freight trains cross the Ohio River bridge daily and they move very slow partly because of the hill and partly to reduce wear on the bridge.  There are grades and yards at both ends of the bridge, in fact bridges frequently stop completely on the bridge for crew changes.  Passenger trains being lighter could cross the bridge and climb the hill faster, but any kind of big-time commuter and passenger traffic can't happen there.  This bridge was of course used heavily when Union Terminal was at its peak, but it's a different situation now.  I'm not sure when the lease is going to be renegotiated either.   

The line is visible on that aerial image, look just to the right of the big highway interchange and you should be able to see it snaking around. 
   

[cincybearcat]

As far as going to CVG, I think a BRT line would be effective until a more permanent line could be established.  You would think TANK would establish at least a more sustainable route from CVG to downtown, with keeping stops in Covington.

[noozer]

Yup... the traffic that passes Union Terminal via Queensgate Yard is problematic, but not an impossible situation.  It may take working with CSX and NS to re-route their freight traffic or build a new and better yard that could take some of the strain off that bottleneck.

Great use of the aerial map BTW.

Also, BRT may also be a good short-term solution until a rail-based system could be engineered. 

[John Schneider]

You know, one of the problems with a putative Cincinnati CBD-CVG rail line is that there's just not a lot of expected ridership. I remember during the planning for the I-71 Corridor light rail a few years ago, the model predicted maybe 2,000 O&D passengers a day at the airport stop. And that was before Delta cut 26% of its flights. Most of the ridership was airport food-service and ramp workers, not the briefcase-toting day-trippers you'd find in a lot of larger cities. The model was tweaked to and fro several times, and it just never showed a lot of demand.  It surprised everyone.

I do know that CVG airport planners have pretty much determined how rail would get into the terminal area if it ever happens, and they're reserving space for it. In a lot of cities, though, airport managers are often loathe to accommodate rail, and they fight it in very subtle ways because they depend on the parking revenue too much and don't want the competition. Because of that, there are literally a handful of cities in the US that have a one-seat train ride to the airport.

With respect to the BRT to the airport, we kind of have that now. I routinely take the TANK Airport Express from in front of the Federal Building @ Fifth & Main to the airport, three blocks from my home. It goes north on Main to Sixth, turns on Sixth to Race, and south on Race to FWW and the airport. I don't recall it ever making another stop in downtown. No stops between downtown and CVG until it gets to the rental car area NW of the terminals. Then it drops you by the Delta baggage claim. I think it's faster than driving, parking and walking to the terminal. And with a Metro Pass, it costs 45 cents. Beats a $30 cab ride, except on the return trip when it stops at the Covington Transit Center on Madison and meanders through Covington to Cincinnati.

[thomasbw]

That raises a very important point about BRT, how do you make it more palatable to the average rider?

[dmerkow]

I first noticed in the last week or so that Tank now has special looking buses for the Airport Express. Unfortunately, I imagine that ridership figures John mentioned are probably true without a massive regional system that feeds into the airport line. This is basically the situation in Philly though even there if you have a late plane you are pretty SOL. All things considered it seems like one of those lines that 'progressive cities' have even if it isn't the most efficient use of resources. I imagine the convention folks would love to be able to say how it easy it is to take the train to downtown from the airport.
On the other hand, the Oasis thing just seems weird and a waste of energy. 

[jmecklenborg]

And despite the large size of the Cincinnati airport, its location has always and will always have been a huge bit of wasted potential and a huge strain on infrastructure.  The development it's spurred in Northern Kentucky has been the chief contributor to traffic on I-75, the hill, and the bridge.  All that would have been avoided with an airport in Blue Ash, somewhere else in Hamilton County, or Butler County.     

>I remember during the planning for the I-71 Corridor light rail a few years ago, the model predicted maybe 2,000 O&D passengers a day at the airport stop. 

John do you remember the ridership predictions for Florence?  I remember the NK line was planned to eventually branch with one leg heading to the airport and another to Florence.  With an airport station near the terminal I don't see a way to avoid tunneling under the airport in order to head somewhere else with the line.  But I'm not a fan of a line branching with just one or two stations on a branch, the headways become too slow for non-scheduled service. 

Can someone who attended the meeting explain why exactly the Oasis alignment is predicted to cost over $400 million?  Since they currently bring cars to and from the Boathouse for novelty purposes it appears that a bare-bones service could be initiated without much capital investment outside of the stretch between Sawyer Point and the transit center.  Nashville started commuter rail service last year for $40 million.  The line only carried something like 700 people a day but the circumstances seemed fairly similar to me.  They did some track improvements, built simple stations, bought two old commuter trains, and fired it up.  If the Oasis line can be put into service for under $100 million it's probably worth it but I agree that $400 million is ridiculous.     

 

[noozer]

With all due respect to those who did the polling back when LRT was on the ballot in Cincinnati, gasoline prices & traffic congestion were not then what they are now.  I would bet those numbers would be different today: by how much it's hard to say, but they would be different.

It would be interesting to do another poll.

[John Schneider]

So many questions. Jake, how do you remember all this stuff?

You're right, there was a branch in the "airport" light rail at about where I-275 and I-75 meet. It was in the plan because Kentucky interests were divided over which market needed to be served best -- the airport or workers in Florence wanting to go to downtown Ohio and Kentucky. So in the typical Cincinnati mode, they tried to please everyone and ended up pleasing no one. All the Cincinnati-centric people wanted a faster trip to CVG. People living in Florence tended to view the airport as a hostile occupying force, and they could care less if Cincinnatians got there a little faster. So the choice was never really made, and there was really no need to make a choice because Kentucky wasn't going to be voting on it anytime soon. So it just remained on the map as a bifurcated alignment.

However, there are always heroes in these things. Mark Donaghy, who was then general manager of TANK and a really great guy (he now runs Dayton's system) figured out a way to serve both Florence and the airport on the same alignment by entering the airport through the golf course thats, what?, I guess, SE of the airport property. It was maybe a mile or so longer and you did have to tunnel under one of the runways, but everyone was kind of intrigued by it. But then the 2002 vote in Ohio happened, and it never received any more advanced planning, officially at least.

A few days after the campaign in 2002, we did extensive polling and focus groups of people who actually voted for or against the issue to capture their top-of-mind thoughts on why they voted the way they did. We agreed to seal the results, and only two copies of the poll and focus group surveys exist today. It is valuable information for the next time. Without revealing what the conclusions were, suffice it to say that a driving factor was the prevailing political environment that was in effect in Cincinnati and Hamilton County in the fall of 2002. It was very useful information, and if an issue like Issue 7 ever comes to the ballot again, it will be used in shaping the campaign. These kind of polls cost about $20,000, so I doubt that one would be taken today simply to take the pulse of what people are thinking, but I do agree that gas prices, which were at about their lowest level since the end of WWII in the fall of 2002, would be a factor. Plus, I think people know that -- cost aside -- there are problems in the highway economy. Over breakfast today, I read the Financial Times, and the front-page headline was something like, "There will be a 'crunch' on oil supplies in 5 years." So I think people not only worry about price, but simple availability and the cost to keep the supply lines open, and prudent people are starting to reconfigure their lives. Look at the boom in downtown housing in every city in the country including places like Houston, LA and Atlanta.

The Oasis Line is a 10 mph line right now over most of its length. All you have there is ROW. There's no signaling to meet passenger standards, no park and rides, no stations, no shops and yards, and the viability of some structures are in doubt. Some sections flood, and so they have to be elevated. Trust me, if Todd Portune could get the price down to $100 million, he'd do it. By the way, I think the $400+ million was in 2004 dollars and not adjusted for the year of expenditure like we've done for the streetcar.

But OK, say you could build it for $100 million -- for the hell of it, say it required no capital funds at all -- then you've still got to find almost $20 million per year for operating expenses. All to serve 6,000 commuter rides per day (3,000 commuters) and ... well ... you get the idea. Sad to say, the Oasis Line is just a total loser in every respect including the dubious choice of petroleum-based fuel and how the route fails to serve the heart of downtown. I'm afraid that if it is our first rail line, it will be the last one built for at least a generation.

Sorry to be so long.

[noozer]

Might I say that this has been one of the most intelligent discussions on the Transportation thread in a while.  Good information and a good exchange of ideas and opinion.  Lots to think about.

Kudos to all of you!

[The_Cincinnati_Kid]

The IRS in Covington has been tossing around the idea of moving to better/more efficient space for several years now.  When I was last privy to the conversations (around 2002), they knew there space needs were changing with the advent of computer/online tax filings.  They do not require all of the single floor space they have now and knew that at some point in the not too distant future, they could move to space that better meets their 21st century needs.  Plus, their current site is part of Covington's Riverfront West plans.

[UncleRando]

^Man...a nice mid-rise would be a welcome replacement for that current crap building they occupy.

[David]

The IRS in Covington has been tossing around the idea of moving to better/more efficient space for several years now.  When I was last privy to the conversations (around 2002), they knew there space needs were changing with the advent of computer/online tax filings.  They do not require all of the single floor space they have now and knew that at some point in the not too distant future, they could move to space that better meets their 21st century needs.  Plus, their current site is part of Covington's Riverfront West plans.

I remember reading an article about how modern forms of data storage has had an impact on the amount of space required for many corporations that used to require a lot of sq. ft. for storage of documentation. Fascinating, the way it has had an impact on architecture over the years.

[jmecklenborg]

^So most of that space is just file cabinets?  The new imaging systems they have are incredibly fast (when the scanners are actually up and running) so it's basically the task of an office temp to remove all the staples and put coded dividing sheets between each "transaction" (or whatever they choose to call it there) and then just feed the machine thousands of sheets of paper a minute. 

I've never ridden TANK and looked at their map for the first time.  It was interesting enough that I decided to post it here.



What's salient to the conversation here is TANK's emphasis on the Suspension Bridge and the way most (all except Dixie Hwy?) of the suburban routes completely bypass downtown Covington.  What Kentucky needs to do is decide what role Covington is going to play if and when it builds light rail south to Florence and/or the airport.  A big-time investment in rail could route all of suburban Boone and Kenton County transit riders (suburban buses could all feed into the light rail line above the hill) through downtown Covington and take a lot of buses off of the Suspension Bridge.  Otherwise they might as well skip Covington and just run trains parallel to I-75 and cross the river between the Brent Spence and the C&O Bridge (although this doesn't do anything about the old bridge).  A line diverging from I-75 around 5th St. would require an el not only over the fast food area but also over the C&O approach viaduct.  This means it's not really realistic without a subway, although such a subway leading to a tunnel under the river would work perfectly in my opinion.     

First are routes for a bridge at Elm or Race and crossing into the area currently occupied by the IRS.  I'm not sure what was really supposed to be accomplished by following the C&O line as was studied in the 90's.  Reducing bus ridership in the center of Covington means bus service would have been cut back, increasing headways to  Latonia and "remote" areas of Covington.  Any line to the suburbs needs to get back to the I-75 cut which means it has to diverge from the C&O and cross over to I-75 with approximately 1,500 feet of street running down residential streets which means light rail only follows the C&O line for a few thousand feet.  And also as shown by the green a more direct route to the C&O would probably need a tunnel or el to get there.  And running parallel to the C&O was going to be a mess with its various sidings, and then of course the light rail line had to cross the C&O at some point.   


Here are two different subway routes for Covington, with the one heading into the fast food neighborhood being the shorter (about 4,000 feet from the river) and more cost-effective.  This route would help riverfront development in this area AND create a transfer point for all of the Suspension Bridge buses, unlike the above bridge schemes.  The Pike St. route would be about 7,000 feet of tunnel from the river and could help bolster central Covington but wouldn't spur a ton of new construction.     


What's problematic still about the Suspension Bridge predicament is that some buses will always be needed because light rail down Madison would actually have to go all the way to Latonia (about three miles) in order to eliminate all buses coming from that side of the C&O tracks and so be quite expensive.  What would actually be really interesting is if Newport Steel every pulls out and that huge area was redeveloped for offices and residential.  A line could cross the Licking over to Newport Steel, then back to Latonia.         

And lastly the one thing to remember is that Mike Brown controls Elm St. so a bridge and approach blocking the view of his stadium is probably not going to happen. 

[John Schneider]

The problem is, construction of Cincinnati's new riverfront park pretty much precludes the construction of another bridge that could serve central Covington. A Race-Madison bridge was once on the books, but neither city was ready to act on it and the money was moved to build the new cable-stayed bridge at Maysville with the (sort of) promise that whenever the two river cities got their acts together to build a new central riverfront bridge, the money would be made available again. Somehow, with two freeway bridges now seeking funding in Louisville, plus the new Brent Spence, I'm guessing we'll all be dead before this happens. Plus, I think Cincinnati's new riverfront park effectively blocks another central riverfront bridge forever. And it does connect all the dots with a single line.

The effect is that a direct Cincinnati - Covington rail connection, on the most obvious alignment, will never happen. In my opinion, rail will cross the river on the Taylor Southgate to Newport and use a new Fourth/Fifth Street Bridge over the Licking River to serve downtown Covington and then on to the airport. Essentially, there will be a "hook" in the alignment. Seeing as how light rail is pretty much programmed to run on Main and Walnut, it's not so bad.

[ManorBorn]

^So most of that space is just file cabinets?   

No, most of the storage is out in Florence where the real estate is cheaper.  The need to move large volumes of paper from one work area to another is the reason for a one story layout.

[Jimmy_James]

Well without any real news to report on the project, what is the media supposed to say?

I can't speak for the local TV news, because I don't watch it, but as far as the print publications go, it would be nice if they at least covered the basics: when the meetings are supposed to happen, what the meetings are for, how a streetcar is different from light rail (outside of the $$$ difference), etc.  John Scheider posted information about a presentation scheduled for October 9th in this very thread, that I was previously totally unaware of.

In the Enquirer's most recent article on the subject Streetcar efforts still on track from the 05/31/07 edition, the following two lines seemed to indicate that the process was moving rapidly:

"Cincinnati officials hope for news within a month that tells them what to do next in the push for a streetcar line, and how they might pay for it."

"Among the questions Chairman Chris Bortz said he hoped could be answered before council takes its summer break in July: Where will the roughly $100 million estimated construction cost come from?"

Hey Enquirer, how about a little follow-up on that?  Isn't that your job, to keep track of important issues and inform the populace?  I've been paying close attention, and there was no information in July regarding what did or did not happen and why.  You'd think from the amount of coverage in the local paper(s) that no one in this town thinks the lack of comprehensive mass transit is even an issue.  And to be honest, a lot of people I talk to have no idea that a streetcar system is even under consideration, but they're excited by the prospect and want to hear more.  I'd love to tell them to catch up on the issue by hitting enquirer.com, but if you search for "streetcar", you get virtually no usuable results; just some lame Jim Borgman cartoon.  (I had to find the article above through a cached copy of enquirer.com on Google).  Even the coverage of The Banks never mentions the potential streetcar, which would service the northeast-most blocks. 

I'd love to see at least a monthly update on this issue.  Even if there's no "news", at least let us know that the project is still under consideration, give us a recap of the life of the project so far, maybe delve into how a streetcar would affect Metro's recent woes, lay out funding alternatives beyond simple tax hikes, or explain the use of a streetcar as a stepping stone to building a truly first class rail system.  Most people have no idea how/why a streetcar is different from light rail, because a lot of us grew up right here, after Cincy got rid of it's original streetcar lines.  How about they talk about what a huge mistake THAT was?  Actually, maybe I should just write about this.  Anyone know if the Enquirer is looking for an opinionated mass transit columnist?

[UncleRando]

Actually, maybe I should just write about this.  Anyone know if the Enquirer is looking for an opinionated mass transit columnist?

Well mass transit isn't an issue that the suburbs deal with or even want to deal with...so no, they're probably not concerned about reporting on the issue.  Now if the issue were able to be laced with political bickering/infighting and delays...then you can be damn sure the Enquirer would be reporting on that story with a weekly and/or daily special.

John Schneider is right...sometimes (actually most of the time) no news is good news from the Enquirer.

[dmerkow]

I saw today that Charlotte is dealing its version of COAST trying to repeal the sales tax they passed to fund their light rail system. Idiots . . . I say.

[unusualfire]

^ Ouch i guess you are right. http://www.stopthetrain.com/ but it does not mean they will vote against it.

[cincyimages]

Well mass transit isn't an issue that the suburbs deal with or even want to deal with...so no, they're probably not concerned about reporting on the issue. 

But they are right there ready to bitch when we don't have it or it fails.  Ready to quote that Mark Twain (fake) quote.

[David]

^Many people voted it down because they didn't suport the specific proposal itself. Not necessarily because they weren't pro-light rail.

[thomasbw]

^what are you basing that statement on? (shouldn't end in a preposition)