The comments about a bus drive me the craziest. “What you guys need is a rubber tired trolley” Oh you mean like the Southbank shuttle? Where is the development there?
Then UC runs the Bearcat Shuttle downtown.
Childrens Hospital runs a shuttle downtown.
Metro, Tank both run downtown.
The casino runs a bus around downtown.
During special events you can have the Holly jolly Trolley.
Moerlien runs a bus around for their big events.
Mid point, the list goes on and on.
Buses do nothing for development.
I’d like to see a study done on riding a bus and the level of intimidation it garners. I’ve talked to a lot of folks that actually have no idea how to ride a bus, where they go, how often they come by, how much it costs. Again it depends on the city and age and their dependency of a bus. Philly has many options, rail, bus, but when they decide to go on strike the whole damn city shuts down. In researching transit throughout it development I like the idea of privatized transportation, but hot damn that must have been a mes.
“the streetcar gave this city the illusion of being something much bigger, growing, energetic. ”
Illusions will wane.
Your article is filled with illusions of grandeur.
It’s dead. Move on. Find something better to fight for – something that gives this city a concrete vision – an energetic growing vision for cincinnati. This streetcar never was the answer and appeared to those living outside the city limits as a futile attempt by the elitist urban renewal crowd to “improve” their lives. Give those suburbia folks a means to get downtown without cars. Give us a system like Philly. Even Dallas has a train system (with a shitty streetcar system) – Dallas – you can’t pay people to go there either. Stop bitching. Lick your wounds and give cincinnati something that willr really help us.
JD
Actually Dallas’ population has grown fairly steadily over the past few years, and with their much higher cost of living, you very much can pay people to go there, so much so that Austin has boomed because of it. And like I said, the streetcar route was not a good one, but I only just moved here. From what I have discovered there was a light rail system proposed that circled in the various Masonites that insist on taking up space at the various eateries of Vine Street. Every night…starting at 5:30.
But systems have to grow. Even the first NYC subway was only 300 feet. Population begets transportation begets each other. They have to spread like a virus. Together, and yes they suffer together. It’s symbiotic.
There’s that smugness that so often accompanies the streetcar supporters. “Masonites taking up space…” It’s that attitude that won’t win you any support from the suburbs – even when we don’t live in Mason.
You lost me on the 200 mile connection between Austin and Dallas. Census numbers don’t bear out the steady growth in Dallas in the last ten years but do correlate with a population growth around the time that it started with a light rail system. It started with that first.
Start with a more useful system in which the “Masonites” can share the cost and see what happens. My wife grew up in the suburbs of Philly and we long for a way to use decent public transportation to get downtown quickly and efficiently.
Yes, I use the Austin to Dallas correlation similar to the Philly to NY correlation. Cost of living spurned the expansion of Philly and fixed many of the issues they faced as far back as 1995. Instead of being the “ghetto” of NYC, more businesses and artisans began to flock to Philly adding a similar diversity. As the population got more dense in the urban core, the economy stabilized. Philly for a short time was jokingly referred to as the 6th burough, but they hate that.
And to reiterate, I agree that the loop of the streetcar is not a good one. But since I am new here, from what I understand, a lightrail system was proposed to public vote and shot down, two ro three times? Now this may have been before OTR rose in popularity. To this day I still get funny looks from people when I say I hang out in OTR on occasion, or the occasional, “wow and you didn’t get shot?”. It’s a stigma that will take time to overcome with locals, but as a transplant, and from what I hear form other transplants, we judt don’t understand that thinking. We didn’t live it.
I understand why non downtown residents despise this thing. I do I get it. It’s hard to see the leap of it directly serving their neighborhood. That is going to be difficult to overcome, but surely form just a logic point, I find it hard to understand that moneywise the city is just at the point of no return where they are spending just as much to destroy it as it would be to finish it. In that case what is the point? If it’s the long term costs that concern you then there are programs that can offset more, not all, of the annual cost. 2 million a year isn’t that difficult to offset. Advertising, fares and increased property tax along the lines by not even 1% could do this. So there’s that.
In the end I just want to understand the logic of killing it now, AND not having any vision to supplant it. If they were saying, let’s kill it so we can divert into a lightrail plan starting now, then fine. But there is literally no plan moving forward for regional development. Cranley did the 2 things he was campaigning for by the end of the first day, so literally he’ll be sitting back with his feet up for the next 4 years.
The comments about a bus drive me the craziest. “What you guys need is a rubber tired trolley” Oh you mean like the Southbank shuttle? Where is the development there?
Then UC runs the Bearcat Shuttle downtown.
Childrens Hospital runs a shuttle downtown.
Metro, Tank both run downtown.
The casino runs a bus around downtown.
During special events you can have the Holly jolly Trolley.
Moerlien runs a bus around for their big events.
Mid point, the list goes on and on.
Buses do nothing for development.
I’d like to see a study done on riding a bus and the level of intimidation it garners. I’ve talked to a lot of folks that actually have no idea how to ride a bus, where they go, how often they come by, how much it costs. Again it depends on the city and age and their dependency of a bus. Philly has many options, rail, bus, but when they decide to go on strike the whole damn city shuts down. In researching transit throughout it development I like the idea of privatized transportation, but hot damn that must have been a mes.
“the streetcar gave this city the illusion of being something much bigger, growing, energetic. ”
Illusions will wane.
Your article is filled with illusions of grandeur.
It’s dead. Move on. Find something better to fight for – something that gives this city a concrete vision – an energetic growing vision for cincinnati. This streetcar never was the answer and appeared to those living outside the city limits as a futile attempt by the elitist urban renewal crowd to “improve” their lives. Give those suburbia folks a means to get downtown without cars. Give us a system like Philly. Even Dallas has a train system (with a shitty streetcar system) – Dallas – you can’t pay people to go there either. Stop bitching. Lick your wounds and give cincinnati something that willr really help us.
JD
Actually Dallas’ population has grown fairly steadily over the past few years, and with their much higher cost of living, you very much can pay people to go there, so much so that Austin has boomed because of it. And like I said, the streetcar route was not a good one, but I only just moved here. From what I have discovered there was a light rail system proposed that circled in the various Masonites that insist on taking up space at the various eateries of Vine Street. Every night…starting at 5:30.
But systems have to grow. Even the first NYC subway was only 300 feet. Population begets transportation begets each other. They have to spread like a virus. Together, and yes they suffer together. It’s symbiotic.
There’s that smugness that so often accompanies the streetcar supporters. “Masonites taking up space…” It’s that attitude that won’t win you any support from the suburbs – even when we don’t live in Mason.
You lost me on the 200 mile connection between Austin and Dallas. Census numbers don’t bear out the steady growth in Dallas in the last ten years but do correlate with a population growth around the time that it started with a light rail system. It started with that first.
Start with a more useful system in which the “Masonites” can share the cost and see what happens. My wife grew up in the suburbs of Philly and we long for a way to use decent public transportation to get downtown quickly and efficiently.
JD
Yes, I use the Austin to Dallas correlation similar to the Philly to NY correlation. Cost of living spurned the expansion of Philly and fixed many of the issues they faced as far back as 1995. Instead of being the “ghetto” of NYC, more businesses and artisans began to flock to Philly adding a similar diversity. As the population got more dense in the urban core, the economy stabilized. Philly for a short time was jokingly referred to as the 6th burough, but they hate that.
And to reiterate, I agree that the loop of the streetcar is not a good one. But since I am new here, from what I understand, a lightrail system was proposed to public vote and shot down, two ro three times? Now this may have been before OTR rose in popularity. To this day I still get funny looks from people when I say I hang out in OTR on occasion, or the occasional, “wow and you didn’t get shot?”. It’s a stigma that will take time to overcome with locals, but as a transplant, and from what I hear form other transplants, we judt don’t understand that thinking. We didn’t live it.
I understand why non downtown residents despise this thing. I do I get it. It’s hard to see the leap of it directly serving their neighborhood. That is going to be difficult to overcome, but surely form just a logic point, I find it hard to understand that moneywise the city is just at the point of no return where they are spending just as much to destroy it as it would be to finish it. In that case what is the point? If it’s the long term costs that concern you then there are programs that can offset more, not all, of the annual cost. 2 million a year isn’t that difficult to offset. Advertising, fares and increased property tax along the lines by not even 1% could do this. So there’s that.
In the end I just want to understand the logic of killing it now, AND not having any vision to supplant it. If they were saying, let’s kill it so we can divert into a lightrail plan starting now, then fine. But there is literally no plan moving forward for regional development. Cranley did the 2 things he was campaigning for by the end of the first day, so literally he’ll be sitting back with his feet up for the next 4 years.
Win support from the suburbs? Support for what? Last I checked you can’t vote in the city, go back to Mason and outlaw streetcars there.