Today and tomorrow, April 12 & 13 there will be an open house at city hall promoting the Cincinnati Streetcar. Having lost almost $52 million dollars in federal transit money through back room dealings by state level GOP extremists and the one sided and ill informed local media, one might think the plan was dead. Hell, WLWT even teased that it was before telling a snippet of truth.
While the open house may be informative and might even sway some skeptics, they won't go, so it won't matter. The media, on this issue, has been dominated by opponents. How certain people get all the quotes and others are completely ignored is beyond me. If I knew maybe more people than the 5 or 6 people from India hitting "next blog" every day would read this thing.
At a recent meeting in Columbus, Christ Hospital testified they had planned on a $352 development on the streetcar route if built. Proponents repeatedly cite that private investment along the route would dwarf the city's infrastructure investment. This one development was almost 3 times the public investment. Sibcy Cline testified that home owners in the area were interested & it was driving up values. Nobody reported on this. Even WVXU, an NPR affiliate - the right's pariah, ignored it choosing, instead, to report the antics of an Anderson Township comedian & the delusional fantasies of a guy too far gone to attend the meeting himself. TV stations interviewed Chris Smitherman but ignored any number of coherent supporters like John Schneider, Brad Thomas, Randy Simes, Jake Mecklenborg, Bob Richardson.... Are they just hoping to catch some crazy out of Smitherman? Are they hoping Finney will go off on another foul mouthed rant? Are they just gambling on catching something sensational like Evel Knievel breaking every bone in his body?
ONE local media host actually takes a serious & objective look at things. Unfortunately he doesn't deal in soundbites & catchphrases like "boondoggle" and "choo choo". So who wants to watch that?
Newsmakers
The streetcar isn't an easy thing to grasp & can't be explained in a catchword (that I can think of). People will not research on their own. People want to have info spoon fed to them in pre masticated bites and they want them when they want them. The vast majority of people will not go to an open house or watch a boring presentation at a city council committee meeting. The see the morning news, They listen to the radio in their car to and from work. They might catch the evening news & probably catch some of the late news. If streetcar proponents cannot get their message into these venues (or anybody else) all the polite, genteel informative discourse is pointless.
It's not wether the plan is good or bad, it's just advertising.
PS- hey Atherton! It's the Gateway Quarter not Corridor!
2 comments:
I'm shocked at how hard the benefits are to grasp for the Cincinnati people.
I was in San Fran talking about Cincinnati with some people I met and the similarities between that city and Cincy. I then switched to the differences and they were blown away by the lack of understanding of how the street car would be a boon to the area.
Cincy people are close minded and naive on this issue. I hope that with the growth of the internet this ends.
I'll second the shout out to Newsmakers. It's really the only local news broadcast worth watching or listening.
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