Call Me a Geek

Call me a geek - be the final solution
BUT
This image made me think of a Cincinnati Metro map...

How Much $%#@! Parking Do We Need ?

The city of Cincinnati requires massive amounts of automobile parking for office space in the basin.
The thing is, we have many residential neighborhoods in close proximity to the basin, a bus system that serves those areas pretty well & a bike system with potential to serve those areas well in the future.
Requiring the additional parking in the basin is counter productive, unnecessary, expensive & redundant.
We need more population in the city - the inner suburbs as well as the basin and eliminating these parking requirements is a good way to go about it. Use the car for things other than commuting and use alternative commuting methods for the relatively short commute within the city.
This rezoning makes perfect sense & the policy is the right direction to take to pull our city, the downtown & neighborhoods, together.
If people need trheir shiny little cars 100% of the time, let them deal with it themselves.

Time to Take Another Look at the Cincinnati Transit Center

There has been talk of centralizing private bus operation like Greyhound & MegaBus into the Cincinnati Transit center. The big stumbling block has been costs to operate the thing by Metro.
Given the cost disparities in operating the streetcar in house or through a turnkey operation, maybe it's time to think about an audit on Transit Center operations & see if we really need to pay so much to use the facility. Maybe we could get somewhere with a private operator there.

Horror Sells - Safety

The Finishing Line
This 1977 documentary was made to get kids to quit playing around the train tracks. Like that's even possible.
Anyhoo, it was shocking enough that the film was abandoned & banned.
The kid that was fantasizing the whole thing is definitely my kind of guy. Unfortunately, in typical cheap ass British film making tradition, it's pretty sparse on special effects. Americans & Japanese would have a lot more gore, mutilation & dismemberment. Still, it has that eerie British The Prisoner thing going on.

Read more at Dangerous Minds

Branding Rail

Typical Transit UserCincinnati's Metro is looking for someone to brand the Cincinnati Streetcar.

The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority is seeking proposals for RFP 20-14 for Streetcar Brand Development. Proposal instructions, specifications and contractual terms and conditions may be obtained by contacting SORTA's Procurement Department, Lyndi Bryan at lbryan@go-metro.com.

.
Given the horrors of mass transit, the dangerous route the proposed line might take, the fact that it might even go to Price Hill - I imagine horror should be the main theme. Flames, blood, skulls, ominous music, explosions…
Branding Beat offers this.
The idea of frightening the rider is only half of what they need to do. They need to scare the crap out of every ped, cyclist & motorist that might come into contact with the murderous metal leviathan as it screeches along it's tracks.
I'm tellin' ya maaaaaannn, Horror Sells.

Horror Sells

Pepsi
Who cares when the bus shows up with these nutty animations at the shelter?
Still ain't buyin' no damn Pepsi, tho...

Hey, Let's All Go to the Milford Shopping Center !

Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune has a pet project. He wants to build a train line from downtown Cincinnati to the Milford shopping center. His partner on the county commissioners, Greg Hartmann ain't on board and says so.
I get taking a train from Newtown or Milford to downtown Cincinnati. There's a ton of stuff to do there and with the streetcar system, the whole basin area is easily traversed.
But who wants to go from Cincinnati to the Milford Shopping Center?

Don't want a streetcar? Group pitches plan to 'climb on' dirigible

A group pushing for a wingless inflatable dirigible to fly folks around Cincinnati pitched its idea Monday.
Organizers of Climb On Cincinnati presented the dirigible idea to the Hamilton County Transportation Improvement District board of directors during the TID’s monthly meeting.
To avoid the added cost of landing spaces, the group has concocted a plan of just hanging rope ladders so passengers could elegantly climb up & down to the craft that would follow varying routes around town.

"People don't want to be confined by roads & rail and, frankly, the very notion of such a system is downright soccialist, so we are going to fly whenever and wherever we want."

The group only needs to raise $10Z and clear any number of FAA hurdles but believes they can be up & running in time for the next passing of Haley's comet.
Meanwhile, another group, Hop on Cincinatti has proposed a collection of routes covered by short buses.

International "Expert" to Discuss Transit in Cincinnati RegionThe Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber’s Agenda 360 will be bringing in a full time consultant who has worked in the US & Australia/New Zealand to discuss transit in the Cincinnati area. He affirms that the streetcar should be successful but warns that we must not focus on it to the detriment of regional transit development. Indeed, Metro is updating routes & creating "hubs" in the city of Cincinnati.
Regional transit? That ball's in the court of the state, county, townships & other municipalities. Hope they are listening.

WCPO with misleading headline here

UPDAYE: Apparently, even the expert found the WCPO headline misleading & praised the streetcar plan.
sigh... It's not just locals calling out the crappy, biased Cincinnati media.....

John Cranley
~ On the Issues ~
Bad to BizarreJohn Cranley proclaims

City Hall has repeatedly cut bus routes and increased fares. I will reverse that trend by adding routes routes and reducing fares.

Well, ok, Council has to approve fare hikes, dunno about arbitrarily setting them, but routes are pretty much the sole domain of Metro/SORTA. Nevermind that, tho, does it make sense to cut funding and increase spending? Again, Cranley's math goes beyond bistro & into the bizarro.
In the past, Cranley has worked to block Metro fare increases and wound up hampering service & deferring maintenance. The metro manager warned Cranley that his short sighted austerity would only make repair costs higher in the long run - Cranley didn't listen.
Meanwhile - are Cincinnati fares out of whack? FWIW, I frequently see people pay cash & only ride 1 or 2 stops. Anyway, here's what other towns charge.

• Cincinnati - $1.75
• Columbus - $2.00
• Cleveland - $2.25
• Indianapolis - $1.75
• Lexington - $1.00
• Louisville - $1.75
• Detroit - $1.50
• Pittsburgh - 0 - $2.50
• St Louis - $2.00
• Baltimore - $1.60

Pittsburgh has a "free zone". I don't know how big it is but from eye witness experience in Porkopolis, having simple fixed fares & routes eliminates a lot of confusion and promotes efficiency.
As far as new routes go, I can only hope Cranley intends to be as critical as he has been on the streetcar. oh, wait, that was just obstructionism, Cranley's real talent ~well~ when not promising free stuff…..

John Cranley
~ On the Issues ~
Bad to BizarreFrom John Cranley's mercurial website:

"Instead of the uneconomical streetcar plan, I support the efforts of Hop On Cincinnati, which is a plan for a trackless trolley system bus that will connect entertainment districts like the Gateway Quarter, Mt. Adams, The Banks, and the Casino."

While the streetcar plan Cranley opposes is geared towards building long term, sustainable residential & business investment, Cranley wants to invest in a cheap party bus. Maybe one of these?FWIW, we already have a Fun Bus and when it comes to this kind of transit idea, a free traveling vehicle is a good idea as the entertainment hot spots tend to come and go. 2nd Street used to be HUGE and, later, Main Street and while there are other reasons they are gone, both were in decline before their coups de grases. Fact is, there's reasons to have fun buses AND a streetcar. Unfortunately, Cranley's vision is as limited as his message of shallow populist fawning.
Bread and circuses without the bread - all Cranley's got.

I want Some of What Todd's SmokingIf you told me our new sheriff had given the keys to the evidence room to our Hamilton County Commissioners, I wouldn't be surprised. Hartman is telling the city to shorten the enforced meters time but his own departments could probably save the bankrupt county government money by shortening their own hours rendering the conflict moot. Todd Portune, an ex-Cincinnati resident is trying to dictate meter rates. Hey, why not get rid of 'em - everybody likes free stuff…..
But Portune's real gem is his Eastern Corridor Oasis line. A project that will cost almost a half BILLION dollars and almost $20,000,000 per year to operate. And where can a Cincinnatian go on the train line? Parking lots.
While folks out east in places like scenic Milford & idyllic Newtown can drive to these parking lots, park & hop on the train to town like Don Draper, a person taking the trip east would need some good hiking shoes. Dunno what the scoop is on taking bikes on the train.
It seems the train would only need to make a couple rush hour trips in the morning & evening. It really wouldn't serve much purpose on wekends. I don't know what value this thing would have for special events. Even metro has stopped it's Riverfest specials. And this is what really has Portune freaked out. He wants to get this train running by a major sporting event. Why? Will baseball fans want to take the train to a Milford parking lot? Perhaps a lot of east siders are avid baseball fans - ok - how do you schedule the train around the game AND the other festivities?
Seems like an awfully expensive Park & Ride.
Anyway, Mt Adams is sure to veto the plan.

What do these guys have in common?
Ace Hardware, Clifton
Ace Hardware, Northside
Adrian Durbin Florist
Algin Office Equipment
Ambar India
American Apparel
American Heritage Flooring
Amol India
Antonelli Institute of Art
Apna India
Aquarius Star
Aronoff Center
Arby's
Arlin's
Baba Budan's
Bacall's
Bagel Brothers
Below Zero Lounge
Biagio's Bistro
The Blue Jay
Bruegger's Bagels
Cadillac Ranch
Campus Cyclery
Chameleon
Check Smart
Chicago Gyro
China Kitchen
Chipotle
Cincinnati Main Library
Clifton library
Clifton Natural Foods
Clifton Post office
Clifton Wines
College Hill Coffee
The Comet
Contemporary Arts Center
CVS
Darou Salam
Donato's Pizza
Ellanet
Esquire Theatre
Extreme Fashions
Good Samaritan Hospital
Goodie's Barbecue
Graeter's
Grammer's
Greg's Antiques
The Grove
Habaneros
Hamilton County Court House
Happen
Harry's Bar & Pizza
Hazel Glas
Honey
Javier's ~ or whatever it's called now
Jeff Ruby's Steakhouse
Jerusalem Restaurant
KFC/Taco Hell
Kilamanjaro
KoSho
La Rosa's
Lenhardt's
Mac's Pizza
Main Event
Mediterranean Foods
Melt
Mishiella's
Mixx
MOTR Pub
Murphy's Pub
Nada
Naru
National City Bank
Nicholson's
Northside Bar
North Side Bank & Trust
Northside library
Northside Tavern
NorthSlice
NVision
NYPD
Ohio Book Store
Ohio Check Cashers
Olive's
Park & Vine
Park Chili
Penn Station
Picnic & Pantry
PNC Bank
Proud Rooster
Richter & Phillips
Rohs Street Cafe
Schaeper's Pharmacy
Schwartz's Point
Shadeau Breads
Shake It Records
Shell Gas
Sidewinder Coffee
Sitwell's Coffee House
Skyline
Some Clothing Store in Clifton
Some Jewelry Store in Clifton
Starbucks's
Subway
Sophia's
Take the Cake
The Tax Place
Taylor Jameson
Thai Cafe
Thai Express
Tink's
Toko Baru
U.C.
White Castle

Yep, if you want a burrito, a coffee, listen to jazz, rock, bluegrass or maybe just get a master's degree - it's all available on Metro's RT 17.
~ and, yeah, I know the list isn't complete….

Excerpts from a couple articles about rail transit in the latest edition of The American Conservative.
It's too bad we have such polarized opinions on this issue in Cincinnati. It would be great to see if costs could be cut. Personally, I think the size of the streetcars being proposed is way big.

Rail Against the Machine by William Lind -
Conservatives do not like public transportation — or so libertarians and Republican officeholders tell us. If that means we must spend hours stuck in congested traffic, so be it. Under no circumstances would conservatives ever ride public transit.
Except that we are riding it, in growing numbers. Studies of passengers on rail-lransit systems across the country indicate many conservatives are on board. Chicago's excellent METRA commuter trains offer one example. A recent survey revealed that in the six- county area METRA serves, 11 percent of commuters with incomes of $75,000 or more commuted by train. In Lake County, fhe mean earnings of rail com- mnifr-r.s were more than $76,000. (The figure for bus riders was less than $14.000.) Not surprisingly, the area METRA serves regularly sends Republicans to Congress.
So why are conservatives using the public transportation we are told they oppose? Because being stuck in traffic isn't fun. even if yon are driving a BMW. On a commuter train or Light Rail line, you whiz past all those cars going nowhere at 50 or 60 miles per hour — reading, working on your laptop, or relaxing, instead of staring at some other guy's bumper.
Still, libertarians shriek, "Subsidies!" — ignoring the fact that highways only cover 58 percent of their costs from user fees, including the gas tax. To understand how conservatives might appriiac'h transportation issues more thoughtfully, we need to differentiate.
All public transit is not created equal. You will find few people with alterna- tives sitting on buses crawling slowly down city streets. Most bus passengers are "transit dependents" — people who have no other way to get around. But most conservatives have cars; they are "riders from choice," people who will only take transit that offers better conditions than driving. They demand high-quality transit, which usually means rail: commuter trains, subways, Light Rail, and streetcars.
Here wo see one of the absurdities of the Republican position on transit. During the recent Bush administration, it was virtually impossible to get fed- eral funding for rail-transit projects; buses were offered instead. But most Republicans' constituents are served by rail transit.
The perception that conservatives do not use public transportation is only one of the mistaken notions that has warped the Right's position on trans- portation policy. Another is that the dominance of automobiles and high- ways is a free-market outcome. Noth- ing could be further from the truth. Were we to drop back 100 years, we would find that Americans were highly mobile. Their mobility was based on a dense, nationwide network of rail transportation: intercity trains, street- cars, and interurbans ((lie latter two electrically powered). Almost all of these rail systems were privately owned, paid taxes, and were expected to make a profit. But they were wiped out by massive government subsidies.....

Tracking the Cost by Glen Bottoms -
Rail transit's great enemy isn't public support or political will but its enormous price tag. The expense of heavy-rail subway systems has limited recent growth to extensions of existing lines. The last heavy- rail construction completed in the U.S. was a 3.2 mile extension of Washington Metro's blue line to largo Town Center, completed in 2004 at a cost of $695 million ($217 million/mile). Phase I of the Metro's 11.6 mile exten- sion to Dulies Airport is estimated at a staggering $2.65 billion ($242,1 million/mile). The bite for New York City subway extensions is in another reality-
At first, light Rail seemed to offer a solution, but its cost is steadily rising.
Now that streetcars have caught on in many U.S. cities—over 60 are currently planning streetcar projects— many fear that the cost-escalation virus could infect this mode as well. The price tag on Tucson's streetcar project, now under construction, has grown by 20 percent. Costs for proposed streetcar projects across the country range from a reasonable $ 10 million to an eye-popping $60 million per mile.
What accounts for mis dramatic escalation? Three key factors: 1) overdesign, 2) lack of technical expertise at the overseeing transit agency, and 3) external factors like polit- ical interference and rising material costs. Consultants retained to design these systems regularly use plans that they already possess without regard to applicability or functionality, selecting higher-speed overhead wire in rail yards and city streets or specifying cer- tain types of rail without regard for cheaper alternatives. Supervisors often cite rising prices of construction com- ponents worldwide as the reason for transit projects' blown budgets.
America's rail infrastructure won't be resurrected overnight. But history shows that we can build rail econom- ically and on time. After all, we have been constructing sys- tems of all sizes and complexities in this country for well over a hundred years. Recalling those past experiences today will give us the tools we need to build the trains of tomorrow.

Articles here.

Benefits of GPS On Buses
An article at UrbanCincy tells us Metro is going to update their communications system including the addition of GPS monitoring on buses. The author points out the benefits of this in knowing when your bus will actually arrive. Well, maybe.
Morning rush hour buses are pretty much on the money. In the afternoon, when dumbass kids use the bus to get home from school, it all falls apart. In the late evening, when nobody wants to stand around at the bus stop the drivers just kinda drive around at will. That is, they don't move at a constant rate.
What could be really cool is if some buses could add sensors to monitor when people enter & exit the bus (clusterfucks at the front would be a problem) & tie the recording of data to a clock so Metro would have a much better idea of where & when people are getting on & off the bus. As it is now, I am pretty sure they are going on guesstimates. Sometimes it looks like somebody is counting.
While the "every two block" bus stop model is nice, I doubt many non-regular users even know to plan on it, so some stops could probably wind up being eliminated, improving efficiency.
Not all buses would need the investment in recording hardware - just a few that could be rotated around through the routes.
Further, if you could ID a Metro Card to a passenger, he could be given an option to swipe his card on exit, providing further accuracy in how people use the bus. The rider could be rewarded with discounts on the next month's card. Or be penalized for overusing the system! EEK !

More GOP Flip Flops ?
After Republicans voted against amendments they made in the health Insurance mess, state Republicans threaten to derail the rail program they originally endorsed in Ohio.
These guys are just getting weirder by the day.

"Republicans threatening to reject federal stimulus money for project the GOP originally endorsed."

Noose Son story here.

The 9/8 Debate
Explore Cincinnati has posted audio of a debate on what, I guess, is now Issue 9 - the "added red tape, added costs, obstacles and socially divisive confusing rhetoric generation" amendment proposed by COA T, the Cincinnati NAACP, the south west Ohio Libertarians, the southwest Ohio Green Party and probably some other unelectables under the umbrella of We Demand a Vote (because we didn't like the way the last one turned out).
The debate can be heard here.
The debaters were Bob Maly & Mark Miller.
One of the issues raised was the cost of special elections. A special city wide election costs the taxpayers about $500,000 dollars. That's more than a dollar a person.
What neither debater mentioned was the additional cost in both time and materials for campaigning & the cost of people to take the time to study the issues & get to the polls.
Neither side mentioned that the proponents of this expensive amendment get funding from members outside of the city, the county and even the state. These people from out of town will be represented in a local issue without paying local property taxes and only paying a fraction of the income taxes paid by true city residents.
Another issue both sides fell flat on was how to find out about the issues.
CitiCable broadcasts city council meetings, committee meetings and county commissioner meetings as well as library boards, health commission & police complaint board meetings. Never a dull moment. The city archives full council meetings on their website in genuine Micro$oft Windoze Media format. If you never paid Micro$oft for the right to play their proprietary format but have paid to use Apple's proprietary OS you can still watch with the Flip4Mac plug in.
Watching the meetings on cable, I have been aware of how the streetcar plan has progressed over the last 3 years. As Mr Miller attested, these things take time and they already have. Why he feels that delaying the inevitable is somehow a good thing is odd, to say the least. On top of that, in the countless meetings discussing the topic, the WDaV cartel of unelectables has been notoriously absent from the public meetings. If they have attended, they kept their mouths shut as the overwhelming number of people discussing the subject have been supportive.
I could go on some more on the flaws of the WDaV position but I will be hammering away at that more over the next 7-8 weeks. For now I will just leave it with taking on where I believe both sides dropped the ball.
For more info on the topic:
City of Cincinnati
Cincy Streetcar
ProTransit
the Phony Coney
and over 250 pages & 3 years of discussion on the subject, click here
NO ON 9

In the 2/13/09 episode of NOW, David Brancaccio discusses some of the problems of the latest stimulus package in relation to mass transit particularly. Much of the show focuses on Charlotte's light rail system. It addresses the fact that federal spending in states is usually based on what the state spends money on and states usually spend on highways while cities are left to maintain mass transit, so the lion's share of federal transportation money is going to highways instead of mass transit.

"Mass transit. Cities and states, strapped for money, are cutting back on mass transit even as it becomes more popular with Americans. Meanwhile, President Obama is calling for increased mass transit as a necessary step toward energy independence."

Ironically, Obama's focus on "shovel ready" projects is that his stimulus bill actually empowers the old Bush administrations agendas.
NOW story with video here

Train Service to Return to Springfield ?
Will train service be returning to Springfield ? If it will, the resurrection of an old Big Four depot will not be part of the plan. Instead, Amtrak is thinking about an unmanned open air "bus stop" sort of place just south of High St. near the center of town. This would bring it very close to the hotel and Kuss auditorium making it convenient for visitors wanting to go to a show if the stop was located there (very near the location of the old station). It won't be a high speed connection, rains routinely have to slow down a lot to go through town which has provided a bit of inner city passenger service for stupid young men for years.
Unfortunately, it won't be of much use and won't improve the town much if stops, like in Cincinnati, are a couple days a week and between 1 and 3 AM.

Noose Son story here.

In my time on the planet, Springfield has struggled with bus service. At some times it just hasn't existed. There was a point they considered little buses. To get around, many young people would hop trains that slowed down as they rolled through town. I remember when they got their first air-conditioned bus. It was a big deal.
sigh
Anyway, while their current bus service, SCAT, is limited to weekday dayshift riders, their ridership has been steadily growing of late due to gas prices as well as new and adjusted (improved) routes.
Still, if you are healthy, with an hour wait between buses, you could probably walk most of the way to most anywhere in town.

Noose Son story here.