Streetcar skeptic to believer (Cincinnati: legal, licensed, cars)

[Coseau]

Originally Posted by cincydave8

What a shock. Crybaby Cranley insisted that we only need to turn 2 cars. They obviously need to run 4 on weekends, especially when 65,000 people are at the Bengals game.

Its one thing to reduce service when there is a reduced amount of people in the vicinity as in at 3:30 am at night during the week. To reduce it on the weekends when 10s of thousands of folks are in the vicinity for sports games, concerts, festivals, conventions, or just to hang out and visit is literally retarded but is not surprising considering anti-streetcar Mayor Cranley is in charge. Just looking at the similar system of Kansas City's streetcar ridership numbers on the weekends should have gave Mayor Cranley a clue that ridership would most likely be much higher on the weekends.

[WILWRadio]

Originally Posted by Coseau

Its one thing to reduce service when there is a reduced amount of people in the vicinity as in at 3:30 am at night during the week. To reduce it on the weekends when 10s of thousands of folks are in the vicinity for sports games, concerts, festivals, conventions, or just to hang out and visit is literally retarded but is not surprising considering anti-streetcar Mayor Cranley is in charge. Just looking at the similar system of Kansas City's streetcar ridership numbers on the weekends should have gave Mayor Cranley a clue that ridership would most likely be much higher on the weekends.

That is not the Mayor's fault. SORTA is the problem. The city asked SORTA to run all streetcars on the weekend but they were told it was going to cost more money.

And now you wonder why so many people are skeptical about such projects? The people involved with trying to make projects such as this work ultimately screw the taxpayers and don't provide adequate service.

http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/streetcar/faqs/

[WILWRadio]

A broken down car is preventing the Street Car from running right now. Apparently it is blocking the tracks. Hopefully this does not happen too often. Service interruptions will deter people from using the Street Car on a frequent basis.

[cincydave8]

Cranley has and can make appoints to the SORTA board, so it falls on him. He knows exactly what he's doing. If he wanted the streetcar to work to its full potential, there would be more cars running and we'd be studying ways to send it uptown. Instead he's make everyone sit on their hands.

[WILWRadio]

Originally Posted by cincydave8

Cranley has and can make appoints to the SORTA board, so it falls on him. He knows exactly what he's doing. If he wanted the streetcar to work to its full potential, there would be more cars running and we'd be studying ways to send it uptown. Instead he's make everyone sit on their hands.

Really? Just because you appoint someone to a board cannot guarantee that appointee will act in a manner consistent with the appointer's views. Utilizing this theory, the American people are directly to blame for the rogue actions of politicians at the national level as well or even the state level? How many times have we heard a politician claim they will do something prior to being elected or appointed only to do a 180 after they take office?

I guess Cramley is also responsible for the broken down car on the tracks this morning?

[cincydave8]

I realize Cramley was probably a typo but it's funny in the context of a car cramming the line.

Yes, the buck stops at the mayors office. He could pressure SORTA to run more cars and/or find ways to pay for more cars and find ways to study the uptown route. Real leadership finds ways to get things done. For instance, he could have the city apply for a TIGER grant, which many people have asked for. Milwaukee was just awarded $14.2 million dollars for their streetcar system. https://www.transportation.gov/brief...ukee-streetcar His failure to not lobby SORTA or find other ways to improve the streetcar is hurting the city.

[WILWRadio]

Originally Posted by cincydave8

I realize Cramley was probably a typo but it's funny in the context of a car cramming the line.

Yes, the buck stops at the mayors office. He could pressure SORTA to run more cars and/or find ways to pay for more cars and find ways to study the uptown route. Real leadership finds ways to get things done. For instance, he could have the city apply for a TIGER grant, which many people have asked for. Milwaukee was just awarded $14.2 million dollars for their streetcar system. https://www.transportation.gov/brief...ukee-streetcar His failure to not lobby SORTA or find other ways to improve the streetcar is hurting the city.

Pressure SORTA? They have a contract signed. Negotiating a new deal may be a better way to realize the desired result. Force is not the way to win people over. In fact, this is one of the biggest problems I've encountered while living in the Midwest. People seem to think they can force other people into their way of thinking, manner of doing business or lifestyle. I resist this attitude and have learned not to allow people try to force their way into my life and so on. While this is not about me, I used this note to make a valid point. Force is not the way to do it.

Ultimately the taxpayers that voted these people into office should be held accountable then. They appointed the Mayor who appointed the people on the Board who in turn are making many of the important decisions in regards to the day to day operations of the street car.

[American Luxury]

Cranley is absolutely responsible for the issues we've had so far with the streetcar. It's pretty obvious to everyone that two streetcars on the weekend is not enough. Somehow the people appointed by Cranley do not. Plus, the signal prioritization should have been done in time for the streetcar opening. Again, somehow these people decided to wait until service began. It's not like they had been testing the streetcar for a few months.... I hope he is voted out of office next year.

[cincydave8]

From Chris Wetterich of the Business Courier Twitter (@ChrisCiniBiz):

Breaking: Another big weekend for the streetcar, with 18,000 rides taken Friday-Saturday-Sunday.

Doing the math on @CB_Connector numbers, the average streetcar ridership over 14 days of revenue service exceeds 5,000.

Ridership was projected to be 3,000 per day.

SORTA CEO Dwight Ferrell says they want to eliminate the validation process on the ticket vending machines.

[WILWRadio]

I think I have a solution to the problem. Weld some seats on the roof of each car, install a ladder on the side of the trolley and sell half priced tickets to people that desire a more "outdoorsy" experience when riding the street car.

Unless Cranley is a Dictator, holding him to blame for this problem is ludicrous. It takes money to run the trolley and it is obvious whoever did the initial studies for the thing determined they would get less passengers on the weekend vs. weekdays except during special events along the line. SORTA will have to find funding to add more cars on the weekend and until that happens, there will be delays. Thus, blame the initial ridership studies and the people that did these studies for this mess.