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Streetcars represent old and inferior technology when compared to the more technologically advanced bus with rubber tires. The magic streetcar with it's metal wheels and metal roads is extremely expensive to reroute for stuff like utility work. A bus can run on dirt or on the next street over.
You can't name one thing a streetcar can do that can't be done with a bus.
Rails are for RAPID transit, not for stop-start dense city work.
Since we're in the business of comparing two different pieces of infrastructure, why don't you tell me how many vehicles use I-75 through downtown Dayton on a daily basis?
And please compare this to the estimated number of vehicles the streetcar will get off the road in Cincinnati? It doesn't take a genius to say that the number of vehicles taken off I-75 will be very few, indeed, on account of the streetcar. In fact, there's no reason to even build the streetcar, except that Mark Mallory, Roxanne Qualls, and a few other people who started 3CDC are personally invested along the Vine Street corridor and stand to gain the most from a streetcar, at the expense of everyone else.
The Cincinnati streetcar is one of the most asinine ideas in history, and will certainly go down as a massive failure right alongside the empty subway tunnel, or the empty riverfront transit center. I guess I can't rip on the Banks as much, since it's finally being built, but might I remind you it's fifteen years behind schedule? Construction on the Banks was supposed to be done at the same time or soon after Fort Wgton Way was redone... that project was completed in 2000.
I find this last paragraph amusing, since it's sort of akin to saying, "See, that unfinished dam we planted dynamite on didn't ever hold much water at all." If Cincinnati ever follows through with these things, like the Banks, like Washington Park/OTR reinvestment, like the Central Parkway bike lane, they seem to work out just fine. It just seems to be a matter of keeping the city from doing things only half way before changing its mind.
Streetcars represent old and inferior technology when compared to the more technologically advanced bus with rubber tires. The magic streetcar with it's metal wheels and metal roads is extremely expensive to reroute for stuff like utility work. A bus can run on dirt or on the next street over.
You can't name one thing a streetcar can do that can't be done with a bus.
Rails are for RAPID transit, not for stop-start dense city work.
Rhinegeist Brewery doesn't happen with just a bus. There's one. There are also many more like it along the streetcar route. Busses are cheaper, but they don't spur development.
Rhinegeist Brewery doesn't happen with just a bus. There's one. There are also many more like it along the streetcar route. Busses are cheaper, but they don't spur development.
This is the standard line from those fascinated by big busses with metal wheels and metal roads, but no matter how loud you assert it is true, will not make it true.
Why don't you try again? Next time give reasons. "doesn't happen with just" isn't proof. You need to give me something that I can't refute like you can't string six busses together and run them at 100 miles per hour. I'd give you that, but we are discussing streetcars.
I totally support using old rail lines for possible new tracks and upgrading existing rail for passenger travel and using gasoline taxes to pay for it. I'm also totally for commuter rail lines from suburb to city. I'm guessing that, at least, there is some common ground there.
Carving out new lines - especially street-level lines is horrendously expensive. Your brewery stop could easily be handled with a bus.
We look at stuff in Europe and say "that's so quaint and nice, why can't we have that?" The reason is "that" has been there for 100 years or more in most cases and didn't get built with new money. For newer areas in Japan and Europe, they use busses. Unlike here, they give busses priority on the street so using a bus is faster instead of much much slower like in US cities.
There's nothing wrong with using busses to build transit systems to save money. Of course, the fact that more people will be served by the existing money isn't really the goal is it? It's to spend the money and build political empires. Meanwhile the people who want to or have to ride the bus get stuck with creaky old busses on crappy streets since money is being funneled for showpieces.
I've ridden good rail lines and bad rail lines and without fail, the new greenfield lines suck unless the line is built in very dense places like the SF BART system. Of course, BART isn't a streetcar, it is RAPID transit and moves fast. The Dallas system and Atlanta system are also nice, but they are massively grade-separated and run into the suburbs.
Anything at street level and stops frequently and built on rails is insane compared to the far more advanced rubber-tired bus.
The building may be easily accessed, but the brewery itself would never exist there with just a bus, the developer of the building and the brewers said as much. Busses served that street for literally decades and nothing happened except the rise of a slum and crime. Busses ran up and down throughout this part of OTR and no development came in most of these blocks until they announced the route of the streetcar. You may assert that's a coincidence, but I'm sorry, I'm not that naive, especially when the new businesses say as much themselves. GE says that the streetcar was a major factor in their decision to locate their Global Ops in Cincinnati. It's the anti-rail crowd which can't actually take people at their words on this. Seeing as they're the people that are actually making these business decisions, not you, I'm going to be believing them.
Busses served that street for literally decades and nothing happened except the rise of a slum and crime. Busses ran up and down throughout this part of OTR and no development came ...
You are comparing a difference in execution. Busses are an afterthought to most city leaders, whilst rail provide photo-ops.
Bosses are 'gerrymandered' to get coverage whilst the streetcar runs the most direct route.
If they paved the street with laser-leveled pavement like they did for the streetcar and built nice raised loading and unloading platforms, and then bought all new busses, your result would be the same. Maybe some businesses wouldn't have opened. Maybe they would. Your post is just full of promises by business to get free stuff.
Of course, if you were going to locate a business somewhere and could get free stuff from the city to make your place better, you'll say anything.
If they allow thugs to get on the streetcar and allow the seats to get cut up and pasted with graffiti, then the brewery will close since now that they are open, they won't have much leverage to fix the problem.
Promises by people to do something because they are getting free stuff - much of which comes from outside the city are NOT things that the streetcar does that the bus doesn't. You STILL haven't shown me anything that the streetcar will do that a bus couldn't do - except cost orders of magnitude more. The streetcar cost around $10,000 per linear foot according to the website. It conveniently doesn't break out the cost of the rolling stock vs. the tracks.
The city will need to maintain the line to a high standard. There aren't any photo-ops or benefits to politicians for doing that. In enough years, it will just be like the busses today. They'll ignore it.
Maybe not though. Maybe if enough people get to where they live there and use it, it could be a model for how to run the bus lines. In that case, I'd be supportive, but the ghetto busses that are ignored just blocks away, right now, will be places where you can take five times longer getting anywhere than a car and sit next to drunk people who are unnaturally friendly.
You are comparing a difference in execution. Busses are an afterthought to most city leaders, whilst rail provide photo-ops.
Bosses are 'gerrymandered' to get coverage whilst the streetcar runs the most direct route.
If they paved the street with laser-leveled pavement like they did for the streetcar and built nice raised loading and unloading platforms, and then bought all new busses, your result would be the same. Maybe some businesses wouldn't have opened. Maybe they would. Your post is just full of promises by business to get free stuff.
Of course, if you were going to locate a business somewhere and could get free stuff from the city to make your place better, you'll say anything.
If they allow thugs to get on the streetcar and allow the seats to get cut up and pasted with graffiti, then the brewery will close since now that they are open, they won't have much leverage to fix the problem.
Promises by people to do something because they are getting free stuff - much of which comes from outside the city are NOT things that the streetcar does that the bus doesn't. You STILL haven't shown me anything that the streetcar will do that a bus couldn't do - except cost orders of magnitude more. The streetcar cost around $10,000 per linear foot according to the website. It conveniently doesn't break out the cost of the rolling stock vs. the tracks.
The city will need to maintain the line to a high standard. There aren't any photo-ops or benefits to politicians for doing that. In enough years, it will just be like the busses today. They'll ignore it.
Maybe not though. Maybe if enough people get to where they live there and use it, it could be a model for how to run the bus lines. In that case, I'd be supportive, but the ghetto busses that are ignored just blocks away, right now, will be places where you can take five times longer getting anywhere than a car and sit next to drunk people who are unnaturally friendly.
Hey! I bet I just described the streetcar.
Part of your post is just confusing, I'm not clear at all what you're referring to with the last couple of paragraphs. Yes, I'm sure there will be more than one inebriated person riding the streetcar. Better them there than driving.
As I assumed, since you can't actually trust the people making the decisions to move business along a streetcar line, there's actually not much I can show you. You've made up your mind. I've already admitted they're a lot more expensive than busses, but they always wind up with a lot more development than bus lines and street improvements alone. Again, I'll let other people be naive and believe that this sort of development would happen anyway, but OTR's been a slum for a long time, it's had busses for a long time. It's had numerous street improvements and it's had tax abatements for a long time. None of that did anything to improve the outcomes of the residents there. The streetcar has. Did you know that if you actually look at the same study that shows the development potential of BRT that it shows that streetcars have a better ROI ($25 of development per dollar spent for all BRT routes, compared to $47 of development for the streetcars in the study.) It's only when people lump in all rail together (including LRT) that the ROI goes down. The study actually tries to promote the idea that Pittsburgh's BRT is causing recent development in a neighborhood where the BRT line they claim is pushing transit development has existed since 1983. Meaning if you plant a BRT corridor and maybe in 30 years you might get some development.
I think BRT's a good idea, but the one outlier they show on ROI, the Cleveland Healthline is now running up costs because corners were cut to make it so cheap to begin with:
There has never in history been an example of a standard bus line be the reason that major redevelopment has come to an area. Even in Cleveland, a standard bus line along Euclid wouldn't have done squat to get the corridor redeveloping like it has...it took a fixed route, w/ fixed stops above road grade adn lanes just for the buses to keep them seperated from traffic for the Healthline to create redevelopment.
There is not a city you can't point to that has installed light rail and street car lines w/ fixed rail that haven't seen a major boon in redevelopment. Had Kasuck not pulled funding, the Cincy Streetcar would have been 10x better as it would have connected UC and Pill Hill to OTR, Downtown, & The Banks.
There has never in history been an example of a standard bus line be the reason that major redevelopment has come to an area.
As I said earlier, bus lines have never been executed to promote development. "Standard" bus lines are run as an afterthought.
You are not comparing apples to apples.
There has never in history been an example of a standard bus line been used to attempt redevelopment.
The current redevelopment frenzy is due to all the outside money pouring in and NOT the metal tires and roads.
I'm simply saying that rails should be used to bring people from outside the city to inside. Once inside, spending all the extra money on rails simply starves the bus system from the funds and organization needed to make them effective.
Bus riding sux because no one gives a sheet about it because dirty poor people depend on them. Spending money on rails where buses would work better is just another form of discrimination with a hint of racism.
P|ssing away money on trophy urban rail systems is a stupid American idea. Worse, there is no funding for maintaining the rails. In Europe and Japan, they use fuel taxes and in the US, we can't even fund the roads with our fuel taxes.
Sorry, I have ridden the rails and busses in Japan ( where the rail system is the BEST in the world by any measure ) and somewhat in Europe. I know what I'm talking about. The development is at the train stations where people transfer to other trains or to busses for local travel.
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