Category: Transportation

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Arts & Entertainment News Transportation

Bengals Partnering With Miller Lite to Offer Free Bus Rides For Home Opener

Free Metro Rides for BengalsThe Bengals will have their season home opener this Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium. While a sellout crowd is not expected, tens of thousands of football fans are still expected to make the trip to the central riverfront in order to attend the game or participate in nearby festivities.

As is to be expected, many of those people will be drinking alcohol. This presents a business opportunity for nearby restaurants and bars, but it also presents a challenge for law enforcement as the likelihood of people driving while under the influence increases.

In order to help combat that, Miller Lite is partnering with the Bengals to provide free rides on all Metro bus routes on Sunday.

This is the 28th year for the program, and this season Miller Lite is partnering with six NFL cities. In total the program has come to 20 cities and provided approximately 4.8 million free rides.

“We’re excited to work together with local public transit companies, our distributor partners and our NFL alliance partners to remind fans that the best moments of the game are those enjoyed responsibly,” a Miller Lite representative told UrbanCincy. “We’re happy to begin a new partnership with Metro and hope to grow our relationship in the future.”

While the free rides will only be available for this Sunday’s home opener, Metro officials are hoping it makes people aware of the transit alternatives available for getting to and from all Bengals games.

Those who wish to take advantage of the free rides need only to get on the bus during regular service hours. No game ticket or verification will be necessary.

The Bengals won their first game of the season in Oakland against the Raiders, and will host the San Diego Chargers this Sunday at 1pm. Tickets are still available and can be purchased online or at the Paul Brown Stadium ticket office.

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Business News Transportation

Red Bike, CityLink Agree to Partnership to Offer Low-Cost Memberships

CityLink Red Bike Station [Travis Estell]

Red Bike and CityLink Center will announce a new partnership tomorrow to make bike share more affordable for low-income individuals.

Under the agreement, annual Red Bike memberships would be sold to CityLink for $20, which typically sell for $80. Those passes will then be offered to CityLink members for just $5.

Jason Barron, Executive Director of Red Bike, says that the program will start with 20 members who will receive bike safety classes from Riding Forward, and learn how to use the Red Bike system along with its website and data tracking.

“We really believe in what CityLink is doing, and we think Red Bike is a great option for those folks as they’re looking to get to job interviews, training and work,” Barron told UrbanCincy. “Hopefully this will help CityLink and their members be even more successful.”

The move comes at a time when bike share systems are growing rapidly around North America, but continue to struggle with equity issues. In Chicago, the Divvy bike share system has recently announced a similar partnership and will even have a few days where the entire system is free.

Beyond just the membership fee, bike share systems around the country have also been criticized of avoiding lower income neighborhoods. This is something that Barron said they tried to address in their latest expansion.

In that effort, Red Bike added 17 new stations, including one on Bank Street in front of CityLink. He says that this station was funded through a grant that was applied for by Interact for Health, which is a system sponsor of RedBike, and CityLink.

While the initial pilot program will start with just 20 members, Barron is hopeful that it can be expanded to new groups of members at CityLink on a regular, perhaps quarterly, basis. From there he says that the model could be expanded even further to other organizations throughout the region.

“Our hope is that the CityLink Station and partnership with Red Bike could serve as a catalyst for creating a model to cultivate new physical activity habits and overcome transportation barriers for our clients,” explained Johmark Oudersluys, Executive Director of CityLink. “This program promotes the spirit of health equity when health disparities are at record highs right here in our own city.”

It is this hope and spirit that also made Red Bike want to enter into the agreement, even though that meant the non-profit bike share organization had to eat the cost difference.

“We have always wanted to do this,” Barron said. “We’re really excited to roll out this partnership with CityLink, and believe it could be rolled out to other organizations around town if it proves to be successful.”

The official announcement will come tomorrow outside of CityLink at 3:30pm. Meanwhile, the one-year anniversary of Red Bike’s operations is coming, along with a full release of the organizations fiscal health and operational performance.

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News Transportation

VIDEO: The Easy and Inexpensive Way For Cincinnati To Make Its Streets Safer

Anyone who rides a bicycle to work, either their own or on a Cincy Red Bike, knows all to well the commute mostly involves sharing the road with automobiles. With the current city administration focusing more on creating recreational trails for bicycle hobbyists, cyclists who bike as a form of transportation can only daydream about better on-street bicycle infrastructure.

That daydream could come closer to reality with the release of a new animation from planner and author Jeff Speck.

An accomplished author of books such as Walkable City and Suburban Nation, Speck describes four simple street reconfiguration options that would better accommodate all modes of transportation without adding to the roadway’s width. In order to accomplish that, the techniques include narrowing lanes, adding striped or buffered bike lanes.

Planners and engineers have found that such changes have a minimal impact on the flow of vehicular traffic, by adding only seconds onto commute times.

The street in the video is 38 to 40 feet in width, which is just about the average width of many streets throughout Cincinnati. In fact, UrbanCincy proposed a similar reconfiguration of Elm Street through the Central Business District in 2013. Such transformations have been noted to positively impact safety.

“Such a change on Prospect Park West in Brooklyn reduced speeding by 77% and reduced injury crashes by 63%, while having no impact on car volume or travel times,” Speck noted in the video.

When Randy Simes first wrote about the Elm Street reconfiguration, he explained that it would also serve as a critical connection point between the protected bike lane on Central Parkway and the Ohio River Trail. While Elm Street is a particularly obvious choice, other streets throughout the city could and should get some of the same treatment.

One another prominent example is Liberty Street, which Cincinnati’s Department of Transportation & Engineering has been looking at for years as a potential road diet candidate. Originally designed for much higher traffic volumes that were never realized, Liberty Street’s 70-foot width now functions more as a safety issue for people walking or biking, and as a barrier between the northern and southern portions of Over-the-Rhine.

Those plans for Liberty Street were originally envisioned by the Over-the-Rhine Brewery District, which then convinced City Hall to perform some planning work. At this time, however, the project does not appear to be moving forward.

Speck’s video makes it easy to see that for the cost of paint it would be relatively easy to install a more comprehensive bike network on streets throughout the city. Such changes would improve safety, increase the number of people riding bikes, which probably means more Red Bike usage, all while slowing down traffic just a tiny bit. Besides, even automobile drivers may appreciate not needing to directly interact with so many bicycles on the street.

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Arts & Entertainment News Transportation

Metro To Offer Limited Late Night Bus Service This Saturday

Metro and CincyYP are teaming up for the second year to encourage young people in Cincinnati to try out the city’s bus service beyond typical commuting uses.

Many people view transit as a means to get to and from work, but the reality is that nearly three-fourths of all trips made each day have nothing to do with work commutes. As Metro works to grow ridership and expand its customer base, choice riders – those who choose to take transit instead of other alternatives – are becoming an increasingly targeted demographic.

One of the efforts to get more young people taking transit will take place this Saturday, August 29 from 8pm to 2am. Organizers are calling it an entertainment bus that will take riders around to some 18 bars in seven different neighborhoods.

“This is a fun way for young professional to be introduced to Metro’s services,” said Kim Lahman, Outreach and Sustainability Manager at Metro. “I believe most participants will feel more comfortable giving Metro a try after they experience just how easy and convenient public transit can be.”

Unlimited trip passes for the late night shuttle can be purchased online for $7 per person, or $20 for groups of four. The public can also simply purchase single trips at Metro’s normal $1.75 fare anywhere along the route. Those who may not have the cash, or just want to get a bit more involved, are being encouraged to volunteer for two hours and receive a complimentary pass in return.

As Lahman suggests, the hope is to get young people more familiar with using the city’s bus service, and will learn tips about how to plan their trip, read a schedule, catch a bus and use Metro’s real-time arrival services.

“YPs should be interested in attending this event because it’s a first step in creating change,” explained event organizer Kaitlyn Kappesser. “If we can prove to Metro that a bus route like this is in demand more than one night a year, we could evolve this into an every weekend thing.”

Kappesser told UrbanCincy that she believes such a route is an important step to not only introducing new riders to Metro, but also toward reducing drunk driving and spurring business at establishments outside of Downtown and Over-the-Rhine.

“Because of this event, people will get to experience and try other neighborhoods,” Kappesser said. “Also, who doesn’t like drink specials.”

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Arts & Entertainment News Transportation

PHOTOS: Northside Celebrates Second Year of Cincy Summer Streets

Last weekend, Hamilton Avenue in Northside was packed with people walking, biking, skateboarding, painting, playing music, and enjoying a nice summer day.

The street, which serves as the spine of neighborhood’s business district, was closed to automobiles for four hours as part of the Cincy Summer Streets series.

More than 100 open streets festivals take place across the country, and Cincinnati joined the trend last year with events in two neighborhoods. In 2015 Cincy Summer Streets has expanded to three events – Walnut Hills on July 18, Northside on August 23, and Over-the-Rhine on September 26.

Enjoy our photos from the August 23rd event: