Category: Transportation

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Business News Transportation

Metro to implement new flexible payment options March 1

Beginning March 1, Metro buses in Cincinnati will implement a new monthly pass system. The new system will allow riders to purchase rolling 30-day passes at any time, replacing the month-by-month system currently in place.

The new system was introduced last November after the city received $3.6 million federal grant to match their $900,000 local commitment. The total investment allowed for Metro to upgrade the fareboxes and monthly passes for all 342 buses in their fleet.

After only two months of the month-by-month passes, Metro decided to provide riders with the option to purchase passes on a rolling 30-day basis. The new rolling passes are part of an effort to increase public transit across the city.

An articulated bus picks up passengers at Government Square in downtown Cincinnati. Photograph by Randy A. Simes for UrbanCincy.

“We are striving to make public transit more convenient,” Metro public relations manager Jill Dunne told UrbanCincy. “Our goal is to increase public transit and to encourage people to take advantage of Metro.”

Metro also has plans to implement smart passes with a tap-and-go capability this summer. The idea is that the technological improvements will make using public transit easier, and offer riders greater flexibility with the cash value they store on their cards.

Over the course of 2011, UrbanCincy challenged its readers about Metro’s functionality and how to improve the system. The responses overwhelmingly said that the lack of GoogleTransit interface and the outdated payment system used were the two things in most need of improvement. In spring 2011, Metro finalized their interface with GoogleTransit, and now it appears as though the new payment options are a strong step in the right direction.

“Kudos to Metro. I still remember the time I saw the bus driver take a large utility knife to the coin collector, while driving because change was stuck and no one was able to pay,” Zachary Schunn commented. “I hope to never see that again.”

Dunne says that Metro is always open to new ideas, regarding both passes and the bus system in general, and that Metro has recently updated its website in an effort to make its information more accessible. Watch a YouTube video on how to use the new payment options.

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Business Development News Politics Transportation

Cincinnati to break ground on streetcar project next week with Ray LaHood

Councilmembers Christopher Smitherman (I) and Charlie Winburn (R) called a special city council hearing today to discuss the finances of the $110 million Cincinnati Streetcar project. The hearing had a specific focus on utility relocation agreements due to the current impasse between the City and Duke Energy.

City officials stated unequivocally that the project will move forward, and that it is common for projects of this scale to have ongoing issues needing to be resolved even once ground has been broken. Both Mayor Mark Mallory and City Manager Milton Dohoney stated that an agreement will eventually be made with Duke Energy, but that the engineering disagreements between the two parties needs to be resolved first.


Rendering of the streetcar along Walnut Street in downtown Cincinnati.

The biggest question at hand, with Duke Energy, is that the City has looked at existing streetcar projects around the United States and come up with a standoff they believe is workable. Duke Energy, meanwhile, has disagreed with those statements and believes that a much greater standoff is needed.

Duke Energy estimates that the relocation work, based on their engineering, would cost approximately $18 million. The City, on the other hand, believes it should only cost $6 million based on the work of their engineers.

“Utilities are issues in every transportation project, not just rail but roadway projects as well,” a representative from Parsons Brinckerhoff told UrbanCincy immediately following the meeting. “This is true for every single project, and they get worked out, and moved forward.”

At a press conference held earlier this week, City Manager Dohoney stated that City of Cincinnati should not be responsible for subsidizing the modernization of Duke Energy’s utility assets, and that the two parties will remain at an impasse until the engineering is validated.

The big news came in the final statement of the meeting when Mayor Mallory announced the groundbreaking for the Cincinnati Streetcar will take place at 1pm on Friday, February 17 outside of Memorial Hall (map). Mayor Mallory also stated that city and project officials will be joined by the Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood at the groundbreaking.

Jenny Kessler and John Yung contributed to this story.

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Business News Politics Transportation

Duke Energy announces they will leave streetcar negotiations, city fires back

Yesterday was a tumultuous day for Cincinnati’s modern streetcar project. With virtually all other issues resolved, and construction forthcoming, Duke Energy made the announcement that they would walk away from negotiations with the City of Cincinnati about the relocation of their utilities.

The impasse comes over cost. Based on other similar projects, the City believes the utilities only need to be relocated three feet, but Duke Energy has stated an eight-food clearance is needed. That five-foot difference roughly equates to an $11 million funding gap.

The Duke Energy announcement seemed to take project and city officials by surprise. But the strong stance by Duke Energy does come at the same time as the City of Cincinnati is aggressively pursuing a new energy aggregation agreement that has the potential to cost Duke Energy significant business.


Future Cincinnati Streetcar stop at Sixth and Walnut Street. Photograph by Randy A. Simes for UrbanCincy.

Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory is currently in Washington D.C. at the Community Streetcar Coalition’s annual Streetcar Summit representing the City and discussing best practices with other cities that are building, or have built, streetcar systems.

“I am calling on Duke Energy to be reasonable and work with the City on a plan that will be best for both citizens and their customers. These issues will be resolved one way or another, just as we have resolved previous issues facing the project,” Mayor Mallory stated in a prepared release. “The best thing for everyone involved is if Duke is a part of that resolution. Walking away does not help to move our community forward.”

The mayor’s comments were then followed by an official press conference called by City Manager Milton Dohoney who elaborated on the mayor’s statements and went on to say that Duke Energy has yet to provide engineering documents to support their claims.

City Manager Dohoney began the press conference by stating that the Cincinnati Streetcar project will unequivocally be moving forward. He also stated that the City of Cincinnati should not be responsible for subsidizing the modernization of Duke Energy’s aging utility assets.

In the end, it appears as though the city has the leverage in the matter. A view expressed by city spokeswoman Meg Olberding who stated, “They’re our streets. This project is moving forward, and we intend to use our streets.”

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Business News Transportation

Chinatown buses offer direct overnight travel from Cincinnati to New York City

Imagine falling asleep in Cincinnati and waking up in Manhattan the next morning. It’s not a dream but another travel opportunity for the Cincinnati region. With the increasing cost of air travel and the declining flight activity at shrinking airport markets like CVG, many people are turning to low cost alternatives provided by inter-city buses.

Unlike the traditional Greyhound model, curbside intercity bus-service has become popular through services such as Megabus and Bolt Bus. These bus companies based their business plan on the Chinatown bus model developed by the Fung Wah buses in the late 1990’s. Megabus currently offers direct connections to Chicago and other Midwestern cities, including Columbus and Pittsburgh, but does not offer continuing service to New York City. Meanwhile, Bolt Bus has no Cincinnati stops.


Megabus picks up passengers along Fourth Street in downtown Cincinnati. Photograph by Thadd Fiala for UrbanCincy.

According to a recent article from the Atlantic Cities, Chinatown bus service does run direct from New York City to Cincinnati. UrbanCincy investigated the claim and found that there are actually two Chinatown bus services that have established direct bus service from New York City to Cincinnati as well as Dayton and Columbus.

Services operated by Coach88 and Sky Horse Bus operate six days a week, and arrive in the morning after a 12-hour overnight trip. According to their websites, buses come equipped with comfortable recliner seating and restrooms. Select Coach88 busses offers free wi-fi access.

However, Chinatown buses are not for the faint of heart. In a recently released report published in Urban Geography, authors Nicholas J. Klein and Andrew Zitcer conduct several focus groups to gauge rider experience on Chinatown buses. They found that the “participants rendered Chinatown and the Chinatown bus as an “authentic” urban experience.” And because their routes are designed to connect different Chinatowns, riders will have a unique opportunity to experience Asian culture.


Chinatown inter-city bus route map. Graphic from ‘Everything but the Chickens: Cultural Authenticity Onboard the Chinatown Bus’ report by Urban Geography.

Both dropoff locations are in commercial lots which make long-term parking a challenge. Both services currently drop off thirteen miles from downtown in Springdale. Coach88’s drop off point is on Princeton Pike Rd. near the Tri-County Mall and Sky Horse is along Rt. 4 near I-275. These locations are near city bus service provided by SORTA, however, both the #20 and #78 routes are located a half-mile to almost a mile near the drop off locations.

Still curbside bus service continues to appeal to many people, including local resident Rob Naylor.

“Curbside pickup also allows for quicker and more convenient boarding process, which actually makes travel time comparative to air travel in many cases,” Naylor told UrbanCincy. “I also found the curbside pickup to even feel safer, because you’re being picked up on a street often in the middle of downtown, so you’re around activity.”

These bus companies are filling the growing market of low-cost intercity travel alternatives brought on by rising airfare prices. It also serves as a missed opportunity for several state governments, including Ohio which could have capitalized on with expanded inter-city rail connections.

Additionally, implementation of a plan to consolidate these bus services under a single destination like the Riverfront Transit Center, first proposed last July by UrbanCincy, would greatly enhance the accessible population base for these services thus integrating the service into Cincinnati’s broader regional transportation system.

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News Politics Transportation

Cincinnati moves on from failed parking kiosk experiment

Court Street Parking Kiosk - Photograph by Randy Simes for UrbanCincy.

Approximately one decade ago, then City Manager John Shirey engaged in a real-world experiment with the way people use parking meters. The idea was that consolidated solar-powered parking kiosks could make the process more cost effective and beneficial for users and business owners. The reality, however, has been different.

The first kiosks made their way onto Third Street in downtown Cincinnati. Those two, $8,000-a-piece, kiosks were then followed by an additional ten kiosks on Court Street and Third Street. Early on it was touted that the maintenance costs would be less for these kiosks as opposed to the many individual parking meters they replaced. What seemed to spell the end of these kiosks, however, may have been the lack of maintenance they received.

Almost from the first year they were installed, users complained of problems with pay-and-display parking kiosks. Money would jam, credit card readers did not work, or the whole kiosk was for some reason malfunctioning.

These early and ongoing problems eliminated the possibility for users to see any potential benefit from the new form of paying for on-street parking. The early problems also eliminated virtually any and all possibility of the system growing into what was envisioned for it.

Originally, city leaders discussed the idea of allowing downtown visitors to purchase monthly parking passes for the pay-and-display kiosks. They also mentioned the idea of allowing a user on Court Street to take their extra time and use it somewhere else downtown without having to pay a second time. Both ideas were well intentioned, but both ideas never happened.

Maintenance issues aside, individuals around the country have complained about the lack of an individual parking meter at their space. The personal relationship between a person, their car, and their assigned meter is obviously stronger than what city officials thought.

The city appears to now have abandoned this experiment gone wrong. The pay-and-display parking kiosks on Court Street have been shut off and replaced by new individual electronic parking meters that are solar powered. Those meters are part of a larger $1.7 million effort to replace all 1,400 parking meters downtown with the new technology.

In cities where space on the sidewalk is a big concern, the initiative to reduce street furniture like parking meters should continue to remain a priority. In Cincinnati, however, most streets do not suffer from this severe lack of space, and therefore it is probably a better approach to use individual parking meters with these technological upgrades rather than completely overhauling the system.

While the parking kiosks originally envisioned by City Manager Shirey did not pan out, he should be commended for his leadership, because without that Cincinnati may not be where it is now in terms of upgraded the rest of its on-street parking payment technologies.

City officials should continue to explore creative options for its parking assets. In 2010 UrbanCincy estimated that a public-private parking partnership could result in an additional $3.06 million in revenues annually. The possibilities of leveraging these assets are intriguing, and nothing should be left off the discussion table during this time of limited resources.