Tag: public policy

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News Transportation

New programs, technology driving ridership surge for Cincinnati’s largest transit provider

The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) saw ridership on Metro bus service increase by approximately 200,000 riders in 2012.

SORTA officials say that the 4.2% increase is due in large part to a greater number of students from the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati State taking advantage of a new student pass program instituted by Metro last year. Metro officials say that there was a 24% increase in ridership at the University of Cincinnati, and a 19% increase at Cincinnati State when compared to their previous years.

As a result, the regional transit agency provided nearly 17.6 million rides and outpaced the 2.6% ridership increase experienced elsewhere throughout the United States, according to the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).

Cincinnati Metro Bus

Metro had provided around 20 million rides annually in the early 2000s until large-scale service reductions took effect when the national economy struggled.

“We’re focused on providing a great customer experience and are seeing positive results from improvements we’ve been making for our customers,” Metro’s CEO Terry Garcia Crews stated in a prepared release.

Metro also saw ridership gains along the 38X route running from the new Glenway Crossing Transit Hub to Uptown. This route experienced an 18% ridership increase when comparing data from December 2012 to December 2011 when the new west side transit hub opened.

“We expect the number of 38X riders to continue to climb,” explained Jill Dunne, Metro’s public affairs manager. “As more routes go through the Glenway Crossing Transit Hub, it will become easier to transfer to different routes, and that should help ridership continue to grow.”

One of the new additions riders can expect at the Glenway Crossing Transit Hub in 2013 is expanded crosstown service via Route 41. Metro officials say the service modification will be included in a new system plan to be released this spring, and will extend the existing Route 41 to North Bend Road to the new Mercy West Hospital, and connect through Cheviot and Westwood to the west side transit center.

Dunne also says that Metro*Plus limited stop service, previously discussed as Cincinnati’s version of bus rapid transit, will begin operating between Downtown, Uptown and Kenwood via Montgomery Road.

In addition to the physical improvements to the region’s bus system, Metro officials also believe that the agency’s new electronic fare payment system is making the system more attractive to new and existing riders. One of the new options riders might be able to expect in 2013 is a smart card that allows for stored values, in addition to the 30-day rolling pass and 10-ride ticket.

“We’ve upgraded our bus fleet, introduced new fare options, added real-time information at Government Square, improved our website and customer information, and that’s just the beginning,” Crews continued. “In 2013, we’re continuing to make Metro easier to ride to better meet the community’s needs for transit.”

Perhaps one of the most welcome pieces of news for existing Metro riders, however, is that SORTA does not anticipate any service reductions or fare increases in 2013.

We discussed bus rapid transit on episode one of The UrbanCincy Podcast with a city planner from Bogota, Colombia, and on episode two we discussed the problem of transportation poverty in the Cincinnati region, including the lack of service to the new Mercy West Hospital. You can stream our podcasts online or subscribe to our bi-weekly podcast on iTunes for free.

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Up To Speed

A decade later, Cincinnati still debating streetcar issue

A decade later, Cincinnati still debating streetcar issue.

More than a decade has passed since Cincinnati’s debate over building modern streetcars began. During that time Cincinnatians have consistently voted in a majority of City Council and a Mayor that support the idea of building a modern streetcar system, regional planning, Cincinnatians have cast their votes in favor of not one but two public votes on the project, national acclaim, completion of 100% designs, purchasing agreements, operation agreements, an official groundbreaking, and city officials have secured the necessary funding to build the first phase of the project from the central riverfront to the northern reaches of Over-the-Rhine.

After all of this, we think it is time to move on and focus on other issues facing our city. Issues like pension reform, public safety, bicycle infrastructure, zoning code reform, economic development in all 52 neighborhoods, the enhancement of public services Cincinnatians have grown to love, and many more. Mayoral candidate John Cranley (D), however, does not seem to agree. More from CityBeat:

The public spotlight is nothing new for Cincinnati’s $125 million streetcar project, but it’s a factor supporters are getting increasingly tired of dealing with. Facing new delays and political controversy, the streetcar is once again in the news — and, for better or worse, this year’s mayoral campaign will keep it there for much of the coming year.

Despite the streetcar’s momentum — which proponents admit was literally slowed by recent news of the project’s delay until 2016 — the project will serve as one of the main talking points for former council member John Cranley in his attempt to beat out current vice mayor and council member Roxanne Qualls, a streetcar supporter, for the mayor’s seat in November.

But should it? At this point, most of the funding for the first phase of the streetcar is set, and voters have approved the project twice through the 2009 and 2011 referendums.

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Up To Speed

Chicago’s infrastructure trust attempting to change the funding game

Chicago’s infrastructure trust attempting to change the funding game.

The Federal Government has failed to reform how it invests in its infrastructure, local governments are working hard to figure it out on their own. In Chicago this has led to the formation of what Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) is calling the Chicago Infrastructure Trust. Emanuel hopes that the public-private partnership will eventually drive billions of dollars of new investment in the aging cities infrastructure. More from Next City:

Beyond financing public bridges and water systems, the trust must build another sort of infrastructure: That which supports public-private partnerships. In turning to collaborate with the private sector, Chicago has emulated policies more popular around the world than elsewhere in the U.S. Canada, Australia and many countries throughout Europe, including the United Kingdom, all have public-private partnerships that help to finance major capital projects.

But in the U.S., the concept is still in its infancy stage. Why the idea has yet to gain traction here has much to do with the reliance of local governments on direct assistance from Washington and tax-free public bonds. The need to be transformative is especially important in Chicago, which in recent years has ceded control of public assets such as its parking meters and tollways, only to face allegations that the sales benefitted companies — and former Mayor Richard Daley, who negotiated the deals — more than they benefited the public.

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News Transportation

City officials working to get Central Parkway back on [cycle] track

There had been hopes to build the region’s first cycle track, a fully separated bicycle facility, on Central Parkway in 2012. Internal disputes and the lack of funding, however, have delayed the project’s implementation.

The Department of Transportation & Engineering (DOTE) gave City Council’s Major Transportation and Infrastructure Projects Subcommittee an update on the project, in addition to the other bicycle investments being advanced, last week.

At that meeting, Mel McVay, Senior City Planner with the DOTE, stated that the Central Parkway cycle track efforts were in the preliminary investigation stage, but that there could be some challenges regarding the facility’s relationship to vehicular capacity and on-street parking along the 3.4-mile stretch of roadway.

The full length of the cycle track would extend from Ludlow Avenue, where the City installed the region’s first green bike lanes in November 2012, to Liberty Street in Over-the-Rhine, and would cost approximately $750,000.

Plans for the Central Parkway cycle track first came to light during episode eight of The UrbanCincy Podcast.

The hope now, McVay says, is to finish the preliminary analysis within the next month. Should that analysis show it feasible to finance and construct the Central Parkway cycle track, then design work would begin immediately.

The City’s Bicycle Transportation Program has installed nearly 40 miles of bicycle facilities to-date, with an additional 289.9 miles planned in a citywide bicycle network.

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Up To Speed

How Capital Bikeshare got started, and what Cincinnati can learn

How Capital Bikeshare got started, and what Cincinnati can learn from it.

What Washington D.C. has done with Capital Bikeshare is considered the nation’s best. It is the biggest, has the most riders, and is the most financially solvent as compared to the rest of the bike sharing systems in the United States. As Cincinnati prepares to launch its own bike sharing system, what can local leaders learn from the nation’s best system? More from Slate:

If you had been handed, a decade ago, a map of the U.S. and asked to predict where the novel idea of bike sharing—then limited to a few small-scale projects in a handful of European cities, might first find its firmest footing, you probably would have laid your money on a progressive hub like Portland or Seattle or the regional poles of walkable urbanism, New York or San Francisco—all of which were scoring higher, those days, in surveys like Bicycling magazine’s list of most bikeable cities.

Launching a sponsorless bike-share system intended to break even, or even make money, was unprecedented. And having no sponsor made raising capital a challenge, but D.C.-area governments scavenged for the money.