Tag: streetcars

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Anti-Passenger Rail Amendment meeting at City Hall – 9/1

From the Alliance for Regional Transit:

At 10:00a on Tuesday, September 1st, Cincinnati City Council will take up the matter of placing the anti-rail initiative backed by COAST on the November ballot.

The Cincinnati City Solicitor and Council’s Rules Committee will determine the precise ballot language to recommend to the Hamilton County Board of Elections and ultimately to the Ohio Secretary of State. The full City Council will probably vote on the matter the next day.

This is the language submitted by the naysayers for approval by City Council:

“The City, and its various Boards and Commissions, may not spend any monies for right-of-way acquisition or construction of improvements for passenger rail transportation (e.g., a trolley or streetcar) within the city limits without first submitting the question of approval of such expenditure to a vote of the electorate of the City and receiving a majority affirmative vote for the same.”

There are serious problems with this language. First of all, it’s hard to understand. Cincinnatians who signed the petition have said they signed it in error, thinking instead they were registering their support for the Cincinnati Streetcar. And, as you probably also know by now, it would require a vote on each and every rail passenger rail project, including light rail and inter-city rail, that would be built within the city limits if it required the purchase of land or the spending of any monies by the city — even if the project required no increase in taxes.

It is unprecedented. No city in the United States has ever voted to restrict its options in this way.

Please come to City Council Chambers at 801 Plum Street at 10:00a on Tuesday. Anyone may testify by filling out a Speaker’s Card that can be obtained from the Council Clerk at the right side of Council Chambers. Each speaker will have two minutes to testify. Please strictly observe this rule of Council.

This is about much more than the Cincinnati Streetcar. It’s about the future growth and prosperity of our city. As written, it will restrict all passenger rail transit and hinder our city’s ability to be competitive. Cincinnati is now one of two of America’s Top 25 Metros without rail. If adopted, this Charter Amendment — a permanent change to our city’s constitution — will ensure that status.

City Hall is well-served by Queen City Metro routes 1, 6, 10, 32, 33, 40X, 49, and 50. To see which route is most convenient for you, and to plan your trip now, use Metro’s Trip Planner.

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News Transportation

Streetcar discussion tonight at Downtown library

Tonight, representatives from COAST and Cincinnatians for Progress will be part of a discussion on the Cincinnati Streetcar proposal. The event is part of the Downtown Residents Council’s monthly community meeting, which will take place at the main branch of the Public Library at 800 Vine Street. The meeting starts at 6:00 pm and will be held in the Tower Room on the library’s third floor.

Learn more about this and other upcoming events by looking at DRC’s Upcoming Events calendar.

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News

"Let’s be bold, not typical, on streetcar"

While the editor’s at the Cincinnati Enquirer have said that they’re not in favor of a streetcar system for Cincinnati right now, the Cincinnati Business Courier disagrees. Business Courier publisher, Douglas Bolton, hits on a key issue with this topic. Whether you like the plan or not, now is not the time to tie Cincinnati’s hands on passenger rail development as the rest of the nation moves forward with a prioritized passenger rail agenda.

“Sure, the economy is generally burnt toast right now – but history tells us that some of the most important companies, inventions and decisions were made during great economic strife. The Cincinnati streetcar should join that list. If Cincinnati and its voters turn their backs in November on a streetcar and rail system this time, we once again will be cutting ourselves out of significant state and federal shifts toward this type of transportation system that are sure to propel other metropolitan regions far ahead of us.” – Douglas Bolton, publisher Cincinnati Business Courier

Bolton emphasizes a couple of important points that are embodied in the above selection:

  1. It is important to do more than just “tighten the belt” during tough economic times, as there are opportunities out there to improve your bottom line and grow revenues. The Cincinnati Streetcar will grow revenues by growing our city’s population in underpopulated neighborhoods and creating new job opportunities through the needs of construction and engineering needs, and by the new permanent jobs that will be created as a result of the new economic development. This will all come while many contractors are offering lower than normal bids to get work during this economy which will save the taxpayers money.

  2. The November ballot item that Cincinnatians will be voting on affects much more than the Cincinnati Streetcar. It will damage Cincinnati’s ability to receive state and federal money for rail projects that have quickly become a political priority nationwide. It would prove to be unwise to tie our hands in such a way that Cincinnati will miss out on these opportunities while the rest of the nation leaves us behind.

  3. Cincinnati can’t afford to rest on its laurels, especially during a time like this. Cincinnatians need to be aggressive in our thinking about how to get out of this economic downturn, and how to be positioned to thrive once the economy does recover. Part of this strategy needs to include a comprehensive transit system that includes much more than our automobiles and limited bus service. Cincinnati needs passenger rail options, and this Anti-Passenger Rail Amendment would kill those options off in a heartbeat.

As Cincinnati moves forward in the coming months more will become clear about the positions of both sides of the rail transit debate in Cincinnati. Much of what was heard in 2002 is being said again in 2009 with this effort to bring rail transit to Cincinnati (second largest metropolitan area in the U.S. without rail transit, behind only Detroit). It is important that the voters are offered correct information and that they hear more than the same old rhetoric used to defeat rail transit in the past. No longer are we able to sit back and let things happen. Cincinnati will either be a part of this new economy and capitalize off of the changing U.S. demographics, or it won’t.

Vote AGAINST the Anti-Passenger Rail Amendment this November.

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News

A friendly reminder

This is a friendly reminder about why to vote against the Anti-Passenger Rail Amendment and support the Cincinnati Streetcar, 3C Corridor and Midwest Regional high-speed rail projects, and the Eastern Corridor project.

The Alliance for Regional Transit is taking another group to Portland to see a diversified transit system first-hand. The trip will be taking place from July 23 through 24 and is rumored to once again have another star-studded list of travelers. It must be a giant coincidence or one giant conspiracy that virtually everyone who has gone on the trip, or studied these systems themselves, are all strong supporters of the Cincinnati Streetcar and a larger diversified transit system for the Cincinnati region.

Categories
Business News Transportation

Could streetcars be manufactured right here in the Midwest?

On July 1 the United States celebrated the completion of the first American-made streetcar. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood was in Portland to celebrate the moment.

The Infrastructurist points out that Oregon Iron Works felt like they could be profitable producing the modern streetcars, and feel that they are already producing a superior product than what is being produced overseas. CincyStreetcar says that this event illustrates two important issues.

“The first is that public transportation is not a partisan issue; both sides of the aisle benefit from increased public transportation. The second is the progress other cities around the country are making with increasing their transportation options and the positive returns on their investments.”

When examining this news one could also speculate on what this could mean for Cincinnati as it develops one of the first streetcar systems in the Midwest region of the United States.

Last month when the City announced the selection of the development team that will help finance, plan, design, construct, operate and maintain Cincinnati’s modern streetcar system they also announced that Cincinnati Streetcar Development Team partner, Stacy and Witbeck Inc., will be opening a new office in downtown Cincinnati and will also be relocating their executives to Cincinnati specifically for this project.

First American-made streetcar in Portland, Oregon – image from United Streetcar, LLC

Could the same also happen in regards to the production of streetcar vehicles in a state and region that was built on manufacturing and could easily produce streetcars with the existing infrastructure and talent in place here?

Columbus and Cleveland have recently examined streetcar systems for their cities. Milwaukee recently received tens of millions of federal dollars to build a three-mile modern streetcar system in their city that is being seen as a started line to a much larger, city-wide system (similar to Cincinnati’s effort). St. Louis and Minneapolis currently boast light rail that has vehicles similar to streetcars and could potentially be produced on the same line. Indianapolis is working on a light rail system there that would also fit into this category.

With all of these existing and future systems in the Midwest, it would seem reasonable to have a manufacturer for those vehicles right here. Could Cincinnati or Ohio attract such a firm, or grow one of their own so that it starts producing streetcar and light rail vehicles in one of the many plants we have that used to produce automobiles?