Tag: transit

Categories
Business News Transportation

Metro to Break Ground on $6.9M Uptown Transit District this April

Regional transit planners are looking to take advantage of growing ridership around Cincinnati’s second largest employment center by developing what will become the bus system’s secondary nexus.

Officials from the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) say that construction will begin on the Uptown Transit District, a collection of four new transit hubs throughout Uptown, in the coming months.

The new hub is intended to serve Cincinnati’s uptown neighborhoods which create the region’s second largest employment center with more than 50,000 jobs. Many of these jobs are associated with the region’s largest medical institutions and the University of Cincinnati, and even though the area is served by a variety of Metro buses, it has been difficult for transit riders to find or coordinate transfers between buses.

Jefferson Avenue Transit Hub
One of the four new transit hubs will be built along Jefferson Avenue at the University of Cincinnati. Rendering provided.

“Ridership with Uptown origins or destinations is one of the highest in the region, second only to downtown Cincinnati,” explained Jill Dunne, Metro’s public affairs manager. “On an average weekday all Uptown stops serve about 3,300 people.”

Since the failure of the 2002 MetroMoves campaign, which included a plan to construct several regional bus hubs, the region’s largest transit provider has been able to utilize other funding sources to move forward with a more limited approach.

The Glenway Crossing Transit Hub was the first of these to become reality when it opened in December 2011.

With ridership increasing 4.2% over the past year, due in part to an increase of use by students at the University of Cincinnati, the transit agency wants to move forward with the next component of the regional bus hubs originally envisioned as part of MetroMoves.

The four separate hubs that will make up the Uptown Transit District, officials say, will include shelters and real-time arrival boards modeled after those installed at Government Square last June.

Uptown Transit District

Dunne says that the hub locations were designated after transit planners reviewed the combination of the existing route network, existing passenger travel patterns, geography and street pattern of the Uptown area, and dispersed land use and trip attractions.

“The four enhanced bus stops will provide an adequately sized and more comfortable place to accommodate existing passenger volumes,” said Dunne. “It will also address future growth needs in such key Uptown markets as UC students/faculty/staff, medical industry employees, medical patients and visitors, and neighborhood residents.”

In an effort to focus attention on existing routes, Metro recently conducted several public sessions on modifying bus routes to increase utilization of the Uptown Transit District.

In addition to existing service modifications to enhance usage of the Uptown Transit District, officials say that the four new hubs will benefit from the planned phase two expansion of the Cincinnati Streetcar and new Metro*Plus limited stop service that will begin operating between Downtown, Uptown and Kenwood.

The $6.9 million project was funded through a mixture of funding, approximately 72% of which came from Federal sources, and will begin construction in April.

Plans call for additional bus hubs, like the Glenway Crossing Transit Hub and Uptown Transit District, to be developed in other large employment centers around the city as money becomes available.

Categories
Up To Speed

Washington D.C. plans $26B rail investment as Cincinnati moves on first

Washington D.C. plans $26B rail investment as Cincinnati moves on first.

As Cincinnati moves forward with construction of the region’s first rail transit, many residents are now looking forward to what might be next, and how to best connect the growing metropolitan area via rail. Meanwhile, in the nation’s capital, the Washington D.C. Metro has proposed $26 billion worth of upgrades to its already extensive system. More from the Washington Post:

Metro’s top managers are proposing a new rail tunnel under the center of the District, a second tunnel under the Potomac, and they estimate the transit agency will need $26 billion over the next three decades to pay for those and other improvements to an aging system that is falling behind the region’s needs.

The proposed new rail tunnels — one under 10th Street to Thomas Circle and another between Rosslyn and Georgetown and on to Thomas Circle — would be massive undertakings. The projects would require major financial commitments from local and federal governments and would take several years to plan and several more years to complete.

Categories
Up To Speed

Bus rapid transit systems in the U.S. not keeping pace

Bus rapid transit systems in the U.S. not keeping pace.

Many American cities, Cincinnati included, are working towards enhancing their bus systems as ridership grows. Bus rapid transit systems consistently come up as potential solutions, but rarely are they true BRT systems. More from Greater Greater Washington:

The Institute for Transportation & Development Policy publishes BRT standards that describe minimum characteristics necessary for a bus route to qualify as BRT. Those standards establish three levels of BRT quality: bronze, silver, and gold. They include features like off-bus fare collection, high station platforms, and bus frequency.

So far, only 5 lines in the United States have scored highly enough to qualify as true BRT, and all 5 rank at the bronze level. Not one is even silver, let alone gold.

According to ITDP, the best performing BRT systems in the world are Bogota, Colombia and Guangzhou, China, which score 93/100 and 89/100, respectively. They are the gold standard.

Categories
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.

Categories
News Opinion

CNU Salons article highlights misconceptions about Cincinnati’s urban core

Cincinnatians who spend much time in the city’s urban core know there’s a big disconnect between popular opinion and reality.

I’ll witness massive crowds of people enjoying amenities such as Washington Park, Smale Riverfront Park, and Fountain Square; or visiting the restaurants in Over-the-Rhine that often require hour-long waits on weekends; or filling up the unique music venues, bars and clubs on Main Street. Then in other parts of town I will hear people claim that there is “nothing to do in Cincinnati.” These people seem to be completely unaware of the slew of things happening throughout the city, but then go on to claim Downtown is unsafe.

Washington Park panorama by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

The problem is not aided by the fact that many of our city’s media outlets are schizophrenic in their coverage. Earlier this summer, for example, several of our local television affiliates produced stories about how much progress has been made in the Central Business District and Over-the-Rhine.

WCPO produced From Ghost Town to Night-on-the-Town, and 700 WLW’s Bill Cunningham provided a three-minute outburst of positivity where he described a night out in Over-the-Rhine and concluded that he should “spend less of [his] time crapping all over the city of Cincinnati and more time experiencing it.”

And yet those same media outlets are quick to publish sensational stories that label these neighborhoods “dangerous” without providing any analysis of actual statistics to support their claims.

Fortunately, Cincinnati has seen a tremendous amount of positive coverage recently on a national scale. The New York Times highlighted Cincinnati’s new riverfront, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer highlighted Cincinnati as a travel destination and provided a full weekend itinerary. Travel website Lonely Planet named Cincinnati as one of the Top 10 US travel destinations for 2012 for the amenities offered in the center city, and just last week, Next American City called Washington Park the tipping point that ensures continuing success in the improving Over-the-Rhine neighborhood.

For these reasons, it is especially unfortunate that a self-proclaimed urbanist would publish a blog entry on the Congress for the New Urbanism’s (CNU) website that only furthers many of these misconceptions.

Written by University of Cincinnati Urban Planning student Katie Poppel, the article is part of an ongoing series of guests posts intended to cover “the latest news, developments and initiatives occurring in cities and towns where CNU members live and work.”

The focus of this particular article intends to criticize Cincinnati’s modern streetcar project. And while the debate is welcome, the article relies on inaccurate information and misleading generalizations.

Poppel says, “it’s very hard for me to accept that the streetcar is really what Cincinnatians want.” She dismisses votes of support of the project in 2009 (Issue 9) and 2011 (Issue 48), and the election of a pro-streetcar mayor and six pro-streetcar city council members.

Ground is broken on the Cincinnati Streetcar as a crowd of supporters looks on. Photo by 5chw4r7z.

She claims that uninformed voters may have been confused by Issue 48’s ballot language. While the language was certainly misleading, she fails to mention that the language was written by the anti-transit group who placed the referendum onto the ballot.

Citizens Opposed to Additional Spending & Taxes (COAST) crafted the language and was proposing a charter amendment to ban any work by the city on any rail transit for the next decade. Voting “yes” would have approved the ban and therefore halt the streetcar project. Contrary to popular belief, the City was not involved in creating the ballot language.

In Poppel’s article, she went on to hedge her bets against the streetcar project, by claiming the transit project will not spur as much economic development as the City, private industry, and academic reports are projecting. However, she claims that low-income residents will not benefit from the new “high-end boutiques and specialty restaurants” opening along the route. This common tactic has often been used by transit opponents to frame such investments as a lose-lose proposition.

Another claim made by Poppel is that Over-the-Rhine is “the most deteriorated and crime-ridden region within Cincinnati.” While the claim is attention grabbing, it is supported by no evidence or facts. Furthermore, she fails to note that crime has been dropping in the neighborhood, and that a reduction in crime is typically associated with more “eyes on the street” that come from more residents and businesses, and fewer vacant buildings and darkened alleyways, in the neighborhood.

By overlooking the details of Issue 48, failing to mention Issue 9, and repeating outdated misconceptions about Over-the-Rhine, it seems Poppel only has surface-level knowledge of all of these issues.

CNU notes that they “welcome a healthy back-and-forth between different points of view,” and that opinions posted in CNU Salons and in comments are those of their respective authors, not of CNU. Unfortunately, CNU only publishes opinion pieces authored by dues-paying CNU members, so we decided to use our own platform to respond. For those reading this response that would like to respond directly to CNU, you can do so by leaving a comment on the original article, or by tweeting at CNU @NewUrbanism.