Last week, Duke Energy announced that they were pulling out of negotiations with the City of Cincinnati to relocate utilities in the path of the Cincinnati Streetcar. They also claimed that for “safety reasons”, all utilities must be moved 8 feet away from the streetcar’s path, so that utility work could be performed while the streetcar is operating. Duke is insisting that the city pay the full cost of utility relocation.
But where did Duke Energy get this “8 foot” figure? The city planned on a 3-foot separation, which is the standard in other U.S. cities that operate streetcar and light rail systems—including Charlotte, where Duke is headquartered. Jake Mecklenborg has even put together a collection of 20 photos (like the one above) showing manhole covers directly adjacent to, and in some cases, in between streetcar or light rail tracks.
The real reason Duke is taking this position is that the gas lines under Downtown Cincinnati are decades old. Within the next 15 years, Duke will have to spend millions of dollars to replace these lines anyway, regardless of whether or not a streetcar is built. They are trying to take advantage of the situation and have the city pay this cost for them.
The city should pay a portion of the cost—after all, Duke now has to replace the lines a few years earlier than they otherwise would have needed to. But remember that Duke’s business model involves building infrastructure and charging customers to connect to it. The city should not pay the full cost and subsidize Duke’s profit.
Even with this minor setback, the official groundbreaking of the Cincinnati Streetcar will occur February 17.
Update (2/17): The Cincinnati Business Courier — apparently, our only local paper interested in doing investigative journalism — researched Duke’s claims, and found that an 8 foot separation is unnecessary. CBC reviewed practices in other cities and interviewed transit experts, and found that the city is right and Duke is wrong on the matter.
Yesterday, The Atlantic Cities shed light on Chinatown buses, the intercity curbside bus services that gave rise to competitors such as MegaBus and BoltBus.
According to the map, there is direct Chinatown bus service between Cincinnati and New York — something that MegaBus doesn’t offer.
It turns out that two Chinatown bus services offer daily routes. Both pick up passengers in the northern suburb of Springdale, near the Tri-County Mall.
Wired Magazine on texting and driving
But I’m not convinced the bans will work, particularly among young people. Why? Because texting is rapidly becoming their default means of connecting with one another, on a constant, pinging basis. From 2003 to 2008, the number of texts sent monthly by Americans surged from 2 billion to 110 billion. The urge to connect is primal, and even if you ban texting in the car, teens will try to get away with it.
So what can we do? We should change our focus to the other side of the equation and curtail not the texting but the driving. This may sound a bit facetious, but I’m serious. When we worry about driving and texting, we assume that the most important thing the person is doing is piloting the car. But what if the most important thing they’re doing is texting? How do we free them up so they can text without needing to worry about driving?
At some point, we will have to face the facts and realize that we’ve been making a huge mistake for the past 70 years by building for cars first and humans second.
COAST Demands Constitutional Right to Lie
What happens when you can’t win a ballot issue based on the facts?
COAST today filed a suit in federal court in Cincinnati seeking to overturn Ohio’s law against false statements in issue campaigns. […]
COAST claims Ohio Revised Statute 3517.22 violates constitutional free-speech protection. The statute makes it a crime — punishable by prison and fines – to “Post, publish, circulate, distribute, or otherwise disseminate, a false statement, either knowing the same to be false or acting with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not, that is designed to promote the adoption or defeat of any ballot proposition or issue.”
In other words: when you can’t tell the truth, sue for the right to lie.
Free speech isn’t universally free. You can’t defame another person. You can’t induce panic by yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre. And you shouldn’t be able to lie to win an election.
Don’t let COAST amend our city’s charter — vote no on Issue 48.
1 locomotive engineer + 1 conductor carries 300 truck loads; 1 truck driver carries 1 truck load
Visit from President Obama raises political stakes surrounding the Brent Spence Bridge project
In summary:
- The bridge is “functionally obsolete” — that means it’s over capacity, not that it’s in danger of falling into the river.
- The bridge is being augmented, not replaced. Media should not be calling this the “Brent Spense Bridge replacement”. We will likely have the existing bridge for another 50 years.
- The bridge is congested during rush hour, but is it so bad that we can justify spending over $3 billion to fix it?
- Other ways to reduce traffic on the bridge include:
- Encourage Downtown-to-Covington traffic to use the Clay Wade Bailey bridge instead of the Brent Spence Bridge.
- Encourage/force non-local semi trucks to use I-275 to bypass the city.
- Encourage carpooling and build better mass transit.
