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Streetcars Hit Major Bump In The Road

So a diverse coalition of groups led by the NAACP want to put the streetcar on the ballot.

The NAACP recently launched a petition drive to place an issue on the November ballot that would amend the city’s charter to prevent Cincinnati officials from spending money on the streetcar project without first getting approval from city voters.

I definitely appreciate the sentiment. When the same group of people wanted to put the jail tax on the ballot, to let the people decide, I wholeheartedly agreed because I did not support the jail tax. I voted to put it on the ballot, and when it was, I voted against it (both times). But this time, I find myself on the other side of the coin.

I have quoted lots of evidence in support of streetcars on this blog already. The NAACP's main objection seems to be that there are better uses for the money.

Smitherman believes the money could be better spent elsewhere, such as in neighborhood business districts. Streetcar systems are a risky gamble that have failed in some cities, he says, and Cincinnati’s mostly would benefit people who own property along the proposed route and developers like Towne Properties, which is owned by Bortz’s family.

To be sure, it's a risk, and there are many other ways to spend the money. But let's say we take the $100 million required to build the first phase of the streetcar. The city has 52 neighborhood councils. We could give each neighborhood nearly $2 million dollars - a vast increase in their current dole - and it would certainly be put to good use. But the streetcar is projected to return $1.4 billion dollars in investment, investment that means new residents, new businesses, and higher payroll tax. Big picture here.

Also, the fact that the issue is for support of a charter amendment is a bit weird. To me - and I'm no lawyer - it's as if Congress passes an amendment to the constitution outlawing Amtrak.

In any case, let me clearly state my opinion: if this issue gets on the ballot, the streetcar proposal will fail.

Because while I believe that people are good-intentioned, the masses are dumb. The majority of people who even bother to vote will not even know about all the issues they will vote on until they are in the voting booth. Which means we will have a repeat of the kind of vote that put two stadiums on the riverfront, and of course a repeat of the vote that doomed the light rail initiative in 2002. (BTW, had the light rail initiative passed in 2002, we would have had running streetcars for the past two years already.) If it goes to the ballot, streetcars will not become a reality for at least another decade. And the NAACP has a very good record with getting issues on the ballot.

The streetcar is not a transportation plan. It is a development plan. The point of the streetcar is not to get people where they need to go. It's to get people to stay. It's to get people to live, work, and stay where we want them to stay, namely, in the city. I believe it's a distinction easily lost.

Also see UrbanCincy's strong reaction to the NAACP petition.

Bikers Descend Upon City Hall

Last month, I took it upon myself to attend a rally for bicycle issues down at City Hall during a meeting of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee.  It was pretty interesting hearing statements from the other bikers in attendance, especially the lady who had not ridden a bike since childhood, but abruptly took up bicycling to work everyday this year.

There were a lot of different types of argument, from the infrastructure-oriented requests for more signage and bike lanes, to more passionate pleas calling for an improved bike culture as a way to attract talented young people to the region.

There were lots of types of people too.  There were the bike geeks, resplendent in their bike pants, reflective outwear, and aerodynamic helmets complete with rear-view mirror.  There were the bike hipsters who look they just re-fitted an entire bike and rode to the meeting before washing the grease off. 

As for my accessories, I use a velcro strap to keep my pant-leg out of the gears, and riding gloves since a raccoon chewed off my handlebars.

Traveling To Chicago? Try Megabus.

Once upon a time in high school, a buddy of mine and I took a Greyhound bus down to Florida for spring break. It was the thankfully the last Greyhound experience I ever had. The bus ride itself was long and uncomfortable, and the ridership that frequents Greyhound bus travel is interesting to say the least. It was just too much for a 9th grader.

In an earlier post I mentioned visiting Chicago and didn't even mention the bus option. Well, I had known about Megabus, having seen one of them on the road a few times, but forgot about it — I must have blocked it from my mind due to my Greyhound experience — until I read this Megabus review.

I was still really skeptical. Why am I considering taking the bus? A lot of times buses between large cities, at least here in the states, are for people who cannot afford other methods of transportation. There's a social stigma the industry HAS earned. You know what, I'm a little guilty of that thought and wanted to beat it out of me. So I decided to be logical, figure out dollars and time considerations. There is a bit of an emotional reason as well: I want to believe that travel in our country can be accomplished on a bus. I want to believe there are great and greener alternatives to flying or driving. Outside of the US it's pretty common to take buses or rails around a country.

Read the rest.

All Aboard

Over on Cinplify, I found a story on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about rail travel in the United States. I started quoting from the story, but I ended up copying nearly the entire thing. So just go and read it right now. It's not that long.

Okay, so here's one quote:

But as Amtrak's national ridership soars in spite of its flaws -- increasing now for the sixth year in a row, with 2 million more riders than last year -- it's time to ask: Can a better rail system fill in the gaps that airlines are leaving behind?

And I believe the answer is a firm: HELL YES.

:::

Airline passengers now have to pay for every piece of luggage, every drink, snack, and bathroom break (okay, maybe not that last one) taken. Customer service goes down while prices go up (I realize that fuel is costly). Less flights mean more crowds, and more stopovers. But people take it anyway.

Flying becomes more and more of a pain in the ass as time goes on. Airlines have started to capitalize on a reality that has existed for decades: air travel is the best way to travel long distances, and there is no alternative that even comes close.

But what if there was an alternative?

:::

We traveled to Milwaukee this past weekend for a wedding. Before the weekend, I had to figure out how to get there.

1. Plane: I honestly didn't look into the flying option. Assuredly quicker, but assuredly hundreds of dollars for a single, round-trip ticket from CVG, unless I had bought the tickets months ago.
   
2. Train: If you go to Amtrak's website now and search, you'll find that the train leaves Union Terminal at 1:10 AM, and arrives in Milwaukee some 13 hrs. later. Coming back is a bit faster at 12 hrs., as long as you don't mind arriving at 3:17 in the morning. Cost of ticket: not expensive, but not cheap, at $140 round-trip for one person.. Being able to do things on the train like sleep, etc. is nice, but those hours are just not friendly.
   
3. Automobile: Google Maps pins it at about 6.5 hrs and 380 miles driving. I can get that far in just over a tank of gas. Rounding down, that's two tanks of gas at about $90 for 1-4 people, and 13 hours of time, round-trip.

Balancing all the factors, you just can't beat driving.

Residents of the East Coast between Boston and Washington D.C. will rave about the train systems. (Just ask Joe Biden.) Then, when you get to your destination, there's often the local subway or train to get you to your final destination. But us in the Midwest apparently lose out.

Toyota Is Da Man

We try to recycle as much as we can at home. But I read somewhere that the vast majority (I want to say around 97%) of landfill contents come from businesses. It's a figure I believe looking back at the offices I've worked in, to say nothing of factories and manufacturing outfits.

So it's amazing what Toyota is doing. I've always had an eye out for Toyota, whose lean manufacturing principles has found its way into software development. From Soapbox:

The purging of the waste cans was a small but significant step toward Toyota’s zero-landfill goal. And Toyota has indeed achieved the goal (zero landfill is defined as diverting at least 95 percent of all waste away from landfills and into recycling or reuse). It was one thing to reach the goal at the TEMA offices in Erlanger, where most people work at desk jobs. Quite another to go zero landfill at its 12 manufacturing plants in North America, where they make cars, engines, auto parts and other things traditionally thought of as dirty manuifacturing. Toyota has achieved that at all but two of its plants, and those two are 97 percent of the way there. Pretty good accomplishment for a company that's in the business of making more than 1.5 million a cars a year in North America.

Soapbox Covers It All!

Soapbox continues to be a source of great conversation. I don't possibly have the time to write about each of these stories individually, but they all struck me at one point or another. So I'll try my best to combine all commentary into one post here.

New report on Ohio tax reform sees $6.3 billion in new investment

Now, in the second year of a five-year rollout, state officials say the net payoff is that Ohio now offers companies the lowest new capital investment tax structure in the Midwest.

Interesting. Wasn't this one of Bob Taft's last acts? I seem to remember grocery stores complaining about low margins. If the claims are true, though, it was a smart move.

SoapDish for July 29, 2008

I have liked the new Fountain Square plan from day one. (Sorry, no documentation to back that up.) I have been mostly pleased with how it's turned out, given the limited land area, and suspect that once the trees grow bigger, however long that might take, it will begin to look like some of the more popular spaces around the country. I still think the ice rink could be bigger, and the rotating, multi-color lights will get old pretty soon. And I wish we could knock down the Fifth Third building.

I like this line from Casey Coston:

I never quite understood the crusty complaints about the makeover, the most articulate of which seemed to boil down to something along the lines of “we used to be able to see the fountain while zooming by on 5th Street in our car….now we have to actually get out of our car, and we’re not happy about it.”

A Streetcar Named Renewal: If We Build it, Will They Come?

Another good streetcar story - I don't think it has anything new for those who have followed the streetcar development. But it does a great job in knocking down some common criticisms:

Another misconception: streetcars are glorified taxis, or buses. Why fix it if it ain’t broke?

Chirch has this to say, “A bus line is merely “red paint on a telephone pole, or a little aluminum sign. When you put down streetcar rails, you’re actually making a commitment… something psychological happens.”

...And perhaps the biggest misconception: all funding must come from the city, for which we shall pay dearly.

In fact, city officials and grassroots fundraisers are busy courting private, state and federal donors to help foot the bill for this $182 million project. The city will dish out $60 million, but has decided against instituting a sales tax.

To put this in perspective, Dohoney says, “we invested $40 million-plus in the Convention Center, $40 million-plus in Fountain Square…[and] we’re talking about a $600-800 million dollar development on the waterfront.”

High Gas Prices Can Make You A Better Person

If you've read this blog long enough, you know that I believe that gas is still way too cheap. When our fuel prices match those of Europe, then we may start to see some real change in behavior. We could easily get there, by raising the gas tax, of course. Not only would people suddenly be turned off about their cars, the extra earnings could be used to innovate on transportation (individual or public) that did not rely on gas, or relied on gas very efficiently.

Despite my Libertarian-ish ways, this is a different sort of tax from an economist way of thinking (if the pop non-fiction I've read holds true) because the tax is put in place to motivate behavior, as opposed to a government tax that is put in place simply because there's not enough money.

Anyways, this leads to why I really liked this editorial in the Enquirer a few days ago from the Des Moines Register about how high gas prices could eventually improve our lives. He looks faaar into the future, past the benefits I just mentioned:

Tough as it is, [high gas prices] could force us to make adjustments that result in healthier, more communal and environmentally friendly living. And they could push governments and businesses to help provide the infrastructure.

...At the most basic level, it should give a much-needed boost to public transportation, especially in cities that don't have extensive bus routes or late hours of operation. If enough people start riding, and demanding, better routes and times, maybe we'll get them.

...More commuters may be inspired to ride their bikes to work, a great heart-healthy exercise. Then we might get more bike lanes.

...And since the cost of gas is most felt by companies and people doing long-distance travel, it might inspire the federal government to finally get behind better long-distance passenger rail service and even high-speed rail between major cities.

...Some communities are looking at four-day workweeks, which could promote a better quality of life and more family time.

And if people limit their forays to the mall just to hang out or exercise, and start using their neighborhoods for recreation, maybe we'd see more block parties and picnics and a growing sense of community connectedness.

Pie-in-the-sky for sure. Right?

Greater Cincinnati Not So Hot In The Carbon Footprint Game

The Brookings Institute recently launched their Blueprint for American Prosperity: Unleashing the Potential of a Metropolitan Nation:

...an ambitious, multi-year initiative to build long-term U.S. prosperity by reinvigorating the federal role in promoting the health and vitality of America's metropolitan areas.

The key concept is that our nation's assets are concentrated in our metro areas, and are the vital engines of the U.S. and global economy.

Anyway, one of the policy briefs that have come out of it so far is a study on carbon emissions and energy usage in the top 100 metropolitan areas. Greater Cincinnati does not fare so well (page 21 of the PDF).

First, they looked at the period between 2000 and 2005 and studied the change in the average per-capita carbon emissions:

• Average per-capita carbon footprint change from 2000-2005:
  
• Metro Cincinnati: +12.10%
• Top 100 metros: +1.1%
• Nation: +2.2%
• Of that carbon footprint change, portion which was transportation energy:
  
• Metro Cincinnati: +4.0%
• Top 100 metros: +2.4%
• Of that carbon footprint change, portion which was residential energy:
• Metro Cincinnati: +20.8%
• Top 100 metros: -0.7%

Then they studied the average per capita carbon footprint for the year 2005 as a snapshot.

• Average per-capita carbon footprint in 2005:
  
• Metro Cincinnati: 3.281 tons of carbon
  
• Top 100 metros: 2.24 tons
  
• Nation: 2.60 tons

• Of that 2005 carbon footprint, portion which was transportation energy:
  
• Metro Cincinnati: 1.575 tons
  
• Top 100 metros: 1.310 tons
• Nation: 1.44 tons
• Of that 2005 transportation carbon footprint, portion which was from cars:
• Metro Cincinnati: 1.140 tons
  
• Top 100 metros: 1.004 tons
• Of that 2005 transportation carbon footprint, portion which was from trucks:
• Metro Cincinnati: 0.436 tons
  
• Top 100 metros: 0.305 tons

• Of that 2005 carbon footprint, portion which was residential energy:
• Metro Cincinnati: 1.706 tons
  
• Top 100 metros: 0.925 tons
• Nation: 1.16 tons
  
• Of that 2005 residential carbon footprint, portion which was from electricity:
• Metro Cincinnati: 1.255 tons
  
• Top 100 metros: 0.611 tons
  
• Of that 2005 residential carbon footprint, portion which was from residential fuels:
• Metro Cincinnati: 0.451 tons
  
• Top 100 metros: 0.314 tons

The numbers that jump out at me are the whopping 20.8% increase in home energy use, and the related 1.706 tons of carbon emissions from home energy in 2005, nearly twice that of the average person living in the top 100 metro areas. And most of that 1.706 tons is from homes powered by electricity.

Why the drastic increase and consumption of home electricity? Do Cincinnatians like it cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter than other cities? Is it all the huge, new home construction, with an entertainment center and server room in every house? Is it all the old homes that need a fortune to keep heated in the winters? Other cities have these things. But they may make up for it with more high-rises and multi-family buildings and public transit. The study does say that weather is a factor.

I originally found this info linked from Soapbox Cincinnati, which wrote up the Blueprint For Prosperity program as a whole. There's also a story about it on Local12, though they spent most of the time focusing on how our air is still clean.

Soapbox Derby

I walked through the Cincinnati Soapbox Derby on Saturday, and took some random photos. It was a nice day and it looked like a lot of people had come and gone already.

Here is the start of a heat.

I particularly liked this shark racer. The WCPO car is in the background.

The Soapbox Cincinnati car.

A couple more heats.

Driven To The Brink

Via CityKin, comes a link to "How the Gas Price Spike Popped the Housing Bubble and Devalued the Suburbs," a paper about - well, the title says it all.

Here is a short video (3:44) explaining the concepts. While it focuses mainly on the Chicago area, the paper studies several other metro regions.



The paper looks at the issues from many angles, but the angle I found most interesting was the simple number of vehicle miles traveled per person:

But in the past three years, vehicle travel per capita in the United States has begun to decline. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, total vehicle miles traveled per person per day reached a peak of 27.6 in 2005 and declined to 27.2 in 2007. This represents a substantial departure from the trend established between 1990 and 2003. Vehicle travel is now about 1.5 miles per person, per day, below the 13-year trend. Despite an increasing population, the decline in driving per person has had the effect of reducing gas sales, which in early 2008 were down 1.1 percent from a year earlier (Campoy 2008).

Economists who have studied travel behavior and energy consumption agree that consumer responses to gas price changes are greater in the long run than in the short run. There are very few things, other than combining trips or forsaking travel, that consumers and workers can do in the short run to reduce their travel. But over a longer period of time, consumers can do much to lower their travel and gas consumption. Decisions about where to live or work, which neighborhood to move to and which job to take all profoundly influence travel behavior in the long run.

What might be the policy implications of all this?

• Government can help families save money by making it easy and convenient to live in mixed-use, close-in neighborhoods served by transit.
• Reducing vehicle miles traveled not only saves families money, households that drive less have more to spend on other things, stimulating the local economy. Additionally, reducing oil consumption not only cuts greenhouse gas emissions but lowers the trade deficit.

And what about long-distance traveling? Returning from vacation last week, my total elapsed travel time, including getting to the airport early, sitting at the gate, sitting on the runway, and the layover, was about 7 hours. I wonder if high-speed rail could've gotten me there in about the same amount of time? Even if it were a little longer, on the train, it must be cheaper, there must be more space, and it might be easier to work, read, etc. But that's a different story altogether.

It's A Wonderful Light Rail System

In It's A Wonderful Life, George Bailey got to see an alternate world where he had never existed. A couple weeks ago, Kevin Osborne over at CityBeat blogged about the 2002 Metro Moves regional transit plan that overwhelmingly failed at the ballot. He offers a glimpse of what could have been.

In November 2002 voters overwhelmingly defeated a proposed $2.6 billion light rail system for Hamilton County. The measure to increase the county’s sales tax by a half-cent was rejected 68-32 percent.

Perhaps the timing of the issue was not the best, occurring only a few years after the sales tax increase to build the stadiums. But moving on, what's this about streetcars (emphasis mine)?

A little-known aspect of the Metro Moves plan called for implementing a streetcar system downtown and in the uptown area around the University of Cincinnati and area hospitals. That system would’ve become operational in 2006 — two years ago.

Further into the crystal ball, CityKin has posted an email from John Schneider's pro-transit email list along these same lines.

At $126, a barrel of oil now costs $100 more than it cost on November 5, 2002 when Hamilton County voters defeated an extensive plan for transportation choices here. Economists hired to study the plan concluded that it would cost an average Hamilton County family $68 per year, about what I paid for a tank of gas last week.

The plan defeated in 2002 would have built sixty miles of light rail in five corridors: along I-74 to Green Township; I-75 to Tri-County; I-71 to Blue Ash; and a line from Uptown through Hyde Park to Newtown. Another rail line would have enabled Cincinnatians to travel across the county without having to go downtown and transfer. There were two streetcar lines, a 25% increase in the bus fleet, new bus routes and neighborhood hubs and more hours of bus service. When the plan was fully built-out by 2030, 95% of Hamilton County residents would have transit within a mile of their homes. It would be nice to have that option now.

Oh well.

Back in reality, one might figure that the cost of gas will continue to rise, with oil being a finite resource and all. One might also figure that this means a rail system will happen some day - maybe not in our lifetimes, but some day.

With gasoline prices moving ever upward, some urban planners think it’s inevitable that some sort of commuter rail system will be built here someday. If true, the 2002 sales tax defeat only means the completion date is even further off and the total cost will be higher, due to inflation.

Streetcars Be Comin'

With only a small amount of drama, city council yesterday formally approved the streetcar plan. It's far from a done deal, and construction won't begin for another couple years at best, but now that the city is officially on board, the road becomes a lot clearer.

I was particularly excited that the voted-upon plan did include the Uptown link, which, as I've said before, is critical for real streetcar use. It adds another $30-$35 million, inflating the total cost to $110-$120 million.

That's a lot of money. Many critics have said that that kind of money can and should be better spent elsewhere, and when I think about things like CPS' $75 million budget shortfall or the $30 million parking garage money that delayed the Banks for so long, I understand why they say that.

But then I think about spending $400+ million for a football stadium that sees 10 games a year, or spending $250 million for a baseball park that is surrounded by highways, or $100 million to build a highway exit, I still think the streetcar plan is the best development deal in a long time.

As Chris Bortz put it:

"If we don't do something big, bold, challenging and new, we're going to have the same city, which is a city that has been struggling to pull itself out of 50 years of decline."

5chw4r7z has some celebration party photos.

Anderson Ferry

I needed some new jeans, so Sarah and I made a trip to the GAP Outlet in KY. It was such a nice day, we decided to support the Anderson Ferry on my jeans-buying mission.

Portland's Urban Growth Boundary

Over on Queen City Survey, a suitably harsh post about Council's recent streetcar vote.

"Finance Committed voted 5-2 in favor to approve $800,000 for preliminary studies required for federal funding applications. The studies would include the Uptown-downtown link."

Qualls and Cranley dissented. I never liked Cranley, but I wonder about Qualls. I voted for her in the last election, and I know she has an extensive academic background in urban policy. Something is not sitting right with her, and I wonder what it is.

As far as Monzel - if this were put to a referendum it would flat out fail. So to Monzel, I say BOOOOO.

Over on the Enquirer's Politics blog, a post about the same subject elicited (as of this very moment) 56 comments. I've been hearing a lot about why you can't compare Cincinnati and Portland because of Portland's Urban Growth Boundary laws. John Schneider weighs in on this one in a comment:

"Critics say that Portland’s Streetcar is successful only because of that city’s Urban Growth Boundary, a sprawl-limiting measure that enables Portland to achieve the density necessary for its many great urban projects, a density of 3,939 persons per square mile. But here’s the thing -- even without an urban growth boundary, Cincinnati is 8% denser than Portland, with 4,249 persons per square mile."

Cincinnati Metro Interactive Map

Sweet Google Maps mashup of Metro bus routes, found via this post from 5chw4r7z. A quick search revealed lots of similar efforts, and makes me wonder that if these have been around for so long, why doesn't SORTA have anything like this here already?

Talk About Telescopic Views

A letter to the editor in the Enquirer today from West Side civic leader and former city council candidate Pete Witte brings into sharp relief why streetcar opponents have it wrong. The letter is not long, so I'll just quote the entire thing.

Hey City Council how do the other 50 neighborhoods in the city benefit from the Streetcars? Will Bond Hill benefit? How about Mount Washington, Westwood, Price Hill, etc?

City Hall needs a telescope to see beyond the blocks outside their windows.

Why would this city support $100 million effort to shuffle a couple hundred people a day around Over-the-Rhine and Downtown? We need to link Westwood to Mount Washington and Bond Hill to Uptown, not make it easier for bar hoppers to hit OTR and Fountain Square. Maybe a thoughtful council member will encourage a referendum so that citizens can vote on this expenditure. A referendum will force them to think about a comprehensive plan benefiting many, not the few.

Pete Witte, West Price Hill

*golf clap* What Witte and so many suburbanites who disregard the central city do not realize is that the area between and including Uptown and the CBD form the heart and soul of the entire region. They don't realize that the success or failure of Greater Cincinnati will always begin with the CBD, OTR, the area around UC and the hospitals, and all the areas in-between. They don't realize that if these areas founder, then the entire region will founder. They don't realize that without the core, there would be no Westwood, Mt. Washington, or Bond Hill.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh on Mr. Witte and his ilk. He doesn't actually say he's against streetcars, only that any proposal should include more neighborhoods. Well if that's the case I must ask, how else would you start a plan to link and spur growth in all the neighborhoods with fixed line transportation? Would you build a line from Westwood to Bond Hill, and then extend it downtown? That doen't make any sense. Oh, and there was a referendum on a comprehensive regional transporation system several years ago which was soundly defeated. I wonder what Mr. Witte's vote was then? I know that was light rail, and this is not, but I doubt the average person knows the difference and that the general attitude would prevail again if this was put to a vote.

Growing Inward

The Queen City Survey has a very thoughtful, nigh impassioned post about how to grow our fair city. I encourage everyone to read it in its entirety. To answer his question - "What are those things – projects or otherwise – that will grow this city inward and what will get us moving in a positive direction quickly?" - my thoughts on the matter (in no particular order):

1. The streetcar proposal is the single most important big ticket/development issue. While it may not be the best deal economically at this time, we must strike while the political iron is hot. Despite the valid arguments that Cincinnati is not Portland, the car is king here, etc. I firmly believe that someday - someday - this type of mass transit will be at the national forefront again, as we run into imminent transportation and energy issues. Importantly, the streetcar must link uptown to downtown, with OTR in-between, to link two of the largest residential/employee bases in the city.
   
2. Over-the-Rhine must be developed, as it can be and has been, as long as the city and the naysayers stay out of the way. IIRC, OTR used to be home to over 50,000 people back in the day. Today less than 10,000 call it home. OTR can accomodate many more residents and can add 40,000 to the city's population if it lives up to its potential. (I would say, let's build a ballpark in OTR, but we know how that turned out.)
   
3. Apart from development-type issues, education stands at the forefront. Cincinnati Public Schools must be successful and families must not hesitate to send their children there if Cincinnati is to thrive. Interestingly, if #1 and #2 above succeed, and the demographics of the city change, CPS may improve simply by having better raw materials to teach. That said, it is the children in CPS today who will become Cincinnati's residents tomorrow, and they deserve the best chances to be productive citizens.

Streetcar Drivers Wanted

The reality of streetcars in Cincinnati is closer than it ever has been before. I've seen more criticism of the plan than support so far, and I can understand it. $102 million is a lot of money to pay for a streetcar system, and I still won't be able to get from UC to downtown. $102 million is a lot of money when the Banks are still not developed, CPS thinks it needs a levy (which it does), and the county thinks it needs a new jail (which it doesn't).

But I support this plan and you should too. Many people who criticize the plan say they are in favor of it ultimately, but it's not the right time when there are so many other needs. I say that, like most things in life, there is never a good time. And so many things that don't get done in this town is based on lack of political will, and this may be the only time there is political will for this project for a long time. If the political will is there, let's get it done, details be damned. We can add the route to UC later.