20 Reasons Why a Central Area Loop Circulator Is Needed

1. Autos clog the central area much of the business week, making traffic flow difficult. If a central area loop circulator (CALC) would reduce this traffic 10% or more, this would be a major benefit in its own right.

2. Walking to get around in the central area is a limited option. Most people will walk about 400’ or less on a regular basis, without considering it an inconvenience. This has been a rule in shopping center development for many years. Beyond that, more and more people refuse to walk, for a variety of reasons:

   1. It is too hot; too cold; it’s raining; it’s snowing.
   2. It’s easier to drive somewhere that requires less walking.
   3. They have a disability that makes walking difficult.
   4. It’s night, and safety is a concern.
   5. Too many streets with lights to cross.
   6. It takes too long on my lunch hour.
   7. Etc.
   
   

3. Parking downtown is expensive and inconvenient. This is particularly a deterrent for suburban shoppers, who have no monthly parking space, from coming downtown at all. To park in a fringe lot or garage and ride a fast CALC would bring more shoppers downtown.

4. Parking in the core downtown area averages $125-135 per month; alternative parking at $45-55 per month on the fringe of the core area would be a major attraction with a CALC. Fringe parking existing or planned for the next 2-5 years totals 11,500 spaces in just three areas: between the stadiums; N. KY Convention Center Garage; Newport on the Levee Garage. If a CALC could have stations in these garages, and get people to the downtown core area in 5 minutes, under cover, then such fringe parking should have greatly enhanced appeal.

5. Existing and planned parking garages represent an estimated investment of $180 million; if a CALC would enhance their use by commuters during the day and workweek, this could be a major revenue source to pay for them.

6. About $1.9 billion is being built, has recently been built, or is planned on eight projects we know of in the central loop area, with no plan to tie them all together. This includes the N. Ky. Convention Center ($25M); Rivercenter, including Madison Place ($200M); Newport on the Levee ($100M); Millennium Monument ($100M); both stadiums ($700M); Fort Washington Way ($146M); Cincinnati Convention Center Expansion ($300M) Underground RR Freedom Center ($100M) and The Banks ($250M). Wouldn’t it make all these investments more successful if you could get from any one of them to any other in five minutes?

7. $700 million is planned for light rail for the first phase, with the intermodal center. Do you expect LR riders to walk from the intermodal center to their destination downtown? (See 2. Above.) While many will, many more won’t, reducing the appeal of LR. A CALC station at the intermodal center should greatly enhance LR ridership to downtown, especially for commuters. This benefit will only increase from any extensions of LR in the Eastern Corridor, the I-75 Corridor, etc.

8. A CALC will help improve air quality in the central loop area. Assuming the CALC is electric powered, and reduces auto traffic 10% or more, and congestion even more, this would help improve air quality standards, a major Federal goal for public transit.

9. An elevated CALC will create a new path for central area circulation, without diminishing the capacity of the surface street system. This enables gradual expansion of overall capacity, something not possible with surface modes for a CALC. (Adding more busses or streetcars does not add street capacity, and a dedicated streetcar lane with tracks diminishes such capacity.)

10. A high tech CALC connecting all tourist attractions will enhance each one, and be a tourist attraction itself. Tying the two convention centers together will make joint conventions feasible. Tying the two ballparks (especially the Reds) to the Newport tourist attractions will make it easier for tourists to do both on the same visit. If the hotels are also tied into the CALC, then a seamless transit system for tourists would exist in Cincinnati, something probably unique in the US.

11. Downtown office buildings may be losing out to the suburbs due to increased inconvenience of working downtown and high parking costs. No new downtown office building has been built in almost 10 years in the core downtown area of Cincinnati, while several million square feet have been built in the suburbs; Rivercenter and Baldwin have added nearly one million square feet on the borders of downtown, where parking is either free or at lower rates. The need to include underground or structured parking in any new office building in the core area makes the costs of new construction higher downtown. A CALC to tie the core downtown area to much cheaper parking on the fringe of downtown would help reduce these high parking costs, and greatly add to convenience of working downtown.

12. Negotiations for a Nordstroms is now stuck on the cost of including an underground parking garage, adding millions to the proposed Cincinnati subsidy. A CALC with a station at a new Nordstroms, tied to cheaper fringe parking garages, might satisfy Nordstoms and save Cincinnati this cost.

13. The $300M expansion of the Cincinnati Convention Center will likely require hundreds (or thousands) of new parking spaces. Is such parking proposed in more garages at the CCC? If so, this will be at substantial cost. A CALC, tied into the CCC, would enable cheaper fringe parking to satisfy this need, at substantially less cost.

14. The Over the Rhine housing and entertainment district would be a lot more appealing if tied into the proposed CALC. While this may be a later phase of the CALC, the potential is there. The entertainment district will always be limited by parking, especially at night, but a CALC station in the OTR area would open up parking garages all over the CALC area to visitors to the entertainment district.

15. The poor and disabled who live and work in the CALC area would have a new freedom to get around. For those without cars, the CALC would offer, literally, a new life. That they could work, shop, and otherwise get around the area where they live without dependence on the bus would be a life changing experience.

16. Expansion of a CALC to the University of Cincinnati from downtown, and circulation of a CALC around UC, could make more sense than bringing light rail from UC through downtown. While this would change the current I-71 Corridor Plan, it would save the $100M cost of the LR tunnel, and avoid running tracks down Main Street. LR could come into downtown on a more direct route. (This should be considered a backup plan, in case the public objects to this part of the current I-71 Corridor Plan.)

17. Newport has been bypassed by the I-71 Corridor Plan, with LR crossing the river in Covington. If the CALC ties into LR at the intermodal center and possibly a LR station in Covington, and then takes people all around the three city area, Newport will tie into the LR system.

18. The I-71 Corridor Plan, as proposed, could fail with the voters due to high costs. Part of the high costs includes a new bridge across the Ohio River, and, in phase two, a $100M tunnel up the hill along I-71/75. Should the plan fail, then at least a CALC would tie Northern Kentucky into the Ohio portion of LR at the intermodal center. An extension of the CALC to the airport and other NKY destinations could prove cheaper than LR. Again, like 16. Above, this should be considered a backup plan to the current I-71 Corridor Plan.

19. Downtown Cincinnati hotels have been weak sisters for many years. Would a CALC make them more competitive? It would certainly make them much more accessible to both convention centers and all the tourist attractions, including the new ballparks and Newport attractions. This has been another area where Cincinnati has spent lots of dollars on subsidies, and still not solved the problem. Expansion of the CCC will help, but is it enough?

20. Cincinnati needs a signature attraction that makes it different. The Millennium Monument, if built, will be one of those. If the CALC were a new, high tech transit system, and the first of its kind in the world, then Cincinnati would become known worldwide for the birth of such a system. What is this worth? Like Visa says in its ads, "some things are priceless."

Prepared by Chip Tappan, Chairman
The Sky Loop Committee, Forward Quest
10/27/99

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Copyright © The Sky Loop Committee of Vision 2015