Hamilton County voters decide Nov. 5 whether to begin the largest
local transportation project since the interstate highway system.
What began in 2000 as a plan to revamp Queen City Metro,
the city's bus system, has grown into MetroMoves, a comprehensive,
30-year vision for the Tri-state's public transportation network.
MetroMoves is a $4.2 billion plan to add five light rail
lines, two streetcar lines, 20 neighborhood shuttle buses
and 30 bus transfer centers. The project would upgrade Queen
City Metro from a downtown-centered system into a countywide,
cross-town network.
The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA), which
runs Queen City Metro, voted Aug. 20 to put a half-cent sales
tax on the ballot. It is the first sales tax on the ballot
the since March 1996, when voters approved a half-cent increase
for new football and baseball stadiums.
The tax hike would raise about $60 million a year; Hamilton
County residents pay about 55 percent of county sales taxes,
according to Metro spokesperson Sallie Hilvers. Using that
figure, the tax increase would annually cost $39.50 per county
resident.
Pay now or get in line
SORTA put all this to a November vote because it could be
the last chance for a few years to get the federal government
to pay 50 percent of the light rail plan's construction costs.
The law providing federal transit funding ends its five-year
life span next year. Congress is expected to re-authorize
funding; but without a local funding source this year, SORTA
could wait five years longer to get in the funding cycle.
The state of Ohio is expected to chip in another 25 percent.
The sales tax will pay for only the $2.74 billion Hamilton
County portion of MetroMoves. Commuter rail lines connecting
Lawrenceburg, Milford, Hamilton and Middletown to downtown
Cincinnati are a possibility, but surrounding counties would
be responsible for raising the $631 million to pay for it.
SORTA's nine-member board is taking a chance by putting
all the bus and rail projects together into MetroMoves for
one up-or-down vote. It's asking Hamilton County voters for
a great deal of trust, something in short supply since the
inept county management of the Paul Brown Stadium project
expanded its cost by $52 million.
MetroMoves still calls for at least 100 new buses and 30
bus transfer hubs, including some compatible with light rail.
The Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments
(OKI) began studying a light rail line along Interstate 71
in 1995 and finished a detailed corridor study in 1997.
OKI is in charge of coordinating transportation spending in
the eight-county Tristate region.
SORTA and OKI realized last year that selling county voters
on an I-71 line rail line alone -- especially those in Western
Hamilton County -- would be tough. So earlier this year they
combined efforts for a regional plan with light rail, commuter
rail and two streetcar lines. The plan is now part of MetroMoves.
For some, this is where SORTA made a wrong turn.
"This is an enormous opening of the pubic trough," says
Stephan Louis, chair of Alternatives to Light Rail Transit
(ALRT), a group opposed to the plan.
Louis can understand expanding the bus system. He likes
the job Queen City Metro General Manager Paul Jablonski is
doing.
"I think that Jablonski is doing the best that he can do
with the funds he has," Louis says.
But he opposes spending billions on light rail. Louis foresees
a system that won't attract enough people to justify the expense;
SORTA's estimate is 115,000 riders a day for a $3.74 billion
network. In its November 2001 application for federal funding,
OKI estimates the cost along the I-71 light rail line at $17.60
per passenger.
Beyond the romance
Louis sees light rail lines in Seattle, St. Louis and Los
Angeles that ran hundreds of millions of dollars over budget.
To be fair, however, those are only three of the more than
40 rail projects built, underway or planned in the United
States.
Louis is also concerned about the long-term operating cost
of the light rail lines -- $82 million a year, by SORTA's
estimate. That's more than double SORTA's operating budget
today.
"We need to get past the romance of (trains)," Louis says.
What might disturb Louis most about MetroMoves is that SORTA
-- whose nine board members do not face direct election --
is asking voters to trust them with a never-ending stream
of sales tax dollars. SORTA estimates all of the projects
will cost $4.2 billion, but it's only finished detailed cost
estimates -- on the bus expansion plan and the I-71 light-rail
line.
"It becomes very difficult for the voters to be able to
control the costs of the projects once they're approved,"
Louis says.
Everyone likes trains, according to Louis. But their time
has passed, and the Tristate needs a more flexible transit
system, he says. Metro leaders say that's exactly what they're
trying to provide.
Although Louis is convinced OKI and SORTA always wanted
light rail, that wasn't the case when the agency studied high-traffic
routes for MetroMoves, according to Tim Reynolds, director
of strategic Planning for Queen City Metro.
"SORTA was by no means predisposed to light rail during
those corridor studies," he says.
With highways and roads, all it takes is one accident to
tie up the system. Light rail can move more people more reliably
than even a greatly expanded bus system can, Reynolds says.
Light rail could actually save the Tristate money in the
long run, according to SORTA, which hired HLB Decision Economics
of Silver Spring, Md. for an economic impact study of a five-line
light rail network. HLB conducted a three-day, door-to-door,
travel time study based on 175 trips around the different
light rail corridors, comparing the times to SORTA's estimated
times for light rail.
HLB found that by 2030, light rail lines could save the
Tristate $85 million in gas, lost working time and other expenses
related to congested roads. In 2000 the Tristate lost more
than $500 million to these expenses, according to the Texas
Transportation Institute.
Factor in new development attracted by light rail, more
than 36,000 new jobs and the 300,000 jobs with access to mass
transit and the total economic benefits of light rail exceed
their costs by 8.5 percent, HLB found.
When Louis compares the cost of a car trip to a transit
trip, he neglects to factor in the billions spent to build
and maintain the road network. Then there's the cost of gas,
insurance and traffic deaths.
But if there's one thing that distinguishes light rail from
buses, it's that it makes higher density development possible.
With a good light rail network, pedestrians could access much
more of Greater Cincinnati than they can now, with less worry
about finding parking.
"The community really needs more than just the 40-foot bus
to handle the transportation needs of the Tristate," Hilvers
says.
For more information about MetroMoves, visit www.MetroMoves.com.
For more information about ALRT, visit www.alrt1.homestead.com.
MetroMoves by the Numbers
$60 million Annual revenue a half-cent sales tax
increase would generate in Hamilton County
$39.50 Estimated average annual cost per county
resident
$2.74 billion Estimated construction cost of five
proposed MetroMoves light rail lines in Hamilton County
60 Track miles in Hamilton County if all five lines
are built
100,000 Estimated daily ridership on all five lines
$830 million Estimated construction cost for 20
miles of the Interstate 71 light rail line from downtown to
Blue Ash
$1.8 billion Estimated construction cost of the
full 44-mile I-71 line from Mason to Florence and the Greater
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport
34,000 Estimated daily ridership on that line
$252 million Estimated construction cost of two
streetcar lines connecting Northern Kentucky, downtown, Corryville
and Walnut Hills
12,000 Estimated daily ridership on those lines
483 Number of buses Queen City Metro owns
584 Number of buses Queen City Metro would own if
MetroMoves were implemented
30 Estimated number of neighborhood bus hubs to
be built in MetroMoves
$112 million Estimated total capital cost of the
MetroMoves bus expansion plan
$72.2 million Queen City Metro's estimated 2002
operating costs
2005 Year the streetcar lines would open
2012 Year the bus expansion plan would be completed
2031 Year the last of five light rail lines might
open
SOURCES: Southwestern Ohio Regional Transit Authority, HLB
Decision Economics of Silver Spring, Md.
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