Sunday, Sept. 9 marked the second anniversary of the launch of Cincinnati's streetcar system.
In its first two years, the rail transit system that traverses a 3.6 mile loop around downtown and Over-the-Rhine has provided almost 1,245,000 rides. That tally includes almost 27,000 during last year's BLINK light art festival throughout OTR and downtown.
In April, the system's millionth rider boarded a streetcar.
It's been a bumpy ride at times with cold-weather reliability issues, difficulty making advertised 12-15 minute headways, struggles with blockages in traffic and less-than-projected ridership — meaning less revenue — hobbling the system's performance.
A similar system in Kansas City is free and has much greater ridership numbers. That system, launched May 6, 2016, took about one year to reach 2 million rides. Ridership slowed somewhat after that, but the system was still close to 4 million rides at its two-year anniversary in May. Cincinnati’s system, by contrast, took 19 months from its Sept. 9, 2016 launch date to get to 1 million rides. Kansas City has more people — 480,000 to Cincinnati’s 300,000 — but with the ridership gap between the cities so wide, it's likely the difference goes beyond population.
Solving the issues has fallen to a tangle of different organizations — from City Hall to the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority to contractor Transdev. The city owns the streetcar, SORTA oversees it and Transdev manages the day-to-day operations. And then there's Spanish streetcar manufacturer CAF, which had to do extensive repair work on the cars this year around freezing compressors that sidelined some of the vehicles.
Cincinnati City Council could change that complicated chain of command by hiring an executive to run the streetcar system. And SORTA may soon find itself off the hook for its role overseeing the system.
The performance issues have caused the streetcar's major sponsor — Cincinnati Bell — to express concerns. Rumors surfaced earlier this month that the company was considering pulling out of its $3.4 million contract that gives it naming rights over the system, officially called the Cincinnati Bell Connector. But company officials say no decision has been made yet.
"Cincinnati Bell has concerns about the streetcar’s performance, which we have shared with the city," a Cincinnati Bell representative wrote in a statement. "At this time, however, no decision has been made regarding our sponsorship."
There are bright sides as the streetcar celebrates its second birthday. Fare evasion rates — that is, people riding for free — are at roughly 1 percent. That's lower than the industry-standard 1.5 percent seen on similar systems. Track blockages have declined slightly in recent months, and the number of riders using the system on weekdays has risen, passing weekends as the most popular time to hop on a streetcar.
There are likely future battles for the system, which has long had very vocal detractors. Streetcar supporters want an expansion into uptown near the University of Cincinnati. That was in the original plans, but got axed after Ohio Gov. John Kasich cut state funding for the project. Mayor John Cranley is a vehement opponent of an expansion, as are conservative-leaning Cincinnati City Council members. Two years in, the fights over Cincinnati's controversial streetcar show no signs of letting up.
