Yesterday was the first day since the @CB_Connector resumed operations where 2020 ridership was HIGHER than ridership from the same day in 2019. Currently, the streetcar is only operating 8am-10pm instead of 6:30am-midnight in 2019. On a per-hour basis, ridership was up 27%

For the sake of comparison, Metro's local service is down 51.2%, and express service is down 81%.

Last month, the Kansas City streetcar's ridership was down 67%, and Milwaukee was down 72%.

Adopting a zero-fare model for the @CB_Connector was the right call. @mannforcincy @KearneyForCincy @PGSittenfeld @votePASTOR @wendellyoung @GregLandsman @ChrisSeelbach @ChrisCinciBiz @pat_laFleur @JayHanselman @nswartsell

Free fares are working, and they are increasing ridership over what we would have had if we continued to charge a fare.

But there are some other, easy, low costs solutions we should be pursuing.

Re-timing the mid-block signals is the easiest, most expedient and cheapest streetcar improvement that could be made to the system.

There are three “mid-block” signals where the streetcar changes a lane. The signals are located at Race and Elder, Walnut between 4th and 5th and Main between 5th and 6th.

At these mid-block signals, the streetcar comes to a stop at a red light, a 23 second walk signal is given automatically regardless of the presence of pedestrians, and then the streetcar gets a white ‘vertical bar’ movement signal.

The streetcar is delayed for over a minute (69 seconds), every single loop, every single day.

Currently-

•Mid-block light goes red
•Pedestrian Walk Phase (23 seconds)
•Streetcar Movement Phase (white bar)
•Light goes green

Proposed Change-

•Mid-block light goes red
•Streetcar Movement Phase (white bar)
•Pedestrian Walk Phase (23 sec)
•Light goes green

This small change would reduce running times for the streetcar, have ZERO impact on automobile traffic (the total time the light is red doesn’t change) and won’t jeopardize pedestrian safety.

The streetcar is in the curb lane when it makes all of these lane shifts. The streetcar operator has a full unobstructed view of the curb. The streetcar makes a ding-ding movement sound when it accelerates from a stop. It also has a foghorn to alert pedestrians of its presence

As an enormous, unique user of road space, the streetcar isn’t easily missed. The fleet is operated by trained professionals and in four years of operation, I’m not aware of any serious streetcar/pedestrian collisions.

DOTE might argue that re-sequencing the signals might confuse pedestrians; however, there’s no ‘cross signal’ that they can take cues from.

For example, imagine you are at the southeast corner of Ludlow and Clifton, and you’re waiting to cross the street to the north. When the traffic signal turns green for northbound traffic, you can see that signal change and a pedestrian might start walking.

For the mid-block streetcar signals, you’re directly under the light (can’t see it unless staring directly upward) and can’t take any cues from a ‘cross signal’ because there isn’t one.

There’s plenty of times vehicle phases take precedent over a pedestrian walk signal. If we imagine we are at Ludlow and Clifton but this time on the SW side of the street crossing to the north, there is a left turn phase when the light turns green that preempts the walk signal.

For Example-

•East/West Ludlow light goes from green to yellow to red
•Northbound Clifton light goes green with green left turn arrow
•Left hand turn signal (pedestrians can't walk)
•Left hand turn signal ends and southbound traffic gets the green light (walk signal)

This type of traffic signal pattern is quite common and pedestrians are aware that they are not always placed first in the queue.

There would be no traffic impacts as the total time spent on “red” for automobile traffic would be exactly the same. My proposed change only moves around the order to the lights, not their duration.

This simple change of the order, not duration, not pre-emption, of signals is literally the easiest, most cost-effective thing we can do to improve streetcar running times.

Below are YouTube links to videos of the streetcar being delayed at each of the lights in question.

Walnut-

Main-

Race/Elder-

Simply moving the streetcar movement phase up in the light sequence to occur immediately after the red light, would speed up the streetcar by over an hour each day at virtually no cost.

@RAILMag @CincyStreetcar @UrbanCincy