rethink what you know!
Since it is self driven If you don't challenge your assumptions you will have a difficult time and it wont be enjoyable..You may end up where you thoght you were going but you will end up with process!

Why
Where
How

a precedent that might provide fruitful is Otto Wagner, Vienna, and the redesign of the metro railway system circa 1894-1902

LiG- yes, it's ambitious, but you're talented and smart, so this shouldn't be too much. Your attempting to do something that a team of a dozen consultants typically collaborate on over many years, so stay aware of your limits and capabilities and you'll be fine.

Have you found any deficits with the existing studies? are there modes not considered (that should be)? Are any neighborhoods/regions under served? Any environmental impacts that have been overlooked? Any routes not considered or special interests pandered too? What about park-n-ride facilities? Are there any major nodes that are misplaced? any major public facilities (ball parks, universities) not served by the plan?

-try to find some out of the box concepts that can improve the plan.

other precidents worth exploring (i have some info if you need help on the following): cartegena, columbia is the grand dame of modern transit with BRT.

Minneapolis/st. paul's new transit system with light rail, BRT, and planned commuter rail - similar city size to cincy.

Houston has a successful new transit system with LRT, BRT and more.

NJtransit is adding a commuter line in Bergen County along an existing freight RR ROW - it takes about 10-15 years for a new line to open in NJ.



Select one part of the the design process (ie, a prototype station or wayfinding system) and not try to do everything.


send me a copy of your proposal and I'll provide feedback. I also have contacts with a bunch of transit engineering firms that might be able to help.

Thanks for the feedback so far, especially treekiller.

Yes, I think there are a number of shortcomings with the regional plan. For example, they seem to have chosen light rail as the default option without much thought, probably because it's relatively cheap and because it's currently the fashionable thing among medium-sized cities nowadays. That seems like sort of a cop-out rather than truly planning for the city's transit needs over the next 100+ years. In contrast, I envision a system of heavy-rail metro lines fed by a network of neighborhood streetcars, but I'm open to incorporating some features of a typical light rail system.

Also, the regional plan puts many of the proposed light rail lines onto an abandoned railroad right-of-way northeast of downtown. While I can appreciate the appeal of re-using existing infrastructure, this corridor completely bypasses the University of Cincinnati campus, the medical district, and the city's world-famous zoo. I think any successful rapid transit system will need to directly serve that area, which is the city's second-largest employment center and tourist destination after downtown.

Likewise, there's two miles of abandoned subway tunnel below Central Parkway that sort of runs between downtown, Over-the-Rhine (a historic, rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood), and Union Terminal (home to two large museums and the city's Amtrak station), but doesn't really serve any of those destinations directly. City planners seem hell-bent on re-using this subway tunnel regardless of how well it serves the city's current development patterns... I think it's worth considering the idea of letting the old subway rest in peace and building new transit lines along more appropriate routes.

While the regional plan is a good starting point, I think it was a very timid approach and they went out of their way to avoid making any bold decisions so that the plan would be easier to swallow. IMO, that's exactly the wrong mentality and a big reason why many the city's transit initiatives have largely failed.

I agree with your idea about selecting one part of the design process... While I plan to devote some effort to identifying better transit corridors, I think my primary focus will be on developing some design concepts for prototypical stations, and maybe a more in-depth schematic design for the main downtown transfer station. (RIP, Fountain Square Garage)

I'll send you a copy of my proposal... I'll also be setting up a meeting with some people in my own firm, as we have about 40+ years of transit experience here in the NYC area.

I know ya'll are gonna get upset by this, but: Maybe 'the car' is the best mass-transit aside from bikes.

Maybe if we did better at designing for the car, rather than beating our heads against wall & getting frustrated abt the state or rapid transit in this country we'd get somewhere.

I'd love to take the train downtown & walk everywhere - but the fact is that it'll take generations, or never, to get mass transit to function for my area. Also, with a car (or personal transit device), I am able to go where I want, when I want.

As much as I love driving, I disagree that the automobile is the best form of urban transit (best for me, maybe, but not best for the health of the city)... But that's irrelevant to my project. The Greater Cincinnati region has plenty of highways and parking lots now, and even if they somehow manage to build a world-class transit system, the region will continue to have plenty of highways and parking lots for the foreseeable future. The purpose of my project is not to propose taking anybody's car away, but to provide additional and more sustainable transportation options within the region. Rather than seeing cars and transit as threats to each other's existence, I think the more sensible approach is to design the city so that multiple transportation modes will complement each other instead of compete with each other.

A few years ago one of the architectural magazines (pretty sure it was either Architecture or Progressive Architecture) ran an article that discussed the design of the Washington Metro, and I remember it mentioning the principles that informed Metro's design and it had a pretty cool cut-away drawing of one of Metro's main transfer stations such as Metro Center or L'Enfant Plaza. The article may have been published on the occasion of Metro's 20th anniversary, but I'm not certain. I'd like to use this article as a reference, but I'm having a hard time tracking it down. Any ideas?

FYI, I've created a blog site so serve as a repository for my work on this project, and which will ultimately serve as a means to present the project and receive feedback:

metro-cincinnati.info

LiG-

your proposal is strong and ambitious. I'm just concerned about your schedule being too aggressive. if you can finagle more time, beyond the two months, you'll have a better project.

Thanks, TK.

Yeah, my professional advisor raised similar concerns. This project isn't expected to be developed to the same level as a typical M.Arch. design thesis, but I can probably arrange to stretch it into spring of 2010 if I need to... provided I have enough material completed to include in my portfolio this fall/winter.

cool project! definitely interested in seeing this progress.

you mention that you'll be researching aspects of the system like branding, node design, station architecture.

are you going to be doing any research as far as traffic studies, community needs assessments, mapping the path of the system and location of stations? or are you more interested in the actual aesthetics of the system?

I'll be doing some work mapping the path of the system and locating stations (although much of that work has already been done by the regional planning authority), but my primary focus will be the architectural design of the stations.

Traffic studies, etc., are outside the scope of my project.

By the way, TK, my academic committee agreed to extend the deadlines.