BY TANYA ALBERT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Someday, getting from a bus to light rail to a car at Cincinnati's riverfront could take just a few steps.
A plan to be presented today before the City of Cincinnati - Hamilton County Riverfront Steering Committee calls for a two-level center. It would raise Second Street, with buses running underneath and cars and potentially light rail on top. The price for a proposed Intermodal Transit Center near the central downtown riverfront: just under $18 million.
That's less than half the $40 million estimate thrown out initially. "This sets the tone for where things should come together. We want people to be able to transfer between modes of transportation easily," said Metro General Manager Paul Jablonski, who has been working on the project for about two years.
Under the plan, the center's plaza would be just outside the future National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, near the Roebling Suspension Bridge.
It would include escalators and stairs between the levels, and make it easy for visitors to get to and from buses and to and from the light rail that is being discussed for Greater Cincinnati.
Metro, the Freedom Center, planning agency Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments and the city of Cincinnati and its Fort Washington Way consultants have been developing the plan. Mr. Jablonski said the center would give Metro a spot for its buses that now use the plaza level at Cinergy Field for events including the Black Family Reunion, Riverfest and Reds and Bengals games. With all the development on the riverfront, they'll lose that area, he said.
An intermodal center would allow Metro to run buses below the street level and avoid clogging city streets, Deputy City Manager Richard Mendes said. School buses and tour buses also would be able to use the area. The Freedom Center, scheduled to open in 2003, expects 30 to 35 buses daily.
The next task is getting the money to build it. Planners could know by early December whether they will be able to go forward.
That's when they should hear if the Ohio Department of Transportation will give them more than $11.4 million.
Already, the intermodal center has $4 million in federal dollars, part of a $203 billion transportation bill Congress approved in May. The city of Cincinnati has another $2.5 million earmarked for Second Street as part of the Fort Washington Way reconstruction, according to the plan submitted to the state.
Planners say this is the time to build an intermodal center because Second Street already is slated for an overhaul as part of the $146.9 million Fort Washington Way project, which is designed to narrow the highway stretching from the Interstate 71 - 75Brent Spence Bridge through the Lytle Tunnel.
Instead of building Second Street on the ground, this would be the time to build the upper and lower levels of Second Street, intermodal proponents agree.
"It's an opportunity we won't have again once Second Street is built," Mr. Mendes said. "It's a once-in-a-generation opportunity."
