Saturday, April 24, 1999

Light rail could bore through Mt. Auburn

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Tunnel spur would service city's Pill Hill

BY LISA DONOVAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        If light rail ever arrives in Cincinnati, it may come out from under Mount Auburn.

        Transportation planners said Friday a tunnel would be needed to carry the line from the Interstate 71 corridor into the densely populated hilltop neighborhood, home to hospitals, businesses, students and families.

        It would make no sense to follow along I-71 in that area, because it wouldn't be close to the people who ride it, said Warner Moore, I-71 project manager for Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Government's oversight committee.

        The committee determined “the best way to serve the university medical center area was to build a tunnel under Mount Auburn,” Mr. Moore said. “This is the best way to serve downtown and uptown.”

        Officials have yet to secure the $600 million for construction of the 18-mile light-rail system that would stretch from Covington to Blue Ash, part of a line envisioned from Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport to Paramount's Kings Island in Warren County.

        The tunnel alone would cost $100 million to $125 million.

        During a meeting of the I-71 committee Friday afternoon, consultants proposed two sepa rate plans, or alignments, for the 1¹/₄-mile tunnel, including a station just east or just west of Christ Hospital. Generally, the southern terminus would be in the vicinity of Mulberry Street and the northern terminus would be at Corry Boulevard.

        It's unclear whether residents or businesses would be displaced, but Mr. Moore said he believed much of the tunnel would lie beneath streets — 220 feet beneath the surface at its deepest point.

        Representatives of Mount Auburn Community Council could not be reached Friday for their reactions.

        Duncan Hughes, a senior engineer with consulting firm BRW Inc., said a tunnel-boring machine would be brought in to cut through the hill.

        “Think of it as an ... earthworm chewing it up,” he said.

        Construction of the tunnel likely would take up to four years. The entire project could be constructed over five years, if funding were forthcoming, possibly beginning in 2003.

       

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