Thursday, July 15, 1999
Opposition sprouts along light-rail route
BY TANYA ALBERT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
While a plan to build a light-rail line from Covington through Blue Ash seems popular among commuters, some residents along the route don't want the trains in their backyards.
They're knocking on doors, handing out fliers and circulating petitions in neighborhoods along the route proposed through Deer Park, Norwood and downtown Cincinnati. At a public hearing last month, about 900 people packed the room. Some were there to gather facts about the plan, others were there to oppose it.
Regional planners say the opposition is neither unexpected nor unheeded. Public hearings have been held, and more are planned. Planners are studying options residents suggest and still working on exact routes.
But the key to making the project happen, planners say, is educating and working with residents. Ultimately, if local voters can't be convinced to help pay for the system, federal and state dollars will disappear.
“It's a difficult profession because you are trying to develop a regional transportation system and trying to balance that with residents' concerns,” said Warner Moore, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments (OKI) project manager for the I-71 corridor study that is looking at light rail. “But other communities have shown that you can overcome those obstacles.”
Greater Cincinnati's traffic problems are compounding.
A study in 1993 predicts that car trips in the I-71 corridor will increase by almost 15 percent by 2010, to 313,000 trips daily. By 2020, every segment of I-71 between the I-275 beltway will operate at or near capacity.
And like other regions, the Tristate sees electric-powered light rail as a potential solution.
An 80-person regional committee spent three years looking at ways to improve mobility in the corridor. In March 1998, they decided light rail provides the best service and flexibility and voted to study it further.
But getting it is a long process with several factors. But if the region secures federal money for it and local voters adopt a tax, possibly on gas or sales, a system could be running as early as 2008.
As the plans take shape, Greater Cincinnati residents are voicing the same concerns that people in Dallas and St. Louis had before light rail systems opened there. No one will ride it. It will hurt businesses. It's not safe.
In Deer Park, residents say light rail on existing tracks along Blue Ash Road would be dangerous. “It's a residential community and almost everybody walks,” said Deer Park resident Ann Poole, who has rallied neighbors in opposition. “The railroad track halves the community. We cross the tracks often.”
Some residents say they assumed the “I-71 corridor” meant a rail line along Interstate 71, not through nearby communities.
In the last month, they have moved quickly to pass out fliers and encourage people to attend OKI-sponsored meetings. One woman collected 61 signatures on an opposition petition in Sycamore Township, and in June Sycamore Township trustees passed a resolution opposing light rail through the community.
“There needs to be something done, but they need to take the neighborhoods into consideration,” said Phyllis Jeffries, who circulated the petition. Her grandchildren live near the tracks that could be used. “That's the part that concerns me. The children. It's a neighborhood where kids still ride their bikes.”
The sentiments were similar in St. Louis, where a light-rail system opened in 1993 and in Dallas, where light rail opened in 1996.
“The cry was "Who is going to ride from East St. Louis to the airport?' ” said Les Sterman, of thearea's planning agency, East West Gateway Coordinating Council. St. Louis is now adding on to its system.
Before the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) opened in June 1996, residents said construction would hurt businesses and noisy trains would barrel through neighborhoods.
“We had staunch opposition, and we really thought for years that it wouldn't get built,” said Sue Bauman, a DART spokesman. “Now we are at capacity on rail cars.”
Educating people about how light rail works was part of getting the system running.
Dallas planners showed a video of light rail in other cities and even took more vocal opponents to cities with light rail so they could see it in action.
OKI planners are following their lead.
They are distributing fliers that answer frequently asked questions, and they are continuing public hearings. They plan to develop an explanatory video, said Blue Ash City Manager Marvin Thompson, who serves on OKI's I-71 corridor committee.
OKI is also looking at alternatives through Deer Park, including running the line along Montgomery Road, Mr. Moore said.
That would be more acceptable to Mrs. Poole, who has lived in her Deer Park home for 15 years.
“If they want to put it somewhere else, that's fine,” she said. “Just not in our back yard.”
OKI hasn't determined how many houses or businesses might be affected or how many pieces of property they might need to buy to put light rail through the communities. That will be determined during the preliminary engineering, which is going on now and should be completed in late 2000 or early 2001.
They hope to use some existing tracks. That would mean fewer houses and businesses would be torn down.
Planners say they'll make every effort to be understanding.
“In the 1960s it was draw a line on the map and build it,” Mr. Moore said. “Now there's a lot more effort to meet with folks and try to work with people so they understand why things are happening.”
Supporters say light rail is needed.
A study, done by the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) last year, found that 80 percent of those asked said light-rail would be good for the region.
“Even if it would raise my taxes, I wouldn't mind,” said Dolores Kreutzjans, of Edgewood. “It would help the city. Cincinnati has a dwindling downtown. ... I don't get downtown often because of parking mainly.”
“To downtown, it would be wonderful,” added Cate Craven, 67, of Reading who has been on mass-transit systems in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. “Anything that would bring Cincinnati into the future would be good. We are so far behind.”
For more information, call the Light-Rail Project Hotline at (513) 929-2828 or visit the OKI Web site at www.oki.org and select “Interstate 71 corridor study.”
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