Cincinnati's streetcar is shut down. It should stay closed. Forever.
The magnitude of City Council's streetcar-before-people priorities has never been so glaring.
The city on Monday furloughed 1,700 employees indefinitely amid the coronavirus-induced financial free fall. The news came as the city also announced it is shutting down the streetcar during the health crisis.
How many of those temporary layoffs could've been avoided if the city had an extra $5 million? That's how much it costs to run a mostly empty streetcar each year.
It's days like Monday when everyone should clearly realize that, yes, it's real money being used for these pet projects. So is $100 million, which is roughly what it'll cost to keep the streetcar running for another 20 years. How many future cuts are going to come at the expense of a useless trolley circling around Downtown and Over-the-Rhine?
It's days like Monday when it's never been more obvious that the streetcar is both a luxury and a liability. The city faces a potential $80 million budget deficit in the coming months, and it can no longer afford ex-Mayor Mark Mallory and the progressives' streetcar.
This is an opportunity for Mayor John Cranley and City Manager Patrick Duhaney to try and stop the streetcar budget bleeding for good. They must call the Trump administration and ask for it to let Cincinnati out of streetcar prison. My apologies to the four people who regularly ride the streetcar.
Williams is mad and gleeful at the same time, and frankly Cranley probably will have the city kill the streetcar. But whatever the future holds for Cincinnati's downtown during and after the Trump Depression, the streetcar almost certainly won't be a part of it in any way. The Queen City's made three big bets in the last few years, on keeping the Bengals in town, on getting FC Cincinnati into MLS with a new stadium, and on the streetcar.
The city's losses on the streetcar will be pocket change compared to the other two.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment