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David Cole is the owner and administrator of the Metro Cincinnati project.

Transit 101: Heavy Rail and Light Rail

Transit 101 is an occasional series that will focus on the history and technology of modern-day public transit systems. The current topic is a primer on the various modes of rail transit. Part I: Streetcars and Interurbans Part II: Heavy Rail and Light Rail Part III: Commuter Rail Part IV: Intercity Rail and High-Speed Rail […]

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Friday News Roundup: Fake Trolleys in Utah, and A/C on the Tube

The Friday News Roundup is a weekly series featuring a few of the top transit, rail, and infrastructure-related news stories of the week. Be sure to follow @MetroCincy on Twitter to receive links to transit-related news articles and blog posts throughout the week. Harrah’s has been named as the operator of Cincinnati’s new casino at Broadway […]

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On the Air with Explore Cincinnati

Yesterday I had the pleasure of joining up with UrbanCincy writers Randy Simes and David Ben for a roundtable discussion on Travis Estell’s Explore Cincinnati podcast. Topics discussed include the $25M federal grant for the streetcar project, the renovation of Washington Park, the potential conversion of Taft Road and McMillan Avenue to two-way traffic, the […]

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We Don’t Need a Wiremobile. We Need Leadership.

The past couple weeks have brought us a flurry of futuristic, fanciful-looking mass transit ideas in the popular press. First, there was that straddling bus proposed in China: Public transit in a metropolitan area is all about balance; if there aren’t enough public transit options, too many people choose to drive, clogging roadways and adding to […]

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Transit 101: Streetcars and Interurbans

Welcome to Transit 101. In this first article of the series, we will explore the history and technical aspects of one of the most basic forms of rail transit, the streetcar and interurban, and by the end of the week, we will have worked our way up to high-speed trains that can traverse hundreds of miles in a matter of minutes.

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Rail~Volution 2010 in Portland, Oregon

I saw this mentioned on The Overhead Wire, and thought I’d pass it along. I’ll be in grad school at that time and likely won’t be able to attend, but if somebody goes to this and does a write-up for Metro Cincinnati, I’ll definitely buy you a beer or two when you return. Rail~Volution: Building […]

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Friday News Roundup: Death by a Thousand Cuts, and Rat Man

Happy Friday the 13th! The Friday News Roundup is the first of a weekly series featuring a few of the top transit, rail, and infrastructure-related news stories of the week. Be sure to follow @MetroCincy on Twitter to receive links to transit-related news articles and blog posts throughout the week. The Cincinnati Enquirer, after throwing everything […]

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More Thoughts on the Eastern Corridor

Jake Mecklenborg has written an excellent piece for UrbanCincy that explains the various proposals for the Eastern Corridor commuter rail project, and proposes an alternate plan that would cost far less to operate and serve far more customers than the plan currently proposed. To summarize, the main problems with the Eastern Corridor project as planned […]

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New Subway Cars Arrive in NYC

New York City’s Gothamist recently ran some photos of the new R160-series subway cars being assembled and shipped to the city: While old subway cars becoming reefs for the life aquatic is well documented, it seems less frequent that we get to witness new subway cars arriving for us humans to use. But look at this, […]

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Lessons from Chicago… And Beyond

This past Friday, UrbanCincy ran an article by yours truly that outlined some key differences between Cincinnati and Chicago, based on a few of my observations during a weekend trip back up there in June. A number of aspects were covered, mainly related to urban form and urban design, and the article has sparked quite […]

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