Design work will wrap up soon for Cincinnati's first bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor, which will travel between Downtown and Roselawn primarily along Reading Road.
"We are looking to finish up by the end of this year and then begin the review process on that 90% design between Metro and the city," Metro Bus Rapid Transit Design Director Sharyn LaCombe told a City Council committee Tuesday.
BRT speeds up transit service by providing dedicated bus lanes, fare payment before boarding, signal priority, and other features. Metro has also ordered 60-foot BRT buses, which are larger than the standard 40-foot Metro buses.
The Reading corridor received federal approval for its environmental impacts this summer. LaCombe told the council committee Metro is near finishing its draft design for the project now. Once questions about that design are resolved, Metro hopes to break ground on the route in April with a goal to be done by 2028.
Metro is also currently designing a second BRT route running from Downtown through Clifton and then along Hamilton Avenue, that will launch about six months after the Reading Road corridor.
Council questions some design changes
Metro has been busy designing the Reading route — determining where dedicated lanes and BRT-specific stations will go and what they'll look like. Metro officials told City Council this week they've made some changes during the planning process.
Downtown, the BRT will now share the dedicated lane for the Cincinnati Connector, a change from earlier designs. BRT will also share a station at Fountain Square with the Connector, though it will have its own dedicated stations elsewhere.
Beyond the basin, the route will employ a central bus-only lane in some locations, so-called "side running" lanes in others, and will mix into traffic in some places like on Victory Parkway near the Norwood Lateral.
In earlier designs, 79% of the corridor between downtown and Roselawn included bus-only lanes. Those dedicated lanes, often considered a vital feature of BRT, keep the route moving quickly and efficiently.
Now, bus-only lanes will exist on only about 70% of the route. One place they were eliminated is along the steep hill of Vine Street heading uptown near Inwood Park. LaCombe says the decision was the result of a cost-benefit analysis.
"We have a lot of houses that are right up against the right-of-way [and] we have parking in that area for people who have no other means for parking," she said. "And so for us, the cost was too high in terms of social impacts, and getting moderate benefit out of that."
Traffic simulations Metro has undertaken show the design will speed up transit service by 20%, officials say.
Council members say they're excited about the progress, but some had questions about the changes. Council member Mark Jeffreys expressed concern about the reduction in bus-only lanes and said other cities have achieved far larger improvements in trip time. A BRT route in Cleveland sped up service by 26%, he said, and another route in Hartford, Conn. improved speeds by 50%.
"My fear on this is that we're not being ambitious enough," Jeffreys said. "My question is, should we be setting our goal higher? Should we be setting it at 25% minimum and 30% as a stretch? I think especially these first routes are going to be so key for people to see the benefits and the benefit is, it's easier — faster travel time."
Metro Deputy Innovation and Vision Officer Khaled Shammot told council the bus service is limited by available right-of-way when it comes to adding things like bus-only lanes. But he said there could be other opportunities to further improve transit times on the coming route.
"There are many factors that can determine the travel time," he said. "But we've been working with the city very, very closely for the past two or three years and take the best out of what we have. We want to be conservative at the beginning because we don't want to mess up other traffic. But as we learn and as people adjust maybe there are things we can keep tweaking and get it higher than 20%. And I think we will ... we expect it to perform better than 20%."
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