Viability Assessment of Light Rail Line Planning: Case Study of Cincinnati Eastern Corridor

With increasing environmental concerns, light rail transit (LRT) has drawn attention for consideration in urban transportation planning by various levels of authorities in the US Government. Advocacy groups need an effective method for viability assessment of the alternatives. Environmentalists may want to support LRT, but assessment of its viability is important to provide judgment of any future transportation project. This paper presents a method for LRT viability assessment through a case study of the "Oasis Line", as part of the Eastern Corridor Major Investment Study (MIS) by the Ohio Kentucky and Indiana Council of Governments (OKI). The study attempts to evaluate chances for "success" of the rail transit component of the MIS. An integrated method is used with a traditional four step-based demand forecast by OKI, and a development of station-based Light Rail Ridership Regression (LRRR) demand forecast by Pelz. The problem to be solved — whether the line has a good enough chance at success to support and advocate for it — did not demand a full re-running of the models. A review of appropriate literature — largely assessments of already-built light rail lines in other U.S. cities — is used to characterize the predicted ridership as a success or failure. The predicted ridership falls comfortably above the low end of LRT systems in other US cities. The ridership predictions are found favorable to support the Oasis Line. Extensive literature review suggested that the public's assessments behave in an almost entirely political fashion.