Cincinnati City Council’s spending plan (Cincy on Track) if Sale of Rail passes
Cincinnati City Council’s spending plan (Cincy on Track) if Sale of Rail passes
What are people’s thoughts on the spending plan and the sale of our rail? On the one hand, it would help address some of our infrastructure and maintenance needs. On the other, it could end up like Chicago’s sale of parking meters
Right now we get about $25M each year for the leases and tax credit from the rail. The sale would net us $1.625B for maintenance projects and the spending plan is for $250M over the next 10 years
I’ve received plenty of mailers to vote yes, but it makes me extremely hesitant when a publicly owned infrastructure is being sold to Norfolk Southern (the ones who had the big E. Palestine derailment)
I'm against it. The lease payment is due to be renegotiated and sure, it can go a number of ways but it should at least be the same.
My point being- if we're so absentee with regards to spending on this now, what makes us think we'll do anything useful in the future? The idea isn't to continue with our outsized street repaving- it's to shrink it. Our roads are already oversized so put bike paths in that require far less maintenance. IF you needed to raise taxes at all, you could do 1.9% total (up from 1.8% now) to get that money since the county finally took on their share of the transit system that brought it down from the previous 2.1%.
That and it can ONLY go to existing infrastructure. If we ever wanted to actually make viable mass transit, we couldn't pay for that. But with a new lease agreement we could.
I think you're spot on with the meters- don't sell public assets to private companies.