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Two years after it was ordered by City Council, the much-anticipated Downtown traffic study was finally released.

The upshot: It wasn’t really worth the wait.

“It feels a little sloppy to me,” said Cincinnati City Councilman Chris Seelbach, who vented several times about the study’s quality during a roughly hour-long presentation Tuesday.

Councilman Greg Landsman quickly agreed, asking Brandstetter Carroll Inc, which did the $250,000 study with Kimley-Horn, to basically redo the presentation by Dec. 21. Other council members argued that timeline is too tight, but Landsman stuck by his request. He wants an A, B, C format.

A: What is the problem?

B: What are the specific solution options?

C: What would each cost and how long would it take to implement?

Landsman told Tim Brandstetter, who was making the presentation, that his firm was selected because it was supposed to be best-in-class.

“I think what you heard today,” Landsman said, “is we want a best-in-class presentation. … For as long as I’ve been here, we’ve been waiting for this report. The expectations are very high.”

City Council initially ordered the traffic study in January 2017, according to previous Enquirer reports. A large driving factor was the Cincinnati Bell Connector, which was suffering from delays, but the study was supposed to address overall traffic for cars, buses, pedestrians – anyone or anything moving through Downtown.

Tim Brandstetter, listed as the Director of Transportation Engineering on Brandstetter Carroll’s website, could not be reached for comment after Tuesday’s presentation, but his firm was selected in spring 2017 to do the study. Tuesday’s presentation was meant to be an “interim report,” meaning the firm would come back later with more concrete recommendations.

City Manager Patrick Duhaney stressed in a written statement to The Enquirer that Tuesday's report was never meant to be the final version, that there remain several outstanding portions of the contract with Brandstetter Carroll.

"The intention was always to present Council with interim findings for guidance and feedback before issuance of a final report," Duhaney wrote.

But even for an interim report, Tuesday's presentation clearly fell short of expectations for some.

“I read it. It’s pathetic,” said Cam Hardy, president of Cincinnati’s Better Bus Coalition, a grassroots transit group.

Hardy was expecting the study to have a “clear, concise plan” for speeding up traffic Downtown, including a specific plan to give signal priority to buses and the streetcar.

He thought part of the reason the study took so long was to incorporate that, including taking into account the new bus-only lane on Main Street.

It’s “very incomplete,” Hardy said. “Once again, we’re shortchanging ourselves, in typical Cincinnati fashion. I appreciate the council members who were there who demanded more, because this is ridiculous. It’s crap. I mean, we waited two-and-a-half years? For that?”

Seelbach said the study has good data, but he was expecting a much more concrete list of solutions. As Brandstetter was explaining page 13 of the report, for example, which talks about valet parking causing congestion, Seelbach cut him off.

“We’ve known the valet has been a mess for years,” Seelbach said. “To just tell us there’s a problem, I feel like I’m not getting my money’s worth. … What I thought we were paying for was, how do we fix it?”

Among the study’s recommendations:

Consider relocating the transit stop at 5th and Vine streets, moving it back from the intersection to ease congestion.

Update road signs and street paint to make rules clearer.

Consider converting some one-way streets to two-way, which allows for greater accessibility.

Consider giving public transit signal priority at some intersections. That is estimated to cost about $20,000 per intersection, largely due to the technology needed.

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This is the second time in recent history that City Council has been disappointed by a highly-anticipated study. In November, Landsman was angered after a report on Kyle Plush seemed to largely piggyback off previous reports.

"... I didn’t hear anything new," Landsman said at the time. “One hundred thousand dollars later and four or five months, we certainly aren’t anywhere near where we need to be... Can we have some of our money back?”

After Tuesday’s meeting, Landsman acknowledged he was again disappointed but also “very anxious to make sure we get this right.”

He reiterated he thinks the traffic study has good data, it's just the presentation fell short.

“We have to take action on this study as soon as possible, and we can’t do that until we have a better report,” he said. “I believe we made that crystal clear today.”