We did the math on the streetcar budget

Sharon Coolidge | Cincinnati Enquirer

The Cincinnati Bell Connector won’t run at a deficit next year.

A budget request released earlier this week and reported on by The Enquirer was incomplete. It suggested funding woes, but a closer look shows that's not the case.

The Enquirer has spent two days since then sorting out streetcar math. We found:

* The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority asked for nearly $4.19 million to run the streetcar.

* That’s $225,000 more than last year’s budget. But it is $202,582 less than the amount expected to be needed in a long-term plan drawn up in 2016.

* Revenue is expected to come in at $4.2 million during 2018. And that means the streetcar would operate with a $45,523 surplus.

The story published earlier this week, based on the limited amount of information available, said the streetcar budget is facing a nearly half-million dollar shortfall. That's not the case.

The documents on which the earlier story were based did not include tax incentive money that companies along the route contribute to the operating budget. That revenue is projected to come in at $531,000 next year.

What should have been an easy question to answer, wasn't.

Enquirer: Under the plan does the streetcar have a deficit next year?

City: No

SORTA: No

Instead, there were memos and press releases but an overall lack of clarity. Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority, which oversees streetcar operations and made the budget request, sent out written information that did not answer The Enquirer's questions; officials there also did not consent to an interview. And the city simply said it was reviewing the budget request.

So no conversation. And thus, confusion.

The Enquirer wasn’t the only one who had questions. Vice Mayor David Mann is angry about the budget request. During Council’s Tuesday Transportation Committee meeting, he said so.

He told SORTA Director of Rail Services Paul Grether: “You’re supposed to submit a budget that makes sense to the public. You're not supposed to submit something that creates confusion and chaos, and that's what you did.”

To The Enquirer, Mann added, "I don't understand how it makes sense this is the document we received. It looks like there is a $3 million deficit."

Lower ridership means drop in expected revenue

So far in 2017, streetcar ridership is running at barely one-half the projections on which SORTA is relying.

Initial projections saw daily ridership of 3,200 people per day, a number that's dropped more recently to 2,800 riders per day.

To date this year, average daily ridership ran as low as 1,119 riders per day in March and as high as 1,713 per day in May. Both figures fall far short of projections.

Ridership has ticked up from winter into mid-spring. Officials expect further gains in the summer months.

As a result, the 2018 streetcar budget calls for $300,000 less in revenue than the amount budgeted in 2017.

Editor's note: The figures on ridership in March and May have been updated to clarify they refer to average daily ridership for those months.