Streetcar Man!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Basically, the results were given to KTV and they posted
it for all to read. So I want to give
them the credit for reporting this, but it's from Mike
McDonald's staff or campaign, which basically paid AMP Research to
go ahead and see what the polls look like who's

(00:21):
leading this mayoral race that we're still a little ways
out from the question specifically, is what I think we
need to get to and Don reminds me that we
haven't actually talked about this, but Don says, no reputable
polster would frame the question this way. It invites a
pro McDonald and anti stother reply. Here's the question that

(00:42):
they asked in a survey, do you believe Gene Stouther
should be reelected as mayor? Or is it time for
someone new? And like sixty four percent of people said
it was time for someone new. They didn't specify that initially,
but it invites a you know, it starts the conversation like, oh, well,
then who is new that you'd like? So well, yeah,
it makes sense that they would frame it that way

(01:02):
to get the results they're looking for, and that's what
the Stuth campaign seems to have a problem with. Either way,
My big question was, what are people thinking about when
they're voting for this or where they're at on this,
because you know, and I've had people say Rob sent
in and said, we're actually at the point of no return.
We've already signed contracts to build this thing. Voting against
author now is going to stop what the street car

(01:23):
is going to do. It may just slow it down
unless we decide to go completely backwards, decide not to
do it. If somebody else comes in there and tears
up those contracts, I don't know what the deal is,
but either way. Phone lines are open for this conversation
at four h two, five five, eight eleven ten, and
Nate's there on the line. Nate, thanks for holding and
being on the show today. What are your thoughts on this?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, no problem, Good to talk to you. Henry So.
I don't know if anyone's noticed the route of the streetcar.
I feel like the whole thing is a big scam
at the taxpayer's expense to benefit solely Mutual of Omaha.
I mean, they revamped the entire gene lie he Mal,
they tore down the public library, and then as soon

(02:03):
as that thing was torn down, they announced so Mutual
of Omaha bought that property, and if you if you
look at the route of the street car goes from
their existing campus to their their brand new campus, and
I feel like it was all just a scam to
get taxpayers to pay for it.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
I mean, I mean that is that can I ask
if that's just an opinion of your observation.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
That's that's my observation. I've done a lot of work
in that area and I've just seen, you know, we
lost conn Agrobly about ten years ago now, and I
think a lot of that was because Omaha wasn't willing
to put up the money. And I think it's the
same thing with with Mutual of Omah. I think they said, hey, look,
we've got better offers in different cities, and if you

(02:45):
don't play the way we want to, we're going to
find find somewhere else to go. And it just it
just when you look at all the work that they
did and it boom, it's right there, Mutual of Omaha's
brand new building, street cars leading from their old campus
to their new campus, and they've got a brand new
park right outside their buildings.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
So yeah, but I mean it's still useful for people
of Omaha, right, I mean, no, sure.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
It is. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
No, I'm not saying the park didn't need a revamp,
but I just feel like, you know, if the government wastle,
you know, the Omaha government was a little more honest
with its citizens, like, hey, you know, we're going to
lose another big, big company. If we don't, you know,
put up some money, I think it would be a
lot better recepted by you know, people paying for it.

Speaker 4 (03:30):
Yeah, it's interesting to say the least. And it's been
a long time coming.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
I mean I'm reading here, you know, as somebody who's
moved to Omaha here in the last couple of years.
I was surprised to learn that, you know, they've initially
put this kind of plan in place to continue develop
being downtown since two thousand and nine. So it's been
fifteen years since the initial talks about what that would
take and what that looks like. And certainly that this

(03:55):
particular analysis is about it a decade old at least.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
So it's interesting. Nay, and you're not wrong.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
I'm sure that this is intended to increase commerce downtown
and maybe to be in a situation to help out
the people in maybe mutual of Omaha. I mean, we
know that building is supposed to open next year, so
you know, it kind of lines up timeline wise with
that within a year or so if it gets completed
on time.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
What I will say is, you know, everybody.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Complains about like the streets and stuff and how like
some of the streets are real messy around here coming
from the wine and I love des Moines. It's a
place that is a part of me and I'm always
I'm always going to carry that.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
Dude.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
It was crazy how long stuff would take there. I mean,
I watched this out of Saddle Creek and Leavenworth, that intersection.
I was like, how long is this possibly going to take?
It was really like big stuff that they were doing
over there, and it was done in like six to
eight months. That thing would have taken a couple of
years in Des Moines.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
So you know, I.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Don't know, maybe I just see a different side of it,
but I just feel like from where I came from
to where I moved to and maybe I just am
a little behind the year still. But I really applaud
a lot of how Omaha handles some of this stuff,
because it does seem to be trying to move Omaha
in a forward direction instead of trying to, you know,
just kind of stand still and hope that the growth

(05:14):
kind of happens organically without actually doing anything. And the
Moin is kind of ruining some of that because it's
kind of stalling out some of the growth. And that's
why the suburbs are getting a lot more people to
move to them in the Moin area than actual in
the city. And I think that's kind of the opposite
here in Omaha. You know, hey, man, I appreciate the
call though, thanks so much for listening to.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Us, Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, you know that I articulate that well. And this
again is not a knock on the morning. I don't
know how city operations work from city to city. I'm
just thinking to myself, you know, like I lived next
to kind of an area that was supposed to be
kind of developed, an area that kind of reminds me
of the Blackstone Area a little bit in Omaha when
I lived in Des Moines and they were working on
building like a bike trail, sidewalk combination on both sides

(05:55):
of that. It took five years, five years that project.
Based on what I've seen in my own neighborhood now
in the exarbon area. Whenever there's like roadwork, it's pretty
much wrapped up in a pretty tidy amount of time.
And I don't know, maybe it's just me and maybe
it's where I come from, but you know, I'm just like, wow,
this is crazy how fast they're doing this stuff. But
people in Omaha like, oh, it's always taking so long.

(06:17):
It just kind of depends on your lanes. Kenny's on
the phone line of four h two, five, five, eight,
eleven ten. Welcome Kenny, what's up?

Speaker 5 (06:24):
Hey?

Speaker 6 (06:25):
I remember Warren Buffett said this is not a financial
sound idea, and he's pretty smart when it comes to
financial issues. I would have taken his path and said, now,
we probably shouldn't do this. It's a novelty thing. After
here with the previous caller, you know, it's going from
one destination to the other. It doesn't really serve the community.
If they really want to invest in our city, go

(06:46):
to North Omahon, rebuild those homes and rebuild those schools,
and help out those good people that, to no faults
of their own, they're born poor and that's not a crime,
you know what I'm saying. Let's help out our people.
And if you want to build something, build up that
part of the town and make it a prosperous town
for really good people.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, I mean, I can't disagree with what you're saying there, Kenny.
I wonder if there's a way that we could, you know,
maybe do both. You know, we can increase to the
investment in our downtown area while also having the ability
to invest into our schools, our neighborhoods, and making sure
people have the ability to live prosperous lives here in Omaha.

(07:28):
So I can't disagree with what you're saying, though, I
appreciate you bringing that up today. All right, thanks man, Yeah,
absolutely appreciate you for being on the show today. Do
you got some thoughts on this? You can call us
at four oh two five five eight eleven ten. Four
h two five five eight eleven ten. I'm here to answer,
you know, and talk to you about whatever you're thinking about.
We will chat with you next. On news Radio eleven ten.

(07:49):
Kfab Emory's songer share It with Someone You.

Speaker 4 (07:54):
On news Radio eleven ten.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
Kfab I mentioned that I have seen and in some
cases use street cars in different places, and recently in
the last six months, when I went to Barcelona, noticed
that they have a streetcar in one area of town,
and I noticed in Tampa they have a street car
in their downtown area as well. Brian's on the phone line,
and I'm guessing he wants to talk about that. Welcome
to the show, Brian.

Speaker 5 (08:17):
Yes, sir, I had a meteorological question, Sir, what is
the average temperature in Tampa and Barcelona, say, between the
middle of November and the middle of March.

Speaker 4 (08:26):
It's a good question.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
I you know Tampa, I you know down there certainly
is I would guess on average.

Speaker 5 (08:33):
A kayak in Tampa Bay in February. I'm thinking the
street car would be a whole lot colder than that.

Speaker 7 (08:41):
What do you mean, I mean our.

Speaker 4 (08:43):
Street car, our street call, our street car would be
colder than that.

Speaker 5 (08:47):
Yeah, I'm thinking how many people were used the streetcar
in the winter time. I mean, Omaha used to get
a lot of snow. We haven't recently, but we're too return.
How many people would be down there.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Down down in like the downtown areas.

Speaker 5 (09:02):
What you're suggesting using the street car to get around?

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yes, I guess it depends though, Brian, because you know,
like I mean, the Supernova's played on Friday and we
went to that game. Right, So when I went to
the Supernovas and I was with my friends and everything,
they I mean, like, we parked in the parking lot.
It was kind of a pain in the butt to
get in and out of there. But that's just what
you have to do, right. Well, if you know how

(09:28):
many people were there, they were like twelve thousand people
there almost, you know, so and they a lot of
people were parked stro like they're parking was all throughout
the entire downtown areas. So I guess my my thought
would be if you were giving somebody and this is
the idea, is that this thing is going to be
free to ride. So if you catch it at a
stop and it was taking you to c HI Health

(09:49):
Center for the Supernovas or for a concert, or for
a show, or for a Creighton game or whatever, I
mean chi itself, would you know I would ride it.
I mean, I, like I said before, I take that
school bus from that bar down in Blackstone down to
the Creton games because of the convenience, so I don't
have to worry about parking. I think there would be
a lot of people that would think about doing that
if they were planning to go to an event downtown.

Speaker 4 (10:10):
That's just my opinion.

Speaker 5 (10:13):
Well we'll find out, I guess.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, And I appreciate the call. I mean, it's a
good question, and thanks for Colin Brian. I look this
up and with the help of jat GPT, I just said,
give me some options of cities that have street cars
in the last fifteen twenty years.

Speaker 4 (10:28):
Okay, I have a list. Are you ready.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
I'm just gonna throw this out here. This is not
I don't want this to get misconstrued. In Matt, I'm
talking to you. I'm looking you straight in the eye.
This is not supposed to be an argument in favor
of the street car.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
It's not supposed to be an argument in favor of
the street.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
It is literally just examples of other cities that in
the last twenty to twenty five years have built their
own streetcar and the things that they got out of it,
why they built it, and what they got out of it,
and why Omaha is feeling the way they do about
the street car. At least the leadership currently the mayor
and the current leadership who have signed these contracts. Are
are you ready for this?

Speaker 4 (10:59):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Now, again, keep in mind a lot of these are
going to be from blue areas, Democrat led areas. Right,
I'm not here to talk politics about this. This has
nothing to do with politics. You might be saying, yes, Seattle, Washington,
and Portland, Oregon are going to be on this list.
I'm going to talk about their streetcars. Yes, you can
say that they have blue democratic leadership that want to
spend as much money as possible from taxpayers. That's not

(11:21):
what my point is. My point is what did they
build the streetcar for and what did they get out
of them? Here are some examples. Are you ready? Yeah, Portland,
Oregon launched a streetcar in two thousand and one along
the route nearby a few like about a mile each direction.
Off of the spot of the streetcar, property property values
increased by twenty to thirty percent, and within two blocks

(11:43):
of the line they saw three point five billion dollars
in new development. Basically of like people building things and
creating things along the line.

Speaker 4 (11:51):
Right.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Seattle built one in two thousand and seven, and Amazon
expanded its headquarters next door to this streetcar, So obviously
that's something to do with it. Right, Like Amazon said,
you build a street car, will invest a ton of
money right here. Well, guess what it did anywhere nearby
this The property values went up three hundred percent, they tripled,
they tripled, and real estate developers invested six billion dollars

(12:14):
in projects nearby. So a lot of that, yes, you
could say had to do with Amazon and Amazon pushing
for the street car. But when they built, it tripled
the property values and there were developments of over six
billion dollars near the line. Kansas City is another free
to ride streetcar. They built THEIRS in twenty sixteen, and
there's a shorter there, about a mile shorter than the
Omaha proposed plan. Okay, following you know how much they're

(12:37):
two mile streetcar line helped invest since twenty sixteen four
billion dollars in new development, okay, and property values near
the route have increased. Cincinnati, Ohio, they opened THEIRS in
twenty sixteen, over one billion dollars in new development along
the route and real estate values next door over thirty
percent higher. Now, Tucson, Arizona, that's a college town. But

(12:58):
you know, Tucson Arizona like a pretty you know, many
people consider to be a red state in a lot
of ways. Well, Tucson, Arizona they opened THEIRS in twenty fourteen.
It connects downtown to the University of Arizona. That makes sense, right,
Let's connect the college campus to the downtown.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
That makes sense, right.

Speaker 6 (13:14):
Mm hm.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Over a billion dollars an investment along the corridor in
a ten year spend and property values up to forty
percent increased. So again, I'm just I'm throwing out here.
It's just like, well, why would they do this, why
would they even suggest this as an idea? And I'm
not saying that there's a perfect answer to this, And yes,
Warren Buffett said there's no flexibility to a streetcar line.
All I'm saying is if it was a streetcar line

(13:35):
that everybody knew what the route was, people would ride it.
Minneapolis has something like this. It's not what I would
consider as traditional street cars, more like a city train,
and it goes a long ways from Saint Paul all
the way through you know, Minneapolis and stuff. Is kind
of more of a subway above ground. But you want
to know how many people were on that to go
to like the sporting events and the different cities and stuff.
When I jumped on it, it was packed, dude. There

(13:56):
are a ton of people on that thing. And I'll
be honest with you, that was in winter too, So
how many people are riding the streetcar because of weather.
I don't think that's going to stop anybody, especially if
there's stuff happening downtown that they want to get to.
So yeah, I think people would jump on this route
with the idea that you know, hey, CCHI Health Center
are just you know, a night out downtown. I don't
have to worry about parking or anything like that. I'm

(14:16):
just throwing out there that there is this There are
some positives that people have studied within bringing development activity
and just general vibes to an area that has this
kind of you know, public transportation, especially if it's free
to use. Something To keep in mind, it's four twenty eight.
We'll come back. We got more on the way on

(14:37):
news radio eleven ten Kfab.

Speaker 4 (14:39):
Emery Sunger on news radio eleven ten kfab. Welcome in, Jake.
We appreciate you for calling in. What's going on?

Speaker 3 (14:49):
Oh yes, sir, I was just after you got done
talking about all this money coming in on these routes.
Just curious of what businesses or who personally owns land
or property alone these their route going up in Omaha. Yeah,
you know, yeah, my mind goes straight to kickbacks and YadA, YadA, YadA.
So that's all I got for you.

Speaker 4 (15:08):
Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
I mean, it's a good point too, right. It's just
like h and I couldn't tell you every single last
person here, but certainly it's going to be in cahoots
with the development of places maybe around the car itself, right,
because not every single area along Farnam, where the longer
part of the line is going to be located, has
a lot of businesses or even big developments. But knowing

(15:30):
what we know based on let let's say this happens
and it's built the way that we expect it to
build along the route, we think it's going to be
built any area that hasn't been fully developed yet for
nice homes, nice houses, businesses, commerce, that stuff. Based on
the property values of what we know from other cities
around America, those values are going to skyrocket and it

(15:51):
is going to become an area that all of a
sudden is more developed and it's going to increase, you know,
values for the city of Omaha and for the people
who own those properties. So as to who those people
are that's a great question. I do not have a
good answer for you, but it certainly lends you to
believe that they're I mean mutual, Omaha has a good example,

(16:12):
or anybody that has downtown offices, they're going to benefit
greatly from their employees being able to use this for instance.

Speaker 7 (16:17):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
Look, I told your associate I don't live there, and
I don't know too much about Omaha or their route
that it's on.

Speaker 7 (16:23):
I just my head.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
You know, you talk about that money goes straight too
kickbacks and these people who are supporting it in office,
you know, the conspiracy minded in me.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
So hey, you know what.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
That's why we asked the questions, Jake, and that's why
we have talk shows. So I appreciate you calling in.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
With that today. Take care brother, Yeah, you as well
appreciate it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
So, based on what we know from the street car
and I don't I've not had any reason to believe
that this is untrue or if they've adjusted this at all.
But essentially, it would go from Farnham Street in forty
second and it would go basically down around Farnham. It
would kind of break off at Horn and that would
be down when you get to the Turner Park area

(17:03):
down a midtown crossing. It would kind of travel down
Harney and go all the way basically to tenth Street
that is the downtown area, or to twelfth Street, I
suppose by Old Market, so you could stop at Old Market.
Then it is going to travel up to about CHI
Health Center. Stop at CHI so people could could be
there in the Capital District. They'll have a spot a stop.

(17:25):
Then it would kind of loop back around to tenth
near the river front and with those trails up along
the river, and then it would go all the way
back down Farnham and back through the areas in which
it came all the way down to forty second Street.
So yeah, and the Orbit the bus is that kind
of travels a little bit to the north along Douglas

(17:46):
and Dodge. So for anybody that's like, is this going
to be completely overlapping with what the Orbit is already doing,
the answer to that question is no. Orbit would still
be as far as we know, operational for the people
who are wanting to get picked up on Dodger or
Douglas and get off that direction if that's what they
would prefer to do, and that would have roughly the
same number of stops. So they're saying about twenty stops

(18:07):
for this streetcar as it goes down around downtown. It
would stop at Flat Iron, the Old Market, everywhere downtown
including Jean Leahy Mall, the river Front, and all the
way back through the Midtown, crossing a Blackstone district. So
that's my understanding. Leslie's on a phone line four h
two five, five, eight eleven ten. What say you, Leslie?

Speaker 8 (18:26):
Well, I think you hit on it that it is
a business development, and I think there's already like one
and a half billion dollars it's been committed for development.
And another thing is the contracts are awarded and if
they are canceled, the city is on the hook for
like three hundred and fifty million dollars cancel eighty fees.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yeah, that would stop that from happening, I think, don't
you think they're Leslie?

Speaker 8 (18:54):
Yeah. The other thing somebody mentioned about doing schools in
the north, the schools. The city doesn't pay for schools.
You pay for schools through your property taxes. And if
they need money to redo something on a school, then
they put out a bond issue.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
That makes sense. Yeah, I'll be honest. I don't know
exactly how all of that allocation works, but it does
make sense that you bring it up that way. That way,
it's a little bit more based on where the neighborhood
is and not necessarily the city of Omaha having to be,
you know, a part of this. So it's interesting, Leslie.
Thanks for adding that to the conversation today.

Speaker 8 (19:32):
All right, all.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Right, Jeff on the phone line four two five five,
eight eleven ten. Welcome Jeff. What's on your mind?

Speaker 7 (19:38):
Yeah, my first question is where has the property values
gone up in the last twenty years. Yeah, it's the
big argument is that that property village has gone up.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
Well, they've gone up everywhere.

Speaker 4 (19:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Well, I mean I guess they haven't gone up twenty
to thirty percent within ten years, you know, depending on
where it's located nearby, And that's the reason. Like, you're right,
I mean, if you compare property taxes in general median
in cities Omaha size are a little bit bigger what
they have done and what their property values have gone up.
Certainly they've gone up just on average, but when you're

(20:11):
looking at somewhere from twenty to forty percent depending on
which street car project that we're looking at I mean,
that's and it's across the board with all of these
places that it's had that big a growth over a
ten year span. That's just not generally happening unless you're
next to some big business or something that's been developed
by the city.

Speaker 7 (20:29):
Second question would be if you know, if they're making
if it is true that you know the people around
the speaker are making windfall, why shouldn't they pay for it?

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, and that's a good question too. You know, it
would behoove a lot of the businesses and a lot
of the areas to have a hand in this. So
they're skinning the game for it to get done, especially
if we're talking about giant corporations like Mutual of Omaha
that happened to be right along the route of this downtown.
So I don't have a good answer for how that's
supposed to work, but I don't disagree that. You know,

(21:03):
I would appreciate if people who you know were saying, hey,
we would like this you know, nearby, and we would
help develop certain things. And like Amazon, this is a
good example. I guess it kind of worked backwards, is
that Amazon said if you get the streetcar done in Seattle,
will expand our headquarters and pay this much to expand
our headquarters nearby this streetcar, and it ended up being

(21:24):
you know, like a multi billion dollar investment that Amazon
itself made because the street car was there. I wonder
if that has something to do with mutual of Omaha
building this giant skyscraper between the streetcar plan and the
park and all this stuff that it's you know, being
built right next to Maybe the development as a whole
is the idea that Omaha had to maintain their investment,

(21:46):
I guess in the downtown area. But there's a good
conversation on your end there, Jeff, of maybe if we're
going to do this, the people that are going to
benefit the most also should have some sort of payment
to allow this to happen.

Speaker 7 (21:58):
My last question for is uh and I, how is
it different than a bus it's got stopped? Yeah, I
mean why can't you run buses on the same route?

Speaker 4 (22:08):
Yeah, so the thing, yes, but it's.

Speaker 7 (22:11):
Not like San Francisco was one hundred years ago.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
Okay, that's yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
So I looked into this because you know, I totally
agree with that, and like my head's just like, well,
a bus would be more flexible to be able to
do this, And there are a couple of things when
I was reading about street cars and what the benefits are,
and a couple of those things include the ability for
it to maintain.

Speaker 4 (22:33):
It's like when it gets bad weather.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
There are some areas, especially when you see some hills
in the downtown area around Omaha, that maybe a bus
wouldn't be the safest option. A streetcar because it operates
on that electricity, wouldn't have that same issue. It it
would be free to ride, it's a lot less to maintain,
a lot less money to maintain versus like a bus
would have regular repairs and changes that it would need

(22:56):
to have. And the ability for it to be fixed
route to where people absolutely know which stops they can
get onto. And for people like Matt and I who
have gone to big, bigger cities in recent years and
gotten a chance to use like either their subway systems
or their street cars, there's something about being able to
plot your route a little bit easier and it just
goes faster, like you're gonna be able to be from

(23:18):
the streetcar from forty second. Those stops are only you know,
thirty seconds long for people to get on and get off,
and it can go faster and it's not gonna have
to worry about navigating turns or red lights or anything
like that. It's just going to be able to be
operational the entire time. So there are some you know,
advantages that a street car would have that a bus
just wouldn't be able to offer.

Speaker 7 (23:37):
Lights.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
Well, it's gonna have its own kind of like lane
essentially that you have to kind of yield to. A
bus has to. What I'm saying is a bus, a
bus has to stop at the lights and have to
navigate through traffic lights and other cars. The streetcar, everything's
gonna have to yield to the street car when it's
not stopped.

Speaker 7 (23:57):
It couldn't you free couldn't you free a layup for
the bus?

Speaker 4 (24:00):
I mean that's I mean, it's plausible.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
You know, on Dodge they kind of protect the bus
stops themselves. You're not supposed to be kind of like
in that lane when there's a bus stop. But I
mean theoretically, if you did that, yeah, that would take
at least that out of the equation.

Speaker 4 (24:14):
Jeff. But yeah, I mean I'm sure that there's a
better time.

Speaker 7 (24:17):
I appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yeah, no problem, Jeff, and I appreciate you asking all
these questions, and I'm trying to do the reading. I've
tried to do the reading as much as i can
to be as knowledgeable about this because it is such
a fascinating subject. But it is quite interesting how much
people in general are able to utilize streetcars versus maybe
some other public transportation. We'll take more calls next on
news Radio eleven ten kfab from Cindy. Cindy, welcome to

(24:41):
the show today. What's your thoughts on the streetcar conversation?

Speaker 7 (24:44):
Well, I live in Southwest and I would have to
drive to a lot in Park, Yeah to get on
this thing.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, So insteadive like, if let's say you were trying
to go to cchi Hell Center for something and why
an event, you would you know and want to take
the street car for free. You could park near the
Blackstone District, jump on at one of the stops near
forty second or anything around there, and then the street
car just take you down and take you back when
it's done, and then you drive home.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (25:13):
I don't see why I wouldn't just drive all the
way down there.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Well, it just depends on if you're Okay, like parking
and being able to drive yourself out of there, paying
for parking, dealing with driving down there. Like I said earlier,
there's a there's a bar down there that in Blackstone
that takes a school bus to the Creighton basketball games,
and you can just jump on it and go back
and forth from from the bar to the game and
then back. I love doing that. It's super easy. I

(25:39):
don't have to worry about traffic, I can. It takes
me right back to the bar. I don't have to
worry about any of the you know, hubbub downtown. So
I mean, I guess just depends, Cindy.

Speaker 4 (25:48):
I mean, you might still prefer to do that.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
But if it's free for me to just take the
street car and not have to worry about parking or anything,
I'm probably gonna be apt to do that.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
I'll be honest with you. Yeah, I appreciate the call sending.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yeah, thanks, Yep, have a good one, Jim, Mitch Dug
people calling in. I'm going to get through all of
these the best that I can, but unfortunately I ran
myself out of time for this hour. It's an interesting conversation.
It's not where we started the conversation. You know, it's
just kind of what ended up happening when I started
talking about the mayoral race. But I did get some
info sent to me from a reputable source here that

(26:24):
I just haven't learned about. But the rising cost of
the street car has been offset in the development that's
been committed to Omaha, So there are developers that are
actually paying the difference in the price increase. So essentially
the bond issue is not changing how much money the
taxpayers are putting into it. It actually is being paid
by the people who are going to be developing along

(26:45):
the route.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
Very interesting. News Radio eleven ten kfab