Project Costs and Funding

Construction costs for Phase 1 are $95 million plus the cost of utility relocation, which the city is negotiating with the affected utilities (Duke Energy, Greater Cincinnati Waterworks and MSD);

• Funding sources:
• City Bond Financing $64 million
• Private Funding $6.5 million
• Urban Circulator Grant (Federal Transit Administration) $25 million
• OKI Grant $4 million
• Total funds identified: $99.5 million

Funds identified so far are predominately from sources that can’t be used for any other purpose. None of the funding sources being used to build the streetcar could pay for fire or police salaries, for example.

The Mayor and City Manager also outlined a plan for how the estimated $2.5 million annual operating cost for the first segment would be funded, emphasizing that no General Fund operating dollars would be used. In fact, the operations plan identifies far more that the needed $2.5 million in order to build an operations reserve that will further protect the General Fund. This will ensure that the streetcar never competes for funding with essential services such as police and fire protection or trash pick-up.  The operations sources include:

The streetcar will be integrated into Metro operations, and the city is working with SORTA on the operating plan development, including stop locations and coordination with buses.