Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley has vetoed a proposal that would let the city spend up to $600,000 to relocate a bus shelter near Government Square that's blocking the streetcar system.
Cranley complained about the price tag for the plan, and said that it would be better to wait on such fixes until a complete downtown traffic study in done later this year.
"I hope we're not going to spend $600,000 to inconvenience bus riders to make way for empty streetcars," Cranley said during Wednesday's council meeting.
Officials with the city and the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority have said moving Shelter G would alleviate overlapping bus and streetcar operations on Main Street, just north of Fifth street, beside the federal courthouse.
Both sides said the change wouldn't affect bus riders, and would perhaps allow the streetcar to have a better chance of arriving as scheduled at stops along the route in Downtown and Over-the-Rhine.
Council member Greg Landsman said the issue needs to be addressed.
Landsman said the actual cost to move the bus shelter will likely be much less than $600,000.
An assistant city manager said during the council meeting it would probably be "a couple hundred thousand dollars."
City council could try to override the mayor's veto. But that can't happen until the next regularly scheduled meeting on August 1st. It takes six votes to override and council likely has enough votes to do it.
The money for the proposed project would come from the original streetcar construction project. The Federal Transit Administration has authorized using that money for the plan.
