Cincinnati Metro outlines progress on MetroNow zones and MetroRapid BRT, targets 2028 service launch

Cincinnati Metro officials on Tuesday updated the City Council's Climate and Environment and Infrastructure Committee on progress implementing the Reinventing Metro plan, saying expanded routes and mobility-on-demand zones have recovered ridership after the pandemic and that the agency is advancing federally funded Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridors with a target to open service in 2028.

The update, delivered by Emmy Randall, senior manager of transit planning and mobility on demand, and Sharon Lacombe, senior director of BRT planning and design for Cincinnati Metro, summarized recent service changes, ridership trends and next steps for the MetroNow on-demand zones and MetroRapid BRT design work.

Randall said the system has added routes, frequency and span since Issue 7 passed in 2020 and reported measurable service gains. "Since Issue 7 passed in 2020, we've been working to deliver on these services," she said. Randall told the committee Metro launched eight new routes, expanded 24-hour service on seven routes, and increased weekday and weekend service substantially. She said a comparison to the agency's 2019 service shows an average travel-time savings of about 23 percent for bus riders and that 30 percent of current riders have been on the network two years or less.

The presentation included specific neighborhood impacts: Randall highlighted expanded West Side service (including Route 37's recent expansion to all-day and weekend service), new service in Sudamsville and in parts of Price Hill, and maps showing larger one-hour job catchments from some West Side transit centers. She also summarized MetroNow, the agency's mobility-on-demand program that started in 2023, saying the service had delivered 11,524 rides in July and that Metro projects more than 130,000 MetroNow rides in 2025.

Lacombe described the MetroRapid BRT planning process and the locally preferred alternatives approved by the Metro board in 2023. She said analysis ranked the Redding Road corridor highest and Hamilton Avenue second; those corridors are being advanced first. "The final evaluation results did show that Redding was the strongest, which is why we're advancing that as our priority corridor," Lacombe said.

Lacombe outlined the federal funding approach and timeline. She said Metro is pursuing a federal Capital Investment Grants Small Starts award with typical federal cost shares and that the project has cleared initial federal review steps needed to be competitive. "We are looking to complete design in 2026 for the Redding Corridor, secure the grant, and begin construction late 2026, early 2027. The construction period is 18 months, so we expect to launch service in 2028," Lacombe said.

Design and community engagement were emphasized as active workstreams. Metro staff said they have held 121 in-person events over the last year, reached more than 5,000 people, coordinated with city departments and partner jurisdictions, and are finalizing station locations ahead of environmental and historic-preservation reviews. Lacombe said the environmental review to date has not found significant impacts and that most work is expected to stay in existing right-of-way, but the project must complete NEPA and Section 106 historic-preservation clearances before advancing.

The agency described planned station features and accessibility commitments: raised platforms for near-level boarding, tactile warning strips, auditory signals, real-time travel information, lighting, cameras and emergency call buttons. Metro staff also said they are coordinating station placement and bus-stop improvements with the city's Department of Transportation and Engineering (DOTE). Randall listed bus-stop amenity deployments so far: "To date, we've installed 207 benches and we have almost a 100, ready to be installed later this year. We've installed 49 shelters and we we have over a 150 shelters that are currently in a NEPA review process at the federal level," she said.

Committee members asked for detail on traffic, parking and community impacts. Vice Chair Mark Jeffries expressed concern about the schedule shift from earlier projections into 2028; Lacombe said additional community feedback and required federal reviews, including historic-preservation consultations in neighborhoods such as Clifton, lengthened the timeline but said Metro expects to recover time in later phases. Lacombe and staff said traffic modeling is underway for more than 200 intersections and that traffic-signal priority (TSP) would be used to reduce delay for BRT vehicles; she and DOTE staff said TSP can both extend greens for approaching buses and hold red for cross traffic during boarding where appropriate.

Council members also questioned lane configurations in business districts, parking impacts and pedestrian and bicycle connections. Lacombe said the corridor design will mix dedicated bus-only lanes and mixed-traffic segments, using dedicated lanes where feasible and leaving mixed traffic in narrow, local business districts to reduce parking and access impacts. Metro staff said design teams are coordinating with partners including the University of Cincinnati, hospitals in Uptown, the Port Authority, 3CDC and local community development corporations.

Metro staff said additional BRT public open houses are scheduled at several corridor locations and a round of community-council meetings in October and November to present final station locations and traffic analyses. Metro also described a long-range plan, "Metro 2040," to assess future demographic and technology trends and a transit-oriented development framework to evaluate market opportunities around proposed stations.

The committee did not take formal action during the meeting; the presentation will be filed and Metro will return with additional outreach and design updates.

Ending: Metro staff left the committee with specific near-term expectations: continued station placement outreach through fall public events, completion of environmental and historic-preservation reviews, advanced design work through 2026, and pursuing the federal grant to fund construction and delivery of Redding and Hamilton corridors ahead of a planned 2028 service start.