was not unusual for trips between downtown and the surrounding suburbs to take 45 minutes to an hour. Despite having of streetcar tracks, the city found itself in a growing traffic nightmare. Another newspaper, the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, gave encouraging words to the public and said "We believe that the city we love, our home, is at the turning point, and that with the coming of Rapid Transit we will have the beginning of a Greater, More Prosperous, Healthier and Happier Cincinnati. We believe that a Vote for the Loop is a Vote for the best interests of all of us, and it is with pride that we state that every newspaper in the city is for the Loop, and practically all of the Business organizations as well as the Trades Unions." This helped the project win the fight in the polls when the people of Cincinnati enthusiastically passed bill to start construction. Planning In 1910, Henry Thomas Hunt spearheaded plans for a new rapid transit system. The next year, City Council convinced the Ohio State Legislature to lease the city's portion of the canal for use as a boulevard and subway system. The city hired experts who had worked on Boston's and Chicago's rapid transit systems to research the best possible implementation for Cincinnati's rapid transit system. The result were four "Schemes", or proposed routes. The chosen plan—Scheme IV, modification H—looped around the city hitting the central suburbs of St. Bernard and Norwood, the eastern suburbs of Oakley and Hyde Park, and then returned into downtown. In 1916, City Council authorized a bond issue of $6 million with an interest rate of 4.25 percent, and then held a plebiscite on the rapid transit plan. The bond was supposed to fund a subway system stretching across Cincinnati, which would, in turn, slow or even stop the decline of Cincinnati's population at the time. One advertisement in support of the subway proclaimed, "Every newspaper in the city is for the Loop, and practically all of the Business organizations as well as the Trades Unions." On April 17, 1917, Cincinnati citizens voted in favor of using the bond for a Rapid Transit system, 30,165 to 14,286. The system would be built as a below grade, at grade and elevated railway. Underground portion to be built in the Miami and Erie Canal bed through downtown. Extend through the Mill Creek valley to St.