If there are 3 places a transit system should stop at, it's airports, universities and downtowns.
This is because these are 3 hubs of jobs and places that people want to be but are also unlikely to have cars at because students are broke, people in downtowns don't need cars, and travellers by plane lack cars as well fod obvious reasons.
This is why transit systems like the Cincinnati Streetcar fail as while it meets the downtowns needs, it f ails to provide real connections, if it were to be extended to UC then it would be a much more functional transport system as it would give mobility to people instead of acting as a people mover
I have no idea who the Cincinnati Connector is for. Its not great for tourists - big tourist attractions like the Zoo or Union Terminal are nowhere near a stop and you'd still need a car to get to stop. And it really only services 2 out of fifty odd neighborhoods. If you're in OTR and want to go to the Banks (or vice versa) it works. Otherwise you still have to drive and park.
The issue with extending to the UC campus is the hills. Cincinnati used to have a bunch of "inclines" to serve this purpose, but they constantly ran into mechanical issues. Hopefully they can figure something out in the 21st century though.
I know that the hill and the river are issues, but I genuinely don’t think it can ever become a useful system without the Newport and UC extensions since without those it barely has any service. If they can get to UC and the Zoo it will service tourists way better AND act as an actual means of transport, and if they connect it to NKY it will meet the needs of lower income neighborhoods a lot better and serve as another way to cross the river without a car, something that doesn’t exist right now. But until we can get those extensions they need to at minimum give it dedicated lanes with separation from cars where possible and signal priority
