jim uber

That sure is surprising. Would seem to suggest fatigue over the operational lifetime significantly limiting the acceptable loading compared to the design load. But it's unlikely this is anything more than an assumption or educated guess for a planning study.

^ Yes and, I can say from the perspective of someone developing a small apartment building with just 6 units, it was a little surprising to learn that by statute I had to supply 9 parking spaces, for a lot/building that has zero space available for any parking. As has been discussed above, if you are within 600' of available commercial parking that can be used by tenants, then there is a 50% reduction in the required parking. Also, if you are in the RM zone and within a certain distance (300'?) of the streetcar line (or is it a streetcar stop?), the same 50% reduction applies. And finally, if the number of required spaces after the reduction is applied is 5 or less, then you don't have to supply any parking. The upshot is that to avoid having to apply for and win a parking variance, it is very helpful to have existing parking facilities within 600 feet or be sufficiently near the streetcar line. All of the smaller mixed use developments would benefit from that.

^ Yes, and that's why the streetcar connecting the two is really important. So many people don't realize the power of that connection between these two very different areas, when they spout derogatory statements akin to "Oh yeah that $140M trolly that goes what, a few blocks?"

I completely agree with this. This is getting off topic, but ... this occurs on two fronts. First, government fails miserably to account for the long term costs and benefits when it "sells" projects to society. Sprawl comes to mind here. I deal in buried infrastructure systems, and there isn't that much thought to the infrastructure strain (budget-wise) generated by low density development. For buried water infrastructure, the number of pipeline miles supported per capita has increased substantially over the past 50 years, both anecdotally and quantitatively. And then government fails miserably to actually convey what they are doing for society, so that we will actually consider supporting the taxes to pay for it. About the only thing I can think of, infrastructure wise, that government sells well is pothole repair. I really wish this weren't the case. But anyway, for something like the streetcar, it seems completely different from those examples above. It's doing everything right by pushing for increased density, decreased stress on alternative transportation modes... so rather than worrying that the benefits are calculated too high, I worry much more that economists really don't have the toolbox to capture the benefits of any project that is a "link in the chain." I mean, if an economist were involved, they wouldn't have made the semiconductor.

Wow - I have to say that is one particular view of the role of government -- that it is in business and defined by its balance sheet. Another view is that government is in the business of helping society, and thus its benefits should properly extend to those benefits at a society level, even if they are off the books (i.e. separate from tax revenues). Government can't help society if it goes broke. This has nothing to do with the proper boundaries for accruing benefits. You're saying that if tax revenues don't go up sufficiently, then don't do the project. I'm saying that if the project results in a certain level of benefit to society, then it's only logical to consider those society-level benefits, when weighing whether government (i.e. "society") should fund them. The decision about whether to fund them, or not, is essentially societies' decision about how much to tax itself, and it's illogical to say that a particular, current, tax structure accurately defines an optimal budget for projects.

Wow - I have to say that is one particular view of the role of government -- that it is in business and defined by its balance sheet. Another view is that government is in the business of helping society, and thus its benefits should properly extend to those benefits at a society level, even if they are off the books (i.e. separate from tax revenues).

^Yes, i doubt Jean Robert would have agreed to move his French crust restaurant to Findlay if the streetcar did not exist.

It could depend on whether it's also asking for federal tax credits. You don't have to. The national park service rules for historic rehab seem to be the most stringent, and they definitely do care about the interior spaces and configuration. That being said there's nothing in there that says you can't radically change things, and you might expect that arguments could be made in the case of 1725 vine because it's changing from its original use. Some of the things they wanted surprised me. Like in replacing some fireplaces and balusters they requested them to be created in the simplest possible style that matched the historic proportions. So they didn't want anything that could look faked. They are definitely into details.

As I recall the 1725 vine building is only still around because of tireless work to get city funds for stabilization. This was pre 3cdc and Jim Tarbell (the bald guy in the top hat mural) was on council and lobbied hard to save it after a fire made it unsafe. Otis Taylor did the stabilization and roof and he's really an old school craftsman. He somehow owned the building for a while and had been struggling to sell it during the recent bad economic times cause his business was is a really tough spot. And now it will be wonderful homes. It's a reminder of how important passion, optimism, and skill has been to getting OTR going again. It's inspiring.

I think your real question is why it has happened so disproportionately in cincinnati. I don't think that's true. All US cities experienced sprawl due to the availability of cheap suburban housing combined with various other factors. Cincinnati seems to have suffered greater than some other places because the city boundaries stabilized prior to suburban development. So in cincinnati more than many other places, suburbanization led to a loss of population to neighboring jurisdictions rather than a neighborhood population shift within the city limits.

I just saw the streetcar pass by on Elm and stop at Elm and Liberty. But then, the streetcar reversed and went backwards (south) down Elm. Weird!

Turns out I understood you. This is like the couple who for years refuses to invite their friends to dinner cause they still have a few home projects to finish up. (Ok, "guilty".) It's sad cause the friends drift away thinking the couple didn't really like them, cause they refused to invite them into their lives. As far as I'm concerned fountain square is our living room and OTR is the amazing new addition we are in the process of making. Most people are more fascinated with seeing the progress on the new addition. Even if they go home and say "that's gonna be really nice when it's done, but sure glad it's not me!"

@troyeros you should realize there are lots of people like you who are primarily interested in the feeling of motion that OTR has right now, whether experienced as observer or participant. While I am looking forward to the neighborhood maturing (I think it's closer to 10 years than 20) I also know this time is special for being able to feel the changes happening and influence them in a small way.

^ Gosh, I guess that means that masonry is pretty much... it for OTR in terms of facade treatments on future infill. Any idea or guess at what their next move would be - will they just redesign or you think they'll try to fight this?

^ I like it quite a bit more than the adjacent new infill. I still can't believe the HCB approved that one without a front facade door. Separately, I noticed that the Wade/Kemp development wood rain screen facade was recommended to be denied - anyone know if that happened? I'm also curious about how others view that facade treatment. I thought it could be interesting depending on the staining they selected.

No - I should have been clearer. In other cities people will gripe about all sorts of things, but it's not internalized as "OK, now I'm griping about the unique characteristics of this city that I am living in." It's just assumed to be a normal part of urban life. For example I might complain about a pothole in any city, but in Cincinnati the person I'm talking to seems more likely to extrapolate that I'm criticizing the City of Cincinnati and it's DOTE policies. So it's actually quite the opposite of excessive bravado or booster-ism. We just need more healthy pride, and to believe we deserve to have it.

The friend I was visiting has lived in Cincy for a couple years now, and he would agree 100%. He knows transplants from the east coast that rip on Cincinnati for not being Philadelphia and won't open their eyes to what the city has to offer. And as you mentioned, there are provincial people who complain about how there's not enough to do even though they never venture outside their section of the city. Personally, I think Cincinnati has more than enough urban amenities for a city of its size. The relevant characteristic of Cincinnati in this regard -- if there is one -- is not that Cincinnati has such people; every city has people that gripe. It's that Cincinnati thinks too much that it's worthy of conversation.

Possibly. I think the real unfortunate answer is that there's nobody that knows. And the engineers have absolutely no appetite for experimentation. As was suggested above, you can actually do experiments with some traffic solutions. I can't say it's never done, but I've never witnessed it. For example Travis you could easily check out your "probably" above just by setting all the lights to flashing red status and measuring traffic throughputs for a few days. And while we're talking about this, it's true that traffic signal timing is difficult, but it's also true that driverless cars are difficult. Sensors and adaptation are a general solution to lots of hard problems (like driving a car without a driver!), but as we see time and again, our most critical infrastructure systems have zero sensing and adaptation. So the lights are connected to a common clock - if that's the sort of effort level we stop at, then most every problem that was ever hard and unsolvable, would still be hard and unsolvable.

The best traffic engineers are really good "systems thinkers" but the average ones don't have that capability. It's not taught in undergraduate school, and I doubt if many of the so called "traffic engineers" have much formal training in the subject beyond a "transportation engineering" class that talked mostly about roadway materials, cut and fill on highway interchanges, and a little about traffic calming effects of lane width. I mean, a real traffic engineering class that considers urban traffic issues and multiple transportation modes probably is a real rarity in most schools of civil engineering. It's such a shortcoming. So look to the leadership at the DOTE and what sort of background they have (I don't know that person). If they don't have a focus on systems level traffic management solutions, then the rest of the organization can't be counted on to push innovation, they'll need to be drug into it by public outcry.

And I think it's implausible that anyone could actually believe they are focusing on throughput (event the DOTE). Anyone who travels on Liberty by car, in its current configuration, has to feel purposely slowed down and it's not by the lane configuration (obviously), its by streetlight timing. If they actually wanted this to be a freeway, they could probably do a lot better. So I can't understand the logic in their reluctance to reduce lanes, if their design goals for traffic are the status quo. This real estate is just an underutilized resource, plain and simple.

^ what do you mean? before shopping you can valet park at the cheesecake factory for dinner ;-)

I saw the chamber printed a map that located and categorized the new businesses, but I never saw a listing.

You can add this 8000 sq. ft. 2-level downtown hardware store to the ever increasing list of businesses that cite the streetcar as a major reason for their investment. http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/11/11/exclusive-full-service-hardware-store-coming-to.html

I don't know him but, FYI its easy for me to get confused between Don and Dan Driehaus. dAn Driehaus is the current chair of the Cincinnati Planning Commission, and owns an insurance company. He's a good guy. Don seems to move is similar circles. But I'm pretty certain they are different humans.

Streetcar needs to move in the direction of traffic (if it's moving in traffic), so two sets of tracks will be needed. I can see it being somewhat cheaper to construct along a single street right of way but it seems better to spread out the economic dev benefits.