jim uber

Yes. Will continue to improve, more rapidly if more people would go there to buy vegetables. I bought some decent asparagus yesterday, mostly cause I felt sorry for it.

Like many others I choose to live in the city center among it's many strange and different sorts. Others don't, and never will. That's ok. Just like 11 incidents at a massive taste festival is ok. 10 or 9 would be better, but there's always next year. I would never tell anyone who has experienced personal violence to just chill and shrug it off, but it's completely fine to take that attitude from a societal perspective. Chief Whalen is the voice of reason. He makes sense.

The davis furniture building was recently boarded up "properly" -- as in to meet VBML standards. That would argue against it being torn down, or at least that it isn't the interest of the owners to have that happen.

I think it just needs landscaping. The solution with the new light pole is, to me, still ugly. A nice mixture of tall grasses with something for color...

I can't disagree with that. But politics is funny and unpredictable, right? My point is only that if somebody put together a comprehensive SID plan to go along with an equally comprehensive network expansion plan, and the SID component was thought to be instrumental/essential to getting the network expansion accomplished in the short(er) run, then I'd be for it. You could use, say, neighborhood boundaries as SID boundaries, which might be appropriately local. Perhaps SID passage/payments could be used to support operations and capital for the stops, and so be tied somehow to the number of stops in the neighborhood. It sounds messy, but of course lots of complex things do, until the right person is charged with pulling it apart and developing the plan. And you'd think the whole process could be replicated so that it wasn't so hard after the first one. I wish I knew how the Portland folks had structured their local districts that helped pay...

For the curious here is the current operating plan for the downtown SID. http://downtowncincinnati.com/docs/default-source/Stakeholder-Docs/2014-2017_services_plan.pdf?sfvrsn=6

I don't know, but I do know that the DCI SID doesn't extend that far. I'd guess that it's because DCI isn't owned or exclusive to the CBD SID (which I previously misleadingly called the DCI SID). I'd assume that DCI, under contract to the CBD SID, provides the downtown ambassadors, while they have another contract with 3CDC for OTR.

Yes. I would guess it was a compromise to avoid confusion and proliferation of SIDs. As far as I'm concerned I'd be for anything that created movement toward a more robust network. You can say that it would restrict other possibilities that are appropriate for SIDs, but the fact is that the only SID we have in the entire region is the DCI one. So there doesn't seem to be a great demand to create them.

The only SID is DCI that stops at central pkwy. SIDs cannot overlap but there are few other restrictions. I live on elm. I could pay into a SID that would directly fund an entire streetcar network through a nongovernmental entity. This is what DCI is. The main restriction is owner approval. But I think if owners approved we could fund a streetcar system in Dayton. From my perspective as a property owner on the phase 1 line the network becomes more valuable to me the larger it is. Logically the SIDs could follow line development and their formation and approval could affect which lines are built out in what order. I'd assume they would get easier to pass the larger the network becomes.

Kroger OTR store has reconfigured their produce section to increase selection. We shop here regularly to augment Findlay market trips. This is a huge change from two years ago. Some people have some strong negative feelings about this store (that I think have always been unjustified) but they are definitely trying.

I definitely agree that buying one of these condos, or any condo in an urban area, can be a good decision for many people. (And, it's presumptuous of me to even say that; it's evident from the market.) Regarding the Westfallen condos specifically, I'm glad they are small. Any significant new development with average unit sizes of 2000+ sq. ft. would scare me off from a long term perspective. It seems likely that the land resources of America are finally going to outrun the ability of Americans to pay to maintain them. That seems true for everything from our transportation infrastructure to our housing stock. One bright spot is the repopulation of urban centers with stacked small units, leading to lower per unit maintenance and energy costs. How do 25+M people live in Seoul? They mostly live in units that would be small compared to Westfallen (yes, even the studios), and as mentioned before, they go out for fun (hence, the Karaoke bar as opposed to having people over for Karaoke). I do not think they are less happy. The pictures of Westfallen do not concern me. I am interested in how the underlying utilities were installed and the quality of the HVAC, windows, kitchen cabinets, and roof/gutters. The squeaky/uneven floors are not a concern if they are original (which many would prefer), and it's hard to explain squeaks if they are new. And I know enough that badly taped drywall joints do not indicate anything about those items. Frankly, if I were interested in a unit at Westfallen, I'd probably use those superficial items as a way to drive the price down because the average person might not be able to see past them. Then, I'd hire someone for $2000 to re-mud the ceiling and move the fan.

Well... you have to take into account that it's on a hillside. I bought one of those places when they were new (sold, just before the market crashed - whew!). The foundations are basically 10 foot deep heavily reinforced concrete that don't sit on the earth but rather on 18 reinforced poured piers that go 40 feet down to a stable layer. The whole foundation is basically a monolithic reinforced concrete beam bridging the piers. And there's structural steel at the front and rear walls framing the entire structure and providing shear support. Basically, if these structures do move down the hill, they're going to move down it standing upright. People buying homes on hillsides always need to pay attention to such things. It's a real advantage when selling to be able to tell people, there are no cracks or uneven settlement, and there won't be. I was just at a friends home up on Ohio street who has the entire south side of her home moving laterally and downward towards OTR. It's sad.

I am one of those people who find this format distracting and incredibly annoying. I am not a photographer or videographer, but I know how to read. I appreciate good text layout and design. I can not find anything here, and it's not only unfamiliarity. Their photo icons for each story will change daily, and that's the problem. The faces in those photos are meaningless to me, usually, and so I have no idea what the story is about till I read something about it, and this format sucks for browsing that information. To put it simply, in any given page, the amount of actual story-relevant content is incredibly low. Compare with the NYTimes site. On the plus side, it is professional and responsive, which is a big improvement over the old site that looked like it was put together by people who didn't know what they were doing.

Yes, agreed that's probably the main point. If there were a streetcar and subway running the same route then many people would choose the streetcar for its overall convenience even if it took longer. The longer it takes relative to the subway, however, the more people will choose to pay the fixed costs of entering and leaving the subway system. Not to mention of course that even with the same route, the streetcar will have more stops cause they're less expensive. We should be vigilant in assuring people that there is not one unique best transportation mode, but a healthy city has multiple modes for different uses. Crawl, walk, jog, run, skateboard, bike, scooter, motorcycle, streetcar, auto, surface light rail, subway... This sort of thing must be codified in the standard language of experienced transportation engineers (of the railway variety anyway). There must be a useful theory or framework that explains why certain modes or mixtures of modes serve people best in certain situations and scales of movement.

^ Are you serious? Browsing these over lunch was perfect.

John do you mean this literally? In other words, is it possible/feasible to arrange financial support within sub-county jurisdiction? A special taxing district could do that in theory... just wondered about your thoughts...

Really?! I thought ranch dressing came from some global ranch dressing factory.

Yep, you have to know your place and he doesn't. You just shouldn't show at that press conference in a suit, even if you are mayor. And jeez, do you really need to read from a script there? I wonder if he discussed talking points with Marvin before.

^ That's good Travis; thanks. I'd assume that since SORTA is running the streetcar, it will use a compatible fare system technology and the stored value cards will work on both systems seamlessly. If so, and they want a POP system for the streetcar, there are ways to do that, as Boston (at least) has shown. Interoperability between streetcar and METRO would be a start. I also don't know if TANK or CTC (or taxi drivers, bike renters, etc) want interoperability with Metro fare cards. Then again, I'm a Steve Jobs fan.

I hope that our fancy new state of art streetcar does not rely too much on little bits of paper and time stampers with ink. I was dismayed to see that SORTA purchased new ticketing machines that actually print lines of ink on multi-fare cards. There are many excellent examples of RFID-based transit fare systems in use, and I don't believe they require amazing density, and they have been adapted to POP. Maybe there's an even better technology now; I'm not sure. An example is the CharlieCard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CharlieCard). Some inventive ways they adapted the stored-value cards for POP are in the section "CharlieCard on the Green Line". And I hope that nobody in charge is talking about a fare system for the streetcar, but rather talking about a modern, extensible, fare system for transit -- one that will serve us well now and 15 years from now. The same fare card should (at least ultimately) be usable for streetcar, METRO buses, bike rentals, Taxis, and parking meters. Doing this amounts to setting up a secure electronic metering system to record transactions so people can get paid by the central agency. So while we're discussing the upgrade of the parking meters, again, why not at least debate the merits of RFID fare card versus credit card systems, and combining with the future streetcar fare system. I would think the fees to recoup fare system operating costs would be less than citibank fees.

^ It's on Henry, not Elder

I wouldn't be too sure. We're all guessing here, but the first thought through my mind when I read that story was that he used a knife, and not a gun, because of the potential for mandatory sentencing for aggravated assault with a firearm. If that were true, then it indicates criminals do, in fact, think about sentencing. More broadly, if criminals didn't respond at all to sentencing guidelines, why would we have things like mandatory sentencing for crimes committed with firearms, which are clearly meant to discourage certain behaviors. Again, we're all guessing here, but those sorts of sentencing guidelines are developed with input by people who aren't - judges, cops, and people who study criminal behaviors.

Also, on the funding front, with respect to a special improvement district, or SID. Cranley dismissed this idea for the initial alignment. He did that because an address can not be part of more than one SID, and the CBD is already included in a SID (DCI). Even if the DCI SID did not want to add a tax for the streetcar (which is far from certain, so far as I know), that doesn't mean that OTR and uptown residents would not support a new streetcar SID, if it meant developing connectivity to uptown. Same goes for anywhere else the streetcar may go. the benefits from a streetcar SID tax on any one property increase with the scale of the streetcar system. At the same time, the operating costs per mile decrease with the scale of the system. These two factors mean to me that a SID tax is a reasonable way to offset a portion of future operating costs, and should be a part of any conversation about extending the system.

^ I totally agree on moving forward quickly with the uptown segment. I wouldn't worry a bit about what the opposition is doing or not doing. I'm sure there are people working on this. Seems to me that it's good to focus on getting Santa Ono engaged. He responds to student wishes. Any UC students out there who want to organize early in January let me know; I'll gladly take on an appropriate Faculty role.

That's a wonderful sad recollection if the slog this project has weathered. It also made me happy to think how I've been able to forget Bronson.