treesketcher

Conifers in urban/streetscape settings always end up looking horrible. They don't age well and get ratty. Deciduous trees like london planetree, honeylocust, and hybrid elms are always safe bets and become better with age.

Congratulations to you all! Your efforts make me proud to be an Ohioan and I'm looking forward to visiting and using the streetcar. Please continue your efforts to expand the understanding of the importance of Transit in Ohio cities.

Actually, a lot of folks are paying VERY close attention to the streetcar project in Columbus & Cleveland....myself included (CBus). Its important that the streetcar project moves forward successfully because it will demonstrate to other urban leadership that these kinds of projects can work in Ohio. I'm personally amazed at the strength of Mayor Mallory and his staff as well as the organization and passion of the support. Keep up the good work and I know a lot of folks up north are excited to see this completed. From an outsiders perspective, it will be a massive disappointment if the new Mayor follows through and "cancels" this project because it will seem like the overall momentum of revitalization has somewhat ceased. I for one look forward to using the streetcar as a tourist....it will be great to easily move between the banks, fountain square and OTR....really a great staycation opportunity for those folks seeking a city-centric weekend trip.

^Thanks for posting. My takeaway: we are so sad we are broke, we need alternatives to a highway only system, and we have no ideas for a better funding system other than 3P's. No one had the cajones to say that we turned down $400,000,000 to help alleviate all three of those issues.

^^ I do think there is something intriguing about a Columbus to Pittsburgh connection. The burgh is a lot harder to drive to from Columbus than Cleveland/Cincy. I wouldnt be surprised if a startup conventional speed rail would truly be faster than driving (3-3.5 hour trip). The route between the two cities is a lot more scenic than the 3C route too (IMO) and could draw some pure tourism traffic. PA is a lot more rail friendly as well; might be easier to get folks on their side interested. Just a thought.

^Ditto. Seems like a missed opportunity to really fill in the streetwall in that location.

a key thing that is somewhat counter-intuitive is that the existing daily-pay parking lots are often better revenue generators for their respective landowners than existing buildings. Yes, it would be great to save as many buildings as possible, but sometimes lower quality structures (as this one is) are more capable of being developed than the parking lots. Once the market is present for the parking lot owners to develop them, they will; but that is probably not going to happen for awhile. That is why this project is so huge...it stokes the market for the adjacent parcels (parking lots).

Im just tired of hearing negative criticism. We all know there are LOTS of things to improve upon...I'm tired of hearing people dump on positive news when they know nothing of the circumstances leading to the proposal at hand. Its easy to say something isn't perfect. its hard to actually make something happen.

^really? If you moved to another city because it better for you, why continue to dump on positive news from Columbus because you "know better"...

Maybe he was including the Conestoga Wagon?

Probably, Not sure. The City is making the case that High Street Downtown right now does not function properly to sustain a true active retail environment that you might see right up the street in Short North or south in Brewery District or German Village. I tend to agree that there is just too much bus traffic on high street right now and the experience is really noisy and kinda chaotic...not the best for retail shops/cafes/etc. it seems that all the bus traffic would support retail, but it really hasnt. i think there needs to be a better balance between transit, on-street parking, bike lanes, etc. on high street to thrive as it should. I would love to see a true downtown transit center to correspond with something like your map above, but that would require quite a rethinking of the current COTA system.

Its not really the pedestrian traffic, its the constant line of buses on high street running up and down in front of the retailers. I fully support transit, but this is one improvement that needs to be made if retail is ever going to be viable on High street in Downtown again. I think the downtown plan was correct in asserting that there needs to be parallel parking in close proximity of the front door to get the retail to work. Im not entirely sure this proposal is the best solution, but its a good start in the discussion i guess.

Park Street area seems to be the place for bachelor/bachelorette parties. Brothers/Park Street Patio seem to be the hangouts for scantilly clad ladies and dancing.

Also, the split project will begin soon.

I think its gotta be initiated by the private sector for any idea to have a chance of gaining momentum and turning into a legitimate concept. Folks in the public sector seem to be gunshy from the 3C battle. Aside from all the technical issues, from my layman's perspective, this would make some headway.

great insight, I appreciate it. I really think there is great demand for this, at least where I live in Cbus, and could be successful if those issues could be worked through. Bummer there are so many additional barriers to the obvious physical and market-driven ones. Just being the optimist, theres got to be some place where something like this might work.

just throwing out a few ideas here and im sure folks have probably thought of these already but it helps me cope with the lose of the 3C :-(. Can we get some kind of non-amtrak passenger rail going in Ohio that is completely independent of the state? At least that way there is some momentum, at least. A couple possibilities: 1. Commuter rail startup in CBus Dayton or Cincy; or even between dayton and Cincy, for example. Columbus casino to airport would be an obvious one too. 2. Excursion rail startup in CBus or Cincy similar to CVSR. 3. Heritage rail trips that are tourist driven. How cool would it be to have a steam engine or some old coaches roll up to the Columbus Convention center, for example.

http://www.downtowncolumbus.com/progress/columbus-commons-renderings the development parcels are the orangish yellow boxes on the second plan

The site plan shows an office type building on the SE corner of the park (Rich and 3rd). They've talked about having something like 400000 sf of office, so this would be a fairly substantial building. I believe all the parking figures are based on what is in the garage below the park. Most of the time, residential (aprtments or condos) pretty much require at least one space per unit directly accessible to the unit (in this case next to the buildings under the park). That will hopefully change at some point, but for not its just a reality of creating widely marketable apartments in Columbus. https://columbuscommons.org/FAQs.html Columbia Gas is building a new HQ in the arena district on the west side of nationwide arena

I think they have room for only so many apartments based on the existing parking. Given that, i think these 10 storyish buildings will have a pretty nice scale adjacent to that space. Any less and it would be too short IMO, but it could go a few stories taller and still be ok without being overwhelming.

I would find this route extremely useful and would use it everyday. I dont live in Cincy, but as a frequent visitor to downtown this route takes me more or less all the places I normally go.

I thought there was some kind of movement in northern ohio to pull something together..?

Weren't the applications for new projects due this week? Anyone know of any midwest projects applied?

^ Well, maybe Ohio can connect to this in the future. A true high speed Philly to Kansas City line through Cbus and Dayton (I-70 corridor) would be pretty amazing.

Kasich talks about population loss in Cincinnati and other urban areas... http://www.abc6onyourside.com/shared/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wsyx_vid_9993.shtml