bbrown

Good to hear John. Excellent job in the interview also!

^ The thing that stuck out to me in the article is how little the public actually knows about rail transit. In the article, the City Manager from Covington thinks that what Cincinnati is building is a cable car or trolley system. This is coming from a possible advocate for rail transit! This illustrates just how much the general public needs to be educated about mass transit. The knowledge gap is the size of a canyon.

Yeah this is not a problem, unless the operator is incompetent. I operate heavy equipment for a living and work under all kinds of overhead wires, at many different heights, on a daily basis. Also, the wires would be insulated to prevent accidents when working near them.

^I can't believe he is advocating for the destruction of the city fabric. I guess all that money for his election came from people who want to tear down the old so they can build crap with vinyl siding and turn a bigger profit.

I know they are finalizing bids on this renovation as we speak. So It looks like the Inn is ready to move forward.

Looks like Fields Ertel

^ Thanks for the link. There's a lot of good info there. Sounds like we can expect a few tenants to be announced in the near future and there is a chance that there could be some local establishments. Also, interesting that they are considering a movie theater for one of the next phases. Sounds like all the announced places will be open in September.

^ Brutal, just absolutely brutal John...

I know Toby Keith's bar wants to be open on the first of August...not gonna happen. Not sure about the others.

Voted.... lets try to keep bumping this so we can get some votes!

So his defense is that he is only a racist or says inappropriate things in private? So he is justifying being racist because it's okay as long as it's done out of the public eye? He just dug a bigger hole with his quotes in the article.

Huge donation to be announced. Riverfront Park gets $21M gift Anonymous donation brings fundraising nearly to halfway An anonymous donation of almost $21 million has brought funding for Cincinnati's $120 million Riverfront Park to nearly the halfway point - a sign of encouraging progress, but also of the considerable work that lies ahead. Of that donation, $17.75 million will be available immediately, Cincinnati parks officials said. The remaining $3 million is to be used as an incentive to raise another $12 million in private funding for the 45-acre park, being developed adjacent to The Banks, http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110525/NEWS01/105260343/

So true. They are usually asked to expand their infrastructure.

Yeah the valve boxes in your picture are used for solely for keys. The top of the valve is a square that a key slides down and fits on instead of using a wheel and stem valve. This picture shows where a "T" is placed with valves at each end so that each leg can be shut down independently. The water main valves in manholes can be worked on and replaced easily unlike the types of valves you have in the picture. And you are correct that some of the manholes do have CWW on them. Water mains are much easier to move out of the way than sewers due to a shallower depth, usually smaller size, and the fact that it does not need gravity to work. Water operations require less shoring and trench boxes, less aggregate, less equipment, less man hours, less street reconstruction, fewer utility interference, and far fewer complications. Sewer replacement is a major operation and would make the Oakley operation look minuscule. Many more factors. I can possibly see a few valves that could need to be moved slightly because of the tracks, but there is no way I can see a sewer main being moved in downtown. No way. I'm also sure this has been evaluated by Parsons Brinkerhoff. The safety concerns with Duke will eventually go away. They will probably add some safety practices when working around the streetcar line, and will continue to insulate lines they are working around.

Are you positive they are MSD manholes? Like I stated before, there are water main valve manholes, telephone manholes, and sewer manholes. There are also smaller valve boxes for water and gas. I have installed underground utilities, water mains, and sewers for a decade and can give you some insight. MSD manholes will either have the MSD marking on it, have SEWER written across it, and they will always have holes in them. Water main valves look very similar to the sewer manholes only the will not have holes in them and will not have anything written on them. Telephone manholes have a picture of a bell on them. I simply can't see MSD moving an entire sewer main to lay tracks in the street. If one manhole is in the way, then several will be in the way because sewers will run run in a pretty straight line down the middle of the street. If a sewer is in the way, the will figure out some way to negotiate the tracks so that the manholes are not directly in the way of the tracks. Also, MSD may be able to offset the manhole slightly to get it out of the way of the tracks. An entire sewer main will not be moved, it would be very costly. This would require closing entire streets and possibly the reinstalling several utilities depending on the sewer size and sewer depth. This would also push back the opening of a streetcar line by at least a year. If a sewer main is in the way they will figure something out. Water main valve manholes and telephone manholes can be moved much easier than sewers. Water and gas valve boxes can be moved fairly easily.