jjakucyk

It's still a completely backwards way to get to UC from downtown.

First of all, it's macadam, not McAdam. Second, in a gravel road situation, it just sort of happens by itself over time. The pressure of the wheels keeps the gravel compacted on the two "tracks" preventing anything from growing, while the center isn't as compacted and weeds tend to grow over time as mud and such gets washed in. There's plenty of older driveways around that use this double track method with concrete, but it's generally not done anymore because it's easier and sometimes even cheaper to just pave the whole width. The complexity of double the amount of form work, the reduced stability of two separate narrow strips of concrete, and simply a lack of experience in doing it well by contractors makes it very uncommon today. I don't think it's really possible to do such a setup in asphalt, because there are no forms, and the width of the track is usually narrower than a steamroller, so you wouldn't be able to properly roll the thing nor keep the lines very even.

They must be taking after Kroger.

Ok, so instead of losing those fares, you never get them in the first place. I know it's a chicken and the egg situation, and it certainly requires some study to find that right sweet spot. My gut feeling is that late night service is more valuable than early morning Sunday service, considering the residents and businesses along the line.

Maybe, maybe not. It's been documented that owl service, while it may not carry many riders at those late hours, supports other trips during busier times of the day. If the drunk college student or the janitor working second shift can't get home because there's no service, they're likely not going to bother using the system at all. It's not just the late night fare to get home that's lost, it's the afternoon/evening fare to get there too.

I prefer Skyline, and I don't drink beer. :P

Even if Dewey's is overrated, it's still a hell of a lot better than LaRosa's or a Gold Star.

Well that's part of the problem right there. Good urban neighborhoods are in high demand but it's difficult to increase the supply because of zoning limitations and NIMBY-ism.

Maybe it's that pungent soapy/raspberry syrup smell coming from St. Bernard that's making people dumb.

30? Any old brick road you'd see has to be at least 70 or 80 years old.

Maybe so, but do keep in mind that there's a disproportionately large amount of rural and semi-rural areas in the western part of the county. Miami, Whitewater, Harrison, and Crosby Townships are basically write-offs for a proposal such as this, as are North Bend, Cleves, Addyston, and Harrison.

I think the only real benefit to chip seal is its cost, and depending on the aggregate used it can be one of the better looking pavings especially for more historic areas. The trouble however is that it still requires a good amount of asphalt, so its cost benefits may be limited in the future. It's also the roughest pavement out there, short of belgian blocks, cobblestones, or any sort of unit paving. It's not that it gets rutted or develops potholes excessively, but the lack of very fine aggregate means it's just very coarse, which makes it noisy and is also terrible for bike riding. This is one aspect to the paving question that does make me somewhat apprehensive. I love the idea of returning roads in all sorts of areas to brick, belgian block, or gravel, while introducing new unit pavers or other materials. As oil and energy in general gets more expensive, traditional asphalt and concrete are going to become less viable, certainly to the extent we use them now. However, traditional asphalt is the best surface for cycling and other smaller vehicles like scooters and mopeds. Belgian block and older brick is basically out of the question for those, and modern pavers and concrete are OK but are not ideal. Gravel can be ok for bikes, but usually it has to be the finest crushed limestone you can get, which they generally don't use on roads. It also doesn't drain nearly as well, so it requires more frequent topping up to fill any depressions that might accumulate water.

Well, do you expect highly conservative, NIMBY-heavy, low-density suburbs to be more supportive of transit than denser, less affluent, and more centrally located neighborhoods?

Those are some very interesting percentages. I wouldn't have expected places like Indian Hill, Terrace Park, and Amberly Village to beat out Deer Park, Lockland, and especially Norwood in support. Of course, a breakdown of the votes by Cincinnati city neighborhood would be very interesting too.

Structurally deficient and functionally obsolete are two very different terms. Structurally deficient is really the only one to worry about, as it means the structure is deteriorating and the bridge needs repair. A functionally obsolete bridge can be perfectly sound structurally, but it just has poor geometry (narrow lanes, low clearances, tight curves, inadequate sidewalks or shoulders) or inadequate capacity for increasing traffic volume. The percentage seems to be relatively equal between the two, though many structurally deficient bridges are also functionally obsolete too, but they're not categorized as such. Interestingly, the percentage of structurally deficient bridges is much higher in rural areas on low capacity local roads, while in urban areas most problem bridges are merely functionally obsolete. Here in Cincinnati alone, nearly every bridge for I-71, I-75, I-275, Columbia Parkway, and even most of Cross-County Highway are considered functionally obsolete just because weight limit, shoulder width, and railing standards keep increasing.

Neighborhood and little-used rural roads probably should be reverted to gravel/macadam anyway. I'd like to see more of this kind of thing on city streets too. Rather than repaving a road then putting in speed humps to slow traffic, just make it gravel. Use the savings to make sure the curbs/gutters are in good shape and to keep it properly maintained. This has the added benefit of reducing storm water runoff and solar heat gain. On slightly busier roads pave the travel lanes but make the parking area permeable. A big determining factor on the condition of unpaved roads historically and through today is the type of soil. Here as in many places we have clay and loam which turns to muck when wet, so gravel at the very least is necessary for a stable road. That's not true everywhere though. My parents live near Pinehurst, NC which is in an area called the Sandhills. It's basically an area of ancient beach dunes. The sandy soil is very coarse and packs well, while maintaining drainage (septic systems work beautifully there). Because of this, logging access and other remote country lanes are simply what would be described as dirt roads. They just scrape away the vegetation and level it out, no gravel or anything else necessary. A disadvantage though is that they can be very dusty.

To be fair, the paint stripe marking stops is just a secondary thing, there's always a sign too. That said, I was very disappointed to see that they rolled out all new signs and didn't bother putting route maps or any other helpful information on them. That was a big missed opportunity, and an expensive one to remedy now that it's already done. Also, just because a route hasn't changed much over the years doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Within the city limits, it makes sense that many bus lines follow the old streetcar lines, because the neighborhoods grew up around them and that's where the most density and wide corridors are. There are, I will admit, many seemingly logical routes that aren't served, and many suburban routes that take horrible zig-zagging paths that make little sense and add a lot of time to the trip. I agree the website is a joke, and the payment system is awful. I don't know what to say about relationships with large employers etc., but I don't think it's fare to put all the blame on Metro. UC especially seems to want such big discounts that it would really hurt Metro's bottom line. I don't know al the details, but it's definitely a two-way street there.

Good point. Even if all the people moving to new or formerly vacant buildings along the streetcar all came from within the city limits, their previous residences still need to be sold or rented to someone else. So even if someone moves from Westwood to OTR, that house in Westwood is more likely to be taken up by someone from Monfort Heights or Covedale than someone from Pleasant Ridge or Mt. Washington.

First, no transit system in this country turns a profit, not that I know of anyway. The CTA in Chicago is required by law to obtain 50% of its funding from fares, which is VERY HARD. 30% is a much more typical figure. Also, why do you assume these people moving to OTR have to come from within the city limits? Frankly, the suburbs have been siphoning off city population for 60+ years now, and I'm just fine with the city siphoning some of them back. They'll just keep moving farther out otherwise. Sure some might come from Westwood or Madisonville or Clifton, but they could just as easily come from Bridgetown, Kenwood, Fairfield, Mason, or northern Kentucky.

Again, just because a neighborhood had "unsanitary conditions" doesn't mean it couldn't be fixed without demolishing the whole place. As in the example I gave earlier, many people would say the housing stock in Newport is "substandard" too, but that doesn't mean it's not worth saving and improving. Demolishing whole neighborhoods is a huge waste of previously invested capital. It may be depreciated capital, especially in the most rundown neighborhoods, but Queensgate wasn't like The Bronx in the 1970s, it was still fully occupied (over-occupied even), and that's much better than abandoned and decaying. I won't go so far as to say there was a directed effort to "brainwash" people into hating the city, but perhaps propaganda is a better term. As cities became more industrial and crowded, of course there was a reaction against it. However, continuing to this day, most people confuse density with the problem of overcrowding that started a lot of the anti-city sentiment. Density is NOT a bad thing in and of itself, while overcrowding is, yet most people think they're the same thing. You can have overcrowding in the suburbs or even rural locations as well, just by cramming too many people into one dwelling unit. At the same time, you can have huge density in high-rise neighborhoods and still have a lot of space per person in their own unit. The reaction to overcrowding was certainly justified, as was the desire to get away from pollution. However, with much of the concentrated particulate air pollution and overcrowding gone, there's still this perception that density is a bad thing. Early suburbs a century ago were touted for their clean air and healthy conditions, and people thought that was the only solution. Thus the propaganda machine went into full swing, basically writing off any areas that weren't wide open and full of trees and single-family homes with white picket fences. While the suburbs do tend to stay cooler than the cities, we've solved all the other sanitation issues, so moving farther out won't get you a much healthier environment anymore. In fact, because of all the driving necessary to get to and from those areas, it's almost impossible to escape smog and ozone pollution, so we kind of shot ourselves in the foot on that one.

The historic preservation movement is an odd mix of bipartisanism. Yes, there is a lot of wrangling from the libertarian types who scream bloody murder about property rights (while at the same time living in some rigidly planned gated subdivision). However, the conservative types who are big backers of preservation see it as "protecting our heritage." They're more onboard with the individual listings than neighborhood historic districts, especially for those properties protected because of their original occupants, which in most cases were rich and powerful white men. Churches, schools, or office buildings may be examples of the power or philanthropy of such men as well. Even in large districts with strict regulations, it's viewed in much the same way as HOA covenants, to keep out the "undesirables" and to "protect property values." Just as many may think it hurts property values and fight a historic district designation on that basis, but that's the sort of mindset I see.

Good point Jimmy. You could argue that a big reason Cincinnati/Hamilton County/Ohio/the Midwest aren't growing in population is because we're not offering the things that would entice people to move here. This is a good way to start changing that.

That's a very poor argument to make. Virtually no areas of the city had sewers at all outside the central basin at that time. If you can show that there were still unserved areas of Queensgate in the 1930s, then you might have a case. The hilltop communities are much more difficult to provide with comprehensive sewage systems because the bedrock is so close to the surface in many places. Also, just because an areas is flat doesn't mean it's difficult to build sewers. The Ohio River and Mill Creek are plenty close to provide good drainage. Again, prove that they didn't build sewers and you might have a case. There's nothing inherently unsanitary about any building, it's how its used that makes it so. Yes the buildings were overcrowded, because several families would living in one house. Yes it was unsanitary, because people couldn't afford to install plumbing or properly equip their kitchens (if they even had them). Yes it was rundown, because of the reasons I just mentioned. None of those reasons require clearance. The thinking at the time is that it was just easier to wipe it out and start over, to get the "undesirables" out of the way rather than actually trying to improve their situation. There's no reason the money spent to plow highways through the neighborhood and build awful public housing couldn't have gone to installing proper kitchens and bathrooms, enforcing occupancy limits, and providing proper garbage pickup and sanitation screening. Had Queensgate not been demolished and just a little effort been taken to try to stabilize the neighborhood, it would look a lot like Newport does today. It's not the best neighborhood for sure, but Newport has basically the same typology that existed in Queensgate before it was cleared, and they didn't seem to have any trouble getting the bathrooms and sewers installed.

Even if the population game were in fact zero-sum, which I'm not convinced it is, that doesn't mean the project is not worth doing. Projects like the streetcar are a way for urban neighborhoods to better differentiate themselves and compete against more sprawl. It may not stop greenfield developments along the fringe, and it certainly won't lead to their abandonment, but it should help reduce the demand for more outward growth. Also, even if net growth of the whole region is zero, it's still better for everyone to be densifying existing neighborhoods that can absorb that growth. While the infrastructure out on the fringe may not be abandoned, it will be less burdened by excessive use, so that new sewage treatment plant won't be needed in Mason, the new water main wouldn't be needed to West Chester, the Lakota schools wouldn't need expanding, and I-75 wouldn't need widening. I do agree whole-heartedly with the notion that what we need are jobs, and that the streetcar itself won't create more than a small handful on its own. However, the jobs vs. neighborhoods situation isn't entirely one-way. Cincinnati is actually in a great position in this respect for the streetcar and a redeveloped Over-the-Rhine to have a huge impact on the city. We have a strangely high number of very large and powerful companies for a city of our size. These companies, most notably P&G and Macy's, have a much harder time attracting and retaining the talented employees they need than they would in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. They can only attract the type of employees they need based on the job itself. The city isn't a selling point, and in fact it's a detriment to those who might otherwise consider working there, with the possible exception of Mt. Adams. With the streetcar and a revitalized OTR, they can really wow potential recruits with a neighborhood that could very well be mistaken for Greenwich Village or SoHo. That's a great way to keep these companies here, and quite frankly I'm disappointed that they're not doing more to help the project along. P&G alone could bankroll the entire streetcar project with just 3 weeks worth of their corporate profits. If they got together with Macy's, Kroger, 5/3, Convergys, Chiquita, Scripps, and the other giants in town they easily pick up the remainder of the project's funding with pocket change. I'd like to see them offering free passes for their employees who decide to live along the line, or to help get them better loans to rehab buildings in OTR. Instead they seem to just want more parking garages, which only costs them and everyone more money, in both the short AND long term.

As it is in the entire rest of the country. http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html