jjakucyk

My understanding is that this bridge is similar to the Minneapolis bridge not only in that it's an under-deck truss, but also that it's a fracture-critical truss. That's the important part. When a truss bridge is fracture-critical, that means any of a large number of plates, girders, attachments, etc., could develop a crack that perpetuates to a cascade failure of the whole structure. It requires extra diligent inspection and maintenance to maintain such a bridge, and the long span and crazy height of this one makes that very difficult. The reason this project got the go-ahead now is because it's shovel ready. The replacement bridge was designed years ago, and it's just been sitting on a shelf somewhere waiting for funds, there's nothing rushed about it. The engineering firm states that the new bridge will accommodate 3 lanes each way with wide shoulders, or 4 lanes each way with narrow shoulders, though I sure hope we never see the need for an 8-lane I-71 in this area.

The National Housing Act of 1934, the G.I. Bill, and the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act are perfect examples of how government supported sprawling development. The National Housing Act saw the Federal Government regulating interest rates and availability of home loans. This directly led to redlining of many city neighborhoods simply because they were older. Thus, even people who wanted to fix up their homes couldn't get loans for it, nor could people wanting to move in to those neighborhoods get mortgages. The G.I. Bill provided for zero down payment home loans. That was only available to home buyers, not renters. Since many city neighborhoods were being redlined by lenders, they generally built their new single-family house in the suburbs, which the banks deemed the "safest bet." The Interstate Highway act needs little explanation. Just consider this. It was touted as a series of defense highways, and Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense at the time was also the president of General Motors.

The reason cities decline is exactly as Gramarye stated: decline of safety, decline of schools, and a decline of a standard of living, BECAUSE OF THE government subsidies, highways, and other policies that caused the redlining of city neighborhoods.

Whether road projects would fail or not isn't really the issue, but that nobody ever bothers to ask the question. Road projects are basically given a free pass, while transit projects are put through the wringer and require voter support. It's just a very uneven playing field.

They recently completed some new streetscaping in Ft. Thomas, near the fort itself, and in front of some of the restaurants they bumped out the curb to provide enough room for some sidewalk dining. That eliminates one or two parking spaces, but leaves enough room to put some buffer planting boxes or some such between the tables and the road. It seems like a nice solution.

How can you sit there and say this is not a horrible misallocation of resources? All for the purpose of getting something new, shiny, and cheap with temporary subsidies and socializing the burden on everyone for your own benefit. How about trying to fix the problems instead of simply running away from them to the next development on the fringe?

"Everyone in the district" meaning both the suburbanites and the urbanites. No advantage to either side. In fact, the suburbanite will be paying more on this score because the developer will build the cost of the sewer extension into the price of the suburban house; the urban condo developer just has to hook into the already-existing line. Um, no. The the suburbanites and urbanites are both paying for the upgrades, but what is the urbanite getting for it? Nothing. The suburbanite gets their new sewers in their new subdivision, while the urbanite gets a higher bill. That condo developer can just hook into the already existing line because it's already sized for the location it's in. Except that you already said that the developers will build the price of the infrastructure improvements they have to pay for into the prices of the homes they're building. In addition, the big three issues--size, safety, and schools--remain unaddressed. Again, no. The developers only build and pass along the price of the immediate infrastructure within their own development. The cost to support that infrastructure is what's shouldered by everyone. The developer and residents of a subdivision pay for the cost of the roads, water lines, sewers, and power lines inside their subdivision, but everyone (whether living in that subdivision or not) pays for the resultant arterial road widening, the new water mains, sewer treatment plants, expanded schools, fire departments, police departments, libraries, city government workers, public works departments, and parks that those residents require.

When residents or businesses move out of the city to the suburb while there is no net growth, that is a HUGE problem. More infrastructure needs to be built to support them in the new location, while everything that was already in place at the old location still has to be maintained, but with fewer taxes. Sprawl without growth is just a way for the construction industry to keep making money, but at the expense of the whole region.

And you want do do that with Gold Star? Even the best Cincinnati chili is a very tough sell for out-of-towners, you don't want to sour them on the concept from the start. ;)

The City of Cincinnati is soliciting feedback on the proposed changes to Madison Road. http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/madisonroad/ They want to change it from 3 lanes each way with parking on the outside lanes limited to non-rush times, to two lanes each way with a center turn lane and a bike lane along each curb, with no street parking. As simple as it sounds, there's so many benefits to doing this, not only to cyclists but to pedestrians and motorists as well, that it should be strongly encouraged. I sent in my feedback, send yours.

A big reason infrastructure costs are not necessarily as cheap in the city is because much of the infrastructure in cities also has to support suburbanites, while the opposite is not true. This isn't the case for all types of infrastructure for sure, but for a lot of it. Many an inner city road widening project is for the benefit of those living farther out. A lot of cities widened and added to their surface road networks in the 1930s-1970s on top of whatever interstate highways were being built. This was done in part to compensate for the removal of streetcar systems and the shift away from public transportation to more driving. However, as so many cities depopulated since the 1950s (though many didn't really start to fall significantly until the 60s or 70s) any new road projects within those cities after that time are of dubious value to the citizens who live there. The traffic itself is a burden on residents who live or work adjacent to it, but it's made up of people commuting excessive distances to work and play. Roads aren't the only example though. Many water mains in cities need to be replaced not just because they're aging, but to serve more far-flung locales. The major city in many regions were usually built along some sort of strategic body of water, while the suburbs in most cases are not. It seems logical then that the city would try to extend its water network to serve as many "inland" areas as possible. However, the price of this expansion is the cost of ever larger pipes in cities where they're already largest and most difficult/expensive to replace. Also, many water districts resort to increasing water pressure to extend their service area. This prematurely stresses the older pipes in cities and forces their earlier replacement. Sewers are in a similar situation, and due to their size they're one of the most expensive bits of infrastructure to install. You could even argue that the presence of sanitary sewers is a greater inducer of sprawl than the presence of highways. It's another case where adding new sewer lines to a greenfield development may be paid for by the developer, but the resulting need to add capacity to the treatment plant, or increase the size of interceptor sewers is shouldered by everyone in the district. Another aspect of this argument that's been somewhat danced around is that of age. City infrastructure projects are expensive, especially when you have to replace aging systems that also need a capacity upgrade due to suburban development. Much of the infrastructure in the suburbs is still pretty new, so the maintenance costs are obviously lower. This skews the perception of those costs. When it comes time to replace that infrastructure in a suburb that's not "teh new shiny" anymore, the prospect of having to raise taxes to provide maintenance (which remember wasn't needed when it was all new) on systems in an area that's no longer new and cool, will only serve to drive people out to the next new subdivision. So the cost advantage of density in cities is in many ways corrupted by the need to also provide services to suburban areas, while doing so with older infrastructure. You can say that it costs more to live in a city than in a suburb because the city neighborhood's free ride of newness and public subsidy is over. All the infrastructure to support the neighborhood has been put in place in the city, and everyone living there has to pay for it. Whereas most suburbanites are trying to stay ahead of the wave of true cost, needing to move farther and farther out to do so, and leaving those liabilities for everyone else in their wake.

Incentivizes is the word you're looking for.

Suburban anything is going to have an advantage over central cities if your only criteria is free parking. That's why cities need to stop trying to compete with the suburbs in that respect, and instead focus on the things the suburbs CAN'T provide. To quote The Urbanophile, "By definition, downtown can never out-compete the suburbs on suburban, automobile-based terms. By necessity, parking takes up a tremendous amount of land, creating lots of dead, open space, which the suburbs have plenty of. In fact, that’s the suburbs’ main asset: lots of open space. A city’s main amenity is not open land, but density, walkability, a diverse mix of uses, and the quality of the streets and other public spaces. These are the areas in which the suburbs cannot out-compete downtown." Trying to "bring suburbanites downtown" by providing acres of parking is a losing game. When you do that you get downtowns like Columbus, which have tons of surface parking lots and little worth going to. To quote the same article as before, "we can have a vibrant downtown where everyone complains about parking, or we can have a dead downtown where everyone complains about parking."

There, fixed that for ya. It's not about starting a war against the suburbs, it's about ending the war against cities.

Why is it always an all or nothing situation? I don't want to see all the suburbs abandoned, because that means a huge number of people will have lost the equity and investment they poured into those areas. Look at what abandoning our cities to the weeds has gotten us, after all. That fallout would be an enormous burden on our society, which we've already seen with the spectacular devaluation of such far-flung burgs and the effect it's had on our recent economic woes. However, I would like to see the suburbs stop growing, and investment going back into the cities which are so depopulated that they could absorb a huge share of a region's growth, and do it on infrastructure that's already in place. Also, the electric car is not a panacea, nor are biofuels, or solar/wind energy, or nuclear power. The solution is going to come from ALL those sources, PLUS living in denser areas that require less travel for daily life. While cars get a lot of attention for pollution and energy use, because they're visibly manifesting their use of those resources when on the road, they aren't our biggest use of energy, buildings are. No matter how much time you spend behind the wheel, most people still spend the vast majority of their time in their home or workplace. Powering the lights, computers, appliances, heating, and air conditioning are what consume the most of our resources, and most of that is electricity. We have an insatiable demand for electricity, and if we suddenly switched from petroleum to electric vehicles, it's still going to be more expensive to operate them. Oil is just one component of the overall "energy" system in the world, and it's naive to think that when oil gets expensive the other sources won't follow suit. Even if the production of gasoline was completely independent of all other fuels, electricity prices would still increase markedly from the demand imposed by everyone switching to it. Also, our utter dependence on oil for so many things besides a fuel source raises further questions to the viability of our auto-centric way of life. Yes, gasoline and diesel are main products, and things like heating oil could be substituted with propane or natural gas (at least until we start running out of those too, which we'll do much faster when oil is no longer viable). There's many many other things made of oil that you don't really think about though. Asphalt is an obvious one, and as oil gets more and more scarce and expensive, so will road paving. Concrete is a lot more expensive already, but it also requires a lot of energy to produce and transport as well, and it won't be getting cheaper. Synthetic rubber for tires is made of oil, as are our synthetic fabrics, plastics, foam insulation, even paint. As if that's not bad enough (and it's nowhere near a comprehensive list) many of our fertilizers and pesticides also come from oil. Industrial farming is already a very energy-intensive operation, let alone needing all the petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides on top of that. You do make a good point though, Gramarye, that we'll do whatever we can in this country to try to maintain the status quo of happy motoring, as James Howard Kunstler would put it. Unfortunately, we're putting all our resources into that effort, and it's bankrupting us. There's a growing number of people who are realizing that it's not worth paying out the nose for a mortgage on a house you can't afford that's miles away from work and shopping. The dream of the perfect suburban lifestyle is just that, a dream, and it's not shared by everyone. There will still be suburbs, but all our cities have decentralized to such an extent that in many cases there's nowhere left to go but back to the core. It doesn't have to be a win-lose situation either. Electric cars and alternative energy will help us to maintain what we have, but even without the looming energy issues, the pendulum is swinging back to a bit more of an urban-centered lifestyle. Even ignoring all the subsidizing of suburban development, unfunded liabilities, deferred payments of externalities, etc., a part of the reason it costs more to live in the city is because there's more demand for it. The suburbs are cheap because there's so much of it out there, while nice urban neighborhoods are much more difficult to come by, and thus they're pricier. If we can get more of those nice urban neighborhoods, which is no small feat considering the reluctance of many regions to invest in needed transit systems and retooling their antiquated suburban-focused zoning codes, then the cost and viability of city living will improve and the city's whole region will benefit from it.

Sounds just like Greg Korte at the Cincinnati Enquirer, fishing only for the bad details he wanted about the streetcar.

The FRA really needs to get with the program. They keep tightening the noose around passenger rail travel, which is already so badly choked off it's a wonder we have any left at all. How the FRA is Regulating Passenger Rail Out of Existence

"Bicyclists must keep to the right edge of the roadway, allowing faster traffic to safely pass. Cyclists can travel in the middle of the lane if they are proceeding at the same speed as the rest of the traffic or if the lane is too narrow to share safely with a motor vehicle." This is one I wish more people understood. Most motorists see such a maneuver as deliberately trying to impede traffic, when it's simply the cyclist trying to stop following motorists from making a (sometimes mutually) dangerous move. There's another law that doesn't specifically apply to bicycles, but to any slow moving vehicle, and it relates somewhat to the situation above. It basically states that it IS legal to pass a cyclist (or moped, or whatever) even in a no passing zone, as long as they're going less than half the posted speed limit, and of course only if the sight distances allow it to be done safely.

Which is funny (and sad), because downtown Cincinnati actually has quite a lot of parking at very low prices. The people who complain expect suburban-level parking convenience, which a central city can't ever hope to provide. Trying to supply such convenient parking only ruins the environment, and it's never good enough anyway. I think it was in a recent Urbanophile article where it was said "you can have a vibrant downtown where everyone complains about parking, or you can have a dead downtown where everyone complains about parking." While the Washington Park garage is an expensive proposition, it has the least impact on the neighborhood while providing the same benefits. Surface lots in a place like downtown or OTR are, quite frankly, unacceptable. I would argue that above ground garages are not acceptable in OTR either, because their scale is incompatible with that of the surrounding buildings, and every last bit of street frontage needs to be dedicated to residences or businesses that watch said streets. Even if you could tuck a garage away on the interior of a block, it's a loss of potential other uses for that space, as LincolnKennedy pointed out. If that space was going to be left empty, that empty space could be an asset to the surrounding development, like a private courtyard. The Drexel at Oakley (the newish apartment complex right next to Hyde Park Plaza) is a great example of how a garage ruins what could've been a wonderful space. Whatever your feelings of the architecture of the apartment buildings themselves, the majority of the complex surrounds a grotesque multi-story garage. So instead of a nice courtyard or garden or tennis courts, there's a hulking concrete box. The pool is pushed way to the edge by the leasing office, and there's no other outdoor common area for residents. Not only that, the buildings turn their backs (or sides) to the garage, with no windows looking towards it, since obviously there's nothing to look at. It's a very sad and depressing place because of that.

Great, more expensive heroic efforts to fix something that isn't really that big of a problem to begin with. Electromagnetic track brakes are a prudent solution to concerns about descending cars, but ultimately it seems Skoda (or whoever) should be challenged to build some lighter weight equipment.

The sorts of heroic efforts that can be made to soundproof wood or steel framing is almost entirely unnecessary when using poured concrete floor slabs and concrete block walls between units. Meeting fire codes in many cases forces the use of such materials, but of course not always. Where typical cavity walls are used, or conventional floor framing, the addition of sound insulation is always necessary but not usually required or implemented. Fiberglass is the de facto standard for sound and thermal insulation, even though it is arguably the worst product for both purposes. Polyurethane and Icynene spray foam or even old standbys like blown-in cellulose are great for thermal and acoustic insulation in part because they fill the wall cavities more completely than batts. They're a bit more expensive to install, but they usually pay back quickly with improved comfort and lower heating/cooling bills. That, unfortunately, is usually not a consideration for the builders of multi-family buildings. The outside walls are a concern for sound, but with a brick veneer or more substantial cladding than vinyl siding you get a pretty good sound barrier. The inside walls and floors are a much bigger concern when they're not built up of concrete block. The design of the spaces can be a big factor too. When one unit is a mirror image of its neighbor, it's good to plan it so closets, utility rooms, bathrooms, and kitchens are back to back, so they buffer noise between living rooms and bedrooms. It's also advantageous to do that to simplify the plumbing runs and save cost on that too. Floors are a bigger problem when they use wood framing, because it's much more difficult to isolate the floor above from the ceiling below, especially with people walking around as jim uber said. Double-framing to create an air void is expensive (and if it's being framed with wood in the first place then price is already a concern), and isolation membranes and rubber bumpers are generally not well understood or used by those not building home theaters. A double layer of subfloor and filling the joist cavity with insulation is about the best you can hope for short of a concrete deck.

Yes there are, and they're fantastic targets for value engineering.

Sketchup is actually making quite a lot of headway into architecture offices because it's free and easy to learn and use.

That second rendering is just so over the top sappy and ridiculous it's difficult to take any of it seriously.

Also keep in mind that truck volume will be highest during weekday working hours, which is the time the park would normally see the least patronage. On evenings and weekends, when the park would be most busy, is also when there's the least truck traffic, or any traffic really, save for sports events.