jjakucyk

Yes, they've done a good job of cleaning up Mill Creek, and have eliminated pretty much all the industrial point source pollution. However, there's still many areas that have been channelized, which is just about the worst thing you can do to river, especially since you also lose the overhanging trees in the riparian zone. Even with that, it's not too bad overall, UNTIL IT RAINS. That's the key problem with the combined sewer overflows. You get a flood of fast moving storm water, which is highly amplified from hard surface runoff in the watershed, and its also polluted by human waste which lingers for a good while after the flow returns to normal. Basically, the creek is poisoned on a regular basis and has to try to recover from that while being in an already highly stressed state. Hedeen's other book is the "Natural History of the Cincinnati Region" published just four years ago. It does a great job explaining the sorted history of glaciation in the region, the natural order of the area's indigenous flora and fauna, and the effects of development and invasive species. He mentions, for example, that the forests in the ravine on the north side of Ault Park, and also much of California Woods are two of the very few remaining stands of old growth forest in the area.

Crossing tracks at a perpendicular angle isn't a problem, but a bike going straight while rails turn (or vice versa) could be a bit hairy. The real issue with Vine Street, as would be the case with all the roads up the hill, is that with the on-street parking there's only one lane left for the streetcar and bikes, and riding parallel to the rails in the same lane is the most dangerous situation. Now, I tend to agree that Vine is not a particularly important bike route, and I've never had any reason to go from Uptown to Downtown that way myself, though I know some do. I doubt there would be any issue with cyclists climbing Vine because the speed would be rather slow in that case. It's also not a great street for a fast and furious descent either, due to the blind curves and parked cars. I think it'll be a case where anyone riding downhill will just have to hit the brakes a bit more and take it easy.

It's bleak because its focus is really on Mill Creek itself, though the sewer system in the valley is intimately related to it. Reading about the types of industrial pollutants that have been dumped into the thing (which Hedeen goes into in amazing detail on) is pretty gross and disheartening. He goes into detail about the natural history of the area as well (and he even has another book that explores that aspect of the whole region), and reading about the early dense hardwood forests, farms and orchards, and the relatively pastoral quality of the valley until about the mid 1800s as compared to what it is today is also rather sobering.

I can't speak for municipalities who sold out their water systems to the CWW, but there's actually a surprising number of independent water districts in Hamilton County. Aside from Indian Hill and Wyoming that were already mentioned, there's also Terrace Park, Norwood(!), Lockland and Reading (which might share Wyoming's system), Glendale, Loveland, and most of the far western areas of the county like Harrison, Cleves, North Bend, and Addyston. What is interesting is that there used to be independent sewer districts that were eventually brought under MSD. Municipal treatment plants had been built in Lockland, Wyoming, College Hill, Glendale, and Mt. Healthy between 1909 and 1927. Many were closed shortly thereafter because of the horrible pollution already present in the Mill Creek where their plants discharged. It was argued that there wasn't much reason to clean the sewage that even untreated wasn't as bad as the creek. By the close of WWII all those treatment plants had all been closed and the sewer networks were connected to the Mill Creek Interceptor, which unfortunately is still overwhelmed by combined sanitary, storm, and industrial flows. A great resource for understanding the combined sewer problems, and the difficulty in fixing them, is Stanley Hedeen's book "The Mill Creek: An Unnatural History of an Urban Stream." It's a surprisingly enjoyable read, despite the rather bleak subject.

While there may be some people bike riding up and down Vine who'd just as well take the streetcar, I highly doubt you're going to get more than a very small fraction of people who'd even consider it at all. The regular bike commuters who are strong riders, or the UC team out for training, fitness buffs, or anyone who's even a remotely serious rider would not be at all interested in riding the streetcar up or down the hill, even if the timing was perfect and there was no waiting. Climbing hills is tough, but it's fantastic exercise, and flying down smooth hills is fun.

John, you seem to be the only one who has a real distaste for Vine. With all the problems there may be, it's still the most direct and least steep route, and it's also the only one that wouldn't require some sort of east-west jog upon reaching McMillan.

Speaking of the Census, just when IS the 2010 Census data supposed to be available anyway?

I doubt the city makes much money on water and sewer line extensions. I don't know the finances of such utilities, but the fact that they're not private companies suggests they're not very commercially viable. Also, if it was such a lucrative thing for the city to extend sewer lines, then why is MSD billions of dollars in the hole for Clean Water Act compliance? I think it's just a case that it's easier to extend an already large system than to build new and completely self-contained ones. It also probably helps that the Cincinnati Waterworks can draw from the Ohio River while most other municipal water systems around here would have to draw from aquifers, which is a more difficult proposition. Also, don't underestimate the importance of sewers on encouraging suburban sprawl. In fact, that may even be a bigger factor than roads/highways. Look how long it took development to really start exploding along the I-74 corridor. The highway has been there for more than 30 years, yet it's only in the last 10 or so that things have really started to get out of control up that way, and that's because sewer lines were installed. This may also be another component of the Indian Hill development "shadow" on the east side of town. I know Indian Hill doesn't have sewers, and that might extend to Camp Dennison and Miamiville and that overall area of the Little Miami watershed.

If you have to build/upgrade/widen a road, and roads are a lot more expensive than most people realize, to try to lure people into the city who might or might not spend money, and which is just as likely to encourage existing residents to move away, then it is a waste. We had fewer roads and a privately operated and funded streetcar system in this city with some 200,000 more residents before the 1950s. Now we have more and bigger roads, fewer residents, and proportionately higher tax burden. You think that's a good thing?

People who neither live nor work in Cincinnati (and thus don't pay the payroll tax) still come downtown or to the UC area to get or do things they can't find where they live out in the suburbs. Conversely, few people go to White Oak, Indian Hill, or Delhi because there's no reason to. Parks are the best example because they don't have an admission fee and there's separate city and county park systems. So anyone who goes to Eden Park or Ault Park or Mt. Airy Forest and lives in the suburbs is getting the benefits of those places while not having paid into them through property taxes and/or the payroll tax as much as city dwellers. Property taxes are the primary source of the city's funds for stuff like this. I believe the payroll tax mostly funds Metro, but I could be wrong about that. Yes, the stadiums are owned by the county, and the interstates by Ohio, but most roads in the city (or anywhere) are owned by the municipality and must be maintained 100% by them. Money is wasted by governments simply "getting people into town" so they can spend money and generate tax revenue then leave again. When those people don't live in the city, or work in the city either, that's a lot of effort for very little return.

City parks, museums, and other downtown attractions like stadiums, restaurants, Findlay Market, etc. There's all the attendant services required to support those things, like road maintenance, plowing, police and fire protection that is paid for out of city funds. Yes, some of those things do make money on their own regardless of who purchases their goods/services, but everything else necessary for their operation comes from the city tax base. Think of all the roads Cincinnati has had to widen over the years to try to get suburbanites to come back into the city to work or play, while at the same time enabling them to move farther out. In many cities the libraries would be another example, but that's not quite the case here since it's a countywide system.

And that's why our country is a representative republic instead of a direct democracy. The duty of the representatives is SUPPOSED to be to make the informed decisions the generally stupid populace doesn't understand is to their own benefit. That doesn't mean it works that way in practice, but that's the intent.

Because townships suck up residents and jobs that used to be, or would otherwise locate in, the city, while not providing the same level of services. The people who want those services still go to the city to use them, but they don't pay for them. The cities in this country would have much stronger finances if they hadn't been emptied out over the last 60 years while still having to provide the same sewer, road, fire, water, and other infrastructure, all while having to subsidize further road projects that only serve suburban commuters. This is why the streetcar project is such a no-brainer, because it encourages development of areas that are already loaded with infrastructure that is woefully underutilized, and it's all within the city limits.

My understanding was that the tunnels couldn't accommodate freight cars, especially not around the curve at Plum Street. Coupled standard freight cars need curves under about 200' in radius, which is pretty large. That number is certainly lower with the 40' standard car lengths of the past, compared to the 50' standard today, but that's still a pretty broad curve. Even so, I don't see how there'd be any issue with the overhead trolley wire. In subway tunnels, the overhead wire is normally suspended directly from the ceiling of the tunnel with an insulator, so it's only going to be a few inches below the ceiling. If a freight boxcar was potentially in that zone, I'd be more concerned about it hitting the rounded corners of the tunnel between the ceiling and walls. It looks like most freight cars today would not fit in the tunnels at all, with total heights over 15'. http://www.worldtraderef.com/WTR_site/Rail_Cars/Guide_to_Rail_Cars.asp However, something to consider is the possibility of using interurban freight equipment in the tunnels. They used shorter cars, smaller trucks, special couplers that had a lot more side-to-side play, and rounded corners, all for negotiating the tighter clearances and curves of street railway trackage. That seems a much more likely scenario, since there's no steam railroad connections to the tunnel (not that there couldn't be), and the interurbans would likely be hauling those cars with their own electric locomotives or box motors.

Exactly. We're still paying for the roads that buses use, only in many different ways that are harder to track.

It's funny how history bounces back and forth, since Longworth hall is only about two blocks west of the original Central Union Depot, which was at the corner of 3rd and Central. About half of the rail lines into town used that station (though funny enough, NOT the CH&D/B&O line). Flooding of the platforms and approaches was a primary concern, and still is, though natininja makes a good point that other arrangements can be made when necessary. It's only a problem once every decade or two anyway.

Probably because it still requires the full extent of capacity improvements required to reach Union Terminal, plus more, just like the Riverfront Transit Center. One other thing not mentioned is the possibility that the Bond Hill station could be built just off the mainline to CUT (at Berry Yard, right at the I-75/Norwood Lateral interchange), not requiring any rehab of the Oasis line at all. The question remains though if the congestion between Sharonville/Mill Junction and Ivorydale Junction/NA Tower is severe enough that such a location would still be handicapped by delays. Since the directional running of trains is mostly southbound in that stretch, I suspect it is more susceptible to delays by freight trains waiting to get into Queensgate, and that stretch could require a third main track south of Sharonville/Mill as part of the overall fourth main project.

It actually wouldn't surprise me to find out that a large majority of city residents aren't in favor of the streetcar. Mostly that stems from over a half century of automobile-centric rhetoric, development, and lifestyle, so many people simply can't imagine another way of operating. Also, there's a mindset here along the lines of, "if it doesn't directly benefit me and my way of doing things, then I'm opposed to it." That's the kind of mentality that makes the sort of "for the greater good" projects difficult to pass. Even if we could guarantee that the streetcar would yield 100 times more tax revenue than the cost to build it, there would still be a huge contingent of people opposed to the project, even though those new tax dollars benefit everyone. There's a lot of people who think that since the streetcar doesn't serve their neighborhood, then they should oppose it. These are the same people who will say things like "do they really expect me to drive from my house in Westwood to UC just so I can take the streetcar downtown?" Of course that's absurd, but it's even more absurd that they think the planners of the project would expect someone to do that. This is nothing new around here either. The Roebling suspension bridge was vigorously fought by riverboat and ferry interests. Many of the other railroad bridges were also fought by riverboats. Horsecar companies tried to (and in one case succeeded) in preventing cable car lines from being built. The telephone company fought the street railway over converting to electric operations. Wealthy neighborhoods 100 years ago tried to block streetcar line extensions. Existing railroads fought against each other, trying to keep competing lines from being built, and they treated the interurbans with even more disdain. Even the Cincinnati Southern Railway almost never made it due to lawsuits and such. It goes on and on and on, but people never seem to notice that these projects all benefitted the city and the region greatly. It's the same story now, so we just need to make sure there's enough support to get it off the ground, and let the naysayers deal with their own insecurities and prejudices.

From West Chester and Indian Hill, of all places.

I don't think we'll ever really know. You could write a whole book just speculating on that alone.

The North Shore Line was an anomaly, as were the other Chicago interurbans, and most of the Pacific Electric. They were very heavily built, fairly sophisticated systems that had more in common with heavy rapid transit than much of the rest of the industry. The Skokie Valley route of the NSL was even more so, a high-speed route built in the mid 1920s to bypass the slow and congested Shore Line. Some routes became more like that over time, but overall they were a very lightweight affair in a lot of ways. Most were single-track with passing sidings and very rudimentary signaling, if there was any signaling at all. They rarely used anything heavier than 70 lb rail, and grading was usually pretty minimal (though not always). This shot of the Cincinnati, Milford & Blanchester illustrates some of what I'm talking about. Look at the steep grades, and very abrupt transition to the wooden trestle. It's a very narrow right-of-way too, but the significant ups and downs and the tight curves would horrify any steam railroad operator. This was one of the weaker Cincinnati roads, but it's not at all atypical. Anyone who's ever biked or walked the Fairfax/Murray Avenue trail knows it's anything but flat. That was the same interurban line. Google map. Also, the requirement of utility companies to divest themselves of their railroad interests was more of a straw that broke the camel's back than any real problem. Many interurbans went under or were in receivership even before the Great Depression. For instance, of Cincinnati's nine separate interurban lines, only two of them were still in operation after 1930, not counting a few miles of two lines that were bought by the street railway company. Paved roads really were the main killer of the industry, but aside from the Pacific Electric, I don't think the GM conspiracy really did much to the interurbans. Yes, they did buy up many streetcar systems, but the interurbans were already self destructing to such an extent that they didn't need any help from GM. National City Lines for example didn't really become a puppet of GM until the late 1930s, by which time there were virtually no interurbans left, but most streetcar systems were at their peak. The more typical situation saw local power companies and energy syndicates buying up the interurbans just to get their power distribution lines and customers. They had no interest in the railroad operations, and they abandoned them as soon as they could.

Well, since there's already a center turn lane for most of it, and street parking, how much of a diet can you really give it? Just make the lanes all 18' wide? Being a less heavily trafficked road, and being in an industrial area, my fear is that a striped bike lane would quickly become a collector for gravel and debris. Good luck getting that cleaned out regularly.

They have built a stretch of bike path from a little east of the Ludlow Viaduct to near Salway Park. I suppose they're using that as a rationale for not doing anything with Spring Grove itself. Frankly, I don't think Spring Grove needs any bike lanes or anything. It's a big enough road with fairly light traffic, so there's more than enough room to just take a lane (or even ride in the parking lane, which is usually empty) and be done with it. Some sharrow markings would probably be good. I will say thought that this stretch between Winton and Mitchell is pretty tough, especially with the double-right at Winton, so hopefully when they finally repave it and paint new lines we'll see some improvements in that aspect of it.

That's exactly the example I was thinking of (excavated out of existence I think was the phrase he used for the CL&N tunnel). There were more, but I can't remember those offhand. If you think Hauck's book is heavy on facts and anecdotes, have you read any of David McNeil's books on the various interurbans? A lot of the content is verbatim quotes of newspaper articles, personal accounts, letters, and such. Perhaps that's what you were referring to as "black & white railfan books." Nevertheless, McNeil's books are some of the best resources I've ever found precisely for that reason. It's difficult to question the veracity of a date or event when you have a copy of the actual charter, stock certificate, timetable, or whatever it is right there in the book. In a way, you can almost say it's like a photocopy of all the primary source information.

It's the Enquirer, what do you expect? Did they make any effort to get this survey out to people who aren't normal Enquirer readers? If not, there's you explanation right there. Also, some of the questions are a bit loaded. The one about "would you ride at this or that fare etc" is somewhat irrelevant since many people, even those who support the project, would be unlikely to ride it simply because they don't live in its service area. Also, as the one comment on the final poll reveals, how would the reaction to borrowing money for this project compare to other projects? Some people think private enterprise should pay for everything, some thing the Feds should. People just tend to think local funds come more directly out of their own pocket, so they're more resistant to it.