jjakucyk

The only place they seem to need any fill is to the east of the suspension bridge, to get the new road up to the existing intersection with Main Street. I suspect the area in the picture won't change much at all in elevation, since it has to pass under the bridge approach where I was standing.

The map from Hilton & Due's book dates from the original 1960 printing. A second printing in 1964 adds a few sentences on the disposition of the Pacific Electric's Long Beach line and the Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee, which were abandoned in 1961 and 1963 respectively. It was reprinted in paperback in 2000 and is readily available. I actually kind of wish I had this in a hard cover. I've dogeared so many pages, smashed up the binding, and it looks like I dropped it in the bathtub, so it's just completely worn out, but that's because it's really such a fascinating read and a great general resource. Anyway, they do acknowledge that the town is now Willard in the text, but for most of the Sandusky, Norwalk & Mansfield's operations it was Chicago Junction, so I guess that's why they marked it as such on the map.

Based on the plans I've seen and the way the existing road lines up, I hope not. Rather than the continuous arc we see with the fence, the road should take a gentle s-curve through here.

This isn't exactly complete streets, but it's in the same general category and this seems as good a place to talk about it as any. These are some shots showing the rebuilding of Spring Grove Avenue between Winton and Mitchell. First shows a fairly simple move where they removed the fully paved sidewalk between the buildings and the street. This was a pretty dismal spot with all the old concrete. This setup should eliminate pretty much all rain runoff from the sidewalk. Also, the city appears to have adopted this style of inlet for their drains. This is more bike-friendly than the slanted grates they had previously. The real meat of the road reconstruction here is the rain gardens between Clifton and Mitchell. It's basically a landscaped ditch, with inlets to let the runoff from the street pass through the curb into the ditch (note that they're all still blocked off with plywood at the moment). There doesn't appear to be any drain inside the ditch itself, so I presume that if they fill up, they will simply overflow back to the street, and the water will then go into the few normal drains left on the curb. I think they went a little overboard on the size and number of these inlets, but we'll see how it works out. There's also a narrow landscaped median along this stretch of road too. The only thing that concerns me a little is that they did put sprinklers in all these beds. It appears to be buried soaker hoses, but still. I guess you can't really have plants that are both flood tolerant and drought tolerant at the same time.

Here's a few shots from today, including the prep work for relocating Mehring Way.

It looks like they're finally installing those "temporary permanent caps" though I'd rather see them restoring the steeples. Did they just take the insurance money and run? The place is looking pretty pathetic.

The interurbans were an interesting and short-lived animal in the transportation universe. The fact that only one survives to this day in any capacity even remotely similar to when it was constructed (the Chicago, South Shore and South Bend, and then only the outer portions east of Gary really bear any resemblance to its original setup) shows just how vulnerable they were to the automobile and the truck. Many that paralleled railroads siphoned off the least profitable short-haul passenger traffic. They made very frequent stops, but that was somewhat compensated for by the quick acceleration and braking capabilities of electric cars compared to steam trains. Nonetheless, they were still only 2/3 as fast as steam trains, with about 2/3 the fare. What really made them attractive was their frequency, generally one train per hour during the daytime. Steam trains couldn't dream of getting anywhere near that. Here's a more extensive map of the midwest system from Hilton & Due's book on the industry. Larger version: http://jjakucyk.com/urbanohio2/interurbanmaplarge.jpg Note that while the extensive Ohio and Indiana systems were fairly well connected, long trips via interurban were very rare due to the many transfers and slow running that was necessary. Most interurbans had a schedule speed of around 20 mph, and even one of the fastest around, the Cincinnati & Lake Erie, barely managed to eek out a 33 mph average speed for their Cincinnati to Toledo run. While the distinction between today's streetcars and light rail is a bit different, there certainly are some similarities. Like light rail, the interurbans used heavier and faster cars, and they tried to avoid street running where possible. Here in the midwest, most interurbans in the country used a right of way at the side of the road, whereas in New England they tended to just stay in the middle of the street even out in the country. Today's light rail is much more heavily built though, and it tends to be a more city/suburban service while the interurbans were much more about linking farms and small towns with each other and nearby population centers. While they did provide suburban and city service (they had to go through those areas to get downtown after all) it was usually only done begrudgingly. For anyone who's interested in the Cincinnati area interurbans, you should definitely check out my website. There's a brief history of each interurban line and a much more comprehensive map of southwest Ohio that includes all railroads and connecting streetcar tracks, among other things. Here's a small preview that shows the extent of the map.

Mainly because it doesn't go anywhere. It ends on the northern outskirts of downtown, not really close enough to Fountain Square to be of much use. Also, most of the surface right-of-way was obliterated by I-75, so while the tunnels themselves are intact, they don't go very far before you hit a dead-end and need to find a new route. None of the stations were finished either, they're just concrete shells. I'm not sure if we know whether the Linn Street station was built at all, since it's walled off from the tunnels with concrete blocks. There's also a big water main in one of the tunnels, though supposedly they're working to get that removed. Am I right about that?

I've done some general look-arounds for the three vertical shafts in Walnut Hills, but I haven't seen any. Here's a map I put together based on what little I've been able to find on the location of the excavated sections. Let's go exploring sometime! http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?gl=us&om=0&ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=103871532514751842563.0004604d5c42d920c2e27&z=14

And keep in mind that cheap parking causes a further eroding of urban development and makes it more difficult to encourage transit use. The need to provide parking is one of the single biggest reasons it's so difficult to get affordable housing in downtown areas in the first place.

That's true for any space that's not full of evergreens. Grass dies, trees are bare, flower beds are empty, that's just the way our climate works. It's just a matter of doing it right though. Having some evergreen hedges to create a green framework, and ornamental grasses that may die in winter but still retain their neat shape helps a lot. The key really isn't as much what kinds of plants there are, but that there's also a good framework of paths, beds, walls, pools, fountains, and benches that make it a good place for people to inhabit in warm and cold weather.

Condit's book is a great resource, and its analysis of the urbanistic implications of railroad terminal and route patterns is very fresh and unexpected for the time it was written (1977). There's a handful of factual errors however, some of which are pretty glaring, though it's still a well-researched book for the most part. Hauck's book on the CL&N is also a great resource, and is the only other book besides Condit's that really deals with the Deer Creek tunnel at all. The CL&N eventually bought out the tunnel's franchise, though I don't recall offhand when that happened in relation to the Pennsylvania Railroad's purchase of the CL&N. I wonder if any paperwork for the tunnel remained after the Penn Central/Conrail debacle and abandonment of the CL&N in the Deer Creek Valley. It's interesting to think not only how much different Cincinnati would be today had the subway been completed, but also how those much earlier projects would've shaped the environment of the city had they been completed. The Deer Creek tunnel project was perfectly positioned to access the canal bed at Eggleston, and Eggleston itself was a route to connect to the Little Miami. The abortive Cincinnati Western Railroad, when limited construction started in the mid 1850s, planned a downtown terminal at Central Parkway and Plum Street, intending to use the canal towpath from Brighton southward. Had this corridor been established, along with the Deer Creek tunnel's connection, a union station on Central Parkway would've been almost inevitable. Condit's book talked about a plan along these lines in the early 20th century, but it was never developed since the railroad approaches didn't exist and the area had been so heavily built up. Fascinating stuff.

My vote would be for formal flower gardens. We have more than enough unprogrammed "green space" around. For such a tight space that's already strictly framed by the road network, a formal planting arrangement with a few criss-crossing paths would be very appropriate.

I wanna see!

Beat me to it Living in Gin. Here's a nice map of the route under Central Parkway that shows where the various turnouts and stubs are located.

The subway tunnels end abruptly at Walnut Street, with a major station at Race Street. There's another station at Liberty Street, Linn Street (sort of, it's unclear whether it was fully built or not), and at Brighton Corner.

It's not even in the middle of the park, it forms the northern boundary of the park. There really isn't much traffic on it anyway, you're worrying about nothing.

Think about it from a user's standpoint Johio. If you get off on one block, you don't want to have to walk 3 blocks to go back the way you came. Having the two directions a block apart already reduces ridership compared to having both on one street, but there's at least some logic to it considering one-way streets. Splitting the route beyond that makes it more and more useless for actually getting around.

The point, CincyInDC, is that those things do add up. An extra 30 seconds here and there, more wear and tear, a few more million dollars in construction cost, and then the route is only good for 4 miles instead of 5 or it attracts 10% fewer riders, or whatever. We have the opportunity to avoid those things, providing a large benefit for little cost (and even by reducing the cost).

Well Mehring Way is the only east-west through street besides the 2nd/3rd Street distributors in that areas. I suspect it's in some way necessary to handle stadium traffic, but also it's the only decent bike route across downtown as well.

They could do something fairly similar to what's already there now. http://maps.google.com/maps?gl=us&om=0&ie=UTF8&ll=39.098169,-84.51219&spn=0,0.009774&z=17&layer=c&cbll=39.098251,-84.512209&panoid=RjG5kOmXD5L_Arshzo-gqg&cbp=12,296.7,,0,-1.82

By the way, my final sentence totally keeps the reply on topic! :lol:

Civvik, you showed very well how focusing entirely on mobility over access, and vice versa, would lead to completely bastardized results in both cases. The tangle of overlapping and zig-zagging lines in the access-only scenario would fail because of it's huge costs and limited ridership, since it would take forever to get anywhere. The toboggan ride in the mobility-only scenario from the zoo to the banks would be enormously fun, at least inbound, but it would also fail for missing out on all potential riders between those two points. A sweet spot has to be found on the spectrum in between the two. This is where the criticism of the proposed route comes in. It's obvious that the focus is on access, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that approach. The thing is, it's pretty clear that a huge amount of mobility is sacrificed without really gaining a whole lot of access for it. Look at the map in Eighth and State's post above, and you can't help but see the logic and simplicity of that route. It's easy to understand and follow, especially when giving directions to someone. The actual proposed route is really quite confusing, even for someone who's familiar with the street grid and which roads go which direction. Also, the vastly simpler to understand, and cheaper (both to construct and to operate) route, still has great access! It's only a block and a half to Findlay Market and is no farther than that from the farthest reach on Henry Street of the original route. Yes, it's a bit farther from Music Hall and Washington Park, but these aren't big distances. What you lose there you gain by serving the fantastic Main Street corridor and Pendleton, and it's close enough to serve some of the people on Liberty Hill. Even if the route was shifted entirely to Vine Street at Central Parkway it would be significantly better than the current plan, and it would play into the Washington Park and Music Hall area better. The key benefit however is that either change makes the route to Uptown real, as opposed to the joke of an afterthought that it is now. As it stands, the access focus makes the Uptown connection so mobility-impaired that it could really cast a dark cloud on the project. A little simple unraveling of the route would improve mobility significantly without hurting access much, while at the same time making the project less expensive, easier to understand, and more palatable to everyone. The current route is so access focused that everybody can see the mobility impairments, and this perpetuates the notion of the system as a toy that's not to be taken seriously, since it really CAN'T be taken seriously for moving people around. Remember, a big benefit of a streetcar is that it can carry more people per vehicle, but if it has so much trouble getting around a circuitous route, then those cars aren't going to fill to capacity and the whole thing could fail.

Indian Hill really is some of the worst kind of sprawl out there. It's a very bad example of a "beautiful and peaceful" place. The wealthier suburbs of Chicago's North Shore, like Kenilworth, Winnetka, and Lake Forest are much better at pulling off beauty, because you can actually see many of the gorgeous mansions. While you get larger secluded estates as you get up into Lake Forest, they still present to the street with wonderful brick walls and gate houses. Indian Hill has virtually none of that. All you do generally see is the boring suburban housing developments for the "mere upper middle class" folks, while the truly rich hide down private roads and excessively long driveways. Sure there's lots of woods and "green space" but there's SO much of it that it's just wasted. Such green space is also basically useless unless you're rich enough to have a horse to go riding through the trails, or to drive to the Redbird Hollow walking trail (though no bikes are allowed!). The surrounding suburbs are not the places Sherman is talking about, though Camp Dennison is in a way. It may be charming and cute, but a lot of it is a dump too. More to the point, because of NIMBY opposition in Indian Hill, which is successful because those people are the richest and most powerful in the region, there's no major through roads. Blocking Cross-County Highway is one thing, but they also stopped the Camargo Road bridge over the Little Miami River from being rebuilt, and no streets through town are more than 2-lane country roads. The lack of any direct highway routes through Indian Hill, plus US-50 along the south being only a minor surface highway has significantly stunted growth to the east. Yes, there IS sprawl beyond Indian Hill, but Miamiville, Wards Corner, Camp Dennison, Mulberry, Goshen, and even Milford are much smaller than they would be with better roads. Indian Hill casts a shadow of lesser development very far to the east, basically stunting everything between Loveland and Eastgate. Indian Hill's lack of density itself, as well as its zoning out of any commercial use is a bad thing for the region as a whole. Sure, it may make their own city look prettier, but that's at the expense of everywhere else. The notion of zoning out commercial use is idiotic to being with, because you lose all sense of place. Where's the center of town? Drake and Shawnee Run by the municipal building? Drake and Indian Hill Road, where there's two churches and a cemetery? Whoop de frickin' doo. Granted when Indian Hill developed its zoning ordinance it was in the mid 20th century, when strip shopping centers were becoming the norm, but all you have to do is look at Mariemont or Hyde Park Square or even Montgomery to see how to do a commercial area well. Instead, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has to drive to some other municipality to do ANY shopping at all, thus increasing traffic and blighting those other towns with extra parking lots. Indian Hill could be so much better than it is, but it's a completely sterilized and hostile environment to anyone who likes to do something more than mow his lawn all weekend. It's exclusionary to the extreme, to the point where they scrutinize plans for pool houses and basement renovations to make absolutely sure you're not trying to add an in-law apartment or a somewhat self-sufficient living unit for servants. No, even the personal assistants, cooks, housekeepers, etc., who work there have to be able to drive themselves in. Density and walkability aren not bad thing, and you'd think that being snugged right up next to Mariemont they could see that. Instead, you have about 75% more people as Mariemont, but occupying TWENTY TIMES AS MUCH LAND, virtually all of which is privately owned or is an impenetrable conservation easement. Imagine how much better it would be if all those people were concentrated into a nice little town, even with some scattered estates around, but the rest was a large public park with hiking and mountain bike trails, or open farm land for local produce. Instead, nearly all of it is large-lot single-family development that's off limits to anyone who doesn't live there. There's certainly an argument to be made that blocking further sprawl east of Indian Hill isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, as we've seen it tends to leapfrog around rather than being squashed outright. I mentioned that there is sprawl east of there, but it's so disjointed and difficult to get to that it's simply not worth the trouble for many people. Instead, the sprawl marches north into Butler and Warren Counties, south into Kentucky, and west along I-74 unabated.

I'm sure whatever they plan to do is only for the stretch of the road west of Linwood, or more likely west of Edwards that was just repaved.