jjakucyk

That's not what I was told at one of those open houses a month or so ago. It may all be phase one now, by default, but it sure didn't start out that way.

I think the topography would have made that impossible -- unless Clifton coming up from downtown was continued straight north (through where UC is now). That's one thing I like about Cincinnati, the topography makes the street grid here much more interesting, some would say frustrating :) But that's actually good for slowing down traffic, I bet. I don't understand this. Clifton does connect to downtown via Vine Street, and Main Street to a lesser extent. Also, how does Clifton, a north-south street, put strain on McMillan, an east-west street? Are you just talking about the little one block long cluster f*** where Clifton doesn't quite connect with itself at Calhoun and McMillan?

As I understand it, the stretch to UC is in fact phase two, a lot of it is still up in the air as far as the final route goes. However, the mayor and city counsel folks insisted that it be built in conjunction with phase one (the OTR loop). I have to agree with them on that, since the connection to uptown has the potential to bring significant ridership pretty much out of the gate. Without that connection, the circulator could flounder, especially if the economy continues to suffer. That would give ammunition to the naysayers who'd point out that "look, ridership sucks, there's no reason to spend money to extend this "boondoggle" any further, it should be ripped up."

It may not be a big issue, but it IS an issue. Aside from the many reasons I've written about here it's also true that one-way streets and their requisite split transit routes have lower ridership than two-way streets. This was seen in New York City in the 1950s and 60s when streets were converted to one-way and bus ridership on those routes dropped immediately. Standard operating procedure for the past 80 years has been about improving automobile traffic flow to the detriment of everything else. We need to stop this mentality that goobers up potentially valuable public transportation systems because they might interfere with cars, especially in an area with so many alternative driving routes. The situation should be the reverse of what we're making it.

Downtown Cincinnati could use more two-way streets, but it's not as bad now as it could be. Most of the streets are still barely 40' wide, and with street parking it's fairly calm with the short blocks and mid-block pedestrian signals. That said, the way street parking is "turned off" at rush hour doesn't help. It's also annoying that 3rd and 4th Streets are both westbound. 5th Street is a pretty wide behemoth next to P&G where it feeds onto Columbia Parkway and I-71/471. The way so many ramps plug into the streets on the east and west side of downtown, it'd be interesting to see which of those east-west streets can effectively be converted to two-way operation. 4th, 7th, and 9th are probably good candidates, but I doubt 5th and 6th could be retooled. I don't think there's a single north-south street that couldn't be converted back to two-way. None of the streets in Over-the-Rhine need to be one-way. If nothing else, I think the effort to make Vine Street two-way in Over-the-Rhine should be extended all the way to the riverfront. That would be a perfect place for the streetcar line, making Vine Street kind of a transit mall. Not transit/pedestrian only per se, but at least car hostile. Splitting the route so that northbound and southbound tracks run on different streets is just asinine, and having better two-way streets to choose from would help simplify the plan and make it more convenient and cost effective. I'm not sure how I feel about turning Taft/Calhoun and McMillan back into two-way streets. As a cyclist, I actually find them great to ride on as one-way streets. They are both 40' wide (give or take), so there's always a minimum of two through lanes. I can just take a lane and not have to worry about cars backing up behind me since they have at least one other lane to pass in. If these streets are made two-way with street parking on both sides, it leaves just one through lane each way. With such a narrow right-of-way, it doesn't leave enough room to ride without blocking traffic or riding dangerously close to parked cars. Making them three lane roads with a center turn lane and wide outside lanes would work, but that eliminates all street parking, and the neighborhoods won't stand for it. Two wide lanes plus parking on one side might work though, and it could still allow for a left turn pocket at some intersections.

There were never streetcars in Burnet Woods itself, just along Clifton and Jefferson/Ludlow. Why the Jefferson/Brookline intersection is so huge, I have no idea, because there was never a streetcar loop or layover track or anything there. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a gate or some other entrance structure of some sort back in the day. Still, what's with the "grade issues" on Clifton? It has much shallower grades than MLK, not to mention the grade required to climb Vine Street out of OTR in the first place.

Clifton is one of those neighborhoods that's hung on quite well over the years, but there's no shortage of neglect. While there may not be a huge amount of "redevelopment potential", there's a lot that good transit can do to keep it from declining. After all, Clifton's history is not all that much different from Avondale, Mt. Auburn, or Walnut Hills, and look how they've gone down the crapper. Good transit isn't just about rejuvenating depressed neighborhoods, but also protecting strong ones from future trouble.

It's funny how Eden Park had just about the only private streetcar right-of-way in the whole city. The gravel parking lot that parallels Art Museum Drive is an obvious giveaway. Some of the Kentucky lines had a private ROW too, as well as outlying lines that were originally interurbans, but within the city limits it was quite rare.

It would seem that the roads through Burnet Woods are not dedicated. In fact, the majority of the park is just one enormous parcel. Still, I doubt that would have any bearing on the potential for routing the streetcar through there. It's an interesting idea.

This is something I really disagree with. From the point of view of spurring development, due to "hey look, the track is right out front" thoughts then you have a point. It falls flat on anything else though. It makes it less convenient for everyone, and doesn't actually help it as a mode of transportation. I wrote a bunch about it on my website, in the 11/4/09 update.

What underground utilities need to be moved in the first place? It's not as if water, gas, and sewer lines are so shallow that they'd interfere with streetcar track construction. Besides, with the exception of Race Street, Central Parkway, and Jefferson Avenue (btw, it makes NO sense to me why they'd split the route between Jefferson and Short Vine), all the streets the new line is planned to run on are ones that ALREADY HAVE OLD STREETCAR TRACKS in them. If anything, it's these old tracks that are going to be a problem for construction, especially ones rebuilt in the 1920s, when they started embedding them in steel-reinforced concrete. If the utility relocations are planned because the respective companies don't want to have their pipes underneath the tracks (whether new tracks on Race or replaced tracks anywhere else), then that makes some sense, but it's not as if this is some new paradigm they have to deal with. While the old tracks will need to be pulled up to lay new ones, their presence means any other utilities are already arranged around them, and thus are mostly out of the way.

When I first moved to Cincinnati from Chicago I thought everyone he drove like crap. I still do. Mainly, it's poor highway etiquette, like slow cruising in the left lane, lots of weaving, trying to merge onto the highway at 40 mph. Generally on surface streets it's ok, but sometimes there's a doofus who doesn't know how to make a turn or which lane they want to be in. It seems around here that it's not an issue of people being aggressive or dangerous, but just driving like a...well...doofus. The disturbing part though is when I've driven back through Chicago, I experienced all the same problems I see here. Namely, people blocking the passing lanes on the highway for no reason. I remember saying, "damn, I thought people here were better than this." Oh well. I have noticed a broad pattern, where it seems southerners (and we're already far enough south here in Cincinnati) just don't understand the principle of merging onto a highway. The farther south you go, the slower people are when merging onto highways. This also leads to people making a bee-line for the left lane, even if they're barely going the speed limit, to get out from behind all the other wankers who aren't accelerating.

I don't live within walking distance of a grocery store now, and I hate grocery shopping anyway, so I tend to try to stock up as much as possible. However, when I lived in Chicago (Lincoln Park) a few years ago, I happened to live right next to a small local, but also full-service grocery store. That place was about 50% larger than the Kroger in OTR, so not super tiny, but a far cry from most chain supermarkets. It was a bit more expensive of course, though not by a whole lot. The main thing is that nothing was ever on sale. Nonetheless, I loved having it next door. If I had a hankering for something for dinner, I'd just stop by after walking home from the L station and pick up whatever I needed. I'd usually go there 3 times a week, bringing home a few bags of whatever I needed each time. My bank and the post office was in there too, which was fantastic. What I really appreciated, even though it was a little more pricey, was even with it being a small store, they still carried everything I wanted. Instead of 100 identical cans of pasta sauce, they'd have 10, instead of a huge gimmicky "bakery" the bread was efficiently laid out in just another aisle. It really was well stocked, and I never had to wait in line to check out either, despite there usually being only one or two lanes open. I did occasionally drive to a large Jewel supermarket a few miles away, to try to stock up on non-perishables and other less expensive items. It ended up being too much trouble though, so I stopped. I also checked out the 2-story Dominick's that was right next to the Fullerton L station I used to get to work. It is a pretty cool mixed-use building with the store on the first two floors, and four more floors of either offices or apartments above. Unfortunately, that was too far to carry groceries home from. So I think you do still see people trying to stock up at times, but also do as-needed shopping as well. It's really a function of distance and how you get to the store and back. Even in an urban environment, if you have to drive to get there then I'd expect to see the stock up mentality. If there's a store within walking distance, but still a little ways away, you might see both, depending on how people transport their groceries (you can't walk home many 2 liter bottles of soda, or bags of kitty litter without your own cart). I'll bet the small stores like the one I mentioned above will probably survive, though I don't see new ones being built. Chain supermarkets will do whatever they can to make all their stores fit their corporate model, so I'd expect to see any new urban stores be pretty big. That's not necessarily a bad thing, since the bulk inventory helps keep prices down over the small stores, and with little more than extra "express" checkout lanes, I think they can just as easily cater to the frequent shopper as to those who stock up only a few times a month.

Very cool! Also, here's a map specific to Cincinnati annexations. The blue underlayment shows the few areas added after the map was made in 1940. For the full size image, see here: http://homepage.mac.com/jjakucyk/cincyannexation.jpg