jjakucyk

Neat, the area between Gilbert, MLK, Taft, and Victory is the most bombed-out urban-prairie-ish part of the neighborhood.

Based on the description, my guess is it'll be something like this. I could see the left wing having potential for reuse, but of course I have no idea what it looks like inside. The wings on the right look to be very chopped up with fire walls and different eras of additions, connectors, etc.

You have to buy the 2-pack. It would be nice if you could add multiple single fares to your cart and then the fee just drops off, but that's not how it works.

So the Transit app charges a $0.20 service fee for purchases under $2.00, effectively making the standard 2-hour fare $1.20 if you only buy one.

Has it though? There's been spillover development from OTR for a while now, and I don't think the stadium has a lot to do with it. In fact I feel like the stadium acts as more of a barrier. It looks to me simply like a continuing upswing of an already established trajectory.

So what's the voting strategy on this for next week? Vote yes now and the sales tax vote in 2020 could fail, leaving Metro with peanuts? Vote no now and nothing changes since the sales tax increase is contingent on this passing?

Pension obligations are more a symptom than a cause. If they had adequate income those expenses wouldn't be an issue. Norwood was not a one-company town, its industrial base was a lot more diversified, even if GM was the standout. The thing is that nearly all of that industry is gone. Death by a thousand cuts. Rookwood Pavilion and Commons were industrial sites before, and even though the shopping center is "the new shiny" they're quite low-value buildings and a lot of the sitework is nearly valueless parking lot. With many fewer and low-wage employees, and I'm sure tons of tax incentives and reassessments over the years, the tax receipts very likely don't even come close to what they used to be, and these new commercial developments still need street upgrades, new stop lights, and all that too. So really a major issue is that the industrial tax base has withered away leaving mostly single-family housing to support the tax burden, which except in the most wealthy suburbs it can't. They then seduced whatever commercial development they could to replace industry, accepting whatever deals came along due to desperation, and coming out in the negative in the long run. I have little doubt that Rookwood (with the possible exception of Rookwood Exchange), Surrey Square, Paycor, and whatever you call that area where GM used to be, are all net negative financial moves. To boot, what they have left of a walkable commercial spine along Montgomery Road just gets further rundown and eroded, despite very likely providing some of the highest taxable value per acre in the city, because of suburban zoning overlays with density restrictions and excessive parking requirements.

But St. Bernard is so tiny that all the residential areas are just 2-3 minutes from the Mitchell exit. Both St. Bernard and Norwood pride themselves so much on being "not Cincinnati" that they can be really off-putting to those who might otherwise be interested in moving there. For Norwood especially, you still get crap schools, awful street maintenance, high taxes, and the city is still insolvent. It's like they're happy to be independent even though they seem much the worse off for it. "Take THAT, East St. Louis" indeed.

This Old House did something like that back in the day (not sure if it was the full program or just a segment). I think it was a three-flat that came in either three or six pieces that was then bolted together onsite. Japan has a strong history of this sort of thing. Modular construction might be a better term. The complicating factor is that the foundation still needs to be in place beforehand, and that's a major expense that isn't touched. Plus, it requires a crane to hoist the single-wide-sized pieces into place. If that's even possible on a tight lot or hilly street, the logistics of staging the assembly can be a real hassle because of trees, power lines, rain, wind, etc. I think some sort of prefab or modular foundation system would be more of a boon, especially here with our unstable hillsides. No matter how much efficiency you get from prefabbing the upper part of the building, you lose it to the bespoke foundation with five different cross-sections, retaining walls, and piers. Of course I have no idea how you might do such a "one size fits all" foundation system, which is probably getting into graphene and carbon fiber territory. Then you need some pretty sophisticated machinery to excavate and set these things. It's a hard problem for sure. Beyond that there's middle-ground modular systems such as ICF (insulated concrete form) buildings that have some penetration in the residential market but are mainly found in midrise hotel construction for now. Those are basically hollow styrofoam lego blocks that are then filled with concrete. They're not just for foundations but all the exterior walls. They're best for buildings with punched window openings (hence the hotel preference) instead of large spans of curtain wall or crazy shapes. They also tend to be stucco buildings since that's the easiest and cheapest way to cover the foam, but that doesn't mean there aren't other options. Thermal and structural performance is excellent, and while cranes aren't usually necessary, a concrete pumper usually is. SIPS (structural insulated panel system) is the most likely to break more into residential markets. Those are structural panels made up of styrofoam in the middle and plywood glued to each side. So instead of "stick built" it's "panel built." Insulation performance is also very good, and they're more flexible than ICF, but they're also likely to require a crane. So the more manufactured/prebuilt/modular you get, the more equipment and logistics you need to do the onsite assembly, even if it's very quick. The kit-built Sears type home is probably the low-hanging fruit, but I think the variability of local codes (even in today's era of the International Residential Code), inspectors, and zoning constraints mean it's just too difficult to make something that fits even a majority of potential customers/locations.

Damn that's a bummer, they were a good lunch option.

Form-based codes are scary.

The video on Metro's site is pretty cringey I have to say. It's way too cheery in a 1990s way, and rather condescending too, especially the live action part. Not that I don't agree with the premise, but that's not a good way to get the message across.

They mix just fine. Dump trucks and Ferraris have "wildly different characteristics" too but they don't need separate accommodations. We only need one zone between pedestrian sidewalks and automobile roadways, and even that's hard enough.

Since these bridges were built or previously modified to take on much higher loads, I assume now it's not so much a matter of retrofitting as it would be rebuilding.

Wow, only a 2-ton weight limit? That's pretty scary.

While biking around the city today (Hyde Park, Mt. Lookout, Columbia-Tusculum, Madisonville, Oakley, Bond Hill, Spring Grove Avenue, Queensgate, Downtown, East End) I noticed a LOT of "This bus stop under consideration for removal" signs. There had to be at least 20 that caught my eye, and I wasn't really looking for them either. I'm wondering what the push for that is. If they're infrequently used stops, they wouldn't be impacting schedule speed much. Yes there's generally too many stops in too short a distance, and it can be annoying when someone pulls the cord for the very next stop just a half block away, but does that really happen much, especially on some of these less-used routes? That should only really impact the heavy-haul lines, and even then the higher frequency of buses reduces the number of stops per bus. I also don't see it being a cost-cutting maneuver since these stops don't have any infrastructure, just a sign and maybe a sidewalk extension. There's no benches or shelters or anything else besides the sign that's under Metro's purview to maintain.

If it was hosting rail service that would be a bit of a different story. That wouldn't be unlike Chicago where all the major train stations are at the periphery of downtown. In that case, there's shuttle bus, 'L', and even river taxi services to take you east and west across downtown. The CTA buses don't stop at the periphery though, they feed through. At the same time, because of the 'L' and Metra, comparatively few buses go to downtown, it's mostly the ones that run on the streets that also happen to traverse downtown.

No way those old 4-plexes (or 6 or 8-plexes) have concrete floors. They may have block walls between units and the stairwell, but the floors are almost certainly wood framed. That's the case in much older buildings as well as somewhat newer ones (into the 70s at least). They don't get nearly the respect they deserve, being roughly similar in massing to the single-family houses that many of them replaced or were built. That's surprising what with all the love for mid-century modern right now. They're just nothing particularly remarkable on the inside.

How much of Government Square's "business" is transferring between routes versus origin/destination downtown trips? I see moving to RTC being less useful in both cases for riders, though maybe more so for one use-case versus another. Government Square is already a bit too far south to be the downtown origin/destination hub for anyone who works above 8th or 9th Street. It's easier to get a bus at one of the other downtown stops on the way. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It gives some options if you don't work near Government Square. If the hub is moved to the RTC, then fewer people will use it since it's even more skewed out of downtown's center. Rerouting buses and making it the only option will certainly piss off more people than it helps, assuming it gets more origin/destination use. If it's more for transfers, then there might be a better argument, but again, unless the rest of the downtown stops are eliminated or routes seriously rerouted, it may just mean that more people choose to make their transfers elsewhere. It's not like Metro is a hyper-efficient rapid transit system that whisks people into downtown in a flash such that they'd tolerate a mode change to the streetcar or some other downtown circulator system. Especially not the way it's run now, with 10-15 minute wait times and anti-priority. Take that hour long bus ride and add another 20+ minutes to it? I don't see that flying with anyone.

When it was built, the Kroger HQ had more of a Lever House aesthetic to it. Very mid-century. The base was also much more open to Vine and Central Parkway, especially floors 2 and 3, but Court Street was even more of a blank wall at ground level than it is now.

Did they even run all five during Blink? Have they ever run all five other than on opening day?

How is that a roundabout fail? That can happen anywhere.

Hmm but it only shows them for half the route, either inbound or outbound. Is there no way to just see where all the cars are without having to swipe between directions?

How? All I see are inbound and outbound routes but no vehicles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit_creep