jjakucyk

I don't want to absolve people of responsibility for distracted driving, but that's mostly a scapegoat for the systemic over-engineering of our roads and streets with the only goal being to move the most cars as fast as possible through our cities and suburbs. It's the engineering profession, state DOTs, and blind adherence to standards that put motorists in positions to harm and kill vulnerable road users, distracted or not. In Europe "fatalities among pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and moped riders have not decreased at the same pace as in the overall population" but they're still decreasing. It's hard to put the blame on phones in that case.

But did you get a Margarita tower?

Are we talking gross SF? Because 790 SF is quite a big 1-bedroom or a perfectly adequate 2-bedroom apartment. We had some discussions on previous pages that even 400 SF isn't really micro, it's more studio/efficiency size. Now if that 790 SF includes hallways, laundry, lobby, elevators, stairs, and everything else, then yeah maybe cuts the number down by about half but that's still a decent size.

Trouble is, it's the SMALLEST streets that should be pedestrianized. Those are the only ones that have any chance of being activated enough by people and buildings to not feel empty and creepy. In Downtown Cincinnati we really only have alleys that are sufficiently narrow to be truly pedestrian corridors. Think Gano, Ruth Lyons, or Ogden. Aside from those, the rest of the alleys are generally too small, but the "real" streets are too wide. If there was a market building put back in the center of Court that would help, but even Elder Street around Findlay Market (especially on the south side) is pretty barren most of the time. Could Court Street be done better? Yeah probably. Something more like Piatt Park might work. But totally pedestrianizing it without it also being a major transit corridor or pedestrian route is not a recipe for success IMO.

Not surprising for cheap buildings. Nearly every zoning category in Cincinnati has at least a 5' front yard setback, so getting a variance on that one is extra time and work and cost. Plus, the closer the building is to the property lines, the greater the exterior walls' fire ratings needs to be. That's more expensive construction, especially where windows are involved. This isn't as big a deal on the street face, but depending on the width of the street it's still a factor. Doing mixed uses also requires extra fire separations and perhaps even different construction types, all of which leads to additional costs. None of those scenarios are particularly conducive to cheap wood construction.

The manhole cover is at the old location of the storm drain. The new one is covered by that rolled up orange plastic. I wouldn't be surprised though if the original pipe then goes right back out to the middle of the street.

Yeah, that's not in the public data. The set I have is about 20 years old now that I got from school, and it includes sewer, water, and electric utilities, but not gas or telecom. The sheer number of electric poles is monstrously depressing.

I saw someone do that at 12th and Main last week too. They pulled up almost into Main as if they were planning to make a left turn on red. Would be some easy ticket revenue if the police gave a shit.

$1m only buys you about a mile of guard rail along a highway. Not lanes, not shoulder, not jersey barrier, just regular metal guard rail. A million dollars. Similarly, anyone who's familiar with residential construction costs has no clue what commercial construction costs are like. Standard commercial kitchen? Easily $100k in fixtures and appliances alone. "But you can buy a whole house for that!" Yup.

Isn't that what all downtown parking lots are though? They'd have more incentive to sell to a developer if their tax burden wasn't shifted to everyone else for operating what is essentially a vacant lot.

Mileage taxes should probably be collected on a national level if possible, to eliminate the cross-state issue while also not having to rely on GPS tracking equipment. If that's not possible, then from a revenue generation standpoint it's probably a wash. People who are using the roads but aren't paying for them are mostly balanced out by those who are paying for the roads but driving elsewhere. Those northern Kentucky residents currently don't pay for Ohio roads if they buy gas in Kentucky but drive over here, and they still have to drive on Kentucky roads to get here in the first place. Still, my point is that they're just as likely to be balanced out by Ohio residents doing the same thing in Kentucky. Anyway, what we need is BOTH a gas tax and mileage tax. The gas tax should be used to pay for the externalities of burning gas, not for funding roads. Put the money to pollution cleanup, military protectionism, climate change, and the like. Then you don't need special gas for offroad use and you're not taxing lawnmowers and generators for road building. That's what the mileage tax is for, which I think should be as simple as a yearly odometer reading and a fee based on vehicle axle weight. The rate itself shouldn't be based only on weight though. Cost of roads and highways isn't so much about pavement depth as pavement width. Yes it costs more to engineer a roadbed to handle an 80,000lb tractor trailer than typical passenger cars, but the cost doesn't scale linearly with the amount of damage. Also, it's the passenger cars that are demanding ever more lanes and signals and new capacity. Lightweight economy cars don't solve that problem, no matter their power source.

It's a good article, I highly recommend it. The author is super knowledgeable. ?

Still, those are exactly the type of people who should NOT be parking on the street because they leave their cars for so long without any turnover.

The leading questions in that poll make me sad.

It makes sense that you can't create a new lot that's non-conforming, and I would bet easements for a driveway fall into that category.

Ah, gotcha.

Wait, since when does zoning preclude sale of a property? Alterations I understand, even if I don't agree, but there's grandfather clauses for non-conforming lots.

I can understand them not allowing bands in the park because the front doors into the building and the theater face the park. However the back of Music Hall faces Central Parkway, and if they've been able to screen out the police sirens, which can be as close as 20-30 feet from backstage, then how is white-noise-ish crowd cheering any worse? The crowd noise is also mostly contained in the stadium and directed upward to the sky, rather than the line-of-sight from something going on in Washington Park. Also, 400 feet sounds pretty close, but doesn't the inverse square rule apply?

That's definitely an issue.

What's been built so far is excessively "landscape designer-y" in that there's this wandering crushed limestone running path and landscaping that, again, zig-zags across the paved bike path making it more dangerous but which looks pretty on site plans and in photos. I'm all for separate walking and bike paths, but even here they go from bike only to having a huge ditch in between, with excessive turns and obstacles. It's very much not meant for transportation, it's a park for playing. Here's some photos from Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/5chw4r7z/with/42833033465/

Well for the time being they have metal barrier up where the path meets the sidewalk, requiring a torturous zig-zag navigation for cyclists. So I have zero confidence that they're going to do anything even remotely accommodating, let alone with any sort of priority. These people actually were championing the idea of removing the "humps" in the streets where the path crosses (like at Edwards and Monteith), which I called them out on a while back.

That sidewalk in front of Salvation Army is criminally narrow too. The entrance to that parking lot is also a joke since the whole thing is sloped to the street, which I'm sure is an ADA violation. And yet there's a good 12+ foot parking lane there which you can see in Travis' photo, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Sounds like the response to the city's bike plan. "Well there's nothing that SAYS we have to follow through on it."

A lot of small towns bought wholesale into boilerplate Municode zoning. So most of their town center is completely illegal and next to impossible to fix up. The residential areas are likely also non-compliant in at least one way too. So if someone has the wherewithal to overcome all those hurdles in the first place, the result is the worst kind of suburban banality. They don't realize just how much they're getting in their own way, and a state DOT that's more than happy to ream out several blocks for wider through streets isn't helping either.