jjakucyk

Yep, so Duke comes and removes their primary distribution wires from the tops of the poles, but they can't remove all the secondary distribution because it's still feeding Time Warner's repeaters and usually there's still a few service drops to buildings, and then maybe Cogent has some fiber up there, or even Cincinnati Bell (though nearly all of their copper POTS lines have been underground for a century now), and none of them will work while the others are in the way, blah blah blah.

Some poles lingered at DeSales Corner for years before they finally expunged them. I suspect part of the issue is that the utilities that share the poles all bicker about who needs to take down what first, and they go back and forth a bunch of times gradually whittling away at it.

That's a cool building. A real shame that it's owned by the Josephs. It's entirely possible it was a car dealership once upon a time. The building to the right, which was Harry Hake's architecture firm on the 2nd floor, was also a car dealer on the first floor. They used to be super tiny back in the day.

Is this the final plan? http://www.projectgroundwork.org/downloads/lickrun/Lick_Run_Greenway_poster_web.pdf It's basically Calhoun/McMillan except there's a creek on one side. There appears to be redevelopment potential on the south side of Queen City between Grand and Quebec, but by just showing it as an unlabeled green lawn it really screams "I was designed by a landscape and traffic engineering firm." On a drawing like this I want to at least see the developable parcels labeled, and preferably show future buildings to illustrate that they actually have some idea of what they want to see go in here. Unfortunately with these 3-laner one-way streets that will at best have street parking only on one side and not during rush hour, if allowed at all, I fear any new building that might happen will be single-story low-value crud with parking on one or both sides. At least they managed to detangle the whole State/Beekman abomination, but these streets are going to be asphalt wastelands like ODOT has turned MLK into at both I-71 and I-75.

Even if a property is listed on the National Register, if you aren't going for tax credits you still have a lot of freedom to do what you want.

Being a concrete structure probably means they're worried about rusting rebar and chunks of concrete falling off (several pieces have already fallen), along with continued water and salt intrusion. Reducing the weight limit doesn't fix that. Aside from that, it really messes with Central Parkway below, squeezing the sidewalks through piers or blocking the sidewalk completely, and blowing away the geometry of the bike lanes too. The fork-in-the-road intersections it creates are also pretty rough. I just don't think they could ever dress it up enough to make it not look like a blobby turd.

Losing both the pedestrian bridge and this road bridge would be quite unfortunate. If it needs to come down that's ok, because frankly it's a mess in all sorts of ways. Now that Colerain no longer connects through, there's an opportunity to put something back in a much better configuration, but to just get rid of it completely would be a big mistake IMO.

The 5th St. Viaduct paint job still looks really good. Obviously it's about time for a refresh, but it has held up remarkably well. I don't really agree, it's pretty faded. Yeah it's still green (whereas the PPB went from purple to gray), but it's gotten quite pale. At least on 5th street the steel is well protected by the overhang of the concrete deck above, so it's not as streaky or rusted as it could be. One paint that seems completely stable is the orange they used on the I-71 overpasses around Ridge and the Norwood Lateral. Those were painted back around 2000 and still look almost brand new.

I fear Chuck Marohn is going the same direction as Jim Kunstler, but I don't know where exactly he and Strong Towns is going to end up. The rhetoric has gotten kind of tired and echo-chamberey, much like Kunstler's long-emergency tirades. It doesn't hold the same appeal as when they were first discovering their respective interests, and you could explore those things with them and kind of learn about it together. Now they come across as self-righteous obstinate pundits. The main difference is that Kunstler was always grumpy, and Chuck is anything but.

They're also doing repair work and repainting of the steel under the 5th Street Viaduct. Has the current green really been on there 19 years? I'd swear it was done again about 10 years ago. Lots of stuff getting refreshed on that side of downtown regardless.

A Mercifully Brief Chapter on a Frightening, Tedious, But Important Subject by James Howard Kunstler "Our system of property taxes may be the single most insidious, pathogenic factor contributing to the geography of nowhere. It is almost impossible to discuss..." http://www.earthrights.net/docs/kunstler.html

It doesn't even need to be an app, they could just make the website mobile-friendly with proper menus and navigation. As it is, on a mobile device it doesn't register taps/clicks, thinks you tapped on something you meant to scroll past, and pinch to zoom doesn't know whether you want to zoom the page or the map. It's really not that hard a problem to fix.

Is there any indication of how much donation money is actually on the line here?

What this? https://goo.gl/maps/VT9nUpDxap72 I find that corner quite dead. It's not good urban design as far as I'm concerned, especially with such a huge setback and such a short building. Maybe if the outdoor seating came all the way out to those pillars it would activate the sidewalk better, but as it is that's a non-place that's little different than a vacant lot/missing tooth. Saying you won't notice the setback on Race Street sounds like a windshield perspective to me, because when you're walking by the building isn't large enough to make it feel like a wider sidewalk, especially with the wall coming down in the middle and the overhang of the building mass above.

It's not apples to apples sure, but the point is to show how such a small setback can have a huge impact.

If ODOT is only demolishing one wall and not the other, I wouldn't be surprised if they match the old design (for the concrete if not the railings, which are probably not code-compliant anyway). It's pretty simple so it could be sold as both a cost-savings and a nod to historic integrity. It looks however like they want to do mural type walls, kind of like you see up near the Dayton Airport. http://www.dot.state.oh.us/districts/D08/ThruTheValley/AESTHETICS102007/Appendix_E_AestheticsDecisionsBrochure.pdf

I see what they're trying to do with the recessed first floor but what about in winter, or if in a few years this restaurant is replaced with a retail tenant or some non-restaurant retail that doesn't have outdoor seating? Then the recess serves no practical function while also disengaging the storefront from the sidewalk. Consider this building in O'Bryonville https://goo.gl/maps/CrghHoqiEPr It's not parallel to Madison Road and it has a bit of a setback to start with, but nothing major. Nevertheless, its relation to the street and sidewalk is completely destroyed. Swing around to the opposite side of the street to see proper frontages as opposed to this sort of pseudo-urban junk that's all too typical in places like Madeira, Blue Ash, or even Norwood. Small seemingly insignificant moves can have a big impact. Plus, in pedestrian-oriented zones there's some very specific requirements for first floor transparency and a build-to line on the first floor (basically lots of glass, built right up to the sidewalk) so setting back like this does kind of fly in the face of that.

^ Ramps like this are de rigueur on newer highways. You see a lot of them in the south.

Back in the day, Queen City Avenue used to connect all the way through to Colerain. The little bit of Buck Street where it intersects Spring Grove is all that's left of it east of Mill Creek. Harrison Avenue itself also remained open until the Western Hills Viaduct was finished and the old Harrison Avenue Viaduct was demolished. It's amazing how thoroughly these streets have been <Christopher Lloyd Voice>erased...from existence.</Christopher Lloyd Voice> http://jjakucyk.com/transit/chd/index.html

I would challenge the notion that the Western Hills Viaduct is legitimately part of Union Terminal anymore. It may have been when it was built, but so was the Waldvogel Viaduct, and that got State money for reconstruction because it just so happens to be part of US-50. It also has no ties to the railroads anymore. Anyway, the Western Hills Viaduct was built to replace the older Harrison Avenue Viaduct, which itself appears to have been funded partly by the railroads and the city (with a push from west side land speculators). So I can certainly buy that the railroads have some skin in the game, but the facilities of Union Terminal that used to be north of the viaduct (the roundhouse, turning track, and steam plant) are now gone and part of CSX's Queensgate Yard. The Union Terminal concourse and platforms were demolished for Norfolk Southern's Gest Street Yard. So the terminal building itself is really all that's left, and any claims on its funding for stuff outside the building and park(ing lot) is pretty much a sham if you ask me.

Correct... http://www.jjakucyk.com/transit/cln/index.html

I think Mason or West Chester would be a bit out of Archie Bunker's price range. I picture him in a place like Deer Park or Bridgetown. The first ring suburbs and enclaves (and by first ring I mean immediately outside the city limits, though by date and style they'd probably be considered more like second ring) such as Deer Park and Bridgetown, as well as St. Bernard, Anderson, and Delhi, seem to be excessively curmudgeonly and anti-city compared to some of the farther out suburbs and exurbs.

They may have put in a little channeling island (pork chop) which would need to be removed, but that's a pretty minor thing.

^ How so? All they did, as far as I can see, is flare out the ramp a bit where it intersects McMillan so larger vehicles can make the turn without riding up on the curb. Granted, I can see both ODOT and the city DOTE raising hell about two-waying the rest of McMillan because then eastbound traffic would need to make a left turn across oncoming traffic to get to the ramp, requiring a signal with a left arrow and all that.

I spent two months in Denmark, taking the train daily, and I think there was only ever one fare check. While traveling around the rest of Europe for a month, taking buses, subways, and streetcars everywhere, there were only three fare checks, two of which were in Munich.