jjakucyk

I looked at the city's bike plan, and there's a loop of bike lanes marked out for the roughly square block of Duck Creek, Oaklawn, Madison, and the new Kennedy Connector as a route to get from Madison across I-71 and up Kennedy Avenue. Nearly all of Madison is designated to have bike lanes, which would be tough between Ridge and Whetsel, and Duck Creek would be a squeeze too without moving the north curb line, which does not appear to be part of this development's plan. Kennedy and Oaklawn can get bike lanes easily just by narrowing the existing lanes and/or additional striping.

This is the first I've heard of it. I've been assuming no new bike lanes with Cranley in office.

A lot of residents park on the street regardless because they charge extra for the garages/carports in back. It seems there's not enough for all residents anyway, but would adding this lot really change much unless it was free for residents? I agree they should pay market price for the land regardless. In that area it's $1 million/acre. Three parking spaces available to the public when the park is open isn't a fair trade by itself.

Unfortunately promises mean nothing since there's no accountability. This project exemplifies the diminishing returns of further road/highway expansion. The low-hanging fruit of improved mobility and economic development was picked decades ago, but we keep building because "it worked before why shouldn't it work now?" Except now truly heroic sums of money are being spent to hopefully, maybe, someday do something better than just shift traffic patterns around slightly. Imagine how many cycletracks, road diets, or new streetscapes this money could have funded. Heck it's half the money for the 3C rail project, that'd get us from Cincinnati to Columbus. Regardless, I don't see this project being of any benefit to residential development, quite the opposite in fact. Who wants to live within earshot of a highway? Did Taft/McMillan help residential development? Hopple? Mitchell? Smith-Edwards? The traffic they generate is more conducive to retail and offices, and if the zoning preferences automobile-based development (drive-thru, lots of parking, single-use, etc.) then that will push residential away even more by creating a people-hostile environment that's unpleasant to live in.

There's no reason for the loading dock to be in the front anyway. There's parking lots abutting both the north and east sides of the store where they could move all that stuff. Yes they'd need to buy some of that land, but if they wanted to make it work they totally could.

San Francisco's car 1057 was actually from Philadelphia. It was just painted in honor of Cincinnati's PCC-specific color scheme (the older Cincinnati Car Company curve-siders stayed traction orange and cream, as did the trolleybuses and early diesel buses that replaced them). Cincinnati initially purchased one PCC car each from the St. Louis Car Company, Pullman, and Brilliner in 1939 to test them out. The St. Louis cars were chosen and 51 more were purchased (26 in 1940 and 25 in 1947). All 52 of the St. Louis cars were sold to Toronto in 1950. It's this very quick shift from buying new rail equipment in the late 40s, along with many significant track reconstructions, and very few line abandonments until the latter half of 1947, to complete abandonment of the system just four years later that makes me wonder what sort of political machinations were going on behind the scenes. Anyway, the Pullman and Brilliner cars were kept until the end of streetcar service in 1951, but they were sold to Armco (now AK Steel) for scrap along with 99 of the curve-siders from the 1920s. The pre-war cars operated in Toronto until 1975 and the post-war cars until 1982. 16 of the pre-war cars were then sold to Alexandria, Egypt in 1968 and all were retired by 1984. Six more were sold to Tampico, Mexico in 1971-1972, and their system was abandoned in 1974. It seems that the newer post-war cars were simply scrapped. They were all-electric while the pre-war cars were air-electric with air brakes and air-operated doors and windshield wipers. I'm not sure why the newer all-electric cars were scrapped and the older air-electric cars were resold, because generally the all-electrics were more reliable and less complicated, and Toronto even changed out many of the air components like the wipers for electric ones anyway. Maybe it was just too late and there were no buyers for that type of equipment anymore.

True, but that wasn't the proposal. Do you still think it was a 39 mph train too? The definition of a "starter" rail line is that it's not a full build, i.e. there wouldn't be stations in every little town because "hurr durr too expensive!" I didn't hear much of the "it doesn't stop near me" argument because by definition the more rural areas it would run through have way less people than the cities it would have served. Noisy minority versus a quiet majority perhaps, but it's still an ideological objection more than anything and the argument is an excuse rather than any legitimate criticism.

Truthiness

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suddenly...LEAVES!

I read somewhere that catenary/pantographs run with less pressure than trolley wire/trolley poles. That seemed counter-intuitive to me, but ok. I can see the trolley wire flexing a lot more regardless, especially in a historical span-wire setup like you see in Dayton, making it easier for ice to be dislodged just from the wire bending and moving, compared to catenary which doesn't move as much.

The two replacement lintels on the first floor (made of wood) are finally installed.

Is it possible for a pantograph to be disconnected electrically even when it's raised to engage the wire? In these double-end cars with a pantograph on both ends, could the (normally down) front pantograph be raised in order to break apart the ice on the wire, while the rear one is used to actually power the car, so that arcing is minimized?

^ CL&N

^ If it's the city then I'd be worried about someone like Cranley putting out a directive to "not hurry too much" to try to make the streetcar look bad. In that case I'd rather an over-zealous private company handle the task because at least it would be done in a timely manner.

I didn't realize they had couplers. Do they have to remove the front and rear "bumper" panels to get to them?

Historically the streetcars to Latonia diverted via 34th to Caroline to use the underpass that was built there, abandoning the grade crossing on Decourcy. It's not a big detour, but it's still kind of clumsy.

^ It's a question of staffing though. Do you have a driver just sitting around for an hour and 15 minutes doing nothing? The way these jobs work you can't just have them "do something else" in the meantime like cleaning or maintenance. Plus the MOF would need to remain open with nothing going on too. You could certainly argue for extended hours up to that time, but a one-off run has a lot of logistical issues.

The interesting thing about the early morning or late night trips is that they're usually paired with another trip during more normal hours. Think someone working an odd shift, or going bar hopping, or whatever. If those fringe services aren't available then potential patrons might not use the system at all during the more normal hours because otherwise they'd be stranded. That's maybe diluted a bit now with rideshare services, but it's illustrative of the ripple effect that can happen when service is limited.

Getting close. Still need to work through punch-list, stair treads, backsplash tile, shower glass (no the curtain isn't staying), and the two replacement lintels on the first floor exterior, but it's almost there!

What else is there to say other than "go take the survey" KJP? There's room enough for multiple conversations here.

I biked on Central Parkway through the Hopple area last week, and based on the striping which is almost finished, it doesn't look like they have any accommodation set up for extending the bike lanes through there. I hope I'm wrong but I'm very doubtful.

There's a "shared-use path" on the north side of the street from Clifton down to Central Parkway near the new Clifton Colony entrance. I know they built the bottom leg of it to Central Parkway, and it may even be open, or at least passable, but I don't know how far up the hill it goes at this point.

I consider "starter urbanism" to be more like the old west Main Street single-story storefronts. Many of our more outer neighborhood business districts like Pleasant Ridge, College Hill, or Mt. Washington are a similar kind of first-generation urban. The Banks is more "sanitized urbanism" or maybe "intermediate urbanism" but the scale of the buildings is already something of a climax condition.

^ Yeah those stencils don't communicate "transit only" to me. The double-white line and/or cross hatching, or even just adding an "ONLY" under the stencil is needed.