jjakucyk

Taken for a Ride is a bit heavy-handed and sappy in its presentation, and could use some fleshing out in its history and analysis, but it's still worth a watch. Of course, there's also my website too :) http://jjakucyk.com/transit/

I haven't seen any of those revelations in this thread though, if there's been discussions elsewhere then fine, but I don't follow most of the political discussions here.

So is there any general consensus on whether a yay or nay is the right vote on this? I'm suspicious of anything Cranley does, but there seems to be a decent number of pros along with the cons here and no definitive suggestion one way or the other that I can glean.

^ It absolutely is realistic, just not in the short-term.

Something to keep in mind about street parking, which many new urbanists advocate for almost to the point of fetishizing it, is that it's merely a tool for mitigating the impacts of an excessively wide street, and an imperfect one at that. Yes if the street is wide has even moderately fast moving vehicles, then parked cars are a way to provide a buffer to the sidewalk. Still, a narrow street that people can walk down the middle of because it's so narrow that cars can't go fast doesn't need street parking because there's nothing to buffer from. Similarly, a greatly widened sidewalk that puts the street furniture (lamps, benches, trees, planters, cycletracks, etc.) next to the roadway is preferable still because it's permanent, whereas parked cars are not. It's rare to find a street with the parking spaces 100% occupied 100% of the time, meaning the buffering effect is lost when it may be needed the most, such as late night or on weekends when the relative emptiness of the street encourages speeding. It's similar to the vehicular cycling arguments. Vehicular cycling is a tool to work within a flawed system, but it's not a goal to be striving for, and neither is parallel parking.

There's certainly an argument to be made that trading one off-street parking spot for one on-street parking spot is a net loss for the neighborhood, but that argument breaks down once you get beyond a 1:1 ratio. It's kind of an interesting thought process, since one off-street spot with a curb cut is no different than having a reserved on-street spot for that person. There's one less spot for everyone in the neighborhood to compete for, but one less person competing for them. On the other hand, that spot isn't available to others when its owner isn't using it, so that's where the net loss comes in. In general, what's interesting about San Francisco is that while the painted ladies and core neighborhoods like Chinatown and the Mission have pretty small and innocuous garages in comparison to their fairly sizable buildings, the same isn't true out in Sunset or Richmond. This is pretty bad from an "activated sidewalk" perspective, on top of the excessively wide street that's pretty useless for street parking https://goo.gl/maps/r1onUdfDEpH2 but this is even worse https://goo.gl/maps/gusGuBpn2Qm Talk about harsh and unpleasant.

An interesting point Speck made at his Fall Forum speech was that when you convert streets from one-way to two-way, you in many cases eliminate the need for traffic signals in favor of 4-way stops. When you have 4-way stops, you don't need turn lanes, so you can maintain if not increase curb parking, allow for bump-outs, planters, bus stops, bike lanes, protected intersections, etc. Since the main cost of converting between one-way and two-way streets is redoing the traffic signals, that's a compelling argument. As far as capacity, the rule of thumb is that a street with one lane each direction can handle 10,000 vehicles per day (AADT). No street inside OTR carries that much traffic other than Liberty (about 15,000), and even most downtown streets are in the 5,000-7,000 range due to being a comprehensive grid. So ignoring the streetcar for the moment, you could legitimately convert every street in OTR to two-way (barring the ones that are so narrow there's only one through lane anyway) and remove every traffic signal except at intersections with Liberty and Central Parkway (plus the mess of Vine/McMicken/Findlay due to its complicated geometry and poor sight lines). The highest count I could find in downtown (other than Central Parkway) is East 5th Street at 12,692, yet it's 7 lanes wide one-way. 2nd and 3rd Streets are similar. The fears about gridlock and delays and "hurr durr war on cars!" is completely unfounded.

If the city would just blanket allow accessory dwelling units (they can keep the current 800 square foot limit as the maximum footprint, but raise the height limit to allow an occupiable second story) then garages can be built as proper carriage houses either on alleys or side streets. As a concession, there can be stricter guidelines for garage door materials and design such as no double-wide doors, no blank panels, etc. It doesn't address the issue of narrow lots with no rear access, but maybe that's a case where more scrutiny needs to be applied to the garage door selection by the conservation board.

It's interesting how they integrate parking in urban neighborhoods in Asia. The results aren't perfect for sure, but generally more creative and (usually) less oppressive. http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2011/061211.html http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2011/092511.html http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2011/071711.html

The packet indicates that the parking lot wouldn't change, they'd just plant grass (whoop-dee-doo). Not that it precludes expanding the parking lot in the future, but it looks like they bought the property for the existing parking lot and have no use for the building. The board did what they're supposed to do here, but it does say something about St. Ursula that they thought they had any leg to stand on here.

^ That's when most of Cincinnati's 4-plex apartments were built.

I agree that adding "ONLY" would help, plus some white diagonal striping too.

Actually there are plenty of city staff positions that are part-time, and the smaller suburbs and towns avail themselves of the opportunity to not hire full-time staffers for positions where it's not needed. Many of the Cincinnati suburbs all share from a small pool of building department officials. Usually the same guy will work for Mariemont, Wyoming, Glendale, Indian Hill, Fairfax, keeping office hours at one particular city just once a week or maybe for half a day twice a week. The building department head in Woodlawn only works from 11:00 to 1:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays if I recall, and they still contract out their actual plan review to a 3rd party. Even some Hamilton County reviewers moonlight in other suburbs. This maybe isn't so easy to for every department, but I can see it working for street maintenance crews, engineering, sewer and water, etc.

^ There are SO many ways you could anthropomorphize that stencil.

^ I can see Metro*Plus being used as the name of the *service* on top of the actual route. So the existing route would be "Route 4 Metro*Plus" or something to that effect (I know it doesn't follow Route 4 through uptown/downtown but you get the idea) similar to how you might say Route X Limited or Express.

What no pics? Pics or it didn't happen.

So in honor of Back to the Future Day today, I thought I'd bring up something I haven't seen mentioned in all the discussions of what they got right or wrong about what's now our present. Most people are talking about flying cars, hoverboards, self-lacing shoes, and the Cubs winning the World Series (hehe), but I haven't seen anyone mention the representation of Hill Valley itself. Back to the Future II has a pretty good handle on the Back to the City movement, if a bit accelerated compared to most of the country. Recall that in 1955 Hill Valley, downtown was basically firing on all cylinders, though on the verge of a long painful decline. There's a nice courthouse square, businesses all around, well kept neighborhoods and schools, all great stuff. By 1985 the courthouse square has been paved over for a rundown parking lot, the theater is showing porno, other stores are boarded up, Doc Brown's mansion has been replaced with a suburban commercial strip, and the Twin Pines (or Lone Pine) Mall and other subdivisions like Lyon Estates and Hilldale have sucked most people and jobs out of downtown. Hill Valley 2015 however is even more happening than it was back in 1955. The courthouse square is now a park/pond, the courthouse itself is a mall (not surprising considering that's when downtown malls were seen as a thing), but the main point is that all the stores are occupied and it's a busy place. Hilldale on the other hand, a suburban development that was new in 1985 and exclusive enough that someone with a Rolls Royce lived there, had become a rough and run-down neighborhood, nothing but a breeding ground for tranks, lobos, and zipheads. Granted that's a bit extreme, but it illustrates the vulnerability of the "new hotness" suburbs, especially in the face of disruptive transportation technologies like flying cars and the like. Anyway, I just thought it was an interesting take on the subject.

Don't forget the historically separate neighborhoods that are all lumped in under "East End" (Fulton, Pendleton, part of Columbia-Tusculum, Turkey Bottom, and even Linwood). Granted these aren't really used much in general conversation like O'Bryonville, East Hyde Park, Pendleton, Brighton, etc., but there's a similar historical context anyway, and some newer signage has tried to bring back a little of that history.

There's a 10-foot diameter sewer that runs under the site, which drains the Crawfish Creek watershed now occupied by Delta Avenue and the upper part of Linwood Avenue to Hyde Park Square. It also cuts diagonally through Columbia Square, but the buildings were arranged to not be over top of it, just the parking lots. This ugly structure by Riverview Academy is for that sewer, which I assume is a lift station to send the day-to-day sewage to the treatment plant next to Lunken Airport. https://goo.gl/maps/MHLP8jgzf7r

The opening is a tad narrow, it's 15'-6" wide by 9'-0" tall, but a standard 16' x 9" door will work fine.

I'm curious Jake, do you actually like anything at all?

Can't these "gaps" between the decks and the sidewalks be spanned with a metal grate? That might not be ideal, but it's better than an open trench.

as he said...

Maybe it is in use but hasn't detected close enough traffic to start metering when you've gone through?

That's still a very windshield-centric viewpoint. One-way streets only convenience through traffic. In fact the one-way streets are a hindrance to navigating the neighborhood because the incomplete grid makes it more difficult to reach a particular destination without circuitous detours. Convenience is not more important than safety. They don't only convenience through traffic, but also traffic that either originates or arrives in the area. It's much easier to drive into or out of an area if the traffic flow is steady. But is that a good thing? Maintaining free "flow" of traffic is more dangerous for everyone, motorists included, but especially cyclists, pedestrians, children, and street furniture (oh won't someone PLEASE think of the street furniture!). My point about one-way streets not being of much benefit to local trips is because the overhead of the extra circulating required to reach a particular destination is much more pronounced in a short trip compared to a long one, and the benefits of marginally improved traffic flow are pretty dubious when talking about trips that are only 5-10 minutes long anyway. Cutting an hour trip down to 30 minutes is significant, but cutting 10 minutes down to 5 is of much less worth, and going from 5 minutes down to 2 1/2 is arguably pointless.