jjakucyk

As if The Banks needs any more restaurants of any sort at all to begin with.

Oh I see now, I was looking but not in the right place. Anyway, I wouldn't have guessed about Surrey Square. I guess the renovations probably helped a lot. It'll be interesting to see what happens in Corryville.

2106?

The only problem is that Kroger doesn't work this way as a company. They seem more than happy to pour their money and effort into their successful stores to the detriment of others. This is entirely self-fulfilling too. A big reason the Hyde Park Kroger is so successful is precisely because the OTR, Corryville, Walnut Hills (and maybe also the Norwood but I'm not so sure about that one) stores are so comparatively lousy. It's not even the case that only the well-to-do from those neighborhoods will drive to Hyde Park, but even the poor will pile into taxis or the elderly will get bussed or driven by family over to Hyde Park, because if they're gonna go to all the trouble, they might as well go to the best store they can. I can very easily see some bean counter at corporate suggesting that those other neighborhood stores not be improved because it could hurt the Hyde Park store's metrics. The OTR Kroger would certainly benefit by being expanded up to the street. That'd eliminate the gross parking lot and fix the missing teeth aspect of the building. It would also give it more room for expanded inventory. There's a very large amount of empty space behind that building that could be used for either expansion or parking or at least getting the stupid loading dock out of the front. The only trouble with parking back there (accessed off of Walnut) would be keeping it from becoming even more scary than the one in front.

Considering the overall real estate situation over the past 4 years, I think it's fantastic that there's ANY work going on at all. It's a testament to the growing importance and desirability of urban neighborhoods in general.

And yet the still want more "amenities" nearby. It's just like the people say they want to live in a walkable neighborhood near shopping and restaurants and work, but they still want to live in a single family detached house on a large lot. It just doesn't work that way.

Especially since we don't have particularly wide streets here. Once you establish an 8 foot clear zone on either side of the track, there's not really much room left for a utility corridor that then doesn't encroach on other utilities, basement accesses, curbs, sidewalks, street trees, or even their own overhead wires.

It could be a corporate culture thing. Even though it's one company NOW, that's a relatively recent situation. It could be that the (North Carolina) Duke folks and the (former) CG&E folks aren't communicating or coordinating as well as they should.

Those manholes are part of Charlotte's light rail system, they're at pretty much every crossing. That doesn't negate the distance argument of course. I can't make out everything on them, but they at least say CATS, Danger, High Voltage, and I think the last line is Sig/Comm for signals and communication. http://g.co/maps/jcx38

There's two manholes in this incredible time lapse video from San Francisco: Church and 30th St. San Francisco MUNI Construction They are hard to see until the view shifts slightly and most of the old road has been removed around the 2:30 mark. There's one on the left, partly hidden behind the metal pole. You can even see some guys going in and out of it between about the 8:30 and 9:00 marks. There's another near the center top, along the sweeping curve of the track. They spray the lids with oil at 9:54 so they both show up much better at that point. These are all very close to the edge of the tracks, just far enough so they don't interfere with the ties or the flanges of the lid frame.

*Sigh* It's not like they don't have the granite blocks RIGHT THERE already, they're not even covered up. It's really more expensive to dig them up, haul them away, and pour new tinted concrete than it is to just set them aside and re-lay them? What's wrong with this country?

*sigh*

I wish they'd take the two-waying to its full extent on at least one end of the corridor. If west of I-71 is a no-go, then they should take it all the way to Woodburn. I don't know why St. Ursula is opposed to two-waying, but really, for both Taft and McMillan to go from two-way to one-way to two-way and back to one-way again just doesn't sit right with me.

The discussion wasn't particularly bad, there was acknowledgement that we need a transportation "system" that includes more than just roads and highways, but there was still a lot of highway apologizing. Things like the Brent Spence Bridge were mentioned as non-negotiable, and they don't even question the notion that transportation facilities are investments. There was no talk about development patterns, and they all still had a very rural bias. Again, it could've been a lot worse, but I found myself rolling my eyes to a lot of their comments. One even responded to the criticism that ODOT is mainly a highway agency by saying that's because highways are most of what we have. Well no shit Sherlock, that's because ODOT won't build anything else. It's like saying we don't need alternative transportation options because everyone drives. Of course everyone drives, because that's the only choice they have!

The problem is a lack of imagination, and a lack of institutional support for doing highly urban projects. Since most people in development are familiar with the suburban prototype, that's what they build and can better guarantee the price of. The financiers of the project also look for the suburban metrics to apply to such projects because that's what they know and are comfortable underwriting. The city itself could do a better job with the zoning situation, though I don't know how anything as big as this could be done without a PUD, in which case pretty much anything goes. The general mindset seems to be that any development is good, even if it is unproductive and ultimately a drain on the region. The tax code doesn't help either. All that parking is assessed at a much lower rate than the buildings themselves, so there's little risk in paving over a large section of the land since it won't increase the tax burden nearly as much as more buildings would. It's a perverse incentive.

I stopped by the Avondale carbarn to take some pictures before it gets completely knocked down. Yes it is technically called the Avondale carbarn even though it's on the Mt. Auburn side of Reading Road, and Avondale doesn't actually begin until another block north at Taft. Anyway, it doesn't look like much is going on from Reading Road, but it's basically being gutted from behind, much like they did at the Milacron plant. The street wall along Reading isn't a fantastic design, though the section to the very north near McMillan is nice. Since it's not particularly tall, I would've liked to see them restore that facade even if half of it ends up just hiding a parking lot. http://homepage.mac.com/jjakucyk/avondalecarbarn/index.html

No, Cincinnati still has a very intact urban environment, especially compared to many similar cities. Just look at downtown Columbus for instance, which is a mess of surface parking lots, or Indianapolis with few actual urban neighborhoods, or Louisville with its riverfront highway. The problem here is an embarrassment of riches, whether it's urbanism, neighborhoods, historic architecture, geography, geology, institutions, etc. There's so much good stuff, that nobody cares about it because it's nearly ubiquitous. Crappy un-urban projects like the casino or the new SCPA or the cheap architecture of The Banks can fly here because there's so much apathy about the resources we have, as if there's so much good stuff that we don't need to worry. Many cities don't really get serious about things like historic preservation, walkable urbanism, or their other assets until they're nearly gone. It's also a case of "different is good", so we end up with cheap expressions of starchitecture, casinos with front lawns, and schools that turn their ass end towards the neighborhood's nicest park, just because they're breaking the mould. It's also a case of Cincinnati being 20 years behind the times, as usual. The excavation of decades-forgotten planning techniques from all of recorded history by the New Urbanists is only slowly percolating through the region's planners and designers. The mindset for much of the traffic engineering, building design, and urban planning is still very much stuck in the 1990s. It's the "cars are ugly so they must be hidden" kind of thinking going on at Washington Park. The solution to such problems end up being berms and landscaping and restrictions on street parking. Those are just the kind of misguided thinking that encourages more sprawl and driving and makes places less walkable and pleasant to be in, even if they are superficially prettier. It's well understood (now) that parked cars are an important part of a properly functioning street. However if they're only applying aesthetic concerns to the problem, then it hurts functionality and perception. It could very well be some cases of ignorance as opposed to malice. Take the casino front lawn situation. It's not a problem that it's an "open space" per se, just that it's a landscaped grassy lawn. It should be a plaza instead, then it'll be fine. As for Washington Park, the one saving grace for this "loading zone" nonsense is that it can be easily fixed by changing signage, since curbs and sidewalks aren't being changed. I would like to see if they're using this as a way to better facilitate the integration of the streetcar into the streetscape along the park. I don't have the preliminary engineering drawings handy at the moment, but that could be a part of it as well.

The weight issue and grades were discussed a long time ago (I can't even begin to guess how far back to look, probably pages 300-something). But point being is that's why Vine Street was chosen for the climb up the hill, because despite the narrowness issue of the street, it's the shallowest grade of all the possible routes that aren't totally out of the way. There's also technology like magnetic track brakes that solves the problem of runaway cars on the downhill. I do hope that when they build this first phase that they still construct the turnouts from Race onto Elder and Findlay. That way when the extension is able to be built, they don't have to tear into the existing track and interrupt service.

Since the transmission and distribution lines to and from that substation are all underground, I'd say that's quite a win to start with. Not that it couldn't stay there but still be made into a rather attractive building. Just look at all the gorgeous telephone exchange buildings scattered around the city for instance. Did you know this beautiful little building at McMillan and Park used to be an electric substation? That's what those funky little dormers/cupolas are for on the roof. http://g.co/maps/ucwc6

That's the trap with Federal money, it's only for building but not for maintenance. So the infrastructure gets built with all the Federal money, and it lasts for a while with little maintenance because it's all brand new. Woo hoo. Once it starts getting old and needs maintenance, then the States can just cry about how it's under capacity and crumbling, so instead of needing maintenance it needs replacement and expansion (if it's gotta be replaced, might as well enlarge it too right?). More Federal money, and the maintenance problem goes away for another life cycle. The only problem is that by now this has gone on so many times that even the Feds can't afford to keep bailing out this non-productive pattern of development.

Probably for the best. The last thing this project needs is to be experimenting with unproven and potentially unreliable technology. The naysayers would have a field day with that.

Right, I park on the street in OTR, I parked on the street in Clifton before that, and even parked on the street when I lived in New York City. It'd take a lot to convince me to pay to park in a garage somewhere. And that's what one calls a sense of entitlement. Those parking spaces on the street aren't free to build and maintain after all. Since they're not charged directly to those who use them (most of the time), it's yet another subsidy to automobile use. Everyone pays for it, but only some benefit, and those benefits are entirely internalized, it doesn't really benefit society as a whole. The maintenance for a 19 foot by 8 foot slice of pavement is easily covered via property taxes. It's not an automobile subsidy, it's a benefit of paying property tax on a residential property. There are meters along commercial properties for the purpose of charging the user, who likely isn't paying for maintenance via property tax. In a residential setting, the user is paying via property tax. Plus, the space is already there and the built environment of the entire neighborhood is based upon it. There are 4 lanes on most of the main streets explicitly for that purpose, and it's been the case for some 170 years. Also, "benefits society as a whole?" The discussion is over street parking. Tone the rhetoric down a notch. Except property taxes aren't just paying for the maintenance of that parking bay but for the whole street and other streets in the network too. It is of course an automobile subsidy because there are real costs for that space that only benefit those using it to park their car. I'm not saying there shouldn't be parking, but that it should be charged to those who use it. Do we give away free electricity, telephone, water, gas, sewer, internet, food, or transit rides? No we don't, and many of those things are much more a necessity of life than being able to drive and park your car somewhere convenient. The streets were not originally built to park cars, they were mainly built as simple open spaces that people and wagons and bicycles were more than happy to use. Besides, if in a residential area, why should a property owner have to pay to maintain street parking if they have off-street parking too? They're required to build so much off-street parking by code anyway, then have higher taxes to maintain the street too. Those are both forced subsidies to car use. The benefits to the property owner are only that there's an easement in front of their house to allow access for people, vehicles, utilities, garbage collection, emergency services, air, light, etc. The costs to maintain the pavement and additional storm water runoff are born by everyone whether they're using or getting any benefit from it or not. That's not only unfair, but expensive and unsustainable. I don't want to judge the Washington Park situation without knowing the final plan (it seems to be in flux at the moment anyway). Still, I can see the need for loading and unloading on Elm and 12th Streets for Music Hall and the SCPA. I don't think it makes sense on 14th or Race however. It could very well be a case of the parking garage operator trying to force the city's hand so they can monopolize the parking market around the park. That's no good, but on the other hand why should the city provide free street parking that undercuts that of a private garage owner either? Parking is a scarce commodity especially in a neighborhood like this, so the logical response to that is to attach a price to it based on what the market will bear. It may be that in some neighborhoods that price is $0, and in others it could be several dollars per hour. People seem to forget that the point of parking meters is not to make money for the city, but to ensure that there's always a supply of open spaces for people who need them. If the price is too low (or nonexistent) then people will abuse that system and hog the spaces because it's of no consequence to them. The correct response for the city in this case would be to install meters around the park and charge a rate that ensures a few spaces are always left open. This would most likely mean a higher hourly rate than the garage charges, but that's as it should be. Notice how passionate people get about "their" parking spaces?

Right, I park on the street in OTR, I parked on the street in Clifton before that, and even parked on the street when I lived in New York City. It'd take a lot to convince me to pay to park in a garage somewhere. And that's what one calls a sense of entitlement. Those parking spaces on the street aren't free to build and maintain after all. Since they're not charged directly to those who use them (most of the time), it's yet another subsidy to automobile use. Everyone pays for it, but only some benefit, and those benefits are entirely internalized, it doesn't really benefit society as a whole.

If it means delaying or rethinking the plans to widen and reconfigure the interchanges on an urban interstate that's going to cost hundreds of millions to billions of dollars and further erode the built fabric of the city, then I'm all for it. The thing that disappoints me the most is that the Butler County and adjacent I-275 widening is already done (mostly). So we have a brand new, extra wide, smooth as glass, gold plated interstate running through exurban Butler County, while the urban I-75 in Hamilton County is left to crumble. Those suburb-to-suburb commuters, or even those commuting between Dayton and northern Cincinnati get a huge break, while the core of the system, so to speak, gets one interchange reworked and a few other little scraps. Brilliant. Now that so many projects have been tabled, what are they going to do in the meantime? By not jumping on these projects like they had planned, the deferred maintenance on these highways will still have to be dealt with. I-75 between I-74 and I-275 needs to be resurfaced soon. It won't last more than a few years in the condition it's in, and they're not even bothering to fill potholes. All of I-71 in Hamilton County needs resurfacing as well, especially south of Kenwood. Will they be able to do even this little bit of work? There's potholes on both interstates that have been there since last winter.

Typical design fees for engineering (and architecture as well) are usually around 10-12% of the construction cost. Even if there isn't a whole lot to show "on paper" there's a lot of man hours in research, planning, analyzing, basically all the "figuring stuff out" that goes into it.