jjakucyk

How does the Wasson line serve UC? Montgomery Road is as far west as it goes, and with the rest of the CL&N route pretty well chopped up, the most logical way to connect the Wasson line to downtown would be streetcar/light rail tracks on Montgomery and Gilbert (or perhaps a Montgomery-Woodburn-Taft/McMillan-Gilbert routing). That doesn't get anywhere near UC without a significant detour. I'm not trying to be contrary here, I just want to know what the expectations are.

Acknowledged or assumed? Based on what I've seen I highly doubt that's true, especially in the long term.

That's crazy, I've never heard of such a place, where's my lawyer?

Yeah, where's the cost-benefit analysis on those walls? *sigh* Also, does anyone know why they added that right turn slip road to the ramp from southbound I-75 to westbound Mitchell? The current ramps all have them, but they're dangerous for both drivers (who have to look almost all the way behind them to see if anyone's coming) and pedestrians. The redesigned interchange had none, but they added that one back at some point, but I can't find a reason. I see that it dumps into its own lane (one of those "Continuous Right Turn With Caution" situations) but it just bugs me.

Increasing things like license fees are highly regressive and don't factor in how much of the road system the driver actually uses. For all its flaws, the gas tax is at least correlated with use to some level. A mileage tax that's indexed to the weight of the vehicle is my preferred system, but this would have to be on top of existing taxes, with a reshuffling of the proportions between the other taxes. After all, driving motor vehicles on the roads, no matter the fuel source, causes some level of damage to the road that must be accounted for. Burning gas itself does not damage roads, but there are pollution externalities, military escorts of tankers and such that also need to be factored into the price which currently are not. While nearly all local roads receive no gas tax dollars (state or federal), which is a huge distortion of the so-called "market for transportation", there should still be some non-user component to the funding of roads. This is more to maintain the access they give to properties, easements for utilities, access for emergency vehicles and trash pickup, pedestrian and cycling access, etc. Of course the devil is in the details, and it becomes something of a bureaucratic quagmire to figure out what the proper ratios would be for gas taxing, vehicle mile taxing, and local non-driver taxing are. For one thing, even though cars don't do much damage to roads compared to trucks, most of the space is filled with cars, whether driving or parking. Space is a limited commodity, so that has to be factored in too. Unmetered on-street parking is a tough one, because while those parking spaces aren't free by any stretch of the imagination, those who use them feel it's their god-given right to have it. How to measure the mileage is another issue with GPS tracking and all the abuses possible there, or odometer tampering to get around the fees, even to how often and in what way is the mileage tax collected. Local taxes should be geared towards maintaining an open right-of-way for vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, etc., but should not be concerned with funding the construction and maintenance of excessive infrastructure to accommodate cars and trucks. For most streets, this means maintaining the road bed of a certain width, keeping drains clear such, maintaining sidewalks, but not to pave 50 feet of asphalt with sizable curb and gutters. Still, by taxing ALL the externalized costs of using the roads, it will help put the onus of paying to maintain the system on those using it the most, while not also discouraging the use of cleaner fuel sources. All that said, the thing that frightens me here is that ODOT is taking the same stance as most other highway departments in the country. The "problem" to them is a lack of funding to keep building more and more highways. There's no discussion about how our current pattern of development doesn't create enough value to pay for itself, which is what got us into this bind in the first place. We've spent the last 60-some years building infrastructure and developments in a way that is incapable of paying to maintain its required infrastructure in the long-term. We are now in the long-term, and those maintenance liabilities are coming due fast. We've built so much infrastructure for such a dispersed population that we're only getting a fraction (generally less than 30%) of the required maintenance costs back through taxes. But are agencies like ODOT saying we need to stop building highways to nowhere, with bypasses around nowhere? Are they saying that roads and highways of a particular size need to have a certain density of use along them in order to pay for their maintenance? Are they suggesting that more productive modes of transportation that increase value and rate of return should be implemented where appropriate? Of course not. All they care about is building more and bigger roads.

It's an interesting selling point to use that the railroad doesn't see mudslides like Columbia Parkway does. It's built on a hillside terrace more than cut into it, plus the rail bed has been there 100 years longer than Columbia Parkway has, so they've had that much more time to shore it up. Plus there's the fact that the rail bed isn't nearly as wide as any highway, so much less cutting and filling that could destabilize the terrain is necessary. Weather is such a big factor for transportation interruptions around here, much more so than in many cities.

And it has more lanes than the roads it connects. These sorts of maneuvers (especially when the main intersection isn't grade-separated) seem to just make the whole effort of going from A to B take that much longer due to all the extra signals. Yes, each particular signal may be "optimized" for the situation, but you still have to navigate three of them instead of just one. This is also a lot of new infrastructure to maintain: The new connector road, two extra sets of traffic signals, lights, detectors, etc. And what is the financial return on this project? Oh wait, there is none, sorry.

It's a small concession to make to allow rooftop access from the relatively smaller top floor units.

I do believe he meant so they CAN'T be seen from the street. Also, what would you suggest besides siding? Fake stucco maybe? You can't put brick up there. Yes it's kind of unfortunate and cheap looking, but you don't see them.

As an admirer of turn-of-the-century architecture myself, I've had many of the same thoughts. The only thing I can come up with is that 100+ years ago, labor was a lot cheaper. There was no minimum wage, safety codes were lax or non-existent, unions weren't as prevalent, and the US was blessed with an influx of immigrants from europe who were skilled craftsman (doing the work or training others). You could afford to splurge on materials because the labor was cheap. That isn't the case anymore, so we end up with a bunch of quickly thrown together structures with low quality finishes, unless you get to price points that are outrageous (like the $500K single family homes you referenced). Please correct me if I'm wrong and if someone more informed could shed better light on this, it would be much appreciated. I'd agree for the most part. It's not that the skills are gone, it's just that priorities have changed and along with the changing relationship between labor and material costs, what used to be more common has become more of a niche. It's actually not all that difficult to find really skilled craftsmen out there. Expert cabinetmakers, masons, plasterers, tile setters, and finish carpenters are still out there, but they're either working only in high-end construction or most of their bread and butter is the typical production stuff. There's also a big change in quality versus quantity preferences. Today it's all about quantity. Square feet, number of bedrooms, leaseable space, parking spaces, metrics metrics metrics. Quality has fallen by the wayside in part because it can't be measured. What's the value of windows that will last 50 years if you can use the money for an extra bedroom or bathroom instead? You don't even plan to keep the building for 20 years, let alone 50. Of course another problem is just how much money needs to be spent accommodating cars. That garage and driveway isn't free after all, but some absolutely must have them, so that money comes out of the rest of the project. You can actually see how size and quality played off each other over the last century. Houses for example were quite large for the most part in the late 19th and very early 20th century. Those row houses in OTR are really big, partly because they didn't need much infrastructure. You built a box, put in some walls and doors, a few fireplaces, a staircase, decorated it up really well, and you were done. When you get into the 1920s houses got quite a bit smaller because people were demanding a garage, built-in cabinets and closets, a full kitchen and bathrooms, central heating, electricity in every room, and good design on top of it all. They had to make the houses smaller to avoid them costing too much. That old rowhouse originally had none of that, other than the good design. You'd have a fireplace and maybe a gas light in each main room and that was it. No kitchen, an outhouse in the back, wardrobes instead of closets, basically a bunch of bare rooms. It wasn't until the 1970s or so that we figured out how to cheapen things enough that we could start to build big AND have those conveniences too. Unfortunately, design and craft were victims, not to mention durability.

The larger picture makes that Chicago building look worse. What's with those pseudo balcony railings? That's pretty silly. It wouldn't be too bad of a Federal revival building if they just treated the second floor the same as the third and fourth. It might be an ok Italianate revival too, but the way they mix the two is very bad. The storefront looks ok from what I can tell. Still, it's a good example of poor execution. Look how the building falls apart at the back. It's completely unresolved and looks like nobody bothered to even think about it. The shutters, even though it's like pulling teeth to get them installed properly, are still too small for the windows. Windows are usually the Achilles' heel of most of today's attempts at historic building. These sorts of buildings want tall and relatively narrow windows. However, to get something that's tall enough for a space with 10 or 12 foot ceilings gets quite expensive and are usually value-engineered out. When that goes, the proportions of the elevations go with it. Vinyl windows, which the less expensive projects are going to have, are generally no taller than 6 feet, which is really not big enough. Wood and clad windows are available at pretty big sizes, but again, with the necessity of insulated glazing the larger double-hung windows require beefier hardware and frames, plus those larger insulated glass panels, so the price soars. Frankly there's little excuse for not getting the proportions right. There's simple and inexpensive tricks to make a cheap and squat window look taller, same with doors. Cornices are a little more difficult, but really aren't that hard if you want to make it work. It's just that a lot of people don't think about or even care about the proportions. Other times there's external parameters that cause issues with proper proportioning. In a lot of cases I figure there's a combination of lack of full understanding of the proper conventions of proportioning, a lack of interest from the client in doing it really well (i.e. they don't want to pay any extra design fees), and also value engineering that ends up requiring smaller windows and other decorative elements than there really should be. There's also another factor whereby some architects might exaggerate some elements or mess around with things just to put their own sort of signature on it, trying to create their own kind of style, even if it doesn't really work.

But why metal and glass? Why not concrete and glass block? Why not vinyl and plexiglass? The whole "reflecting the old" mantra championed by the architects of the Hancock Tower in Boston is, quite frankly, post-rationalizing bullshit. These super simple glass buildings never disappear. More often than not they call even more attention to themselves by way of reflecting the sun in bizarre ways on the other buildings and on hapless pedestrians unfortunate enough to have to walk by them. Also keep in mind that nearly everything built between about 1920 and 1950 that wasn't Art Deco or some early International Style modern was also "faux historic." Even Art Deco itself is more of an extension or reinterpretation of historical classicism than a rejection. At this point in time we can do pretty much any style you want, but who's to judge which one is right and which one isn't? Is faux Italianate any worse than faux Art Deco or faux International Style? About the only thing that isn't faux anymore is titanium-clad blobs, and even that is pretty roundly criticized. Most avant garde architecture is highly criticized, if not outright hated, by the general public. The academic arguments remain just that, academic. Not many "regular people" have any interest in the modern stuff, they'd rather have the faux historic. Now, the key of course is in execution. That Chicago example from a few posts back is really really bad. It's mixing a sort of Boston/Annapolis Federal style on the top floors with a weak Italianate style on the second floor and a somewhat nondescript storefront on the bottom (it's hard to tell though since it's so dark and a small picture). The proportions aren't terrible, but they're not great, and it looks like more of a caricature or some sort of tongue-in-cheek hybrid than anything particularly serious. Anyway, I guess my point is that you can't single out faux historicism as being bad because we don't really have an architectural style that's truly "of today" in the way that we did throughout much of recent history. To try to pick something that's supposed to represent today's modern styles and mandate that throughout an historic district like OTR would be quite dangerous. If we were having this discussion in the 1970s we'd only allow poured concrete brutalist hulks. Would you really want that? Even the super simple glass and steel idea is more of a 1960s aesthetic. We don't really want that either. There's no simple solution of course, but putting a few parameters in place (build to the sidewalk, glassy first floors, vertical massing, etc.) are all that's really needed.

And make sure it faces a one-way street leading away from it.

I don't agree about the architecture climate here, at least not compared to the rest of the country. Regardless, I could see something a bit more historically inspired going in OTR, with more modern designs downtown. There's room for both at the very least. The structural cast iron aesthetic of Findlay Market lends itself beautifully to transit shelters for instance. The historic roof canopies on Chicago 'L' stations are a perfect example.

Each railroad into the city had its main classification yard somewhere outside downtown where land was cheap (at least it was at the time it was built) and plentiful. I won't go into every one, but some notable examples were the Little Miami's Undercliff Yard near Lunken Airport, which is mostly gone now and redeveloped for industrial parks. The L&N's Decoursey yard sits mostly empty next to the Licking River south of I-275 with a newer intermodal yard just south of there. The CL&N's yard was (and under I&O still is) at McCullough off of Highland Avenue in Norwood. The N&W to Portsmouth's yard was at Clare below Mariemont, now a small intermodal facility. The Big Four had Sharon Yard, which is much reduced from its former size. There were also a handful of yards west along the Ohio River and up the Mill Creek Valley as well as the C&O of Indiana's Cheviot/Summit yard. The massive Queensgate and Gest Street Yards were built to consolidate all the classification activities into one location. Although it's something of a tangle of continuous tracks, and most people just call it Queensgate, the two yards are in fact separate (Gest Street for Norfolk Southern behind Union Terminal and Queensgate for CSX north of the Western Hills Viaduct). The B&O and Cincinnati Southern had some yards there already, but they weren't nearly to the scale they are now. Anyway, when that yard work was done in the mid 1970s, it was at the low point of railroading in the US. The Penn Central merger happened and they still went bankrupt, and then Conrail came out shortly thereafter. Traffic was low, and consolidating all the yards probably seemed like a good idea to improve efficiency. It certainly did that, but higher efficiency also reduces resiliency. We're seeing this now as Queensgate is very overtaxed, especially the approach tracks from the north. With parallel lines closed and no other yards left, there's not really anywhere to go. Sharon Yard is the only place to the north that seems like a logical place to take some of the extra load, but it would require rebuilding a lot of track and such. I'm not really familiar enough with all the operations to know where would be the best place to do such things based on traffic flow and all that. It's a good question whether there's more or less capacity than there used to be. I'd have to say the peak of "historical" freight operations here was during WWII to about 1950, with the low point around 1970-80, and then growing again after that until the present, save for the current recession. That said, you can't just look at the number of tracks to analyze capacity. Back in the day, they needed more storage tracks to hold cars while trains were being assembled. Nowadays with a modern computer-controlled hump yard like Queensgate, they can run the cars through pretty fast and don't have to "warehouse" them as much. Plus, even some of those very large old yards like Undercliff were horribly mismanaged and, surprise surprise, inefficient. There's also the issue that some yards are now cut off from through traffic, like Undercliff again, and not really close to any other through routes, so they're pretty much useless. Still, with all the different yards that there were, as many railroads had not only their more remote classification yards, there were also large passenger terminal and coach yards as well as extensive freight yards near downtown and other transfer points. So I'd figure we have a lot less physical capacity than there was in the mid 20th century, but what we do have is much better utilized through computerized signaling and routing of cars, and also higher capacity cars like double-stacked freight containers and auto racks.

I've not seen documentation that says anything other than a bridge will be built over Duck Creek. The question still remains how to deal with the flood wall. It's several feet high and right next to Duck Creek Road. That means that without a flood gate, the Kennedy/Duck Creek intersection would need to be raised to clear it, either with earthen fill or as a concrete bridge deck on columns. Never mind the expense, it could also cause problems with access to the businesses near that intersection. I can't remember exactly how high the flood wall is, but if it's only a few feet then it's not too difficult, but if it's more like 8-10 feet, then it's going to be a big problem and expense. This project is already pushing $30 million, and will have hundreds of thousands of dollars in maintenance costs over its lifetime. Is the City/State/Feds going to make back anything close to that amount in taxes, especially from the crap development this is supporting? I don't think so. Why isn't COAST crying boondoggle on this?

^ Ok but again, how do they connect it to Duck Creek Road with the flood wall right there at the edge of the road? Are they going to cut out a section so they can do a removable gate? Do they have other plans?

There is a slippery slope to demolition, but at the same time there's also a slippery slope to preservation as well. Overzealous preservation efforts have basically the same effects as low-density euclidian zoning. It prevents the natural successional development and densification of neighborhoods, thus increasing demand and prices, and pushing development outwards rather than upwards. The practices of historic preservation, urbanism, and green building have not been particularly well integrated, even though they can and should be. It's gotten better, but there's still a long way to go. One thing that would help is to make certain that projects where a demolition is involved are held to a higher standard of quality and detail than they might otherwise be. The new must be better than the old if the old is going away. The new being worse than the old is exactly what started the preservation movement in the first place, so that very circumstance must be avoided.

The new lights don't look anything like reproduction gas lights. They're functional around Oakley Square, but still haven't been turned on east of there yet. Based on what I've seen elsewhere in the city, I'm 99% certain that they're going to leave the old cobra heads in place and connected. It's sad enough that they couldn't relocate the overhead utilities, but not removing the old lighting just adds insult to injury.

anywhere actually a deserted island would be prefrable Yeah, they'd see a thriving and growing urban neighborhood and take it as an affront to their notion of the American dream.

No, it is still a turd. AADT is one of those metrics that's "paid homage to" much to the detriment of everything else. Engineers worship AADT stats. The only important thing is flow, volume, capacity. Never mind cost, safety, or value. This is a problem exactly because this complicated and expensive infrastructure is being built in a suburban area. It provides no value to the surrounding area, and in fact decreases value because rather than a simple intersection it's more of an interchange. Access is so limited that even the usual suburban crap that would normally gravitate to such an intersection (gas stations, fast food, maybe a small strip retail center) will probably not even bother because they'd have to build frontage roads and other complicated access that will only disperse the development more and require more paving, drainage, land, and utilities. This is exactly the kind of infrastructure spending that has put our country in such a funding and maintenance bind, because it costs a lot of money to build and maintain, but it doesn't increase value, let alone allow the government to capture any value to try to repay the costs. The gist of the matter is, the suburban pattern of development does not generate enough tax revenue to fund the ongoing maintenance costs of its infrastructure. Ergo, more such infrastructure, like this bypass and its complicated intersections, causes a net monetary loss to the government and should not be built.

There never was a First Street as a street, it was Water Street, Front Street, Augusta Street (west of Vine only), 2nd Street, Pearl Street, then 3rd Street. Pearl Street east of Broadway became E. Pete Rose Way, and 2nd Street west of Central Avenue became W. Pete Rose Way. Of course it's all been totally discombobulated in the past several decades anyway.

The whole thing is basically Deerfield Towne Center plopped clumsily on the site wherever it will fit. There's unresolved space left over on all sides, and it's not as if the site is so complicated that they couldn't build to the sidewalk on Reading, Broadway, and Court. Instead, the thing's going to have a freaking front lawn. I weep for the future.

How about simply ending the tax breaks for suburban development? Way too many cities, towns, and villages bend over backwards with new roads, water and sewer extensions, zoning changes, waived development fees, and low interest loans to lure in "the next big company" only to then give them tax abatements on top of it all. Once those abatements end and it's time to actually, you know, start paying for all that infrastructure investment, the big company pulls out and moves to the next place offering more incentives. There's very few winners, and lot of losers in that scenario.

If it could be two-way AND buffered, then that might be an option, but what happens when you're going west/downhill against traffic and the bike lanes end? Two-way bike lanes on roads tend to be trouble unless they're on a grid of one-way streets (think New York City), and are meticulously designed, especially at intersections. A side path would really be better in that circumstance, but again, unless it's no-compromise continuous, getting into and out of the contraflow lane can be quite difficult. There's only 10 or 11 feet to work with here, and you'd need at least 14 to have two bike lanes and a buffer anyway.