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The loop one would be awful especially since it would preclude the use of the ramp by both directions if McMillan is ever returned to two-way traffic. What gets me are the right turn slip roads like at eastbound MLK to southbound I-71. Those are bad for pedestrians and worse for cyclists, yet they keep designing them. There's no consistency with them either. In the redesigned I-75 Mitchell Avenue interchange, only one of the four ramps has that slip road for instance. It's the same with these MLK proposals. It also looks like they're planning for a shared ped/bike side path on the south side of MLK. Of course they don't deal at all with how such a thing would connect with the existing bike lanes east of Gilbert or how it works west of Reading. The whole thing is really vastly over-engineered. Look at how wide the existing bridge over I-71 is and note that they're planning to add a good 30' more to it. They're actually planning to make MLK 10 lanes wide near Reading. I don't deny that the plan improves access, but damn does it really need to be bloated so much, especially if they go with the MLKBex plan that keeps the ramps to Taft and McMillan?

Well what's odd about the Wasson situation is that Norfolk Southern really does not like their right-of-way falling into anyone else's hands. They'd just assume sit on an abandoned rail line than let Indiana & Ohio Railway have it or sell it off for private development. They're very much about railbanking, so I wonder how this parking lot thing ever got going in the first place.

What could you really do with the Wasson line though? It's been gone west of Montgomery Road for decades, and it's only a single track right-of-way. I suppose you could do a Gilbert/Montgomery light rail line that connected near Dana, but that's light rail and a different ballgame than commuter rail with DMU's. Aside from that, this rail project scares me specifically because of its relation to the Eastern Corridor highway. It's like a distraction that isn't really meant to be a serious project on its own. The whole Oasis line is in miserable shape, so all the tracks would need to be replaced. One track has been abandoned for years, and the remaining one is limited to very low speeds due to its condition. Portune is flat out lying. Plus, the connection from the Boathouse to the Transit Center, while a short distance, is not so easy that it can be just hand waved away like they've been doing. The whole project just seems backwards too. These low-density commuter lines to the suburbs are the LAST transit projects that should be done. This is after we already have a decent network of streetcars, light rail, and busways. Doing it at the beginning, and trying to serve areas that are mostly transit-hostile, or at least aren't naturally conducive to transit, smells like a trap to me. Plus there's the problem that this is an entirely east side project, which is going to get the west siders all in a huff and raise yet more controversy.

Is it monotonous when viewed from a distance, or when up close? Because up close there's so much going at the close-in scale that it's quite a delight for the pedestrian. That goes not only for the architecture itself, but also for all the small stores that vie for your attention. Of course in Paris there's a supply/demand problem (because it's so desirable!) so everything is built to the maximum size possible. Nevertheless, the relative monotony of the vernacular environment in a place like Paris makes the monumental buildings that much more special. If everything is unique, then it's just as bad, because it becomes a sort of sensory overload and you just tune it out, so the end result is basically the same. It's a "you're unique, just like everybody else" sort of thing. American urbanism is quite different from Western Europe. There isn't the same unity of style, common cornice lines, or even a consistent palette of materials. Many times even the setbacks are inconsistent. It's a very messy but fun sort of pattern, the jambalaya of urbanism. That makes it more difficult for the truly monumental buildings to stand out though. It does help when the vernacular buildings at least behave themselves in how they address the street. Look at buildings like the old Woodward High School/SCPA, the Hamilton County Courthouse, or St. Boniface in Northside. They stand in a green or on an elevated pedestal, while the buildings around them are entered at ground level and are close to the sidewalk. The way those monumental buildings are deployed on their sites makes them even more special since the architecture itself AND the site planning is different from the surroundings. At least Mercer gets this right, but there's something to be said for the architecture being a bit downplayed. What's wrong with having one street that's "the all red brick street" or something similar? Basically, if all you have to eat is jambalaya, you'll probably want some plain yogurt after a while to settle your stomach.

Are the streets of Paris boring because there's too much buff limestone? Are the streets of Florence boring because there's too much tan stucco? What of all the clapboard siding in Charleston? There's more to variety than just color of course, but if everything is different then it diminishes the impact of the monumental civic buildings.

I added lots of information Civvik, that's what the whole rest of my response above was about. I hope you don't think anyone who suggests that an issue has shades of grey and isn't just black and white is on some sort of ego trip. Besides, there's plenty of reason to make a judgment on the conversation if the conversation isn't going anywhere. If people are just talking past each other because they've been polarized by an issue that isn't even polar to begin with, then it's worthwhile to reframe the debate so it's more constructive.

I find this whole argument rather silly and amusing. It's as if the only two choices are ugly inappropriate modernism or kitschy faux classicism. There's plenty of other options. Here's the thing, I totally agree with the criticism that the Vine Street building is too horizontal. That's the typical MO of avant garde modernism. It's all about horizontal planes floating over minimized vertical structure. Overall forms are abstracted, usually in defiance of structural considerations. They are intended to be viewed in isolation, presented as an art object on an open plane, unencumbered by any other buildings. This is the complete opposite of the methods that are necessitated by load bearing masonry construction that typifies dense urban neighborhoods like OTR. They're all about subtlety, craftsmanship, being experienced up close by the pedestrian, and scaled to the human being. All that does not mean, however, that you can't do modernism with a vertical emphasis and attention to detail. It's been done before, and not just in skyscrapers. It also doesn't mean you have to default back to faux historicism or try to make a single building look like more smaller individual ones. Here's a few examples I found with a quick Google search. http://www.jetsongreen.com/2009/07/vertical-modern-urban-lofts-little-rock.html http://homegallerydesign.com/modern-design-architecture-urban-residence-ideas/ http://www.jetsongreen.com/2008/03/1111-east-pike.html http://perspectivesdevie.org/2008/07/urban-infill-in-london-l’intercalation-urbaine-a-londres/lang/en/ http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/planning/design_awards/2007_award_en.html Notice that they all have a more appropriate vertical emphasis while still being entirely contemporary. Some present as singular masses, while others are more broken up. They both work in their respective situations. What's unfortunate for Mercer is that it's not even the right scale building for that size site. In a typical urban development pattern from the pre-WWII era, anyone who could accumulate a site of that size in that area would build something much taller, say 6-10 stories, not 4. The old Alms and Doepke building is on a similar sort of site. It's very long against Central Parkway, but it's still expressed vertically. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alms_and_Doepke_Dry_Goods_Company This really isn't that difficult to do, but there's little recognition for designing something that fits in well and that everyone can relate to and understand. Instead, buildings like this Vine Street thing, or any of the starchitecture out there, is all about confounding the general public, expressing the architect's own aesthetic tastes, making an ego statement. Being different and contrary is exactly the point, and that's what makes good infill such a tall order, even if it isn't physically that difficult. Of course, there's a whole lot of cognitive dissonance to begin with. If it's anachronistic to build in historic revival styles (which were already revival styles in the 19th century to begin with) then why isn't it also an anachronism to use the same highly prescriptive methodologies of the modernists? The horizontality, the minimized structure, the abstracted forms, blobs, glass curtain walls, etc., are just as often recycled and derivative as Tudor half-timbering, Dutch gables, or Colonial pediments. The trap with all this is that such architectural statements are much more expensive to build. So not only are new housing or retail or office units more expensive because they're new, they're doubly more expensive because they're more difficult to build. I can't tell for sure, but the rendering of the Vine Street building suggests it will be executed in reinforced concrete. That's not cheap construction, nor is the very large amount of storefront glass that's going on the whole thing. So not only is this going to be expensive to build, but thermal performance is going to be marginal at best. Note that the long facade faces west, so this place is going to be nightmarishly expensive to cool on summer afternoons and evenings, and no fun to heat on cold winter nights either. Now take a look at that Alms and Doepke building again. Strip off that mansard roof with its dormers, and the form and detailing of the building is actually very simple. A lot of the variety in the design comes from changing materials (brick versus limestone) and subtle plane changes. These are things that can be easily done with brick and cast stone veneers. There's still large windows (that are actually operable), and even if you put back the mansard roof, it's just clad with fiberglass shingles (which would've been slate originally). You can use traditional stick framing for buildings of several stories, or some mixture of wood, steel, and concrete, and not have to charge $2,000 a month rents. Some of the above examples use more traditional construction materials, and they're still modern, appropriate to not only their time, but also to their neighborhoods as well. That's what Mercer should be. Whether modern or not, it needs to be a model of excellence, not derivative mediocrity.

Am I the only one who hates these super-abstract maps? I just find them completely incomprehensible, especially for someone who's intimately familiar with the actual geography of the area. I understand the need for some level of simplification, but for heaven's sake, the world isn't made up of only 90º and 45º angles. With that and the scale being so distorted it's as if the goal is to make the map as unrealistic and useless as is humanly possible. [rant off]

Exactly. It always bothered me that Issue 9 was defeated by a rather small margin, and Issue 48, which is MUCH WORSE legislation, was even more close. Yes it's a relief and we can finally put this hurdle behind us, but there's still a long and bumpy road ahead. The project is vulnerable even if construction is finished but operations aren't started. Hell, even if it IS operating, it's still vulnerable.

^ And as I've said many times before, it doesn't matter. This is still a 20th century project that's way over-designed and isn't appropriate, especially in the face of declining VMT. It's a response to the flawed assumption that more roads will solve congestion problems. The price tag is unfathomable in this day and age, yet somehow it keeps marching on like some zombie attack. Is there ANY support for this project from the residents or businesses in Oakley, Madisonville, Fairfax, Newtown, Mt. Carmel, or Eastgate? I can see some support coming from Eastgate or farther out areas, but that's because they'd be the ones who get most of the benefits, while the aforementioned neighborhoods and municipalities will be saddled with most of the burdens.

It doesn't matter if it's not an interstate! It's still a very large very expensive highway. 8 lanes!!! The ramps and grade separation at Madison and Duck Creek are bad enough, but note also that they don't plan to reuse the stretch of recently rebuilt road between Erie and Colbank. That whole corridor is very wide and built of concrete with some large sidewalks and a multi-use path as well. Along with all the businesses on the west side of Red Bank near the Wal Mart that they'd have to demolish, that's some very expensive brand new roadway that they plan to just throw in the garbage.

I-74 or not, that doesn't mean it's a worthwhile project. It's still a major highway either way.

Anderson Twp residents should be tolled twice? Do you mind elaborating why they should be singled out as the only community taking advantage of expensive state projects? Because they're the ones USING those expensive projects to get to downtown and back. If they don't want to pay the cost of those bridges they travel over then there's always Columbia Parkway or Riverside/Kellogg. Maybe it seems unfair if they were charged twice, but on the other hand, why should they be given any special treatment either? A problem I foresee if tolls are implemented only on the interstate bridges is that Covington and Newport would get flooded with traffic heading from NKY to downtown Cincinnati wanting to avoid the bridge tolls. Since neither city wants to give up their interstate exits, it's unlikely that access could be restricted to prevent this. I-75 is where it is specifically because Covington wanted interstate access after all. It'd also be quite unfair to have a huge roaring highway go through a dense city or neighborhood and not allow the people who live and work there reasonable access to it. Walnut Hills and to a lesser extent Avondale got the shaft from I-71, which has no access to or from the south between Reading/Eden Park and Dana/Montgomery, yet those neighborhoods still have to deal with the pollution, noise, and blight caused by it.

Part of the reason these are uncommon in Cincinnati is because most of Cincinnati's single-family neighborhoods don't have alleys. Over-the-Rhine and the West End used to have a decent number of accessory structures in the rear, since these neighborhoods have alleys, but those buildings were some of the first to be demolished as the neighborhoods deteriorated.

I wish they would've kept the overhead lights, those were pretty cool. Now those poles don't have any real use, and the jumble of yellow lines on the pavement don't relate to anything.

The Big Mac bridge has no shoulders either, how on earth can we go on living like such barbarians?

Damn it Mr Sparkle, you beat me to the punch while I was putting together my CAGIS map. Anyway, here's my thoughts too, though the rainfall totals are slightly different. Portland's annual rainfall of 43.2 inches is not much different than Cincinnati's 39.6 inches. The west coast and Pacific northwest can generally handle combined storm/sanitary flows better because their rain tends to fall more gradually. That means they'd just need some (relatively) small storage tunnels and/or capacity upgrades to their treatment plants to handle it all. Here in the midwest, we get these big storms that dump huge amounts of water in a short period of time. We'd need huge storage tunnels to handle those, and I don't even know if treatment plants could ever be built large enough to handle all the flow. Yes, disconnecting downspouts would help some, but only in mostly single-family neighborhoods that have enough yard area to absorb that water. As I mentioned in a reply before, hillside areas don't absorb much water, and in more dense urban neighborhood it won't solve anything because there's very little open porous ground for that water to soak into. It's the storm drains in the streets and parking lots that pose such a big problem. For reference, here's an image that shows the extent of the South Fairmount "sewer shed". The bold red line shows all the sewers that flow to combined sewer overflow 105 into the Mill Creek. Almost everything between Glenway, Harrison, and Ferguson drain through South Fairmount.

That's a fundamental market response to supply and demand. More people want to live in nice urban areas than can find them, in no small part due to restrictive zoning, thus the price goes up due to scarcity. Also, and this is something of a double-whammy on the city, the infrastructure maintenance liabilities have come due there, whereas in most of the suburbs they have not. The liabilities have piled up in many of the streetcar suburbs (a lot of which are within city limits) and first generation of post-war suburbs, and so far it hasn't been pretty. So in the suburbs that haven't budgeted for the future, their taxes are artificially low, and some of those maintenance liabilities end up being paid for by the city residents (think water, sewer, and road expansion programs). The problem, and thus the solution, is two-fold. We need to allow more supply of desirable urban neighborhoods, and we need to make sure that the suburbs pay their own way. It's not something entirely on the cities alone to fix.

That doesn't sound too unlike what's going on with the gas lines right now. The city paves a street, then just two or three years later Duke comes in and replaces the gas lines, but since the road is so new the city makes them repave a whole lane, if not the entire street, rather than just the two foot strip they worked on. I figure there's some animosity from both camps on this kind of thing. Those narrow strips are patched horribly, and the city has every right to expect that if a utility comes and messes with brand new pavement that they'd better put it back right, but there's certainly a lack of proper planning and coordination here. Still, it can also be seen as a way to get a few extra years of paving surface for free as well. Some cities (or at least smaller towns anyway) get it right. They say "ok, we're going to completely rebuild Main Street, bury all utilities that aren't already underground, do streetscaping, new lighting, the works. All you utility companies, get your shit together and repair/replace whatever you need to do NOW before the road is finished, because if anyone has to dig it up after the paving is done, you're going to pay a big fine on top of fixing the pavement perfectly." After all, it doesn't matter if all the sewer, water, gas, and electric is brand new and good for another 50 years if then the phone company has to come and dig a bunch of holes. It only takes one underground utility needing to do work to ruin a good new street. Best get it done when the time is right.

*sigh* it's NOT CRUMBLING!

And he just reused the idiotic ballot language. What a tool.

Who says anything about banning trucks from interstates? Local traffic can still use local bridges if they want, but there's other interstate bridges to use as well. Through trucks going through the Cincinnati area have three other interstate bridges to choose from. Even if there were no interstate bridges, there's the other local crossings too. Louisville is in a bit more of a quandary since they don't have complete bypasses, but to say that any of these downtown bridges are critical links for interstate commerce is just disingenuous, especially since through traffic shouldn't be using them in the first place, but using the bypasses instead. Besides, and this goes for rural roads as well, there's nothing that says commerce needs 55-65 mph speeds to function. Farm produce can still reach the market just as well on a gravel road as a paved one. Trucks can still get their cargo where they need to even if they have to take a more roundabout way to get there. It's not like we're talking superhighways versus mud paths here.

I want to see what those lights look like.

Local commuting traffic patterns yes, but in the grand scheme of interstate or international truck shipping, it's bogus. The Mackinaw Bridge is a "vital link" in the transportation network of the country, but the Brent Spence and Sherman Minton bridges are not.

$27 million just in street improvements? That would go a long way to closing the gaps in the streetcar project's budget.