natininja

A couple important things you get from the city, Dan: Your suburb and your job. If you don't feel you greatly benefit from the city, I honestly can't fathom why you come to this website. Unless you just want to troll, which I suppose is not that difficult to believe.

The city houses the region's poor. We take on all the burdens and costs associated with policing them, educating them, putting out fires homeless people set, etc. We are stuck with all the old infrastructure which supports the city, hence supporting the whole region. We have to maintain the built environment, which is one of the region's greatest assets. Many city parents get stuck paying twice for schools (once public, once private), because available resources only sustain a few quality public schools. Suburbanites bail out to their land of low taxes, with shiny new infrastructure built and maintained with state and federal subsidies. The few police on the force twiddle their thumbs between passing out revenue-generating tickets. Schooling is relatively cheap, without the inner-city challenges. Few problems with the sewers, road infrastructure Uncle Sam just bought for them, or old electric wires because it's not 200 years old. No benefits for those taxes? You get the city, without which your suburbs would be nothing. You get to not worry about poverty issues in your neck of the woods. You get a lot. A lot more than a city resident paying income tax to a suburb gets for his money. If you want a city-county merger, start the petition drive.

100% agree. By choosing to live in the suburbs, you are shirking certain responsibilities to the regional community. Fortunately, you working in the city helps to remedy this situation a bit. However, it's a trade-off you make, when you chose to live in the suburbs and remove yourself from many of the regional burdens carried by city residents, you lose the vote on city matters.

Even if you weren't working in the city, you should care about the city. The health of the city is directly related to the health of your suburb. My point is there is a democratic system in place to deal with people expressing their interests. If you want a bigger voice, then move to the city. Or start a movement for the city to annex your suburb. Or start a movement to make a powerful regional government.

What do you propose, then, DanB? If you pay income tax in a municipality, should you get half a vote? Why don't you tell your employer how you feel about political issues? They have influence proportional to the amount of money the business has invested into the local economy. Your influence in the company is proportional to how much they value you as a worker, which is also tied to your pay and hence the amount of income tax you pay. So there's your voice, neatly proportional to the tax burden you're so vocal about.

^ It would probably help if the Governor weren't seen in a music video which claims LeBron is responsible for saving downtown. (See my post above yours.)

Have you guys seen this? Maybe it's old to you... http://www.break.com/index/we-are-lebron-video.html#id1837025 A music video parodying "We Are the World", featuring Cleveland celebs plus Sen. Brown and Gov. Strickland, aiming to keep LeBron James around.

^ Demurrer, welcome to the board!

Jake hit the nail that most of us know first hand the mentality of the suburbs. And Civvik nailed it, regarding the insularity. The suburbanites form their opinions on prejudices about the city, whereas we have legitimate judgments, not prejudgments, regarding the suburbs and their inhabitants. Dan, do you live in KY?

Some people won't ride on many streets without a bike lane. If it gets more people out biking, it's a good thing. Perhaps at some point bike lanes will not be so important, after biking is a bigger part of the culture. It's not that hard or expensive to repaint a street. Separated paths are definitely nice, IMO. They make riding much safer, plus there is much less debris. Of course, they are not so cheap.

I see their perspective, it's just wrong. They are better off having their tax money spent in the region, rather than another region. They can dispute that, but they're wrong. They're also wrong about the value of revitalizing OTR and the probability that it will happen. It's not relative: they're wrong.

Even if it were said by one person, or two people, or however many, it hasn't been said by "all streetcar supporters", which is what you said. Even affording a bit of hyperbole, I find it hard to believe that even most streetcar supporters have made this claim. Stop trollin'.

I don't think you need to be a sprawl supporter; you could just have a regionalist disposition, looking at competition on a broader scale. Better the new jobs go to Austin Rd. than to Kalamazoo or Kyoto.

But that wasn't your argument. Your argument was: "According to all of the streetcar supporters, people WILL NOT ride buses." And that's a straw man.

I just hope their quick reaction does not doom the road diet/bike lanes. I don't hang out in Hyde Park a lot, but it seems to me like a community that would benefit from this. Too bad this was done in a way that makes them mad, cuz I think the community there is pretty progressive and would have been on board if they were engaged in a dialogue beforehand.

Yes, this is the main argument people use. The permanence is the key. It is true that different demographics use streetcars rather than buses, too. However, like jjakucyk said, shuttle buses to complete a commuter rail trip are quite a different animal. Particularly since they are simple and predictable, which is part of the advantage provided by the permanence of the streetcar track.

Apparently, Hyde Parkers are not digging their complete streets. Do you think this is symptomatic of the lack of an awareness campaign, or because of a cultural trait? Hyde Park residents outraged by road changes While the city considers re-striping Observatory Avenue, residents expressed their anger about changes which have already been made to Erie Avenue. During a recent Hyde Park Neighborhood Council meeting, both residents and council expressed their opposition to the reduction of lanes along Erie Avenue, as well as the addition of a center turn-only lane and a bicycle lane. Read More

Scrabble, the DIC is basically a homeless shelter. It's on the east side of Washington Park, so WP basically serves as the front lawn. Consequently, WP is a major hangout for the homeless community in Cincy. Lots of beer drinking, drunken arguments, napping, panhandling, and just general hanging out goes on there, among the homeless population.

I think the point of arguing is less to convince those arguing and more to show that the pro-streetcar view is more sensible to someone who might not be sure what they think. Of course, you can argue that there are probably slim to none of these people actually reading those comments, and you may be (probably are) right.

I wouldn't be so sure that never happens.

Thanks, Melanie and Randy. Hopefully, momentum really picks up from outside the region.

If 3C went to Sawyer Point, it may be unnecessary to switch to CUT for the foreseeable future. Sawyer Point is significantly closer to Fountain Square than CUT. And I would imagine it is much cheaper. I guess losing the track for light rail is a legitimate concern, but it also may supply the motivation to go ahead with the fourth main to CUT. Meanwhile, you get the track improvements. If we can't make it to downtown right away, and we can't figure out a way not to upgrade lots of track which doesn't directly help get us to CUT, my vote goes to Sharonville being the temporary endpoint. However, Sawyer Point looks like the best solution to me, ATM. Ending in Sharonville indefinitely would seriously suck, and it would damage public sentiment for the project.

Is there any reason not to go to Sawyer Point besides Columbia-Tusculum/Mt. Adams NIMBYs?

Likewise, it is impossible to know how many people will come. It's all just a projection. But that doesn't stop you from quoting an estimation. Admittedly, other demographics would be easier to extrapolate. I'd also be interested in knowing this data for the people who have moved downtown recently. Again, I would guess no one has attempted such a study. Which I feel even more sure of, since no one here seems to have heard of one.

No, I mean where are they moving away from? Which neighborhoods or suburbs are most "losing people" to downtown? What is the percentage of new residents that are "boomerang" Cincinnatians, who have decided to move back to make a home downtown? What's the percentage of them that are moving from other regions? Which other regions are they moving from? I know it's doubtful that anyone has bothered to make these measures and projections, but I thought I would ask.