natininja

Can't imagine who thought the paywall was a good idea. They did hire some decent people, but then forced an agenda on them which stifled any quality in their work. I'm happy to sit back and watch them fail. They thought they could emulate the Enquirer and WLW and people would flock over to gobble up the poo.

Jeffre tweeted in support of continuing the streetcar in December, FYI. Not that I think he likes the idea, but he recognized the idiocy of stopping it. His buddy Nick Lachey is a vocal streetcar supporter. WCPO is getting insane. They are copying the Enquirer, with streetcar hate and a paywall, but in an even more extreme way.

They also don't own all of the land yet either... http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2014/02/24/steiner-still-needs-to-buy-land-for.html Hmm, that's weird. You'd think they would buy the land prior to announcing a major development. That way, the asking price would be lower.

Exactly this. We need to articulate who's going to use this arena, how often, and how much money that's going to bring. I don't think the numbers would add up to make it worthwhile. It sounds nice, but let the private sector deal with it unless/until it's an obvious money maker. We need other capital improvements more, like transit, FWW caps, NBD improvements (incl. buried electric lines), etc.

^ Didn't the NFL branch out of an Ohio football league? I'd imagine that explains it.

Ehh, there was a lot of good stuff going on then. Modest Mouse, Flaming Lips (reinventing themselves awesomely), and the Elephant 6 bands, to name a few. Indie was hitting its stride, really, and the blogs and hipsters hadn't done their damage to it yet.

I'd say grade-separated, hands down. But it's a totally useless hypothetical. I do think there are some values the streetcar has that a subway or el wouldn't. Traffic calming not really being high on the list. The big ones are 1) ease of hopping-on and -off -- there are no stairs or elevators; 2) visibility of the tracks in the road make navigating the system easy (although split one-ways counteract this to a high degree). Those two things combine to make for a sort of coziness and feeling of accessibility, like the whole of downtown is more compact and at your fingertips. Plus I think they are visually appealing and command a presence. BUT all these things could be achieved with dedicated right-of-way. I don't think there's a compelling reason to prefer mixed-traffic streetcars. Even with dedicated ROW you get traffic calming, by removing a travel lane or two, maybe narrowing the ones that are left, increasing pedestrian presence, etc. Plus, if traffic calming is what you are after, there are more direct ways that do not have a trade-off such as slower transit: two-way conversions, curb bulbouts, pedestrian islands/medians, bike lanes/boulevards, elevated intersections, the list goes on... We should totally be doing all of these things in CBD/OTR. Bundle a subsidized parking/transit(/bikeshare) combo with the garages on the periphery of downtown and focus on accessibility over mobility in the street network. Residents' parking passes for most OTR/Pendleton street parking. Fountain Square garage should be at least 50% more expensive than Washington Park or the Banks garages.

Infrastructure dollars are valuable, too. Are there enough of these people to make it in the public's interest to ensure they attend Cincinnati State?

Not optimal. Don't know how they track who is occupying and when they are there but 25% is stunning to me. Probably by getting the rent checks mailed to them rather than dropped off at the office. Especially if the return address is from a suburb. And seeing low occupancy levels at the pool, fitness room, and other common areas. UGHHHHHH!!!!! That aint cool It's cool for the people who get to use an empty pool, fitness room, etc. whenever they want.

^ Ooh, I didn't notice the spreadsheet list of cities, ranks, atc. So Blue Ash ties for 5th for weather, but Sharonville is 53rd. Wat. They share a border! Cincinnati comes in at #2 for weather, just behind Painesville! Pretty much paradise. (Also #2 for amenities, behind Columbus (which scores #71 in weather).) Cleveland ranks Amenities:21 Weather:5.

My clickwheel iPod died a year ago, when a bottle of beer leaked in my bag. I replaced it with a $25 Sansa Clip thingamabob, which takes microSD cards (4GB internal). Only complaint is that it takes a long time to reload a large SD card if you fully power it down (gotta keep it in sleep mode), but it's tiny, practically weightless, holds a lot of music, expandable storage, works great.

^ Haha. Too bad even that picture is now outdated (where's the touchscreen?). I have an MP3 player, but I'm a dinosaur for having that plus a dumbphone.

Music isn't over, but the album is. I try not to be crotchety about it, but it does bother me. I don't like mixes and singles, with the exception of a well-choreographed mixtape.

Makes sense to me, being near the lake is natural AC in the summer, limits those stagnant hazy days found in Central & Southern OH. That contradicts the fact that #2 is in Southwest Ohio and they also comment on its nice weather. Weather is pretty consistent from one municipality to its neighbors, so I guess they ranked weather by regions? I'd like to see a map of those rankings. Apparently NEO and SWO are at the top. If they were ranking regions, then weather ranks could make SOME sense (as opposed to making claims like Montgomery has awesome weather and Mason's sucks). But I agree w/ edale that ranking weather in Ohio is splitting hairs.

What are people's thoughts on this? It doesn't seem that important to me. I don't think it benefits Uptown substantially, and it sounds really expensive. If anything, it tempts Uptown's workers with more suburban living options -- how is that worth subsidizing?

^ True. Though, unless Portune is planning to challenge Wenstrup, I don't know why he would be championing this Eastern Corridor nonsense. There's no population center over there, especially not in HamCo. And it has the potential to p!ss off anti-transit folks. Not to mention the pro-transit folks don't really like it, so who does that leave? I guess campaign donors. Is that it? Maybe it's a kickback thing. I'm not accusing, just trying to explain something that seems totally irrational. Earlier, I suggested it might be make-work for OKI, which could also explain the silly transit summit, which was pretty much a parody of a transit summit.

I agree that the streetcar will be useful for going from pole to pole, but I have a hard time picturing myself using it for any shorter a distance. If you want to go from Fountain Square to Washington Park, would you walk the 6-7 blocks, or wait for a streetcar to come, pay $1.75, and then ride the short distance? I could only see myself not walking if it was pouring rain or excessively hot. Depends on the circumstances.... For example, if you rented a bike at the bike center on the river, wore yourself out a bit, returned the bike, and had to get a few blocks up to Fountain Square or Central Parkway, you might prefer to take the streetcar. Currently it's pretty crazy that you almost can't take a bus from anywhere south of 5th Street to anywhere north of 5th Street (without transferring, but for a short trip who'd do that?). The streetcar will fix that.

If an act of council can break (streetcar) construction contracts, then an act of council can break these ridiculous height restrictions. Fzck the Bengals. Maybe we need a ballot initiative.

I'm past the age of recognizing a significant number of bands in a festival line-up, haha. I love the Flaming Lips, though. Veruca Salt is still around? Midpoint is clearly the better local festival. Bonnaroo and Pitchfork are close enough that, if I were interested in going to a summer festival, I probably wouldn't consider Bunbury. They've had GBV and the Flaming Lips, though, so it's not all terrible (but Pitchfork has like 10 bands of that caliber every year). It's not really an indie festival, it's not a pop festival...they either need to hammer down an identity or go broader. I think they could benefit from adding some EDM and alternative hip-hop.

I thought it sounded good. Soul food? Can't hate on that, and it's something Downtown (and the city in general) lacks. Too bad I never got to taste it. I can't believe Johnny Rockets will outlast them.

It must be engineer logic that comes up with this crap, 'cause it ain't planners or anyone versed in economics.

^ One of their main criteria is weather. WTF?

I like the co-op idea. Some co-ops I've been to are so awesomely amazing, I would love to see the concept repeated on Ludlow. It's a shame the three neighborhoods Quimbob mentioned all have large abandoned grocery stores. College Hill's has been abandoned for probably close to two decades!

I still can't believe they went through with scrapping the original deal. They were going to get all that money to play with, and the blow-back for going back on that campaign promise would have been less than the blow-back from reconstructing most parts of the deal people didn't like (longer hours, increased rates) and owning them as your own, which is essentially what's happened. It would have been pretty simple to argue things were too far along to back out. I can't imagine a better position for Cranley's opponents. He doesn't get play money bought with others' political capital. He has to look like an idiot by killing the deal then taking ownership of something substantially identical. Meanwhile, his opponents get to hammer him for taking on $50m in debt ($30m for new meters, $20m for MLK interchange) rather than taking the $85m windfall, they get to stoke the flames of outrage at rate & hour increases, and it's not unlikely someone will collect signatures to bring this to referendum. It will also likely become a fight in City Council, further fracturing what once was thought to be Cranley's coalition. Still, it's not all roses. Cranley is spending us deeper into the hole, without making high-ROI investments for the future.

That would also hurt one of the incentives of using transit.