natininja

Ever wanted to star in a viral video? Make a cowboy version of the "Das Boot" ad.

It would be a good way to not directly compete w/ the Banks, and maintain relevance while the other side of the river is booming. A bit of a "blue ocean" tactic. And it would make the anti-urban aspects of NPOTL less relevant, since I don't think the target crowd cares as much about urban design (or so the Sunbelt would have me believe). It would almost make the sh!tty design a feature, lending to its southern authenticity, rather than a bug. (Almost.)

Fitting for the southern side of the river. Would be cool if NPOTL rebranded itself as the region's southern-focused entertainment district.

Link?

^ This will be big: http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2013/12/20/heres-the-next-big-3cdc-project-in.html?page=all It might be more appropriate to discuss this stuff in the OTR development thread. Or the individual downtown project threads. Maybe there should be a general "developments on the streetcar line" thread created in the Southwest Ohio Projects section? Actually, IAGuy39, maybe that would be a good way for you to make an early mark on the forum -- creating that thread. (Welcome to UrbanOhio, btw.)

^ Ah, for some reason I missed that it was the candidate for Lt. Governor and not the candidate for Governor (obviously I didn't bother reading the article). I knew the Lt. Gov candidate was a woman. Thanks. Edit: Sheds more light on why the guy said his dropping out wasn't due to his running mate.

Do Cleveland and Columbus both have Zipcars in their Downtowns? I believe Cincy has a station at 5th Street and another at 12th Street (which is in Over-the-Rhine, a block north of the CBD). Then there's another at UC. And I think those 3 spots are the only Zipcar locations in the metro. Have Zipcar's finances improved at all? I know they were one of those companies that were a darling of investors, yet never in the black. It would suck to develop a reliance upon the service and then have it evaporate.

Was he threatened? (Did someone dig up dirt on him?) Was he paid? It happened all too quickly to say it's due to the way the contest was playing out.

Enquirer reports that Brown wanted Kaepernick and Gruden wanted Dalton. Gotta say, I think Mike was right for once.

^ I'm sure his personal finances would have been in much better shape if he weren't taxed so much.

That's how the college bowl season works. At least it gives some extra time to recover from injuries, which plague a lot of teams towards the end of the season.

Maybe we should be using the gasoline tax to subsidize people's cannabis habits.

I used to proudly hate sports. When I lived abroad, it became a nice outlet for feeling a connection with America (and Cincy) to watch baseball and football, kind of like going to a burger joint -- indulging in little pieces of Americana feels great. But I still hate a lot of things about sports. I see why people are smug about it. I mean, just look at the stadium deal. And the Yankees' WS record. And the commercialization of college sports (combined w/ NCAAF becoming the de facto minor league to the NFL). This is all especially heinous to someone who doesn't even enjoy watching games.

I generally prefer to watch from home, too, if only due to the down markers projected onto the field. Makes the game so much easier to watch! Also commercial breaks are far less boring.

I still find it hilarious that WCPO expects people to pay for articles like that when there are plenty of free blogs and forums out there that have much higher quality than that. I can't wait for the day when I'm no longer even tempted to click on links like that to see how absurd of connections people can make to the streetcar. I was tempted, too. But I know it's just click-bait, so I resist. The only thing on my Christmas list this year was a Business Courier subscription.

They are probably waiting for welfare to be cut so it can be applied to their rent. Or maybe Cranley promised he'd pay it when he cranceled the streetcar.

Thank god these a$$holes are finally seeing real-world consequences of their a$$holery. I'm way over-tired of them a$$holing around with impunity.

Chad Johnson says he will buy them.

^ Have you seen this? http://www.urbancincy.com/2013/12/uc-planning-engineering-students-propose-hamilton-avenue-brt-corridor/

Chris Wetterich of the Cincinnati Business Courier wrote a great article about the double-standard related to those two specific projects, and the progressive members of Cincinnati's city council made sure to push for the type of information on the 71 interchange that streetcar opponents asked for about the streetcar. I really hope this continues, and more people continue to press the issue. It's very encouraging that this debate was recently brought into the light of mainstream public discourse in Cincinnati. Feels like maybe we're not just pounding on a brick wall anymore.

I'll feel a lot less negative about the project if this is the financing plan they stick with.

Long time, no see. I was recently thinking about how you haven't posted in a while. Keep it up :) I believe Amsterdam went to automated gates (think like turnstiles) for their Metro (subway/heavy rail) system, but still has an honor system for trams (streetcars). They switched from a zonal fare structure to a per-kilometer structure by using RFID cards to collect variable fare amounts. You tap into the system, then tap out, and it charges based on distance traveled. If I'm not mistaken, they still have people boarding the trams with handheld devices to make sure everyone aboard has a card and is checked in for the current ride. Scanning the RFID at a Metro station opens gates to let you in, then scanning again lets you out, so I don't think they bother much to do fare checking on the Metro. They may occasionally do fare-checks on the Metro, too, but probably much less since they have the gates. London's RFID system is similar in the way you check-in and check-out through turnstiles for the Tube and the Overground, though they've kept a zonal system.

Page 666. Proof the streetcar is pretty much the devil.

My streetcar's bigger than your streetcar!

I disagree. "Sprawl" is a slang term that means extended. Urban sprawl is an extended urban area. Suburban sprawl is an extended suburban area. So what's the difference between urban and suburban? Well, the words mean different things to different people. The U.S. Census does not distinguish between the two, and uses the word "urban" when refering to either urban or suburban. In a simplified kind of way, to me "urban" means "walkable" and "suburban" means "auto-dependent." You can use them however you want, but in standard practice "urban sprawl" and "suburban sprawl" mean the same thing. I suspect the reason is that "urban sprawl" was coined to describe the phenomenon before "suburb" became a common term. https://encrypted.google.com/#q=define:urban+sprawl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_sprawl It's still frequent that "urban" is used as a distinction from "rural" and includes suburban areas, depending on the context. The Census Bureau is one example. Another example is the frequent citation of statistics about what percentage of the world's population lives/will live in urban areas by X year. I hear it in the news all the time (sometimes they even slip and use the term "cities," which makes their stat technically inaccurate). My guess is that the buses are used because they are inexpensive. They are simply converted compact pickup trucks, and compact ones at that. They probably cost $10,000 U.S. or less brand new, and require no special skills to operate. Probably right, though from the limited view it seems like a full sized bus might have trouble navigating those streets. Anyway, do you know of an example where a city's transit system uses small buses or vans due primarily to their speed benefits? Or professionals advocating this, backed with data and studies? I'm not aware of any, and I suspect the author of the article isn't, either. Again, I think you're attributing too much sophistication to the author's opinions. He comes across as uninformed to me. I leave open the idea that there could be some merit to a nuanced, and almost certainly unintentional, interpretation of what he said.