helmespc

Bizarrely accurate east of 75.... The stadiums and banks are nearly identical to what is built.... caps on FWW even :clap:.

That is very tragic, unusualfire, I read that story the other day but did not correlate it.

I agree... there's not many options for that area aside from trashing the building and starting over, really. The place is too big to do much with. Offices and residences don't seem to jive as you'd most likely have to do tons of internal renovation to make it practical for such uses. You have to think Forest Park would love to just start that area over with a blank slate. As it stands now it is pretty much just Bass Pro Shop and 50 acres of parking lot and blight. Sucks.... I remember that indoor sandbox/beach being pretty awesome when I was a kid. Timeout was also one of the best arcades in Cincinnati at the time.

Being a Westsider and knowing where the C&O traveled, I can tell you that while large portions are still undeveloped, a couple major sites are now developed. The first is where the train yard was, where Glenway and Crookshank meet. Now the site of the Applebees, abandoned Target store, and some other various retail. Across the road from that, the route up the hill is blocked now by the Western Hills Walmart complex. Additionally, the route crossed Glenway near Westbourne and at Bridgetown, this entire stretch has been developed since. Aside from those spots the line looks like it is in pretty good shape from a development standpoint. (at least from satellite views). I don't know who owns any of the old ROW and I'd bet it would be more difficult to convince anyone on the west side that opening the C&O line back up would be a good idea. It was not exactly aesthetically pleasing when it was open. Also, to get it back up, I'm guessing it would now need to be rerouted around western hills in some way to get to Dent / Bridgetown where the old ROW looks to be in better shape and could be potentially usable.

Agree. Seems better to tie into potential future subway tunnel use and the possibility of turning at least that section of the road into a grand boulevard. Also CP doesn't seem to have that much traffic for how big it is, and it seems that Liberty Street / 7th-8th-9th / Ft. Washington Way are the natural corridors for crossing the CBD/OTR between the two highways. It will be interesting to see if Central Parkway becomes more integral as OTR revitalizes. Seems like Central Parkway tends to suffer from not having decent connections to I-75 and I-71. Everyone gets off I-75 on 7th and 5th and that traffic filters through the city from the southwest. I tend to agree that 12th street probably makes good business sense. I'd kind of like to see it on Central Parkway, though, for the whole "grand boulevard" idea, as well.

I am pretty sure many people on UO care about how a city's ability to attract business is impacted. Regardless, I was responding to the idea that people would happily take a train to another city to catch a plane. I wasn't saying anything about the pros and cons of turboprops.... regardless, the fact that rail is operating is a good thing, but it is not something that will ever replace the necessity for regional air transit in the US.

While I understand the desire for all things rail around here and the sentiment is ok.... I'd much rather not add a few more travel hours to my business trips. I'm sure there's a lot of businesses that would also rather see their employees working rather than traveling. You may get there sooner, but your travel time is lost time. When I traveled by train in England and Japan I made money by being able to work during the trip. I can never get much work done on a plane, you're just packed in too closely to review confidential documents. Add in the longer waits to get through security and in the waiting areas -- give me a train any day. Turboprops are not slower than 50-seat ERJs on short flights, as mentioned above. Lets put it this way, I fly regular 1 or 2 hour flights to the east coast from CVG on regional jets. Many times it is done as a day trip, I leave in the morning and I am back home by about 7 at night. In all it probably adds up to about 4 hours of travel time per trip. There are *many* business travelers like me who do this sort of thing every day. For better or worse, that is the way business is done in the US. Even the shortest rail trip would likely double this travel time. Employers would rather not see their employees spending many hours of unnecessary travel time sitting on trains, especially when only on a train to catch a plane in another city. This sort of transportation model hurts any city who doesn't have the useful airport as no businesses would want to be in the outlying cities without airline service because travel costs go up significantly. So while I agree that quality train service between cities less than 250 miles away is not a bad thing and is something we should strive for, it is not at all a reasonable solution for business travel. A better option is to encourage larger businesses to use regularly scheduled chartered flights and plan travel accordingly, rather than fly individuals on commercial airlines.

Forgive my ignorance, I've been looking around for the answer to this, but haven't seen a definitive answer. Everything I've seen shows phase 1 going all the way to the zoo. Is this really a part of phase 1 or will phase 1 be stopping at the top of vine street like I always assumed?

Disheartening a bit that they are not going to go out of their way to help the project. As long as they get the first leg built, though, the streetcar project can start to show its impact on the region and convince politicians like Driehaus and Portman to lend more support.

While I understand the desire for all things rail around here and the sentiment is ok.... I'd much rather not add a few more travel hours to my business trips. I'm sure there's a lot of businesses that would also rather see their employees working rather than traveling.

To quote Craig T... they moved the headstones but you didn't move the graaavvvveesssssssssss.....

The Good Sam site is a good idea.... too bad they had to strip another Dent hillside... the whole area is going to be bare hills before too long.

Not sure, whatever they're doing stretches all the way to forest park where the previous construction ended.... and looks terrible. It has to be the beginning of some sort of construction phase or some sort of abstract art.

Anyone know what's up on 275 between Forest Park and Reagan? It looks like they might be putting concrete foundation in the middle, are the planning on redoing that entire section in the near future?

Yeah, all that parking between the factory and Hamilton is terrible.... nobody will walk down Blue Rock so the retail will end up empty....

The residents of Northside had a conniption fit over that. If I recall correctly, they may have gotten an ordinance of some sort to keep *chain* stores out of Northside.

Definitely, that block of nothingness absolutely kills the flow of Northside. Fill it in and get some more decent (non-chain) restaurants down there. Seems like a guy can't get a decent meal after 10 pm in Northside. http://www.bloomfieldschon.com/ 12k retail, 20k office, 30 townhomes. Maybe not signature pieces but looks like some solid infill. Wow.... thats a little fancy for Northside, but that'd be cool. That area of town could be the place to be... as it is now, it needs a little bit *more* to do... the bars are all very far apart. Everyone tends to just cram into the Tavern until its bursting at the seams.

Definitely, that block of nothingness absolutely kills the flow of Northside. Fill it in and get some more decent (non-chain) restaurants down there. Seems like a guy can't get a decent meal after 10 pm in Northside.

Just saw this thing from the cut-in-the-hill for the first time yesterday. I must say, it looks gargantuan. When you first see it up there, it really looks like the tallest building in the city and dwarfs everything else by quite a bit. Not in a bad way, either, imo.

I think it is kind of ugly at the moment, but I also think when the cranes come down, the signage goes up, and the elevator on the front goes away, its going to significantly improve the aesthetics.