OCtoCincy

Just to be clear, because of 4 year terms we won't have a "new" council till 2018. The same folks, minus winburn if he beats Thomas, will be in office until Dec 1 2017.

^ correct. I looked up the same info. We have a shorter version of the Urbos 3. It's only about 150 max people. My bad! That would man in 1 hour with 3 streetcars you could move would be 900

I think the only time you would ever see 5 cars at once would be during something massive like the World Series or if we'd gotten the RNC. One car will be out of service and in maintenance at all times. 4 is really the max we would ever operate, but the standard number would be 3. Regarding travel time, I'm going to assume you meant liberty & Elm. If you wanted to get to liberty & race from 2nd street, you would most likely get off at liberty & elm and walk one block to liberty & race. An estimated travel time from the Banks to Liberty & Elm is 15 minutes on the streetcar vs. 30 minutes walking (google estimate) vs. 14 minutes biking (google estimate) vs. 8 minutes driving (not including parking). Our Streetcars hold roughly 200 people and complete the loop in about 35 minutes. They each make two loops in just over 1 hour, so at max capacity with 3 operating streetcars that would be about 1200 people in just over 1 hour.

PPB is privately owned now. Which is complete crap. People of KY should have demanded their state maintain it. It is still a bridge! just not a vehicular bridge. The only way you get A streetcar across is paying the owner. Also, just based on arrival points and design, I think crossing over Taylor Southgate is better anyway. You'd have to pass TS to get to PPB anyway.

City can do the stabilization work. They would then send the bill to the LLC. When no one pays they add it to the property tax bill for this property. When the LLC pays their regular taxes but don't pay the lien (if they didn't pay the bill they probably won't pay the tax bill in full either), the property can be tax foreclosed upon (soonest this would be possible would be 9 months to a year after work happens). However: City can't tax foreclose. Only County treasurer can and he doesn't care about this crap. BUT. The LandBank 2 years ago also got the ability to tax foreclose with Treasurer's permission (he usually says sure, not my problem). But they only take properties if someone is seriously ready to accept it immediately and rehab the building. If you have the money, contact the Land Bank ASAP about beginning the entire (over 1 year) process. That is essentially what is happening to the Moerlein mansion on Mulberry.

For folks who may not be aware, it is estimated we will get our first CAF Urbos 3 in late summer early fall of 2015. All Streetcars will be delivered by January 2016. I can't emphasize enough that <b><u>THIS IS A BIG DEAL</u></b>. Tucson was delayed 10 months due to streetcar vehicle delays and DC has been delayed a couple years because of Streetcar vehicle delays. Kansas City will also be delayed because they have an unrealistic schedule that assumes they will get all of their vehicles before us, even though we placed our order months in advance (they are piggy backing on our streetcar order). The fact that we may have all 5 vehicles 8-9 months before we are scheduled to begin revenue service shows amazing planning. While the rail installation is flying along, there is a lot of work that still has to be done. Here is a brief summary of less sexy work: - Every single intersection will need to be rebuilt (they've torn up sidewalks, etc.) - 3.6 miles of Cincinnati streets will be repaved. However, the City paves in "lane miles". Each year they only pave 100 lane miles. The (slightly less than) 3.6 miles that will be repaved are actually closer to 12 "lane miles" since most streets are 4 lanes wide (two parking, two driving). Meaning, in 2015 (possibly starting this fall) an extra 12 lane miles will be paved by the project on top of the city's regular 100 lane miles. - The Three power substations will need to be installed. - A ton of OCS poles still need to be installed (although much of OTR is almost done). - Attaching the catenary to the poles, etc. - Shelter installation including electronics (real-time arrival and fare vending) - all of the rail "parking spots" at the MOF. There's actually a ton of them (room to park 12 vehicles), but I believe only half will be built in this phase. The timeline that I'm aware of has Walnut Street track reaching 3rd Street no later than January 31, pending weather. The Straight sections of the 2nd street horseshoe begin on Sept 2 and will be finished "by Opening Day". The Curved sections of the 2nd Street horseshoe won't be installed until Fall 2015, effectively the last rail installation of the entire project. Main Street will begin likely around mid-March and will take roughly 5 months to complete (finishing in late August/early September 2015). I am under the impression Main Street construction will head North, so the Main to 12th curve will likely be the last section. This means, if things don't go amazingly well allowing them to complete the curves before Opening Day 2015 (which they are saying they won't even try, but I'm hoping that is simply the conservative plan) the 3.6 mile Phase1a Cincinnati Streetcar loop will be completed by Nov 2015, about 6 or so weeks after the arrival of our first Urbos 3. The official agreement has MPD "turning over" the system to the City in mid-March of 2016. Meaning they would be completely finished, packed up and gone at this point. Under the schedule I just listed, that leaves them 3-4 months after completing the last track to finish everything else (stations, traffic lights, OCS, any remaining street rehab, shelters, MOF tracks, etc.). Obviously a lot of that happens during track construction, but some things, like OCS happen at the very end, and the OCS wire system above the Walnut & 2nd and the Main & 2nd curves are moderately complicated. Now onto complete speculation: I would guesstimate that the project will install OCS on the OTR loop in mid-late summer 2015 (a few weeks or so before the first vehicle arrives). I'd bet the first vehicle's would begin testing almost immediately. The OCS for the CBD loop wouldn't be complete until early 2016. Remember that Testing & Training are two different things. Testing is about whether the system is built correctly (and would include MPD's participation), while training will likely occur after they are gone and be an entirely SORTA operation. In case you weren't aware, only 3 Streetcars will ever be operating at the same time. A 4th will always be ready immediately for standby, and the 5th is "out of rotation" assuming repairs, maintenance, etc. In operations, I believe this would have a situation where: One Streetcar is arriving at 2nd Street stop, one is departing the 12th & Vine stop, and one is boarding at the Liberty & Race stop. Lastly, my hope is one day we acquire a historic streetcar that could be available for charter service or special event service. Imagine, one historic streetcar mixing in on certain nights with our beautiful modern fleet.

And not just the Main & Walnut Bridges. 2nd street is also essentially a bridge. So the entire horse shoe from 3rd on Walnut to 3rd on Main is all bridge. AND unlike the 12th & Race diamond which was easy to shut down and honestly, I live next to it, it wasn't even a hassle at all (when you think of the fact a seemingly major intersection was shut down for 7 weeks), when you consider the fact that 2nd and third have tens of thousands of vehicles a day because they are such a primary feeder for commuters and sports goers you realize how complicated that horseshoe will be.

^Many of them do live in the suburbs of Hamilton county and a large number live on the westside of Cincy. If he runs for HCC or mayor those are the people he will go after for money, volunteers voters etc. So- back to the streetcar : Diamond looks great, they are rebuilding the corners soon. I've been told traffic signals may start to switch over in the next few weeks. The court & walnut pour seemed to go so fast! It's amazing that by years end we may be at 2nd St on Walnut! Let's pray for a dry fall!

When the streetcar is finished and everyone starts to like it, will he change his tune (probably) and will his voter base stay with him? To be honest, with the streetcar, there's never going to be a time when "everybody" likes it. Just like OTR development, there are plenty of people who don't like what's happening. A majority does, but MANY people think it's a huge waste of money. There will still be people in Cincy, and especially in Hamilton County, who think the Streetcar is a huge waste of money no matter what happens along the line. They will be people who live far from downtown and work far from downtown and don't come downtown. They will dislike it no matter what, and they will love Smitherman still. he won't change his tune. He will play to the people who don't like it forever.

Regarding this Rookwood Properties development that is being talked about now... If you look at their website, all they've built are crappy looking suburban apartment complexes that look like they will become the next generation of poverty. The only downtown property they seem to manage is Lytle Tower (the small one, not the big one on the river). I don't know much about that building, other than it apparently got a renovation a couple years ago.

Actually, it was the request of CTM & all of the (mostly) middle aged residents of Clifton Hills Ave. If you've ever been to Clifton Hills Ave you would know the homes are not owned by "yuppie bastards". Apparently, the majority of the people who use Clifton Hills as a cut through are Hospital employees who don't want to take MLK. The City said the majority of the traffic on CH as a cut through occurs between 6-8AM and 5-7PM. I don't think this is the best solution, but Clifton Hills is a strange street. It has no sidewalks and no street lights (was built post war). Many students at DePaul Cristo Rey get dropped off on the bus stops on Ludlow and walk in the street on Clifton Hills to get to school. Residents have asked for sidewalks, but City has said it's too expensive.

I think the Hotel design may be filler. The actual design will flush out when they get an operator who brings in their specific designs to the project. I think many of us have been saying for years that one of Newport On the Levee's biggest issues (besides some bizarre second floor design choices) is the lack of a residential base in the area. I'm convinced that adding an additional 300 residents next to NOTL will only help the development. From DT and OTR riding a bike to NOTL is incredibly easy. Having 300+ new residents adjacent to it may bring in some higher quality vendors making the entire development move from attractive building materials with little purpose to something that blends suburban amenities in an urban setting. That parking lot was the biggest waste of space ever anyway. Also, I'd bet a sizable amount of the residents of these apartments use Purple People bridge to get to jobs downtown. Happy this is finally happening. As an aside, Monmouth Row, 2 blocks up the street is finished and will add ~130 new residents to Newport's downtown. The design is mostly decent, and of course, significantly better than the nearly block sized surface lot that it replaced.

If you're going to eat mexican any time in the next few months, consider Taqueria Mercado. If you're looking for a cheep happy hour downtown for the next few months, consider Righteous Room. Everybody stopping by a few more times than they used to may help.

In Case you haven't seen, 12th & Race curb to curb is 95% finished. They still need to rebuild the sidewalks at the corners, but the street is essentially all done now. If you haven't been by, the entire intersection, and about 100-150 feet on all 4 sides is concrete now. The whole thing has rebar underneath it, etc. A properly built concrete road has a lifespan of 30-40 years, compared to 14-18 years for asphalt (which would still need pothole filling) and doesn't get potholes or warp from truck traffic. The downside is, you can't just cut a trench and refill it like you can with asphalt roads if something needs repairing. No utility work is going to happen underneath that street for a long long time, though most of the utilities were recently repaired/replaced. Other downside is concrete roads are more slippery in rain than asphalt. That, paired with the major mix of tracks will make that intersection a cyclist death trap on a wet day.

Most of their brands are regional. ie. Harris Teeter is only in the south, Ralphs is only out west, etc.

This is why we need light rail. West Chester to downtown through sharonville, evendale, etc. and Mason to downtown through Kenwood.

Correct.

That new construction is the vacant lot on Scioto between Calhoun & McMillan.

Here is an old rendering of what would go at Vine.

Have you tried Reading Rd the whole way? The 23X has multiple stops on Chester Rd. Depends where you work I suppose. Lists its time as 30 minutes to downtown. It's obviously going to be the same speed or slower as driving, but at least you can read/text/nap.

They are taller than most cars and people on cyclists. It would take a box truck/tall bike to hit it.

CAC is absolutely beautiful.

Phase IIIa is going to begin shortly. 12 or so townhomes and 4 condos. Townhomes will be 1800 sqft which is a good size. Unlike the 900 square foot tiny little condos across the street on the south side of Mercer. Phase IIIb is still planned to be office but is on hold.

I doubt it. If they want to stay downtown they are in the best spot (next to macys). You never want to be an island in retail. No chance they go to Banks