LincolnKennedy

^Here's an example of an actual federal project that, aside from perhaps a couple of reconfigured interchanges, our officials should have been saying they absolutely don't want.

^The Queensgate Terminal project is absurd and will not work without the government giving QT the money to build their terminal. The city should either buy them out for the sake of the neighborhood or fulfill the terms of the lease for QT and then lobby the state to not award funds for QT. I've met those folks from Cincinnati Bulk Terminals and they are quality guys who could definitely handle the proposed traffic that QT says they will generate. This is looking similar to what went down with Midland in the late 90's.

^so it goes, I'm LincolnKennedy. It's nice to meet the guy on this forum with a sense of humor. Have you ever listened to Dick Gregory?

What's the big deal? It's just crepes.

It's hard to show bemusement on the web, but you decided to accuse me of cutting off debate because of arguments you had on other websites, or at meetings you've attended? Interesting. But isn't the political "market" work on similar principles? What's the matter with groups that don't want this to happen for whatever reason, organizing enough people to prevent it? Wouldn't they have won in the same sense as someone in a competitive business environment? Heck, the whole reason that Model is able to do this is because they and one other company were given special dispensation by Congress to do this. That's probably a major factor in people's complaints. Man, I need a new job. I'm spending too much time on this forum.

That is complete bullsh!t and the only reason you slam that statement in there is because you don't want to engage in civil debate and want to end it with just that. The people who are opposed to the Metropole redevelopment have used those tactics to label me and 3CDC supporters as "anti-poor," "disability haters," "racists," "yuppies," and so on, and it gets tiring when there are MANY other factors that goes into this. It's a free market, and they don't like how capitalism works. Dude, look at any suburb. Most of them aren't terribly diverse (particularly in terms of economic diversity), and are built by the current parameters of the market, which is what I suppose you are talking about when you say something like "how capitalism works". As for not wanting to engage in civil debate, I'm interested in any statement where I used the words "anti-poor" "disability-hater" "racist" (I know I used "yuppie", largely in reference to the term being used in a previous person's post) to refer to people who are in favor of this development. My whole point is that it seems it would have been better to use one of the many empty buildings or surface lots for this project that currently exist in the area. That's been pretty explicit in every one of my posts.

^The best thing that these planners could do to revive these neighborhoods is 1) make the footprint of the highway and its exit as small and thin as possible; and 2) eliminate as many exits as possible. But I doubt either of those things will happen.

This is most definitely a component of diversity, and in fact was the key point in Aaron Renn's "The White City" article (http://www.newgeography.com/content/001110-the-white-city). You can't have a truly diverse neighborhood in Cincinnati if people living below the poverty line aren't there. I'm not saying that that should be a goal for anyone or institution in particular, only that you'd be avoiding the most seminal dividing point for people in the local area. I don't see how one could honestly say a neighborhood is diverse if poor folks aren't living there. The fact is is that most people don't actually want their neighborhood to be diverse.

Though my Uncle Jack once told me, "Never badmouth synergy", I can't really agree, even if you add the opinion of the average retail consultant. It still seems to be better to utilize a vacant building a block away. I guess I didn't really make explicit the point that everything new and yuppie that has been built up in this block has come after the Metropole became housing for degenerates (except perhaps the Aronoff). Seeing how it hasn't effected this block negatively from an investment standpoint, once again, why not use an abandoned building, or a surface parking lot, either of which are easily found merely a block away from this site (unless of course this building, for some reason, is the only one that works in terms of cost)? Obviously this is an academic discussion, but it seems like you could have had an absolute positive by putting this in an abandoned building instead of simply a net positive by changing the use.

Right. But so long as the 3C rail will be at Lunken, they should see if they can use the Transit Center, because it would connect directly to the streetcar, and undoggle COAST's arguments by showing what a boon good planning is to the City.

^Agreed. But what Price Hill really needs is a direct connection to Clifton. Connecting Price Hill & the Fairmount valley to Clifton could really help turn those areas around.

They should temporarily move the Greyhound station to the Riverfront Transit Center, if nothing else than to piss off the boondogglers for their next foray.

I'd argue that this place is already a destination, and that you'd rather add something new a block or so away, to expand the circle, and to utilize a building that is currently getting no use. Just a thought.

^All I know is that certain sections of the MARTA I rode paralleled freight rail lines, albeit the MARTA was elevated considerably above the freight line. I'm thinking specifically of the King Memorial Station. Whether or not distance requirements have changed or increased since the MARTA was built I don't know, but Red Bank Road is huge now and it is still well separated from the railbed that runs parallel to it.

This is where the Republican leadership in this country could show some integrity based on their values of the market, deregulation and entrepreneurship, but since they don't actually hold those values, they won't fight absurd regulation that holds freedom in check but will scream bloody murder against worthwhile environmental regulation that will destroy American business just like the Clean Air Act did in the early 70s.

There was no value judgment about something being better than something else, merely a reference toward my point that investing in roads after the First World War and beyond was a political choice (albeit one made possible by certain technological improvements) not the result of a perfectly impartial cost/benefit analysis that caused rail and specifically underground rail costs to jump in price relative to road construction costs.

I think a decent amount of those guys are ex-offenders, and probably registered sex offenders as well. It's not super easy for them to find places to live, or work for that matter. Also, the one bedroom efficiency apartment flop house style of living isn't a product that is offered much in this town. It's somewhat unique to the Metropole and the Dennison Hotel.

^Really? Isn't that the essence of sympathy? Also, those guys are usually old ex-offenders, pretty much the most despised element of our society. It doesn't cost much to understand how someone who lives there might not want to move, and might be concerned that they would even be able to find a similar place. The thing that is most obnoxious about this conversion is that 3CDC is turning what is currently a building in use and giving it another function, when there are plenty of available and attractive vacant buildings a block away. I understand that it might be cheaper to redo the Metropole than say, the Enquirer building or the Crowne Plaza Hotel, but it strikes me that you would be adding more value to the City by refurbishing a vacant building. Also, that block of Walnut is thriving. Let's spread some of the love around to the next block. I think we'd get more bang from our buck there. Just a thought, but in retrospect, doesn't the Aronoff Project seem like a huge waste? The building is attractive enough, but when you think about how the Emery is lying vacant just a few blocks north, and all the empty lots and underused buildings that could have been built on or refurbished while preserving the buildings that existed on that block of 7th, doesn't it all seem sort of silly?

^You'll get a lot more out of that book if you read more than simply the title to one chapter.

Check out World Trade Since 1431, specifically Chapter 5: http://www.amazon.com/reader/0801851262?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=sib%5Fdp%5Fptu

Once again, there is no particular reason why the costs for tunnels would have marginally increased over the costs for roads. The big difference is that improvements in automobile technology made roads more viable relative to rail than it had been before the war. Since individual car ownership was now in the reach of the rural population, and most states were still rural, and certainly most state governments over-represented rural interests, state funds for road building increased dramatically in the 20s. Now the money generated by cities could be harnessed by the rural areas for their development. Political will.

So let me get this straight- construction costs increased for steel, concrete and labor, but only if those inputs were being used for underground rail transportation? Otherwise construction costs for roads remained the same? That doesn't make any sense. The second part of your second sentence makes a lot more sense, and actually confirms my post. It's far more likely that the improvements in automobile technology, rather than the increase in construction costs of roads, whether they be underground or highways, was a cause for the shift. Edit by Sherman Cahal: Fixed malformed quotation.

But if it doesn't matter how much money you have, just the amount of money you have relative to everyone else, why doesn't that same logic hold with regard to assets? In addition your thesis can be framed in a different way- It doesn't matter whether you can ever pay your debts, off so long as you can continue to finance them. Remember, that is the exact same principle by which rental income accrues. When a prospective buyer examines a potential residential or commercial investment property, they view it as a long term investment. That is the same way in which government bondholders view government debt. So long as the bonds are viewed as redeemable under the terms by which they were executed, credit redounds. And clearly government debt spent on infrastructure in the U.S. is better capitalized than debt spent on Iraq or Afghanistan. By the way, the Cincinnati Subway was killed because of reformist politicians (Seasongood et. al.) not increased construction costs.

Right, but it would connect to the Streetcar at the Transit Center next to the Reds stadium (may have to build a new access point here up from the transit center) which would take you up to northern downtown, OTR and Clifton. If you move what's happening at Government Square down to the block between Main, Walnut, 2nd and 3rd you've potentially got a car/light rail/streetcar node (with all that Banks parking to boot). You wouldn't end the thing in Northside. You'd take it north out of Spring Grove Cemetery, where you've got options. I'd take it the most efficient way through all that industry and then up Cedar Alley in Elmwood Place (a la the L in most any Chicago neighborhood) and then direct it along Seymour to the Swifton Commons area. The real difficulty would be figuring out how to bring the line from Swifton Commons through Norwood to the developable sites along the Madison Road corridor/Gold Circle (Ridge Highland). After that you'd bring it down Red Bank along the Oasis line and back downtown. Whatever gives best access to existing population centers and public spaces strikes me as always being the best choice. However you work it, you've got a Queen City Loop that connects you with four out of six areas of opportunity outlined in the GO Cincinnati plan, as well as the Streetcar route that connects you to the other two (OTR & Clifton). You've also added developable sites around Lunken Airport and Kellogg. Later, you could connect the Loop to the former CL&N route which would have been the basis for the I-71 route for MetroMoves; and add a line paralleling Reading Road next to the I&O line, and figure out a route that would take you along the Vine Street corridor as well. You wouldn't even have to take the right of way from the existing railroads (the east line of the MARTA edges an existing railroad on elevated, grade separated track). You've got to bring the suburbs on board because that's where the money and the votes are for a County wide light rail system, and you've got to keep these folks connected to the core. Also, there are good potential sites and existing employment centers along all three of those routes. Once you show people it could work, in the future they might be willing to add more expense tunneled urban routes to re-densify the core. Anyway, I think a grade separated circle rail route along the path I've described would be the best place to start light rail in Cincinnati/Hamilton County.

From plans I've seen, ROW is preserved in every future highway construction project. I've heard from city officials that there consultants have essentially stated that the only way to relieve congestion on I-71 is to add a parrallel light rail. Thus, whatever they do on I-71 will also preserve ROW. Sadly, the new interchange at McMillan/Taft and MLK will destroy the Oak St. tunnel and instead preserve an at grade ROW parallel to I-71. I have some PDF's of the plans for 71 and 75 through uptown, that show the ROW's. I'll see if I can find them and post them here, if anyone's interested. They should get rid of the interchange at McMillan/Taft when they open up the one at MLK. Then they could make both McMillan and Taft two way, and run the streetcar east-west on one (Taft would probably be better because it doesn't have a bridge over Reading Road) to connect Clifton Heights and De Sales Corner. There's actually a decent route through Northside- whatever the name of the old rail line that goes through Spring Grove and follows the street called Vandalia near the intersection of Blue Rock and Hamilton where all those storage units are. It is uninterrupted (or nearly so) from what I can tell all the way to the Transit Center on the Riverfront, and if connected well, could actually hit every four of six neighborhoods designated as areas of opportunity by the GO Cincinnati Plan. In addition, you could probably add spurs out to the suburbs that follow the Vine Street, Reading Road and Montgomery Road corridors relatively easily, and then bring those folks in from the burbs and back out around the loop. I don't know why you would want to bring grade separated rail into a City next to a highway. No one lives there and there are no public spaces there.