kjbrill

Yes, there was a reason for why the ramps were constructed like they were. And Yes, many of those businesses no longer exist. So is it now a justifiable endeavor to redo all of those ramps at today's cost? There is still not much at the confluence of these ramps which justifies a second look.

Cool! Please share photos when you're able! I certainly hope you get what you bid on. Must be a frustrating waiting game.

Sure, but what would the automated system connect? You have to connect comething before you have a system at all. Look at the map of the existing subway tunnels and advised what you think could be automated and what they would connect to.

How many times do you have to quote the same topic across multiple threads to get your point across? :shoot: I appreciate you having your opinion, but to broadcast it across every thread in the forum sometimes gets a little boring!

Glad to see since posting this over a year ago I have not received many detractors, none to be exact. Lunken is in a flood plain of the Ohio River, always was, and always will be. That means, every so often it will be flooded. That was the main reason once commercial airline traffic started there they were looking for a new location. The result was CVG (Cincinnati had an alternative but that is a separate discussion). The commercial airlines who operate out of Lunken today do not even claim to be airlines. The Ultimate Air Shuttle for example, they claim to be a Chartered Airline. This exempts them from certain federal regulations, but also limits the number of flights they can operate a week from one airport. Let Lunken do what it does best, serve the business community and their private aircraft of Cincinnati. If Lunken floods, they simply fall back and send their employees commercial. Sure it is an added expense, but you should have a factor in your espense planning as to how often it occurs. Now if you are a family expecting a low cost flight to a vacation in Florida, did you factor in a possible switch in flight and cost? I doubt it. You will simply fold up your tent and return home, possibly giving up a downpayment on a vacation place you never arrived at. Glad to see some people at least are realizing Lunken is not a realistic location for revival of Commercial airline traffic. Just because you are unhappy with the travel rates out of CVG doesn't mean you should support a Wish List for a place like Lunken whose demographics where the reason CVG was built in the first place.

This thread has been dead for what, about two years. Did Southwest bring the prosperity they promised to the Dayton Airport? Come-on, Daytonians, chime in.

^^^ The announcement of increased local passenger traffic at CVG is good news, as well as the continuing growth of freight traffic and revenue. My major concern is DHL is the major freight handler through CVG and we saw what they did to Wilmington. DHL czn obviously walk away from a commitment without looking back. If the airport board could eliminate its internal bickering and also see to it some of the daily operational management was made to buckle up, I believe their is certainly hope for CVG. It has the assets in place to serve Cincinnati which would cause Billions to duplicate. It is a good thing the Cincinnati proposed regional airport near Blue Ash never materialized. It was under-planned and would have cost a fortune for land acquisition for expansion. It is a good thing KY got the opportunity to create CVG and did it. But I do believe the Cincinnati side of the river, particularly the business community, needs to put more pressure on KY to change how CVG is operated. One of the first items should be members of the CVG board also be appointed from Ohio. How do you effect such pressure, like just about everything else - financially. You threaten an edict that all of your employees collectively will be informed they are NOT to fly out of CVG but use alternative airports. You have to be committed you will do this until the lack of passengers causes the airlines to say they cannot afford to maintain the flights, and the drop in flights and landing/takeoff fees tells CVG they cannot maintain operations. It is a ruthless tactic but an effective one. CVG is important to the long-term sustenace of the Cincinnati Business Community. The question is who will step up and organize the Cincinnati pressure on KY to change how they operate the airport?

There simply are no equipment, resources, or manpower devoted to snow removal in Atlanta. And two inches is more than enough to stop the average vehicle, especially if it is falling and melting into ice on contact. And I understand the mass transit system in Atlanta was effectively shut down because operators could not get to work. It was a freakish occurrence, but it is difficult to plan for them. Now if it happens again this month during what forecasters are predicting as a heavy snow February people may start to get a little more excited.

Should definitely be good for Norwood. I hope the conversion is carried out with enough grace it deserves the designation Class A space.

You statement straight off was the most maningful, transit is a social program. It should not be a social program, balancing the income ability across the country. Transit should strictly be a needs program, and one the users of which are willing and able to pay the upkeep for. Once you take from some to pay the transit needs for others, you are just playing the game of socialism.

And your sarcastic remarks are really going to make it happen that much faster! First come feasability studies. Then come actual plans concerning just what tracks, what upgrades are required, what rolling stock, what is the ridership substainability, etc. Then comes the Big One, the actual appropriation of funds to make it happen. When you get to the appropriation of funds stage let me know.

The problem is a study is a Long, Long, way from reality. We have had rail studies here in Cincinnati going back some 20 years. But that is all they have been - studies, not a single rail line has been built. The Cincy Streetcar is still under fire as being an unsustainable entity from an operational cost standpoint. I view a rail line from Columbus to Chicago as being out the outside of reality. Enough patrons in cities like Lima, Ohio and Fort Wayne, Indiana to support a passenger line? Come on, you are dreaming. "Chugging" Will that word ever die?

I know, we in the "minority" sure are a bunch of malcontents. We should just shut up and live our lives the way the so-called majority tells us even if we don't like it. Yes, the "winners" on the "winning team". The "winners" should probably try and figure out where the money is coming from. All I see proposed is "taxes" and where I live "taxes" has a very dirty name.

Actually, you have no idea what this place is. I have no doubt that they didn't try to land SAKS as an anchor. This project isn't about department store anchors. That's the old way. Here, "place" will be anchor. They don't need "scraps" from Tri-County Mall to make Liberty Center viable. It's success is guaranteed, no matter what's going on at Tri-County. I do believe though, that there will be a second department store anchor in phase 2. So far the major tenants are Dillard's and CineBistro. I'm thinking at groundbreaking, additional major tenants will be announced. Here is Steiner's philosophy about "place", (not department stores) as anchor: http://www.steiner.com/portals/0/pdf/steinerreprints/SteinerShoppingCenterBusinessReprint.pdf I have to agree its success is assured. Just Liberty Township, West Chester Township, and Mason are enough to make it successful, and once it is completed they will flock there. Other locales such as Lebanon will just add to the success. I don't believe it is going to help Hamilton or Middletown much though. They are going to look 2nd rate in comparison and it might set them backward. Tri-County is far enough away it might not be totally devastated, but it certainly will not help. We used to go to Tri-County frequently, now rarely if ever.

Since yesterday was Christmas, thought I would comment on the restaurant scene for the Holiday. Major differences from years begone when vitually everything was closed, resturants, stores, etc. You were lucky if a few gas stations opened up in the evening, and the majority of these were along the interstates so people could continue their journey. But now everybody and their brother is open on Christmas Day. Admittedly, at our age we were looking for a restaurant, selected Mitchell's Fish Market in Union Centre. It was OK. Would I return based on this visit - NO! For the price delivered about what an Outback Steakhouse would. At least we got fed and didn't have to cook. But it is a reflection of our society. On the way home saw a Gold Star open on Tylersville Rd - a friggin Gold Star. Who is so damn lazy they could not go to the market and buy some frozen Gold Star or Skyline and nuke them at home? So now we have 5am openings for Day after Chrstmas Sales. Yes we are certainly moving forward. Is there no end to this insanity?

Easy to say that. But rail is is step backward as you have to run on their schedule, making it the exact mass control the supporters object to. If you do not want to be government controlled, why in the world would you advocate this? Oh, lets see because you are doing something as an urban advocate that is environmentally great. Great for your advocacy, but don't expect everyone else to agree.

My feeling is pretty simplistic. Cincinnati just escaped by the slimest of margins having the streetcar project stopped. Some have interpreted this as a green light for Gung-Ho expansion of rail service in the Cincinnati Area, when in reality it was a vote to escape national embarrassment. Those council members did not want to be labeled as responsible for the 2nd stopped mass transit project in the country already under construction, adding the streetcar to the subway. Anyone who feels this was a vote to suddenly blanket the Cincinnati Area with rail transit is living is some kind of dreamland. And if proponents push for a rapid agreement for the construction of the Uptown Connector, these same council members will vote NO. They would like to see some actual return on what they stuck their necks out to vote for before doing it again. In addition to bricks and mortar (or rails), there has to be an actual observed return before expansion is warranted.

I don't believe UC has any buiness getting involved in any streetcar funding. Where is their revenue stream for that - student fees? They already continually up tuition rates driving the students into ever larger student loans. It would be nice to have a money tree but I haven't seen any growing around here recently. As for all the surveys saying a large percentage of people are all for increased public transportation, people are for a lot of things until you ask them to pay for it. How about having Cincinnati apply for an additional federal grant and actually secure one prior to declaring how the Uptown Connector can be funded. I believe with the debacle over Phase I the Feds are going to be very uneasy with believing Cincinnati can hold the course on anything. UC already spends money providing their own shuttle routes and subsidizing Metro passes for students, faculty, and staff. So they are already in the transportation business. If the streetcar took students from campus down to OTR and the CBD, UC could stop running their "Greater Cincinnati Night Time" shuttle altogether. Participating in shuttles to get their students from residences to class is one thing, participating in streetcar subsidy for the entire uptown is another. If they are in fact subsidizing Metro passes for students, faculty, and staff in my mind they are performing a discriminatory act and should be brought to task for it.

I think the increase in people driving, particularly in places like China concerns the USA due to the obvious increase in demand for oil products. This is not only going to inflate the price but hasten the day when we run out of supply, which is coming. I likely will not see it, but it is coming. When I consider the whole gasoline driven internal combustion engine vehicle is just a little over a century old and in that short period of time how much of the world's supply of petroleum has been consumed, it does give me pause. We simply don't have a replacement. And all of the other industries which depend on petroleum, plastics of all kinds, airlines obviously, we and all of the other humans on this planet have built a house of cards which will come tumbling down. So I have far greater concerns for the future which I will not see than whether a percentage of young people in the USA are electing to drive less. In the big picture they are a spit in the ocean. I have the same feeling concerning public transit in the form of rail replacing cars. What is going to power these trains? Diesel locomotives - I believe they require oil. Electric motors - what generates the electricity? The world is scared to death of nuclear power plants, though they may be our last resort. Nuclear generated electricity transmitted to local recharging stations to support electric cars, and to support electric driven trains for mass transit. You may have to put up with the inconvenience of having to pull over and hook up for recharging, but the alternative is not travel anywhere. For those wanting to return to the rail transit of over a century ago, and in the Cincinnati area there were many, don't forget the power was usually coal-fired steam engines, beltching air polution all over the place. Are you advocating returning there?

How exactly does living with your parents correlate to driving less? I have friends that are living with their parents to save money, but as a result, they have to drive more, both to get to work and for leisure. If they had a better job and lived on their own, they'd drive less. What about people that are working two low-wage jobs because they can't find a high-wage one? Those people are driving more miles than they would if they had a better job. Then you dismiss people with good jobs that choose to live in walkable areas calling them a minority. If the "minority" of people that want to drive less continues to grow, even slowly, we will continue to see a decline in driving and a growth in transit usage. I just don't believe that this trend is going to start reversing as the economy grows. It's not just that fewer people are getting their drivers license, it's that the average age for getting a drivers license is rising. Kids aren't rushing out at 15 1/2 to get their temps and 16 to get their licenses. Not much sense rushing out to get a license if you don't have anything to drive. I am just saying I know quite a few people with grown children in their mid to late twenties living with them. They are concerned because they can see their kids are not having an enjoyable life. It is not too hard for a parent to tell. Many of them are working low pay jobs at outlandish hours. For whatever reason it is difficult to just hang on to those jobs. Sometimes they will combine with a couple of others to rent a place to live. Quite often this is short-lived as one with lose their job and be unable to pay their share, so the whole arrangement falls apart. It is not that living with your parents equates to driving less. As you said, trying to hold down two low pay jobs may equate to driving more. But if you are driving a old clunker which breaks down and you don't have the money to repair it, you are frankly shit-out-of-luck as you can't get to either job. Believe me I know a number of people whose kids are in this circumstance, so what happens? - the parents fork out the money to get the vehicle repaired so the kid can go to work. This futher damages their self-esteem as mon&dad have to bail them out. Of course if mon&dad can they will bail them out - that is called parents. This has nothing to do with the desire to live in a car-less society, desire to reduce oil consumption, or any such ideal, it is pure economic necessity. And the massive subsidies all mass transit systems in this country operate under are not going to change the basic economic equation one iota. What has changed is the average American being able to earn a decent living wage.

Just because something doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean it's not true. As I get older I accept that there's things I just don't understand because of my age and that's OK with me. Pokemon for example. But I don't try to tell younger people how Pokemon works because I don't know. And this is something you don't understand. And it should be OK with you. But it isn't. You say I don't understand it. Oh but I do, and again it boils down to the lack of good paying jobs. The number of grown adults living at home with their parents is the highest it has been in decades, since they can't earn enough for a place of their own. Of course there is a percentage of the younger crowd who are fortunate enough to have a good paying job and they may also desire to live in an urban setting without a car and walk to work and the bar. But they are not the majority. Increasingly the majority are working at low pay jobs and barely capable of keeping their head above water. How to I know this, because I talk to their parents that's how. An other significant factor is the number of young people is going down as parents are having fewer children. So naturally there will be fewer getting drivers licenses, etc., but I usually see this reflected as a drop in overall numbers, not as a percentage of a given age group.

I don't believe UC has any buiness getting involved in any streetcar funding. Where is their revenue stream for that - student fees? They already continually up tuition rates driving the students into ever larger student loans. It would be nice to have a money tree but I haven't seen any growing around here recently. As for all the surveys saying a large percentage of people are all for increased public transportation, people are for a lot of things until you ask them to pay for it. How about having Cincinnati apply for an additional federal grant and actually secure one prior to declaring how the Uptown Connector can be funded. I believe with the debacle over Phase I the Feds are going to be very uneasy with believing Cincinnati can hold the course on anything.

They'd better win the last game to get a home game in the playoffs, because they can't play on the road.

I don't think anyone is going to argue that pedestrians need a SAFE manner to cross an intersection. But than let's argue to make it SAFE. I agree many WALK lights are way too short, particularly for older people crossing multi-lane intersections. And there should be no traffic permitted to encroach on the crosswalk, performing a left or right turn or otherwise. But I disagree that a Walk Pushbutton is not a good solution. It is a simple problem of signal control. When the through traffic is held for the crosswalk, than any turn signals must also be held for the duration of the WALK light, which must be sufficient to permit the pedestrian to cross. I am sure the traffic signal control engineers can figure this out. If we are going to make it SAFE for the pedestrian then make it SAFE. But don't increase the signal cycle time for every cycle even when there is no pedestrian there to cross. The pedestrian needs some responsibility in this also. I observe an intersection near me which is in front of two schools. The two intersecting streets are each 4-lanes wide plus left-turn lanes. When school is convening or letting out I see many students wanting to cross the intersection. At these times the WALK signals need to be extended due to the volume of students crossing. But at other times of the day there is nary a pedestrian in sight. There are already reduced speed signals for the school zones and I see no reason why the same actuators could not be used to change the timing on the WALK lights. I know some motorists would be upset at increased signal cycle timing combined with the reduced speed, but that is not the point. The point is to protect the kids. As it is now I observe kids running across the intersections whenever there is a lull in traffic, WALK light or not. This is a dangerous situation which also needs to be stopped.

In addition to the rift between certain board members, the article also pointed out another major problem with the airport board. This is that one person, Kenton County Judge-executive Steve Arlinghaus appoints all of the board members. This gives one person too much control and smacks of the good-ole-boy political system.