BigDipper 80

Normally I'm not vehemently opposed to tax credits, particularly on historic renovations and/or projects that bring in new residents, but I'm not happy to see an $8.4 million corporate bailout for a parking garage. I know Dayton isn't a transit utopia where it's really possible to live truly car-free, but we already have infinite parking downtown as it is.

Unfortunately I have a feeling DeSantis' platform for Making America Florida won't focus on encouraging private rail operations across the country... we've got other more "pressing" matters to focus on.

Yeah, 99% of the college student population is either 1) cramming for exams or 2) getting blitzed out of their mind. No one had the time or desire to hold rallies on campus or "cancel" professors they disagreed with or to go looking for "microaggressions" to get offended about. I'd say the closest thing to open "leftist" discourse I ever saw in 6 years of college was the group of kids who tried to get UC to divest from fossil fuels. Places like Oberlin can be obnoxious (the whole "banh mi is appropriation" thing was kind of dumb), but the entire student body of that college is half the size of just the undergrad enrollment in UC's engineering school. People who act like that are rounding errors.

Now that the 60% constitutional change is up for vote in August (barring any legal proceedings, there are rumblings that the amendment made to the bill to allow for an August election is illegal), do we have anyone yet who's willing to speak up on why they think this is a good idea? It was crickets the last time I asked.

Where our our resident forum conservatives to share their opinion on a ballot initiative that the past 20+ years of Ohio leadership says is terrible?

Heavens to Betsy, not a swimming pool! Women may show their ankles in public!

Ok.... getting off the hot chicken thing that overtakes the forum every few months... regardless of what the growth numbers say, I think many of you would agree that most urbanized areas in the state, including (especially?) smaller towns, look better than they ever have in most of our lifetimes. Much of the state might not be growing, but places like Troy, Marysville, Tiffin, etc. are genuinely nice places now that people seem invested in and have strong communities. I still think from that perspective, people have started to finally rediscover our urban assets and fix them up instead of throwing them away like previous generations did.

Should've built it in Youngstown.

Are they ever going to put up a permanent fence along Broadway? They've had that temporary fencing up for years and it looks trashy.

I really wish we could just get rid of the Sixth Street Expressway. It would allow the 71/75 interchange to be a much simpler trumpet interchange that wouldn't require a zillion ramps to mate 71 and 75 with 50 and would slim up the spaghetti junction even further.

Monument Avenue bollards is a great idea given all the festivals that take place on that street.

Did you EVER think there would be a cycle track on Salem?????

Well, I guess Daniels is no longer the ugliest dorm on campus.

(Not Daytonians asking for LESS parking and a more pedestrian friendly experience! You heard it here first folks) Residents want developer to modify Longfellow school property’s parking plan Some Grafton Hill residents are asking the group redeveloping the Longfellow school campus to modify its preliminary parking plan and try to make opposite sides of the site feel and look similar. More below: https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/residents-want-developer-to-modify-longfellow-school-propertys-parking-plan/ASUOI44VMJB2BHNQYL6SL3GRYE/?fbclid=IwAR3MNl6ZmZDCrTEVIRtufJYRycPJoS6hV5CAYWGg2or3nIQk9yKg-0RzTLY

Oh hush, you love your parking.

I always forget that that orthodox cathedral on High is fairly new. It’s not a bad-looking church, but it’s not the best use of that piece of land next to the Cap.

Dubuque could really benefit from some street trees. It’s been replaced recently, but just downriver was the Savanna-Sabula bridge, which was probably the scariest Mississippi River crossing.

Carnegie is not a state route. SR-10 currently jumps from Lorain down to the OC And bypasses Carnegie completely.

Even more bike lanes have popped up with the Broadway repaving/road diet in Wright-Dunbar. The bike lanes already ran from Third to Harvard along Broadway, but this project appears to have extended them to at least Fifth Street. I bike Broadway a lot and the turn into my neighborhood always felt sketchy, so I’m really pleased to see this!

A totally-unannounced protected bike lane randomly popped up in Webster Station near 2nd Street Market. I love that Dayton just… builds this stuff and doesn’t tell anyone that they’re doing it.

For a 3 million MSA, StL has a terrible skyline. Part of that is driven by the second skyline cluster in Clayton sucking the wind out of downtown St Louis' sails, but honestly other than the Wainwright (which isn't even really a component of the skyline because it's so short), there aren't really any noteworthy skyscrapers.

I recently got a chance to go up in my friend's plan for a quick loop around the Loop and to snag some aerial photos of Chicago. Hard to beat the views when you're flying lower than some of the skyscrapers! Let's get a skyline shot out of the way first: IMG_1224 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr IMG_1231 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr IMG_1232 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr Passing by Northwestern's campus. IMG_1235 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr IMG_1243 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr Things are looking choppy on the lake, but at 1600 feet you can barely tell. IMG_1247 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr More Gold Coast. IMG_1254 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr There's the moment you've been waiting for. IMG_1255 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr Sorry for the glare, the next photos are better. IMG_1257 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr IMG_1260 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr IMG_1261 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr IMG_1266 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr IMG_1270 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr I'm always amazed at how blue Lake Michigan is compared to Erie. IMG_1271 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr IMG_1273 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr IMG_1276 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr IMG_1285 by Ethan Kocjan, on Flickr And one more full shot of the skyline to keep things exciting. Hope you all enjoyed this little fly-along past downtown!

Buckeye Lake took notes! https://columbusunderground.com/ideas-presented-for-key-site-on-buckeye-lake-bw1/

I mean, Cincinnati had Kroger, P&G, (what’s left of) Macy’s, Amazon Air, and General Electric and I think most people still consider Cincy somewhat rusty. I wouldn’t say Boeing leaving Chicago is a sign of a Rust Belt decline necessarily (although I think you can argue the south side is definitely Rust Belt), but I also don’t know if the presence of a lot of corporate headquarters is the best measure of a city’s Rust Belt status.

I... Don't hate it? It looks suffciently warehouse-y enough to blend in with that part of the OD, and it's got some brick too instead of being 100% EIFS.