thebillshark

I’ve heard some leaders ask what is our “brand” and where are we headed. To me it’s obvious what Cincinnati’s all consuming mission should be: a restoration of the city to something as it appears in these photos. Add population, add buildings that address the street, restore the street grid wherever possible. Reverse the damage and decay that occurred during the second half of the twentieth century. This is also the path back to national importance and prosperity.

^If the tracks were on the right hand side, the proposal could be for a permanent lane. As it is, I think there should be a bus only lane on Main for more hours than is currently proposed- maybe from 7am until 9pm or something. The number of people that would help is staggering especially compared to the handful of parking spaces lost. A huge increase in economic efficiency for the city as a whole.

It’s a huge swing and a miss that the streetcar doesn’t stay in the right hand lane and share a transit only lane with buses. No one was even thinking (or at least not talking) about transit only lanes back when the streetcar route was being laid out even though about 74%(!) of Metro bus riders use routes that utilize either Walnut or Main through the CBD: https://cincinnatiideas.com/2017/10/27/can-metro-unlock-the-value-hidden-in-our-streets-the-case-for-transit-only-lanes/

They use a lot on McMicken for valet parking. There are distribution trucks parked everyday in that lot

^having a hard picturing how that last one fits onto the site? Doesn’t seem like there’s enough room

Data centers also require lots of heavy duty HVAC and electrical system gear that would not be easy/cheap to retrofit into the building.

There’s hardly anything to educate the public about. Metro needs money to keep the lights on and if this passes they will have that plus enough to add some frequency to main routes. It’s as bear bones as it gets. I actually think the “late start” on this is an advantage because it give opponents less time to spread their lies. It’s a very favorable climate because a stinker of a library levy passed easily last year and Democratic voters who should be sympathetic on this will supposedly show up because of Trump. Should be full speed ahead on this. People are being overly cautious.

Hope they have the financing for the new construction lined up and locked in.

I think a good project at that site would have street facing entrances on both the Logan St. and Central Parkway sides.

Well wasn’t expecting this: Cincinnati plan would allow new housing, businesses in OTR without new parking https://cin.ci/2zuTUCT Gonna need all urbanist hands on deck to support this one. Big picture thought on parking minimums: how absurd (and how much hubris is it) is it that we think it’s possible to micromanage the parking spaces of thousands of residents, visitors, and downtown workers, with dynamic needs that change over time, that together function as an organic, non-linear system, anyway? No wonder minimums cause market distortions and prevent growth. They are ham-fisted interventionalism.

I haven’t posted about it here, but I resigned from the OTRCC at the end of March and completed a move from OTR to Westwood in June. I haven’t heard what the update entails except that there is one.

. How were the June numbers for Cincinnati’s compared to May’s numbers? Definitely needs to be fast and frequent. Free is a concept worth exploring, but in my view it’s more necessary for the streetcar to re-establish itself as useful transit amongst downtown residents and people who are downtown a lot.

Presentation on Purple Line Tunnel construction: (saw this via @railmag twitter): http://www.purplelinemd.com/images/public_involvement/community_meetings/2017/2017-02-21%20Wayne%20Manchester%20Towers/Wayne%20Manchester%20Towers%202%2021%2017%20-%20FINAL.pdf

Found another article on this: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/self-driving-car-startup-nuro-teams-up-with-kroger-for-same-day-grocery-delivery

I think it may be smart for Kroger to virtue-signal to Wall Street, which is irrationally tech obsessed. I don’t think it would be smart for them to be on the bleeding edge of autonomous vehicle technology. When I was testing navigation systems 10 years ago, none of the map data included information about people’s driveways, only public streets. It is going to be a technical challenge to correctly match driveways to addresses, and then find the appropriate place in the driveway to stop to allow for convenient grocery off-loading.

I think the key to if these Newport apartments have a good or bad feel to them is how many entrances open up to the street (avoiding long blank street walls.) Even if they are private entrances to individual apartments that still adds so much to the perceived walkability of the street. If they get that right it will be a good project I think.

So they’re pointing to a newly renovated office building in an attempt to show that the downtown residential market is weak? Don’t they think the developer of the apartments would know a little more about the market than freakin’ NPR?!? How are they not repeating the same mistakes of their current location in the West End with that empty amphitheater they have over there with this project?

^^the thing is thats not a secure location around City Hall at night because there is so little activity. Any plaza they put there is going to draw drug activity and be a burden to program and activate. It’s completely desolate over there.

Another one to file here: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/how-todays-skyscrapers-assault-the-skyline-and-the-street-linkedin-building-san-francisco/

Yep! Notice most of his examples are from elsewhere. There's very few places in the US outside of Philly and Boston where you can find these types of streets. People in Philly usually walk right down the middle of the street because it is rare to encounter a car. There's also examples where the street has a brick or cobblestone treatment. I’d love for Grear Alley (the alley between the parking lots in Pendleton) to look like the examples DEPACincy[/member] posted someday. Would be totally unique to Cincinnati.

I would really like to see all those lots along Culvert and Eggleston get developed. Other cities have taken these areas that are blighted with overpasses and turned the overpasses into unique features that really give the neighborhood a different feel. I'm thinking Dumbo, Brooklyn or Old City, Philly. Here is a before and after in Philly: They should demolish the Gilbert Ave. overpasses though, and replace it with a roundabout intersection for Gilbert, Eggleston and 8th (Reedy) streets.

I wrote this ( https://cincinnatiideas.com/2017/06/13/rethinking-eastern-downtown/ ) a year ago but have adjusted my vision somewhat with the library north building seemingly in play. Build a new jail outside downtown. Tear down the jail and have a sheriff station with just enough cells that are immediately needed for the courthouse where the north jail tower is. Sell off the lot and land where the south tower is for development. Consolidate Hamilton County offices into a new building at ninth and Walnut where the library parking lot is. Renovate the upper floors of the library north building to use for county offices as well which would be connected to the new county office building. The lower floors of the library north building open to the public can remain as-is.

Under the Liberty Safety Improvement plan there are still two traffic lanes available in each direction just like there is today. The curb traffic lanes would become parking during off peak times (I would have liked 24/7 parking lanes and only one traffic lane in each direction but whatever.) So all you would need to do on game days to maintain the same capacity on Liberty as the current street would be to put up temporary “No Parking” signs.

I thought that I had heard casino street improvement funds were going to be used for Liberty. Would that be the same or different as TIF money? I heard that the stadium infrastructure would draw heavily upon that. Of course all this probably changes constantly...

#PeakAmerica ;D Come for the zip line, stay for the car exhaust? The 39th Annual Fume Fest?