thebillshark

Due to topography, I think the blue line would have to jog over to and use Central Parkway between Mohawk Place intersection and Western Hills Viaduct. You also gain a Brighton stop that way which would be a plus.

I think with the new WHV project things could fall into place for this extension & community leaders from Mohawk to Westwood would support.

Yes there is nothing special about the current location of the West Side transit center/bus line terminus which might as well be in the middle of the desert at the edge of the Bargains and Buyouts parking lot. There is no employment center or density nearby. Would be awesome if it was at a strategic location connected to rail

i agree with a lot of these points. The main problem with extending the streetcar to Fairmount is the lack of a strong anchor at the end of the line. For the original streetcar route Findlay Market fit that role nicely. Additionally Fairmount doesn’t have a lot of flat land area to develop along Queen City/Westwood but I wonder if there is potential for hillside streets to develop like in CUF and Mt Auburn. Fairmount is going to need a lot of help to redevelop and it may take a bold idea like streetcar to get developers to take notice from Fairmount you could extend into the Woods up to the Ferguson Rd. Walmart area. That would be a longer route to the West Side But the longer you extend a line the more of a problem the mixed traffic sections will become which can potentially slow or stop the whole thing if someone parks over the line. additionally you could go straight up Harrison where a lot of the streets originally developed along a streetcar line in the first place. That line couldn’t loop around lick run park though

Re: Fairmount: The park won’t reach full potential with the speeding traffic, no one is going to try to renovate the historic buildings with the speeding traffic, and it’s a race against time before they crumble to the ground. Would take years to do, but perhaps you could dedicate one lane as transit only on Queen City and Westwood, physically separated with barriers, looping around the park and run the streetcar over the new viaduct to it

I think another hotel would be a good fit for the 180 Walnut site

yeah I saw that, I think by waiting for an office tenant they risk losing their forward momentum. I would think this kind of office space would compete with 180 Walnut and the Innovation District

My guess for the hotel site where the ballet building is (“C” in the image above.) doesn’t make sense to renovate the TriState warehouse into office with an empty ballet building attached. Plus it would be prominent location with perhaps some cool views down Liberty Street

Probably some national publicity to be had that could be leveraged into investment by pursuing a design that frees up more land. Creates a narrative about downtown Cincinnati that helps it break through the noise

If they built something mid-sized at the Jean Robert Table building site it would show up in this picture

This has renderings but no finalized location, but i would guess Innovation District is probably one of the possibilities https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2022/04/19/cti-childrens-name-joint-venture-first-hire.html

Well I’ve left feedback for the city at every opportunity that they need wide paths for mixed bike and pedestrian use on both the north and south sides of the new Viaduct every chance I had, told them in person, even emailed the Tri State Trails people to try to get them to lobby for that… my point is people have been attacking this design for being too wide with perhaps not thinking of the tradeoffs. If the interstate and local lanes were somehow combined for less total lanes, it would be potentially more difficult to navigate for pedestrians, potentially more dangerous, and slower for transit. If there were less local lanes then there is no chance of ever having dedicated transit lanes.

I wonder, if a renovation project could move the main exhibition area to a fully built-out second level. Then an expansion could bridge out over any street in any direction. How much would that cost and how long would it have to stay closed for?

This is my current thinking for awhile now: The current design is good for transit and pedestrians because it would keep local transit and the pedestrian pathway away from the interstate on-ramp intersections. It they shrunk it down this might be the thing that gets changed for the worse. Perhaps Fairmount will get the first streetcar extension after all

Who is we though? based off the first few pages of this thread and the business courier article FC group is driving the train here. No one else has both the desire and the means to do it, so it’s going to be what and where they want. perhaps it will be structured like the soccer stadium where the arena is privately financed and the supporting infrastructure is publicly financed

this is in fact the current situation that is creating sprawl. All the industrial and warehouse jobs (and a good portion of engineering jobs) on the Ohio side are being added north of I-275, very far away from the west side and it’s aging (yet relatively affordable) housing, and KY will need to build a lot of new housing to match the job growth happening near the airport. i wrote this in relation to having a strong downtown but the same logic in this post definitely supports the case for a west side bridge to the airport https://cincinnatiideas.com/2016/07/25/why-west-siders-should-be-rooting-for-streetcar-success-more-than-anyone/

Delhi and the airport are not widely separated, they are right next to each other, that’s the whole point of my comment. If traffic is induced on a new bridge in between the two, that’s fine, if a new bridge was built I hope it would get used. They would be short mileage trips instead of long trips. There are jobs on the Kentucky side and housing on the Ohio side.

A Westside bridge to the airport would be connecting two nodes that are close in space but not close in the road network. (Except for the relatively low-capacity ferry connection in place now.) Connecting them would be fundamentally different than adding lanes to an existing highway. An analogy: right now Delhi is at the end of a cul de sac and the airport is at the end of another cul de sac, they are right next to each other but to get from one to another you have to drive a long distance out of the subdivision on the heavy traffic high speed road (I-75) to get to the other subdivision entrance, thus adding to the traffic.

this view shows that it may be possible to add on more parking garage to the 84.51 parking garage here’s what I would do: -build the hotel to the south of the convention center -on the 84.51 block, add on say 1,400 spaces to the currently 1,100 space 84.51 garage. Add some number of apartments above the garage addition. Build out the 84.51 floor that is convertible into office space, into office space. If possible, Leave enough open space facing Elm Street for outdoor convention center space, that could support a relocated ice rink from Fountain Square during the wintertime. -tear down the 680 space 609 Elm St garage to the north and expand the convention center building itself across 6th street in that direction. i am very much against closing Elm for expanding the convention center building itself, but I would be open to a possibility where Elm becomes outdoor convention center space, that pedestrians and cyclists could still pass through, closed off to vehicles part of the time. Seems to me a space like that could be a destination in and of itself, rather than a great big barrier dividing downtown like expanding the building itself across Elm would do.

I wonder how a new fixed local route across the top of Hamilton County (perhaps crossing over into Butler & Warren at points) would do. Roughly following 275 and connecting the northern endpoints of the radial arterial bus routes from Colerain Ave to Montgomery Rd. Maybe even go up to Kings Island in the east. The idea being you could for example take a bus north on Hamilton or Winton and transfer to the new route which would go by lots of jobs

Reminded me of the Alaskan way tunnel in Seattle. Which leads me to think… Would be awesome if we could have the express route in a tunnel instead of a bridge and then reorient the local lanes to free up downtown real estate. Cost for Seattle tunnel 3.3B cost for BSB project 2.8B distance for Seattle tunnel about 2.2 miles distance Union Terminal to Covington 12th Street about 2.3 miles don’t know if a tunnel would have restrictions on truck traffic though, among other complicating factors

I think I understand this more now. The local lanes on the bridge plan aren’t really surface streets but the on ramps and off ramps for downtown Cincinnati and Covington exits. So from I-75 there is only one exit for all downtown Cincinnati and Covington at a point to the north and another to the south and all the exit ramps for stuff in between diverge off of that. So it’s effectively building a new downtown bypass for I-75 through traffic. (With a merger for I-71 traffic)

I thought I saw there were local traffic lanes on the plan for the new companion bridge, does anyone know what streets those would connect? Would these local lanes be basically redundant with the Clay Wade Bailey bridge connecting the same area in OH and KY?

I wonder if the developers will keep and re-use the parking garage. Seems to me that would be a huge asset redeveloping the site (would be able to fit more stuff there)

It looks like this project is happening. i wonder if there would be a way to include in this project creating a right of way for light rail along the western edge of downtown, possibly to connect to the airport? Maybe even a cut and cover tunnel if the whole area is going to be torn up?