thebillshark

Yes please FOLLOW THROUGH with the master plan. Build out the underground garages as planned to lift development out of the flood plain. If we are looking for more ROI on our taxpayer investment I suggest banning construction of further above ground parking garage structures at the Banks in favor of additional residential and office space. More residents=more income tax collected= higher return on investment.

Wow. All the commenters on the Enquirer article wanting to abandon this plan we're in the middle of executing that is proving wildly successful before we're even finished. Just like the streetcar. I wonder if these people would advise their children to drop out of college to save money after they've already completed three years of a four year degree. Not real smart.

I noticed today that the streetcar construction staging area to the south of Ezzard Charles Drive is now completely vacated. I really enjoy my drive to I-75 along Ezzard Charles in the morning. Neat to watch that neighborhood "waking up" with the kids walking to school etc. Seems like a pleasant walkable boulevard even though Ezzard Charles itself is a wide street. Should be interesting to see what development is proposed for the rather large construction staging area site and when. Here is a concept I had for a streetcar spur down Ezzard Charles that would go right past the staging area: https://cincinnatiideas.wordpress.com/ezzard-charles-icon-line/

I like that it would add some weight to connecting the streetcar to Uptown, but I would add a word of caution. This shouldn't be designed to be UC's streetcar, for the purpose of getting law students to and from the Banks. The streetcar routing needs to make sense for the city's transit system as a whole and not geared towards the perceived needs of any one stakeholder. If it is designed in the best interest of the entire city it will succeed and help all institutions, but if it's geared towards some preconceived specific function it may struggle to succeed even in that role.

From November 3cdc report: UNION HALL Cintrifuse, The Brandery, and CincyTech have moved into their new homes at Union Hall at 1311 Vine Street, even as construction continues in some areas. Two commercial spaces are available for lease in the building as well, one at street level on Vine Street and another in the barrel-vaulted sub-basement, with an entrance off of Republic Street. I thought the restaurant for the lager tunnel was something already in process? Or was it just that they made the space move-in ready during the renovation?

What if we projected a giant horizontal game of Plinko on the side of the building where the puck starts at 6th and Vine and "falls" towards slots located at 6th and Race. It would definitely engage passerbys (but might encourage street gambling too.) Maybe you could add some kind of smartphone interaction where you could win promotional prizes from local companies. if this idea seems out there, it's because the building was designed to do something (stand apart from the street) that's the direct opposite of our ideas about urbanism, so it's going to take a lot of creativity to reconcile this! Definitely not as easy as saying "oh we'll make it mixed use with upper story residential and ground floor office/retail" like most of our historic buildings lend themselves to. EDIT: the Plinko idea may sound dumb but I bet it would be super popular with tourists and visitors, we need to think of ways to turn this building from a liability to an opportunity.

Something needs to be done with this building. Right now it is really masking the recovery of economic activity in the CBD (or unmasking the fragility of the recovery?) The area around 6th and Walnut has a lot of high end activity going on, and this building creates a dead zone barrier that makes that activity seem like an island. If you think only about the parts of the building (the three stores) that are active and imagine away the rest, it would look like a small low density strip mall in the heart of downtown. This concept seems interesting for the Terrace Plaza: http://m.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/11/30/craft-brewery-theater-scouting-cincinnati-for.html But the Terrace Plaza probably does not meet that business's selection criteria because it's within three miles of the theater at Newport on the Levee. (It also seems to be looking for an auto-oriented location? Hope people are using designated drivers.) Interestingly enough I think a location as part of a mixed use development along Liberty St. or Central Parkway might be far enough away from the Levee to qualify.

Which matters for the way jbcmh81[/member] got the results, because you could have a one square mile census tract with 1,500 people, two thirds of it a cemetery (or golf course, or large institutional campus) and one third of it neighborhood streets, and the entire thing would be counted low density, even though the people living there would be at density higher than 2500 Ppsm. I don't think it's a stretch to say considering the way Cincinnati developed in the basin only slowly spreading out to the hillsides there's a lot of situations like that.

Not sure what you mean by fully occupied. Even at its peak, it probably wasn't fully occupied, but city density then reached 6,711 in 1950. Regardless, it is impossible to account for every single geographic or manmade feature that might be reducing density (the city area sizes I used didn't include water), but that goes for all 3 cities. I used block groups because they're one of the smallest area measurements the census uses, so it helps to reduce some of the contamination. I've looked at some of the census data too, what jumped out at me was that urban neighborhoods that had suffered neglect (like for example Brighton) actually have smaller populations than suburbs in the city limits like Mt. Airy where the built environment is less dense but the housing is (almost) fully occupied. Which may be partly because of reporting issues for neglected neighborhoods, but partly speaks to the scale of abandonment. In any case there's no large area of exurban style subdivisions within the city limits that would explain the data. Interesting pdf's on the city website: http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/reports-data/census-demographics/ So urban Cincy is abandoned enough to cause this kind of discrepancy? That would be a huge problem if it caused a 20 point difference from Cleveland. No, you're probably right, even neglected areas in the basin still have enough density to be over the 2500 ppsm mark. I guess the point that I was trying to make was, those were the areas that used to support a lot more density historically. I'm not trying to argue with you, just pointing out possible reasons for your 53% below 2500 ppsm figure. I would say some of them are: - city limits do not contain (but do in fact completely surround) dense inner ring suburbs like Norwood and St. Bernard that really look and feel like city neighborhoods -city limits do include large forested hillside areas like between Fairmont and Westwood or Northside and College Hill. On google maps it is obvious there is a "green ring" to the west and north of urban core -lots of land in city limits devoted to I-75 and rail yards in the Mill Creek Valley -large strip of land within city limits along Ohio River on the West Side that has rural feel in places -Mt. Airy Forest alone is 2.2 sq miles You may say that all cities have some of these features but taken in sum they may explain your numbers for Cincinnati. And really that 53% number is fine, if we can increase density in the basin and traditional neighborhoods and connect it all with transit it will make for a beautiful city.

Not sure what you mean by fully occupied. Even at its peak, it probably wasn't fully occupied, but city density then reached 6,711 in 1950. Regardless, it is impossible to account for every single geographic or manmade feature that might be reducing density (the city area sizes I used didn't include water), but that goes for all 3 cities. I used block groups because they're one of the smallest area measurements the census uses, so it helps to reduce some of the contamination. I've looked at some of the census data too, what jumped out at me was that urban neighborhoods that had suffered neglect (like for example Brighton) actually have smaller populations than suburbs in the city limits like Mt. Airy where the built environment is less dense but the housing is (almost) fully occupied. Which may be partly because of reporting issues for neglected neighborhoods, but partly speaks to the scale of abandonment. In any case there's no large area of exurban style subdivisions within the city limits that would explain the data. Interesting pdf's on the city website: http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/reports-data/census-demographics/

I'd bet a lot of Cincinnati's low density is hillsides, perhaps parkland, and even some brownfield industrial low density areas, with neighborhood residential decay to the point where not every house is occupied. A fully occupied Cincinnati would be very dense indeed. We just need to invest in transit and get rid of parking minumums for new development. (And clean up brownfields)

The elevated parking lot actually is the foundation of the Windisch-Muhlhauser Brewery (later Burger), and has two levels of lagering cellars 40 feet deep underneath it. Big picture, though, Central Parkway can support a much higher density. We proposed this in the Brewery District master plan (zoning section). Very interesting. Does that limit the size or type of structure that could be built on the lot? Could the lagering cellars be incorporated into a new development?

IMO The extension to Reading is the only part of the street that doesn't need a road diet though. It's a the foot of the hill so it's kind of paralleling what would be a natural obstacle between neighborhoods anyway. The damage it did to the grid happened long ago. I would rather see the diet extend westward from Central Parkway to I-75 because there are a lot of pedestrians crossing Liberty on that portion.

Thoughts? https://cincinnatiideas.wordpress.com/ballet-flats/

Here's how I see the spectrum between streetcar and light rail: The lines we design here in Cincinnati can fall on the spectrum more towards one or the other on different counts, as long as it makes sense for the system as a whole. For example you wouldn't want to design a slow moving, mixed traffic line to try move people between far flung neighborhoods. But you could have a line that functions as a streetcar in some areas (such as on the downtown Main-Walnut loop) and light rail on other areas (such as in a Mt. Auburn tunnel or dedicated right of way along a highway.) EDIT: my first row of this table contain deep abstract concepts (access and mobility) and those concepts are explained by Jarrett Walker here: http://www.humantransit.org/2011/01/transits-product-mobility-or-access.html

No, the northbound track would enter a tunnel in Main St. between E. Clifton and Mulberry and the southbound track would emerge in Lang St. between McMicken and Hust Alley and proceed south onto Walnut. That may have been the old proposal that was studied in the 90's but I think chinkley[/member] is correct about what John's proposing now...

Those averages, above 40 mph, sound fine to me. Also is this during the current construction?

Cincinnati keeps on hitting home runs, with Fountain Square, Washington Park and the streetcar, in the face of naysayers who mock and try to derail these projects. This is truly the next home run to hit. If we can accomplish this road diet, it will be an almost textbook case of good urbanism prevailing that will be shared in the national media. The positive benefits to the neighborhood WILL happen, and the street itself that develops could be yet another attraction for people to visit when they come to OTR. We can't let this project get compromised or diluted. That being said, I am in favor of the 3 travel lane option (a travel lane in each direction and a turn lane.) The city's 3 option with bike lanes is decent but I would like to add pedestrian bump outs in the parking lane at intersections. I actually like UrbanCincy's proposal the best, with the two way cycle track on one side of the street because it would allow more space to be returned to development than an 8' bike lane on both sides of the street. I think I would also support this option without a bike lane, in order for sidewalks, bump outs and developable area to be larger to "narrow the gap." I do see the benefit of a bike lane going all the way across OTR (like some kind of bike-highway) but I also sympathize with the "vehicular cycling" folks who say that bikes belong in the street and can themselves help calm traffic. (Especially since vehicles on a slimmed down Liberty would be traveling at slower speeds. But maybe I am biased since I am comfortable biking in the road though.) Regardless it's encouraging that there's a $400k budget available (from the casino improvement money) for serious planning to occur. This project really should be the next thing we all "go to the mat" for and get ready to overcome some resistance to execute the vision.

That's the same configuration it has now. Just with slightly narrower lanes to squeeze in bike lanes? Sorry for not being clear. The proposal that was asked for would have been to go down to one travel lane in each direction, instead of the current two. All proposals presented maintained two travel lanes in each direction.

Options were presented. The options had various configurations of seven lanes (current,) six lanes, five lanes, and four. Some had bicycle lanes in various configurations. Several of them actually did return land for development, so they went a bit farther than some folks on here thought they would given the current administration. They were still reluctant about options that actually would reduce traffic volume on the street though (currently 18,000 vehicles per day.) The four lane option was not presented as a serious option because it lacked a turn lane which was deemed a safety risk for rear end accidents. One option that the crowd asked for that wasn't presented was two 8' permanent parking lanes, two 10' travel lanes and a 10' turn lane, with bike lanes. I like bike lanes but I am on the fence if they are needed on Liberty? What happens when a bicyclist needs to make a left hand turn- they have to awkwardly get back into traffic. This would happen constantly on Liberty. IMO if the whole street was slowed to around 25 mph that's pretty safe and inviting for bikes.

I like having access to both I-71 and I-75 from the neighborhood. However I don't think Liberty needs to be an arterial between the two highways because no one needs to be using it to get from one highway to the other (and I suspect few people actually do.) Thus OTR should be the origin or destination of most of the traffic on Liberty. As such I hope people will understand slowing the traffic down a little in order to create a better neighborhood. That goes for the West End portion of Liberty too! Tons of pedestrians crossing the street there.

Did something (maybe on WLW?) prompt all the talk about the colors today?

^yup. Cincinnati Streetcar posted a video on Facebook of a nine segment Urbos 3 train: We may not need that but it would be neat to have the ability to add a segment or two :)

I ran the Mt. Auburn tunnel concept through my spreadsheet thingy… I plotted out John and Jules' concept of a streetcar extension north along Main and Walnut streets, crossing Liberty (with a stop) and entering a Mt. Auburn tunnel at the foot of the hill in the vicinity of Mulberry. The tunnel daylights for a Christ Hospital stop (probably involving some kind of plaza/elevator infrastructure to access the hospital itself) and re-enters the tunnel. The tunnel comes up for good in the vicinity of Jefferson and Corry. I don’t have a clear concept of how this would happen, but on my map I added a stop here (differing from John's map,) to put a stop closer to Clifton Heights. The route continues on Jefferson and MLK with stops at University Ave., the University/Children's/VA Hospital Campus, and at Reading Rd. where Uptown Consortium is assembling properties for a research/biotech hub. My assumption is for dedicated transit lanes in this corridor. At the MLK interchange itself, the tracks would make a left hand turn and follow the highway north, mostly using the existing rail right of way west of the highway (the PRR/CL&N ROW- thanks jjakucyk[/member] .) It would mostly have dedicated right of way through this corridor, but some building demo/rearrangement of streets may be required to make that happen. I envision a stop at Blair Ct. in Avondale, with a new bridge extending over I-71 to connect directly to Walnut Hills High School, and also some Transit Oriented Development along the tracks & highway in this corridor. The final stop (for now) would be at Xavier University by the University Station development, serving Norwood and Evanston. As far as route times go, a word of caution. The most important variable in these calculations is miles per hour speed averages. These I estimated doing some cursory internet research on bus and streetcar averages, and should be considered wild guesses at best (not very scientific for being the most important variable.) That being said, I came up with about a 24 minute travel time end to end from the Great American Ballpark to Xavier. With five vehicles running, I came up the minimum obtainable headway of a vehicle coming by every 10 minutes.

I think a key idea is the Uptown Consortium is proactively managing development around the interchange with a very specific image in mind (tech, biosciences.) Much like 3cdc had the resources of downtown corporations to draw upon, the Uptown Consortium has access to the resources of the big institutions to actually make their plans a reality from what I understand. Under the Mt. Auburn Tunnel light rail scenario, aren't we planning on tracks on MLK from Jefferson over to I-71? I could envision two stops along MLK, one for the Hospitals and one for this new "tech corridor" at MLK/Reading. I wonder if that's even on the radar for anyone with an official job title however.