jonoh81

First, is any gas take increase going to actually be used for transportation infrastructure? So much of that money has traditionally been used to plug budget holes elsewhere. Second, if they're just going to use it to build even more roads, they're missing the whole point of the problem. There are already too many. Third, a portion of it should be set aside for expanding transit options. Ohio's current transit budget is a national joke. Gas tax increases hurt the middle and lower income people the hardest, and there are few alternatives for them.

A xenophobic shouting match? Trump is coming to Painesville to "discuss" immigration? Also, if they're going to hold the forum asking baited questions that already have well-established answers, such as if immigrants contribute to the economy, then it seems a bit of a sham to me.

There have been Broad/High road diet plans going back to the early 1980s.

I don't just mean space for shops. Restaurants and bars are still popular. There are also potential entertainment concepts that could be done.

Columbus is really hell-bent on having no historic architecture at all. It goes to show what a vast difference there is between a neighborhood like German Village with very strong standards for historic preservation versus Franklinton or Olde Towne East that continue to let their history slip way. I generally like Homeport, but this proposal is mediocre and the church should've been incorporated.

The 2010 Downtown Plan called for a Broad Street diet with fewer lanes and even landscaped multi-use trails on either side. Not sure why that never went anywhere. Most of those ideas were eventually implemented. I also find it just a tad ironic when developers talk about neighborhoods needing 24-hour amenities when half or more of the projects they build within the urban core have zero mixed-use elements such as ground floor retail space. They're part of the problem.

I have to say, I both like and hate this idea. This may help keep some housing affordable, which is good, but in neighborhoods that already have the bulk of land bank properties like Linden or the Near East Side, it could hurt revitalization efforts. Who is going to buy homes that can't increase in value? Part of the appeal of owning a home is appreciation as an investment, which this program essentially eliminates. Furthermore, if there are too many of these properties in an area, it can reduce investment in properties nearby, because again, if a bunch of homes can't increase in value, the neighborhood overall stagnates at best, making it less attractive to investment. This hurts the already worst-off neighborhoods in the city.

Not sure why NIMBYers would have a problem with this, especially given the height of Hubbard Park Place, which is further away from High than this would be. But who am I kidding, there will always be a few. The question will be if the VV Commission is okay with it.

https://www.dispatch.com/news/20190211/residents-others-plead-with-columbus-diocese-to-spare-st-dominics-rectory-from-demolition The 120-year-old church at 453 N. 20th in Olde Towne East looks to be demolished soon. Columbus Diocese applied for the demolition permit in part because it was damaged (not structurally) in a nearby explosion last year and they don't have the money to maintain it. The 1890s home next door is also in danger of demolition. Ironically, churches have often been big culprits of the tear-down culture, not just of their old churches, but of historic housing and other buildings when they expand or buy up property. This seems counterintuitive to being good neighbors, IMO. They should attempt to sell the church, especially now when OTE is seeing an increase infill and renovation.

Well, to be fair, they're right in that the city did only lose that one racial demographic, but it's definitely a problem.

I use Factfinder pretty much every week, so I'm pretty familiar with it, especially with census tracts at the county level. I definitely agree with you that estimates can be suspect, especially at the tract level. They've gotten better over the years, but there's still too much guesswork, and the Census still partially randomizes the overall growth. For example, in Columbus it has some census tracts in Linden growing faster than some census tracts between Campus and the Short North, which for anyone familiar, is total nonsense. All that said, we're approaching a decade since 2010, so I don't think they're as useful now. Despite the flaws of the annual estimates, they're all we have until the 2020 Census. And that's looking like a potential cluster.... . I used both 2010 Census numbers and 2017 estimates from the same site.

I haven't looked into Chicago's numbers too deeply, but I do know that all racial groups are growing in the city except non-Hispanic blacks, who are leaving at a greater rate than all others moving into the city combined. Not sure about age groups. As for Ohio losing younger people, it's part of the general trend of rural America dying, I think. The cities in the state doing relatively well are seeing growth, but the rest isn't. Columbus and Cincinnati can only capture so many on their own.

Population density across the Short North overall hit 10,400 in 2017, the latest year we have. That's up by about 1200 since 2010, and is probably being undercounted given that the Census has consistently shown only relatively low growth for that area for some reason. The retail issue outside of High is still related to High. The entire Short North is expensive for retail because of the destination that is High, as well as the quality neighborhoods around it. On corridors like 4th, you still have higher rents, but significantly less guaranteed traffic than High Street, where so much retail is already concentrated. Beyond that, few new projects off of High actually include retail space, so you're not even seeing potential retail down the road. As for the future of retail away from High, other corridors are best served with local concentrations, like at major intersections. Sort of like those in German Village- not destination retail, but neighborhood-level stuff.

There are really few buildings that truly are “unsalvageable”. What they mean is that no one was willing to spend the money to renovate it. Or usually, it was in the way of a developer’s next project. Terms like unsalvageable or “falling apart” are just excuses most of the time.

But if you don’t have the space, how can retail grow when there are more people? These buildings will stay dead zones regardless now. People need to think outside the box. If retail doesn’t work now, how about office? How about parking that can later be converted?

Transit should not just be built for current conditions, but also to prepare for future growth. Maps like that are meant to show full buildout, anyway. Any system has to start somewhere, though.

To be fair, only Chicago in the Midwest doesn't pretty much die after a certain time of night. There are very few cities in the US that are like that- New York and LA being the only real others, with a few more cities having much smaller levels of 24-hour activity. I've lived in a city of literally 22 million that had nearly 30,000 people for every square mile... for like 800 square miles. Talk about making everything feel smaller.

I don't have a problem with government buildings specifically. But are you really arguing that such buildings cannot include mixed-use elements for their ground floors that promote street-level engagement? Do you really want more parking garages and office buildings that create or maintain large dead zones? It's not about government. It's about the narrow-minded thinking that only sees a single outcome as being possible. You can grow the economy and still promote a better Downtown. Your argument is weird. And aside from a few projects, I think RiverSouth is actually more a missed opportunity than not. Most of the projects have no mixed-use elements and most are short and don't bother taking advantage of the river views (it is RIVERSouth, after all). The only thing getting old is the fact that "good enough" has become the defining characteristic of Columbus development.

Whenever the city says "iconic", I get worried. Columbus doesn't *do* iconic. Another 7-10 story modern with a bunch of glass is about the limit of what I would expect for this. Also, more government buildings won't help Downtown's excitement problem. You need more mixed-use and residential for that. Office buildings are dead after 5, and there is unlikely to be any street-level elements that would promote after-hours activity... because again, Columbus doesn't do iconic.

Another Columbus fantasy transit map... http://allcolumbusdata.com/?p=13362

I don't think anything lower than 10 stories is really acceptable on any of the following streets: High Broad Spring Town Rich Main Front 3rd 4th Gay west of 4th Mound west of 4th The outskirts closer to the highways, some of the smaller streets and main streets that don't already have historic housing (like Town east of Topiary Park) are the only places I think less than 10 is acceptable. This is Downtown, it should look like it.

So was Cleveland Avenue had they done it correctly. But they prioritized cars in that case.

I mean, that's kind of a misnomer anyway because buses do count as mass transit, just not the kind most people associate with the term. I think even implementing a large-scale BRT system would be great and a real step forward, but they couldn't even do that right. The Cleveland Avenue CMax line is a joke. I just read how they are considering that for Broad Street, but I am very worried it will end up the same way.

Yeah, they've gone from talking about autonomous as a solution for "last mile" travel to talking about it as an entire transportation system in and of itself, which is not really what it's meant to be. It's meant to be a safer alternative to the personal car, but it is still basically a personal car. Fundamentally, very little changes with the technology. As usual, the city is coasting on the thoughts and prayers version of mass transportation, just as it does on development. The fact that a literal used car salesman is a spokesman for transit in Columbus says a lot. Talk about a conflict of interest. If a million more people do end up in the Columbus area the next few decades- and I have no reason to believe they won't- the city's in real trouble.

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2019/01/31/columbus-must-revolutionize-our-transit.html This is exactly the kind of problem I'm always talking about with Columbus. The headline talks about revolutionizing transit in Columbus, but then just about all of the article talks about getting people from personal cars into other types... of cars. WTF? And why the hell is Rick Ricart part of the discussion on transit? His family is all about cars. They're literally car salespeople. What does he even know about transit? They talk about car-sharing as good for transit, but it's literally the opposite. Car sharing actually means people use real transit less, and it's not even affordable to everyone- certainly not as a way to commute every day. Arrrrrrggghhhh….