Robuu

For other people wondering, Cincinnati-Columbus was ineligible for this list because they only included routes in the 120-400 mile range. Cincinnati-Columbus is about 100 miles. Edit: More Ohio routes on the top-40 list: 11. Detroit-Cincinnati 14. NYC-Youngstown 15. Columbus-Indianapolis 16. Chicago-Dayton 19. Cincinnati-Cleveland 21. Pittsburgh-Cincinnati 24. Detroit-Dayton 28. Cincinnati-Nashville 30. StL-Cincinnati 31. Columbus-Toledo 34. DC-Youngstown 37. Louisville-Dayton 38. Cleveland-Indianapolis 39. Cleveland-Dayton Source (pdf) Probably not surprising to any of us here that the eastern Midwest, and especially Ohio, would light up a list of most-frequently traveled routes without train or "express coach" service.

This is good (and optimistic) thinking, but it's still New Urbanist suburban, rather than actual urban development. I'm in agreement with you guys that a pedestrian bridge over the train tracks would go a long way in connecting the site to the neighborhood. I only see Madison getting worse, north of the NBD, and any involvement of Madison on the march to the stadium would completely kill the ambiance. (Are people seriously considering a march from MadTree?!) Still, there will be no serious commitment to urbanism here with BRT and LRT off the menu. Rather than offering to build parking garages and improved highway access, the city and county should be asking the FCC owners to kick in toward BRT or LRT to the site as a condition of approving tax credits and whatnot. That's how you build an urban neighborhood. If that's not feasible, the site isn't feasible.

Imagining the development of a stadium will help urbanize Oakley when the discussion of $75m in infrastructure is rotating around parking, access roads, highway access and not a peep about BRT or LRT is 100% fantasy. It's a spatial reasoning fallacy. Investing millions to double-down on stroadifying the neighborhood and funneling traffic to/from I-71 will only make retrofitting harder later. FCC will, most likely, eventually come to the same realization the Crew has come to: that they need the stadium to be in the urban core to maximize success. If we're lucky, then Crossroads would take over the Oakley stadium instead of leaving it to decay.

This FC Cincinnati-MLS saga is outrageously stupid By Marcus Hartman Wednesday was another adventure in the comedy/drama that is the 2017 Cincinnati Bengals, but I admit to being a little distracted when I was at Paul Brown Stadium. It was hard to ignore all the stuff swirling about FC Cincinnati, the city and Hamilton County. I also couldn’t help but keep coming back to one question: Why in the world would anyone want to do anything to accommodate Major League Soccer?

Combine this with promotion and relegation, and we'd have a great, ethical sports league that would actually help U.S. soccer develop talent and compete on the world stage. The MLS/NASL/USL/etc. model will never allow that to happen; U.S. will be a soccer backwater as long as this rigidly tiered structure exists.

Looked at your linked article. I think you missed my point, which was that they didn't leave sufficient time for the public to review any public monetary commitments. Therefore it's too late to offer them. The San Diego example from the article establishes precedent for a zero-offer from the public. FCC ownership is so desperate to make MLS happen that my bet is they would accept this. They're all-in on this, and bargaining from a very weak position. Public officials should recognize this, and also recognize that it is at this point too late to offer their constituents sufficient time to review a public funding scheme. They should be telling FCC ownership, "sorry, y'all, that ship has sailed."

Not sure what you are trying to say. (1) That infra improvements, relative to stadia, are usually taken upon by local jurisdictions, or (2) that infrastructure improvement decisions are usually made without community involvement. Both of those statements strongly rely on what we are talking about when we say "infrastructure improvements", which I see you posted a link (which I have yet to look at) that seems like an attempt to clarify. Clarification is good, but up to now the term has been ill-defined except for a parking garage. Which, no, in most developments is not routinely considered separate from the building(s) (in this case a stadium) of the development. So already we have some sleight-of-hand when FCC owners say they are 100% funding the stadium if they are not including the stadium's parking garage, which in all likelihood (and if it's not, we have another problem to address) is going to be even physically a part of the stadium's structure. Hence it must be included in any reference to "100% of the stadium". If your suggestion was (2), that's only true for very minor improvements and nothing on the scale of $75m. A public participation process, typically lasting months, is absolutely routine for infrastructure improvements of that magnitude. There's no way this can be accomplished prior to the December deadline.

They spent so much time in the backrooms that they forgot to allocate time for public review. Whatever happens is a rush-job and unfair to taxpayers unless it is 100% privately funded. Including all infrastructure improvements.

It would be nice if the Banks were built-out before they start subsidizing development in Oakley with money generated from the Banks.

We're also talking about Monzel and Driehaus, because they apparently agree with PBS as Option A.

Because deep down, most people realize that this is a pretty good deal compared to most stadium deals around the country. This is a much better deal for the tax payers than Nashville has and Portune is too stupid for his own good sometimes. My bet is he is playing dumb while trying to bargain.

One way to look at this is that the FCC owners are the ones bargaining from a bad place. They REALLLLLLLY want to have an MLS team, and they have the money to pay for it with no government assistance whatsoever. They're lucky the city and county aren't asking them for money to alleviate the strain on public infrastructure.

I come down from Dayton for FCC games, but honestly I have no interest in going to Oakley for a game. CUF, West End, or Newport, yes I would continue to go. I'm possibly way in the minority, but that's where I'm at with this. Keep it in the urban core, for crying out loud. USL at Nippert beats MLS in Oakley for attracting my money.

Do we even have FCC attendance projections by which to judge the success of this stadium?

Surprised to see no one here has mentioned the Better Bus Coalition's recently-released Better Bus Plan. I think their cost estimation is a tad (/s) off, given that the plan calls for boring tunnels through Mt. Auburn. It's nice to see some dialogue started on this topic, as SORTA appears poised for some big changes. Perhaps county voters would be more inclined to support a more robust funding structure with a clear vision of where SORTA wants to go with the money.

You're possibly the biggest streetcar skeptic on this board, and you're just going to gloss over this $75m like that, for some vague yet-unnamed infrastructure improvements? You guys (anti-streetcar/pro-stadium) are really inconsistent; it's hair-pullingly frustrating to watch. Please reevaluate the proportionality with which you evaluate public investments. (Not trying to pick on you in particular.)