DEPACincy

Absolutely. As Dev noted, the last mile is a pretty hostile street (Ezzard Charles Dr). But there are plans to add protected bike lanes, so that'll help a ton. I bike it a lot but I'm braver (read: dumber) than most cyclists.

The thing about CUT is that it is less than 2 miles from Fountain Square, Findlay Market, the stadiums, Music Hall, and Washington Park. It's less than 5 miles from UC, the hospitals, and the zoo. No one in 2023 is going to hesitate to do the train/Uber combination. When you take the train into DC, Philly, NYC, Boston, Chicago, etc. some people will take public transportation to their final destination or walk, but most people are going to grab an Uber. So I don't see the location being a huge issue. We can work on upgrading public transit or adding a circulator, but it's not a huge deal.

No, but a lot of my friends are people I met tangentially through work.

A couple things. I think it is actually good that it is earmarked for existing infrastructure. We are a city of 300,000 but built for 500,000+. We don't need new roads. We need to do a better job maintaining the ones that we have. The second thing is that I don't think it's true that you couldn't use it to cap FWW, build bike lanes, or improve streetscapes and pedestrian safety. These would all just fall under the category of improving an existing asset. Adding bumpouts to Hamilton Avenue is not an infrastructure expansion, rather it is a modernization and enhancement of the existing roadway. The argument may be more tenuous, but I think you can make the same case for the streetcar expansion. Laying more track would just be a modernization and enhancement of the current streetcar. Lastly, as others have pointed out, you can just move other funds around anyway, so it's kind of a moot point.

I hope you all are right and I'm wrong. My last word on this will be that we haven't really seen anything close to the demographic cliff we are about to face. It is going to be monumental. And there are going to be lots of reverberations throughout the entire national economy. Not enough people are concerned about it IMHO. And I'm an extremely optimistic person usually.

I 100% believe the Cbus will continue to be a bright spot in the Midwest. But without huge changes in federal policy there is zero chance we get anywhere close to the growth of the last couple of decades. The demographics of the US and especially the Midwest are just that unfavorable. We are looking at a huge wave of increased deaths over the next couple of decades and a huge slowdown in births (these are already happening but will continue to accelerate). If Cbus gains somewhere around 300k over the next three decades it very well could look huge compared to neighbors, many of whom will see massive population losses. Maybe that will be different if we get a ton of climate refugees from Florida, Arizona, etc.

Yes, I think that the ODD projections are going to undershoot Franklin County growth, but probably be very close to correct overall.

You're absolutely right. Just saying they are different agencies, with different people, and different motivations.

ODOT's big problem is actually that they overshoot traffic projections repeatedly. There's never as much traffic as they predict. That's a problem with the traffic engineering profession generally. But the demographers at ODD are completely different people in a completely different agency with completely different training and have a much better record.

I think when you look at the underlying demographics of the US as a whole it is pretty wild to project that any relatively fast growing city in the US will see the same growth they've seen over the last couple of decades. We are on the precipice of a huge demographic cliff. I would consider closely the fact that the MORPC and ODD projections differ so greatly and ask, which one seems more accurate? The one that exists for state agencies to make plans around services, and is not ever hyped up in the press? Or the one that is totally out of line with what professional demographers believe and is pushed out to the press at every opportunity? MORPC is intentionally vague about their methodology for a reason.

MORPC has Franklin County adding 342,000 by 2050. That's 30% more than the *total* increase for the entire MSA projection by ODD. The MORPC number is just insanely high. To be clear, I'd love to see Columbus get to 3 million plus, or even 4 million plus, by 2050. But it just strains credulity. It has nothing to do with the value of Columbus as a place. It's just basic math. The Boomers are dying. Fertility rates are through the floor. Immigration is nowhere near where it needs to be. It would take massive changes in federal policies to make the MORPC projections a reality. I would love to be wrong though. I guess we'll see in 2050.

Not to rain on the parade, but MORPC's projections are notoriously rosy. I don't see any way this actually happens. The United States population is rapidly aging and every demographer believes that population growth will slow greatly without huge increases in immigration. If Columbus adds the same number of people each of the next three decades as they did in the 2010s, a situation that is *highly* unlikely, that would be about 700,000 more residents between 2020 and 2050. I think that is the absolute highest end estimate and assumes a giant increase in migration to the region. A more probable outcome is probably somewhere less than half of that. The Ohio Dept of Development projections, which are the official projections used by the state and more statistically sound, put the Columbus metro at 2.4 million people in 2050, or a growth of 264,000 between 2020 and 2050. Those projections actually show a slight decrease in the metro population between 2040 and 2050.

There's no gayborhood in Athens really. The whole town is very LGBTQ friendly. But the near east side probably has the largest population.

This is correct. Some links: https://welcometonorthside.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northside,_Cincinnati https://www.flickr.com/search/?m=text&q=Northside 4th of July Parade

I mean, it is mentioned right there in the caption. And we're talking about it now. Seems to have worked well. Kettering Health is the official healthcare provider of the Bengals. I'm sure the practice field was included as a part of the overall sponsorship package and not sold off separately.

I don't think it's unwillingness. I just don't think they've prioritized (punny yes) making the change. I would imagine they'd want to make all the priority signal changes at once to streamline the process. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but it's the mentality in big organizations, including city government.

TBH, signal priority is probably the number one most important improvement. More important than the bus-only lanes.

Every one of those failures were due to funding issues outside of the city/SORTA's control. We're past that. We had the political fight. The funding is there. We are now in the implementation phase of Reinventing Metro and it's been going great. No reason to believe that would change.

If there are any business districts in the city that would embrace it, it would be those two. Also, up until recently they gave up that parking for car lanes for 4 hours each day anyway.

When we lose young people we also lose the future babies they'll have.

The citizens were arguing that the city didn't follow the correct procedures regarding the historic conservation board and the planning commission.

To be clear, there is no economic slowdown. We are still seeing strong job growth and unemployment numbers, and inflation has moderated considerably in the past few months. This might be the best economy we've seen in quite awhile.

Bevin has been making the rounds and talking to donors. Definitely not a done deal, but he's considering getting into the race. Filing deadline is Friday so we'll find out soon.

Yes.

Well it might end up being a rematch, which would be good for Beshear.