DEPACincy

Can't wait for the pandemic to finally be over and see the ridership skyrocket. And then maybe Jason Williams will be fired and an Enquirer column will open up for an actual smart person.

I think a lot of planners and younger traffic engineers in the region agree with you. But the folks in charge do not, unfortunately.

Cincinnati has the fastest selling homes in the US... https://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2020/11/17/re-max-cincinnati-market-homes-sell-fastest-usa/6328448002/

The rationalist in me says just re-sign 471 as 71 and send it across 275 to meet back up with 75. That would be simple. The crazy man in me says, if KY really badly wants to build stupid highways, they should re-sign 471 as 71 and then extend it from 275 down Taylor Mill Road to meet back up with the current 71 at the 71/75 split. That would keep the construction crews busy for awhile and make Henry Fischer happy too.

This is an excellent point. I received a full scholarship to college and worked two jobs. I still had to take out loans for living expenses, and when my car broke down it was almost the end of my college career. Luckily, a friend of my grandma (who I had never met) found out I may have to drop out of college because of my car repair and sent me $1,000. I was extremely grateful, but it would be nice if we had a system where people can get ahead without relying on the kindness of strangers.

Or working in a public service position, like teaching at a public school.

Hi. I am one of these people. We plan to be in our house for a very long time, regardless of how our financial situation might change. Why? Well, it's plenty big enough for us. It's in a neighborhood we love. And we have neighbors we adore. So no need to change it up. Now, more disposable income might mean we accelerate some projects, like new countertops or a new master bath. Ultimately, though, the student loan debt forgiveness is a good policy, not because it will help people like me, but because it'll help a lot of people who were exploited by scams like Trump University or Whatever University Online at City You'll Never Visit. There are tons of people out there who have my student loan debt load but none of the degrees I got out of it. Many of them were people I grew up with. Appalachians who came from hardworking families and wanted a better life for their children. But they got caught up in scam universities and scam degrees. Now they have no future, because that debt is a huge anchor. Forgive the debt and crack down on the scammers.

Ehhh... It doesn't work that way. The housing market is much more complex than that. There would certainly be some upward pressure on housing prices, but they wouldn't "explode" over night. That's magical thinking. It would incentivize the construction of new housing though, so that's a big plus.

Lots of streets in Philly are paved with belgian block or historic brick, including some with streetcar (trolley) lines.

The problem with your logic is that data refutes it. Hamilton Avenue through Northside used to have four lanes during rush hour. We recently made the parking permanent so it is officially two lanes all day. Guess what happened? The average speed of cars dropped! The number of crashes dropped 70 percent! Yes, cars still drive too fast. We could add raised crosswalks and that would help. We could restripe it to make it clear that it is two lanes and that would help even more. Bump outs would be great too! More can and should be done. But there is zero doubt that reducing its width helped! https://www.wcpo.com/news/transportation-development/city-will-keep-24-hour-parking-on-hamilton-ave-in-northside-as-permanent-traffic-calming-measure

It's half as many different fares, no?

There's also the issue of inducing sprawl in Boone County. Would we spur development? Or would we just be shuffling the deck? I think it might be the latter. I agree with you, but I would bet my life savings this won't happen. If anything moves forward, it'll be the new adjacent bridge. The replacement option would require years of new studies and there would be uproar about having I-75 disrupted for so long.

For the east side bridge to pay for itself we'd need to drastically change the zoning in Dayton, CT, Mt. Lookout, etc. to allow a lot more development there. Would the residents of those places go for that?

I hear you. And I think a West Side bridge makes way more sense than another downtown bridge. I'm not sure that would help your situation today though. From Ft. Mitchell to Downtown via a West Side bridge would probably take just as long, especially with it absorbing a lot of I-75 traffic.

You don't really need to speak English to read road signs though. I am far from fluent in Spanish but have been able to get around Spanish-speaking countries just find. My grandfather was a coal miner from Eastern Kentucky who couldn't read up until the day he died, but he drove just fine. Highway signs have recognizable symbols and basic words. They're not novels.

I hear stuff like this a lot, but where is the data to support it? I came here from Philly, which is a much bigger city with fewer bridges. It is incredibly easy to get from Cincinnati to Covington or Newport. The Taylor Southgate Bridge looks like a ghost town 23 hours per day. This morning I looked at Google Maps expecting traffic to be a clusterf*ck because of the BSB closing and guess what? It wasn't that bad! I don't think there is actually any data out there to support the need for new bridges. We could restripe the BSB to go back to its intended configuration, slap on a new coat of paint, and we'd be good for decades. The bridge is not structurally deficient.

11/9/2020

The interesting thing about the "defund the police and protests cost Dems" narrative is that Biden improved over the 2016 margin among young people across the board and among older whites. So the activism seems to have helped among young people and, at worst, didn't hurt him among the olds!

This is a good point. We ruled them out immediately because we wanted to be in the city. Definitely would've included them in our search otherwise.

Ram, is that you? Seriously man. Get off Twitter. Go outside and take a walk. Every reasonable person knew this was not going to be easy. Unseating an incumbent president never is. Even when that president is unpopular. Yet, Biden will end up winning the popular vote by something close to what happened in 2008. Maybe a percentage point off. A 50/50 Senate was the modal outcome for a lot of forecasts and we very well might end up with that. Dems didn't get the pick ups in the House they wanted, but maintained a majority. Yet, it's the Dems who have a problem? And I love Obama. I think he was a great president, but your statement here is completely rewriting history. Dems got slaughtered downballot during the Obama years.

That part is definitely true.

Yea, Biden won Hamco by like 17 points and counting. Dems swept most county offices and judicial races. Not sure why that should make us nervous about a hypothetical city-county merger? The entire county is going to keep getting bluer. There's just not that many people living in the red areas, and they skew older.

Not really. Mariemont? Blue Ash? Montgomery? Hyde Park? Terrace Park? Wyoming? The map shows a broad coalition of Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and college-educated Whites.

Looks like Biden won Terrace Park too. Wonder how the Portman family voted?

The Senate is still up in the air. There are two runoffs. It could be 50/50, which was the modal outcome from a lot of forecasts. Trump wasn't even close to winning reelection. Biden got more votes than any candidate in history and will likely win the popular vote by 6 or 7 percentage points when the vote is all counted. But please, continue to go off.