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I was talking to an ODOT friend and she made it clear that the point of flow control lights is to keep traffic moving on the highway. There are certain levels of service (she had a better term) that MUST be maintained on the highways. Even with the learning curve there is expected to be some backup on the side streets. Better planning on the part of municipalities and developers will be needed to avoid backups on the on ramps in the future.

City Talk Radio did a good piece on rail transit and the Cincinnati Streetcar last night. It really is a must hear if you're trying to educate someone on the streetcar project. The guests (John and ???) did a good job educating and refuting the skeptics. The only issue was that the program closed on a caller enumerating all the bad things about the old Cincinnati streetcars (bicycle tires stuck in rails, unsightly overhead wires, cars jumping tracks, etc...). No time was given to refute the long winded caller.

here is the link to the presentation -> http://www.oki.org/elements/PPT/Transportation/TIP/Cincinnati%20Subway%20Presentation.ppt

It has been a joke between XUMELANIE and I to work the word "curtainwall" into the conversation as much as possible when we get a glimpse of Queen City Square.

"Just curious. How many restaurants and lounges can downtown support? How about a bookstore? A retail shop? Something other than a bar/lounge. OTR needs them more than Downtown does." I've always wondered that myself. However, the increased retail, dining and entertainment offerings downtown seem to be fueling business at the restaurants and lounges. Of course, this is just anecdotal from walking around, random happy hours and occasional nights out.

It looks like our law firm's free parking benefit at Broadway Commons will be going bye-bye. Not that I had to use it :evil:

What are the chances we will get the funding from the stimulus request through ODOT before this nonsense happens again next year?

Have there been any mainstream media spots against the anti-rail initiative? My wife and I rarely watch traditional TV and never buy The Enquirer, so I wasn't sure if there were any "No on 9" messages.

My wife and I hear the City BBQ advertising at Xavier Basketball games all the time and makes us chuckle. They do not have a single city location! I can't remember all their exurban locations, but one is in the sprawling Voice of American complex. It would be nice to have a suburban location. Sounds like they are working their way towards the city. Maybe in 2020 they will have a location in Clifton.

When I was still active with Mallory's Kitchen Cabinet, the head of environmental issues for the city (his name and title escape me) was asked a question about something like this. His response was a bit surprising. Supposedly, the way a program like this would most likely be implemented would actually be less energy efficient than just throwing items away. The environmental cost of collection (gas, vehicle costs, etc...) would exceed the benefit. Curbside recycling suffers less from this due to the economies of scale. I'm obviously not recalling all the detailed explanation from a two minute response from a meeting months ago, but that's the gist of it. I'm not sure if you've seen "The Green Cincinnati Plan", so I've linked it below. It is a plan from about a year ago that outlined recommendations for all sorts of green initiatives based off of environmental impact and return on investment. http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/cmgr/downloads/cmgr_pdf18280.pdf

I wonder if the Broadway Commons casino not having a hotel would help fuel demand for this kind of project.

Study shows Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine perfect place to marry historic preservation, green movements http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2009/09/21/story2.html?ana=e_ph "While the neighborhood’s drafty old buildings might seem horribly energy-inefficient, the dense neighborhood and proximity to mass transit give them an edge in the LEED rating systems used in green design, said Chad Edwards, a principal with Emersion Design and a member of the study team. And, in many cases, simple fixes such as storm windows can make the buildings more energy-efficient while keeping their historic character, he said."

Man you are on top of things! I walk through Fountain Square at least twice every work day and didn't see that sign yet. Anyone have the specifics on what appears to be a Martini Bar?

Any thoughts on how Cincinnati's location would affect downtown Cincinnati businesses? If it is built on Broadway Commons, then I don't think there are many businesses nearby (withing 4 blocks) that could lose business. Would businesses even further away really suffer? Are those people coming down only to gamble just not adding any additional benefit? Any general thoughts on immediate versus general location impact? Sorry to get so specific, but I have a bit of a concern living only 5 blocks away from the proposed location.

I think the ignore feature as is works pretty well. I've added two trolls and I'm getting a lot less spam. The only time I have trouble is when other people fall into the trap of using the quoting feature which keeps me from flat out ignoring them.

I appreciate that there are benefits to this system. However, I have a few concerns. Will this will put an additional bureaucratic burden on the working poor who pay no taxes now, but under this plan will have to manage their way through a "prebate" system? Could you please explain how (if possible) this system will be less or at least equally burdensome to low income earners? Also, would the fair tax have basic necessity exemptions (like food, water, electricity, etc...)? If so what would those be? Would this skew the tax rates on other items higher? Wouldn't the government ultimately do the same kind of tinkering with the tax rates on different classes of items to shape behavior just like they do with income taxes making it equally painful (tax credit on mortgage income, capital gains, first home buyer, green credits, etc...)? For example, I know in Ohio food taken out is not taxed with the bizarre exception of carbonated drinks. Along these lines, what flexibility would there be in the fair tax? It appears to need to be pretty rigid to decrease administration cost, decrease personal complexity (at least for those who do not have to deal with the prebate) and increase "fairness" in tax collecting. However, if the system needs to respond to any issues that arise, what could be changed and still keep it fair? For example, if the system does not return the projected results could the flat rate be changed, or tweaked for different classes of products?

"I give up! Obviously people (not everyone mind you) just don't get it. I guess they prefer to have money taken from their paychecks every week. I guess they prefer having to deal with all those forms, etc. every April and worry if they've calculated it all right, etc. Whatever. May as well tell it to the walls." It seems as though people on this thread (like myself) have read the information on the websites and just don't agree that such a proposal would be an improvement. If you want uneducated head bobbing to your idea then post this on your local newspaper forums. If you want an educated discussion simply find facts to refute the other forumers' posts. If you cannot find anything, then concede the point that the "fair tax" may not be all it's cracked up to be.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090902/BIZ01/909060303/Brewery+planned+for+riverfront+park Brewery planned for riverfront park A new biergarten with working microbrewery dubbed the Moerlein Lager House will be added to Riverfront Park in 2011.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I could have sworn that I read just yesterday that the bank bailout money was getting repaid with interest back to the government at a rate of 15%. If that is the case, wasn't the bailout quite a good investment of public dollars in terms of economic stability and pure ROI?

I'm known as Mr. XUMelanie here, but elsewhere it's Ben.

Sorry about that. For some reason the pop up boxes screwed up my sense of geography there for a moment.

I've noticed that there is no mention that Cincinnati is even in the planning phase for a streetcar system. Hopefully the feds know better or we may never get funding.

XUMelanie and I are doing the easiest and most rewarding thing to go green - we live urban. We average less than $170/month on gas, water and electric combined (even less this summer with the nice weather) which seems to be a lot less resource usage than our suburban friends/family. We also walk to work which reduces our CO2 emissions (and gasoline bills). While it wasn't our main reason moving downtown it sure is a nice bonus.

Given that the Southwest Ohio Green Party website is hosted by Geocities, hasn't been updated in almost two years, and has various links to support prominent member Justin Jeffre (former boy band member) for Cincinnati City Council, I think the legitimacy of the organization should really be evaluated.

Special thanks to John Schneider for debating the anti-rail amendment with COAST last night at the Downtown Residents Council meeting! I believe a measure at the end of the meeting condemning the anti-rail amendment passed unanimously (with a few abstentions). I've outlined some of my takeaways from the event below. 1) The COAST representative seemed to be very poorly educated on the issue (didn't understand the impact of requiring a ballot initiative on all rail improvements, didn't know much factually on past/current/future transit plans and was constantly being corrected (e.g. didn't even know what NAACP stood for - Smitherman should be proud). 2) John did a great job providing a wealth of detail on the issue with specifics that directly contradicted the generalities presented by COAST. 3) The COAST representative specifically stated that this amendment has always been about requiring a vote on all passenger rail transit in direct opposition to their stated position on their website that it is about the streetcar "boondoggle". He claimed that The Enquirer knew this all along and is just pretending they didn't know it was about rail in general. 4) Towards the end some jerk started shouting down the COAST representative claiming some vast conspiracy on COAST's part. This made the whole pro-rail group look bad. We need to be better about condemning such stupidity and lack of civility.