Eigth and State

Alexander Hamilton believed that only the elite should be eligible to vote. He thought that the common people were not intelligent enough to govern themselves. Even today, our turnout percentages are fairly low. Republicans have a much higher turn out percentage then Democrats, though. Thus, it is in the interest of the Democrats to increase the turnout. This is primarily why Obama was able to win. In Hamilton County, Ohio, 100,000 people who had never voted before turned out to vote for Obama. The Democrats want to make voting easier, with expanded voting days, early voting, motor-voter registration laws, and so on. Republicans don't want to make it any easier, because they know that the more effort it takes to vote, the fewer Democrats will turn out. So to be blunt, some Americans don't want everyone to vote.

There's a recent landslide near Fay Apartments. It can be seen from I-75, I-74, and places around Northside and Clifton.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but there is a reason why that piece of land is vacant: On 6-5-1972 there was a major landslide in the green area in the center of the photo in the previous post, where the proposed retaining wall is shown. The hillside that collapsed was about 80 yards wide, and it left a steep cliff about 30 feet high. Five buildings on McMicken Avenue were condemned by the Cincinnati Building Department because of damage from the earthslide.

There are a few modern hill-climbing cog railways around the world. I think one climbs Pike's Peak, and there are some in Switzerland. The technically fascinating thing about these is that the same gearbox that drives the main traction wheels also drives the cog gear. Historically, the Cincinnati inclines were a long ride. Would passengers today tolerate the very slow climb and descent, especially when buses can do it faster?

I think the rock is impressive. I didn't know that it had the date inscribed. That's got to be among the oldest inscriptions in North America in English. Neat find!

^According to the folks that operate the Whitewater Valley Railroad between Metamora and Connersville, Indiana, the easements revert to the original owner on that line if the railroad ceases to operate. There is a gap between Brookville and Metamora that was abandoned long ago; a proposal to make the right-of-way into a rails-to-trail facility failed because the reversion owners blocked it. In a related issue, railroads do not always have the legal right to build utilities such as fiber optic lines over these easement corridors, unless the original easement documentation allows it or they purchase new easements. Some railroads have allowed the telecommications companies to use the railroad right-of-way and have been caught. Why would anyone care? Well, there's an outfit of lawyers working out of Cleveland searching for these things, and approaching the property owners to recover damages from the railroad. They have had some success winning court cases. The same kind of thing happens with power companies allowing parallel lines on easements. It would be interesting to know if any Cincinnati area lines act this way. It would take a lot of research and a legal interpretation. In practice, when the land on either side of the railroad was developed and sold to different owners, how would one determine who owns the reversion rights anyway? In the end, the Rails to Trails program allows reconstruction of the railroad if the railroad has a need for it. It is potentially possible that the Loveland Bike Trail will become a railroad again in the future, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Can you imagine the chagrin that would cause? The lesson to be learned is that just because there is an unused railroad line, it is not necessarily available for other uses. In fact, it's not necessariy even available for railroad uses. A proposal by Rail American to re-open the former CL&N between Blue Ash and Mason was blocked by the FRA due to influence by adjacent property owners, believe it or not.

My bad.

^Its all about the funding. The gasoline tax is supposed to be used for highway construction, not transit. I'm not saying that's the way it should be, but that's the way it is.

Thanks for posting and please keep them coming!

Photos of downtown Cincinnati buildings taken in 1968 by the Hamilton County Auditor for tax assessment purposes: http://hamiltoncountyauditor.org/vintagephotos.asp

I just looked up the reference to Rome. This concerns carriages only, and says nothing about wagons or carts. "A final complication was provided by carriages. Carriages for rich men or women to travel in, as an alternative to riding on horseback or being carried in litters, first became a prominent feature in cities in the second half of the sixteenth century, when improvements in springing made them sufficiently comfortable to be enjoyable. Rome had more of them earlier than any other city. In the 1570's or thereabouts Cardinal Charles Borromeo said that two things were necessary for success in Rome, to love God and to own a carriage. by 1594 there were 888 carriages in Rome, owned by 675 people; the grander ones were pulled by six horses. Eighty of them escorted Marquis Ambrosio Spinoloa when he went to have an audience with the pope in 1598." -Cities and People, Mark Girouard

^Even so, ancient cities had traffic congestion too. If I remember correctly, I read that ancient Rome had thousands of private carriages that clogged the streets. Traffic congestion did not start with automobiles.

You guys crack me up somtimes. Would you take a fighter jet from The Banks to Music Hall? Velocity is just one factor in the equation. Transit doesn't have to be faster to be competitive with other modes, but it helps. "People drive to save time."

It's not a race, but it doesn't say much for the rail transit. If it takes longer to ride the streetcar (or light rail) than it does to drive, than why should anyone ride the streetcar?

it looks like the Houston line is parallel to a motorway, and the automobiles are making better time.

I know what you meant, but I prefer the words expressways, freeways, or motorways instead of roads. Roads are basic to civilization and are not exclusively for automobiles.

It seems that the recent ice wasn't thick enough to prevent tows from moving. You could say that they were their own icebreakers, for light ice. I think the answer is that in the event of thick ice, the tows simply don't operate. The coal power companies know this, and hopefully have enough coal stockpiled to get through until the ice melts. Historically, river ice doesn't just lay in thick sheets. It moves with the current, and piles up. 1918 was a very bad year for riverboats; lots of old steamers were crushed by ice.

Oh, dear. I just realized that in the picture above, they show I-75 going OVER Ludlow Avenue. Is this really the plan? If it is, I am appalled.

^

But engineers don't make the decisions. Politicians do.

^The OASIS line is an exclusive right-of-way, that is, not in a street or shared with other traffic. I have a feeling that there are some opposed to streetcars because they see streetcars as a hindrance to automobile traffic, and vice-versa, automobiles as a hindrance to streetcars. If the costs and routes were the same, which would you rather have, a street railway or a grade-separated exclusive right of way?

it will probably not stop a student that's already enrolled, but it will discourage new students. Notice that I said discourage, because the travel time is just one factor. A 25 minute drive vs. a 30 minute drive might be just enough to tip a decision the other way, and send a student to a different college, online classes, or any number of other things. Keep in mind too that lots of Cincinnati State students are not full time students and already have jobs, which further complicates their schedules. Time is valuable.

Elimination of the ramp from I-74 to Central Parkway will discourage people from going to Cincinnati State. It will take several more minutes to get there via Hopple, Mitchell, or Colerain. Commuting patterns are very sensitive to travel time, probably more so than people realise. Plus, Cincinnati State is easy to find from I-74 because of the sight lines; Cincinnati State is very prominent from that direction. That said, I don't know how many Cincinnati State students come from I-74. It may not be that many. I'm still upset that they removed the pedestrian bridge over I-75 at Cincinnati State, along with that neat stell arch bridge over Central Parkway. I used to use that.

Probably they will move to Seattle, or Philidelphia, or Toronto, or Berlin, or Tokyo.

This is a little off-topic but it has a common theme. I just finished reading a book titled "railroad or canal" which discusses the decision that the State of Pennsylvania made to build a canal over the mountains between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. To us today, the "main line of public works" looks like a ridiculous failure, but the author shows that given the information available at the time, it was actually a rational decision. The canal, which included railway inclines over the mountains, operated for about 20 years and was an economic failure, but technologically fascinating. Like so many projects, the Pennsylvania line came down to funding. The state, which was ultimately controlled by voters, attempted to build a system that would please everyone, with little branch lines all over. A system that only covered a small part of the state would never have gotten approved by the electorate. We can talk about technology all day, but in the end, the project isn't going to be built unless it is funded, and in order to get funded, the electorate has to see some potential benefit in it. Sadly, the places in Hamilton County with the highest voter turnout are not the places with infrastructure most conductive to transit.