Eigth and State

Steep hills are no match for lots of earthwork. Just look at I-275 through northern Kentucky. The question is not whether it can be done, but at what cost.

Florence ranks pretty high in commercial offices, after Downtown, Blue-Ash, Tri-County, and Sharonville. One of the previous light rail plans had a line from Downtown through Covington, with a branch to the airport and another branch to Florence, basicly following the interstates. An alternate alignment could include the airport and Florence on the same line. A park-and-ride at Florence would probably be extremely popular. I still think that a light rail line through the airport to Florence has a lessor ROI than other lines, obviously.

This is my take on it: Duke Energy is a regulated utility, subject to the laws of the State of Ohio. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) is the part of the state government that regulates the public utilities. Thus, Duke Energy is submitting a request to PUCO. Note that they are NOT submitting a request to the City of Cincinnati. Specifically, Duke requested that PUCO allow a tariff to cover relocation of utilities for "mass transportation projects initiated by governmental subdivisions." Duke wants to charge the city in one of two ways: 1. The municipality (City of Cincinnati) should have the option to pay Duke to relocate the utilities, or 2. Duke can raise utility rates in that municipality to cover the cost of relocation. PUCO is made up of a staff and a board. The staff reads the request and makes a recommendation. The board (I presume) votes to support or deny the recommendation by the staff. In this case, the staff recommended that Duke NOT be allowed to charge the municipality by either method. The reasons for their recommendation are given in the report. The Board (to my knowledge) has not made a decision. Assuming that the board approves the recommendation, then Duke cannot charge a special tariff to City of Cincinnati residents. As CincyGuy said, the recommendation still doesn't specify who will pay the cost of moving the utilities. It just says that Duke can't recover the cost by raising rates on customers within the City of Cincinnati. What is the next step? I don't know. I don't think Duke is any any hurry whatsoever to jump in and do the work.

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So I guess the moral of the story is that Kroger still gets your business. Why should they change?

I think this is the key. The only way to get a big-box experience is to go to a big-box. If a customer wants a big-box experience, then he will be disappointed by an urban grocery store.

I've mentioned this before, but this seems to be a good place to mention it again. The typical intra-city transit system can be characterized by trip purpose something like this: 60% commute from home to work (or school) and back 30% commute from home to shopping and back 10% everything else put together. So, obviously, the best route for a line is from a residential area to an employment or school area. If there is also shopping on the line, then it's all the better.

I'm so sorry to hear this. I met him at an UO meet in Dayton. UO won't be the same without him.

Here's a link to the Notice of Invitation to Bid: http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/streetcar/linkservid/64FAA561-F6B2-05FE-3EF186048F7AA7D6/showMeta/0/

"A tourist-clogged catwalk." He he he. I hope I get the opportunity to visit the high line someday.

^Naw, they don't even realize they pay for it in other ways. For that matter, most of them don't realize they pay for it directly.

The way to sell the idea to Covington is to demonstrate an improvement compared to the existing situation. It is possible that travel time from Covington to, say, Kenwood will be erduced even with the BSB ramps removed if it is also accompanied by better traffic flow on I-75.

I say tolls should be collected for the current bridge. I would only eliminate the Covington ramps and compensate by better access to the Clay Wade Bailey bridge on the Ohio side. Then, drivers travelling to or from Covington could take the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge. This solves two problems: 1. It allows the toll plaza to be built some distance from the existing bridge, in a better location at the top of the hill, where there is room and steep grades are not as much of an issue. 2. It improves traffic flow by eliminating the small number of drivers who have to change lanes on the existing bridge to get to or from the Covington ramps.

^ They should be using a Bell-Curve model!

Thanks for posting. When that rendering was released in 1991, most people didn't like it. One said that it looks like it isn't finished. I agree. I don't think that the cantilevers and empty space add anything to the building. This is a problem typical of American cities: land is held in speculation, and is made into surface parking lots or other minimal uses in the meantime. One could almost say that this effect is a negative consequence of skyscraper construction. I would love to see all of the empty lots in downtown Cincinnati filled with 4-story buildings, instead of a handful of skycrapers surrounded by so much wasted land.

I think that if the bridge were appropriately tolled, the commuter traffic would be reduced as folks find another route to work, increase the use of carpools, or stop travelling as much altogether. The freight and business traffic, though, would more than make up for the cost of the toll by increased productivity. I think that there's a perception that tolls will do nothing but raise revenue, while causing a little bit more delay at the toll booth. In order to sell this idea, it is necessary to show that tolls will result in better traffic flow due to the reduction in the volume of traffic. Here's my idea: 1. Construct the toll plaza at the top of the hill, near Kyles Lane, because it would not be good to build it anywhere on the cut-in-the-hill due to steep grades, and there is no room on the Ohio side. The toll plaza of course would have to have more lanes than the highway. 2. Eliminate the Covington ramps and compensate by constructing better access to the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge on the Ohio side. 3. Set the toll price appropriately, adjusting it for time of day and day of week. Ideally, traffic should always move at the speed limit. If it is consistently backing up, the toll isn't high enough. During low traffic periods there shouldn't be any toll at all. (Some commuters will adjust their schedules to avoid the toll, which is exactly what we want to happen.) Really, there should be LOTS of places where the interstates are tolled. The legislation that caused them to be free was a technical mistake, in my humble opinion.

The streetcar was supposed to have been opened by now. For a startup cost of a few $million, we could have had a new bus route on the proposed streetcar line. Whether the bus is decorated to look like a trolley, whether it was a regular bus with some streetcar advertising on it, or whether it was just an ordinary Metro bus, it could have brought some attention to the proposed streetcar route and gotten people used to the idea. Then, it could be cancelled and replaced by a streetcar. So, the bus could have been used WHILE the streetcar was under design. That's all I'm sayin'. Instead, the city put up those streetcar station signs, and the media had a field day with it. I'm still not convinced that the streetcar will actually get built, though. I'm no fan of Smitherman, etc., but he is vowing to stop the streetcar construction if he gets the chance.

^Sorry, 5 of 8 Ohio River bridges have been substantially upgraded.

6 of 8 of Cincinnat's Ohio River Bridges have been substantially upgraded. Nearly all of the arterial roads have been upgraded from trails to 4-lane or more highways. I-75 and I-71 have been substantially widened. It is normal for transportation facilities to be constructed and subsequently widened. It doesn't always happen that way, though. Passenger traffic at Cincinnati's Union Terminal never reached it's design capacity, except maybe in the WWII years. The Cincinnati Transit Center is underutilised. The Greater Cincinnati airport is underutilized, especially since the new runway opened. There are two good reasons to start small and plan to upgrade later: 1. If the traffic doesn't materialize, the sunk cost is minimized. 2. Revenues from early operation can help pay for capital cost of improvements. I wouldn't mind seeing improved bus service morph into rail service. Some clever street design could open up exclusive bus lanes, perhaps at the expense of general traffic lanes. If it is effective, the bus lanes could become rail lanes later, or perhaps be replaced with parallel rail routes in a new alignment. Folks on this board have poo-pood the idea of trolley buses instead of streetcars. "Never send a bus to do a train's job," etc. Yet, if the trolley buses had been initiated along the proposed streetcar route in 2010, we could have had nearly two years of operation history by this point. If the buses had been a flop, then maybe the streetcar will be a flop, too. But if the buses had been successful, then maybe the streetcar will be successful, too. What if the trolley buses were operating today, and they were packed? That would be better evidence of possible success than any projection, and better publicity than any ballot result. "A living dog is better than a dead lion." I say that a real bus that operates on the street is better than a streetcar idea that never gets built.

No, public transit is not about racing, but it IS about travel times and a lot of other factors. "The problem with public transit is that it is too slow." - Wendel Cox. (I agree with Wendell Cox on this point.)

Thanks for posting!

The poster city for BRT is Curitiba, Brazil. The Curitiba system has at-grade crossings, but separate bus lanes with long stretches without any crossings. The Curitiba system also has pre-paid fares and raised platforms, like a subway, and exceptionally long articulated buses that resemble trains. They claim that the Curitiba system cost $200,000 per mile to build vs. $90 million for a subway. A key to its success is that travel times by BRT are FASTER than by private automobile. Therefore, there is an incentive to take the BRT instead of driving.

^And the Virginia Millitary District goes back to Virginia. For that matter, the southwest 1/3 of the state should go to Virginia. No, wait, all of Ohio and the rest of the Old Northwest should go back to France. Or maybe Spain. Oh, nevermind.

Actually, it's a bit scary that the Obama administration would even consider such petitions.

There so much to see! Thanks for posting.