Eigth and State

^Nooooo! A north south route with an S-bend would look like this: _ I I I I___ I___ I I I I_I This would be a continuous loop that always travels in the same direction, either clockwise or counterclockwise. That's not what it is at all. It is a figure-8, with the north half travelling clockwise and the south half travelling counter-clockwise. Say you are travelling from Fountain Square to Music Hall and back. From Fountain Square, you can ride south around 2nd street, or walk one block east to take a shortcut. From Music Hall, you can ride north all the way around Henry Street or walk one block to take the shortcut. But which way do you walk, east or west? It depends on whether you are north or south of Central Parkway. What if you don't know? Well, I guess to be safe you have to ride the whole loop all the way around.

From the archives: Yes, that is the Roebling Bridge.

In the book Traffic by Tom Vanderbuilt, the author describes some of the traffic phenomenon. People are creatures of habit, and traffic patterns are somewhat predictable as long as conditions don't change. It's harder to predict what will happen when things change suddenly. He talks about a dockyard strike in the L.A. area that put hundreds of truck drivers temporarily out of work. Planners predicted that the highway would be nearly empty, but instead it filled up with thousands of new cars! The conventional prediction is that if something happened to the Brent Spence Bridge, all of the traffic would seek other routes. This isn't necessarily true, as some of the traffic might just disappear.

^What do you all think the threshold is for lot value vs house value to warrant a teardown?

Interstates are not immune to failure, and since they carry so much traffic, often without good alternatives, the disruption to the regional transportation system can cause a crises. In the Atlanta case, the collapse of a relatively obscure overpass caused the closure of miles of motorway. Because interstates are limited-access, you can't just drive around the block to get back on route.

There's been another interstate bridge collapse, this time due to a fire. I-85 in Atlanta is closed. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bridge-collapses-atlanta-freeway-fire-during-rush-hour-n740871

I hope the observation deck stays open.

Here's a good example of teardowns in Montgomery, Ohio. About half of the 1950's ranches on this suburban street, which were all in good condition, have been replaced with larger McMansions. https://www.google.com/maps/@39.2387925,-84.3615799,3a,75y,121.17h,71.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssjfsZFVm-k2hnpDuj87NYQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

^In this case, the adjacent building might have something to do with it. You don't want to affect the existing building by cutting too close to it. Notice that the drain pipe is tied. The depth of the sewer, if any, could also be a factor. You can't go deeper than the sewer and still drain by gravity without pumping.

Following is a screenshot from the official State of Ohio web site today, 3-23-2017. This photo is about 15 years old, as Riverfront Stadium was torn down in 2002.

Here's a study by Miami University about Ohio populations, with county data. http://www.ohio-population.org/doc_category/county/

Wow, I didn't know that. Talk about unintended consequences.

I think coal mining is down in our area because of competition with natural gas, which is more convenient. I should also caution that the article says that alternative energy is cheaper than coal in thirty countries, not here. I'm all for solar and wind, but so far, they just aren't competitive with coal. My energy bill says that my electricity comes mostly from coal, but I can have the option to pay more for alternatives if it makes me feel better.

I suspect that one of the factors is keeping the old store open while the new one is under construction.

You are the most optimistic futurist I know.

I'm happy for them, but I'm not spending $80,000 on a car.

Fertility rates by state (2015): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_fertility_rate Utah is highest at 2.3 children per woman; Rhode island is lowest at 1.58. Ohio ranks 22 of 50, or right in the middle, at 1.87. The rate is dropping across the board. Replacement rate is considered to be 2.1, so Ohio is below natural replacement. Without immigration, the low birth rate is going to make Ohio lose population eventually, when the Baby Boomers die off. As of the 2010 Census, Ohio was projected to peak in population in 2018 and then decline. I keep hearing people say thing like "I'd like to have another child, but it's just too expensive." In the west side suburbs of Cincinnati, Northwest is closing 2 elementary schools, and the archdiocese is closing Mercy high school. Enrollment is down.

Sorry about the rambling.

It's fascinating to read these old plans. Here's a comparison between streetcars and buses from 1924: "It is generally agreed by traction specialists that unless there is enough available clientele along a route to warrant an average of a 10, or at most, a 12 minute headway, autobuses are more economical than street cars, (operating and overhead expenses both included.)" So, they said in 1924 that if you can fill a streetcar every 10 minutes, then build the streetcar. If you can't, then operate a bus instead.

Well, they say that Generals are always prepared for the previous war. "Times change, and we change with them." - William Henry Harrison

"The central cities need to come down." - LeCorbusier, "City of Tomorrow." :-o

Naw, sprawl was deliberately planned. Read old planning documents from the 1920's through the 1950's and you will see that auto-oriented development was encouraged by policy. These policies continue to exist in the form of zoning codes, highway policies, etc., though today's planners are starting to lean away from auto-oriented development. The 1948 plan specifically said that the bus system would be temporarily necessary until all citizens had automobiles!

Most commutes today are from suburb to suburb, which of course is not compatible with transit. Only 14% of jobs in Hamilton County are located downtown. When suburbanites who need a car just to get out of their own subdivision were asked to vote for a sales tax for Metro Moves, I don't think it really helped the cause for public transit, especially after the stadium project ending up costing about twice what it was supposed to cost. It's not for a lack of planning that Cincinnati doesn't have better transit.

Sorry I don't have a map for the entire county right now, but here's a recent property value map given to me by a realtor. This map shows that some areas of the suburbs are increasing in value, some are declining, and some are stable. This map shows that Northside is improving, while North College Hill and Mt. Healthy are declining in property values. Anecdotally, I know that there is a bit of new construction in Northside, consisting of both some urban redevelopment such as the American Can, but also some suburban-style single-family stuff like that around Colerain and Virginia. I don't know of any significant new construction in Mt. Healthy or Brentwood. I know that Springfield Township can't pass a road levy, and is considering using property assessment taxes to repave the roads! It is notable, though, that North College Hill and Mt. Healthy have some of the better bus service, the classic 17, which is the successor to the historic streetcars. The area labeled "Northgate" surrounds Northgate Mall, at the intersection of Colerain Avenue and Springdale Road. Northgate Mall itself is about 1/3 empty, which is a sad situation. The area around the mall, though, has seen a lot of new construction. There is token bus service to Northgate Mall, but the surrounding area is all auto-oriented and unwalkable. Monfort Heights, long considered a stable area, is just barely increasing in value. It is low-density, auto-oriented, mostly single-family suburban on large lots. Of all of the places in this map, the best candidate for rail transit is the corridor from Northside to Mt. Healthy, as this is the most dense and walkable. Yet the Metro Moves plan proposed rail along the I-74 corridor to Monfort Heights, the least dense area on the whole map!

We can't turn back the clock to 1950 and do it over. So, where do we go from here? In my humble opinion, there is a place for both highways and rail transit; I think of them as two parts of the same system. However, Cincinnati has too many highways and not enough rail transit. The basic problem with new rail transit in Cincinnati is that we already have too many highways, which compete for passengers, space, and funding. It makes little sense today to build new transit to the suburbs. A growing city, like Denver, Phoenix, or some of those other cities mentioned before can afford to build new transit for new development. It's much harder in Cincinnati because there is very little growth; new development in the suburbs is mostly replacing older development in the core, which is emptying out. Cincinnati does, in fact, have a decent bus system, which is actually a continuation of the historic streetcar system. Queen City Metro today carries about one-tenth the riders that the historic streetcars carried in 1930. The municipal population is down from a peak of 500,000 in 1955 to 300,000 today (round numbers). As the population of the core declined, bus ridership has declined. Queen City Metro is projecting a budget crisis in 2018 if a new source of funding isn't found. I think about this when I see empty seats on the bus. Sometimes I am the only rider - in the afternoon rush at that! Is it good business to build more capacity in the form of rail transit in this environment? Remember, internal transportation is just one of the things that cities need to thrive. Another one is a water supply. The City of Cincinnati, which controls the Cincinnati Water Works, continues to expand the water system. We are now pumping water from the Ohio River all the way to Mason, Ohio, which, by the way, cannot pump water fast enough from it's own wells. Cincinnati also pumps water to Florence, Kentucky! So, on one hand Cincinnati built the streetcar, ostensibly to attract redevelopment to the core, but on the other hand, Cincinnati is subsidizing new development in the far suburbs. The real world is chaos and doesn't make any sense at all. So, GE opened an office at The Banks. Over-the-Rhine is looking up. I get it. That's great. But the first-ring suburbs are taking a beating as families move to Mason, and ODOT is spending hundreds of millions expanding highways between Mason and Florence. THAT's the big picture.