Eigth and State

Thanks for another fine tour. :-)

I hope they don't get the signatures - just so we can go back to talking about underground utilities, fare collection systems, and shelter architecture instead of all this political stuff.

If I keep staring at the black dot after the picture changes to black and white, I can see the colors for a while, untill I look away from the black dot.

I saw pink on the left and a dull brown on the right, but only for a split second.

^ I used to think that it was only a matter of time until the Cincinnati metro reached 10 million, New York City reached 100 million, and the world population reached 100 billion. The City of Cincinnati peaked in 1955, and Hamilton County peaked in 1970. The U.S. Census projects that Ohio's population will peak in 2018 at only slightly higher than it is now, and World Health Oranization demographers project that world population will peak at around 9 billion in the next century or two. I don't think that the Cincinnati Metro is going to gain any significant population, unless maybe all the Clevelanders move to Cincinnati. :-D For now, it's a zero-sum game, or nearly so. Any gain in one neighborhood is a loss in another.

Who ever said that it is going to end? There is no law that says it has to. You may want to get used to it.

Consolidation of districts might decrease the number of superintendents, which would save cost. However, it will probably INCREASE the number of assistant-superintendents. Bigger school districts are not necessarily more efficient. What is the optimum size for a school district? I don't know. The big urban districts seemed to be contrained by too much beauracracy, so they are probably bigger than the optimum size already.

Probably 30 years ago, it made sense financially to take a student loan which resulted in a higher salary. Since then, every thing has changed, both on the financing side and the job market side, and it just doesn't make sense anymore. However, today's parents and high school councilors still believe in it, since it worked for them, and kids are steered into college when it may not be in their best interest.

The City of Cincinnati doesn't have a reputation for being efficient. How many politicians does it take to change a lightbulb? :? Two. One to change it and one to change it back. :-D

Heh.

If anyone wants to dig deeper into this, a good place to start might be the Traffic Service's storeroom at 3300 Colerain Avenue; that's where contractors are supposed to pick up the island lights, according to the City Supplement. This information was up to date as of 2005.

Wow, this would be a really big deal.

^ I didn't realize that debt was a requirement of a "good" business. Some businesses don't take on any debt.

^Good call! Come to think of it, plowing might be the key. My grandfather told me that they started plowing his street in the 1930's.

The first time I realized that these were unique to Cincinnati was when I found a description of them in John Clubbe's "Cincinnati Observed." The author thought that they resembled German military helmets from WWI. I just spend some time randomly searching traffic islands in other cities for these on Google street view. Not suprisingly, I didn't spot any. I checked Philidelphai and New Orleans.

I remember that a student councilor told the class that taking on debt was ok because it will result in a higher pay rate, and the take-home pay will be greater even considering the loan payments, and that the government will turn a profit on its investment in the form of higher payroll taxes. Well, I guess that promise was a bit rosy. Borrowing money makes a good business better, but it makes a bad business worse.

They are also used whenever there is some obstruction in the center of the street, such as a bridge pier. The discussion from several years ago asked about their origin. No one seems to know why we have them in Cincinnati and not anywhere else. I have a challenge - let's see who will be the first to spot one in any other place other than Cincinnati! I have a book that discusses some early traffic control devices. As one would expect, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices was not published the moment that the first car was invented. Every city did it's own thing. The rules that we are so used to - yellow line down the center, white lines on the right edge, red, yellow, and green traffic signals, octagonal stop signs, etc., did not just come into play automatically. When one city tried something and it was successful, other cities copied. Gradually, states adopted uniform standards for the entire state, and then states got together and adopted a common standard. In this book I have are some ideas that didn't make it. One of my favorites is wavy lines painted on the pavement that are supposed to slow traffic down. These were used in Ohio as late as 1930. I have never seen one in Ohio, but I have spotted them in photos of Britain. The United States system has been copied extensively around the world, but there is still no common world standard. Somehow, these Cincinnati orange helmet lights survived all this standardization. This is one of the details that make Cincinnati unique, we think. Did someone in Cincinnati invent these, or were they copied from somewhere else? Do they exist anywhere else in the United States, or in the world for that matter? Where are these things manufactured, if they still are?

The streetcar needs support from as many people as possible.

There is not a clear definition of "urban" vs. "suburban." The U.S. Census publishes population numbers based on municipal boundaries. The U.S.G.S. uses a broad definition of "urban land" that includes most suburban areas down to a certain density. To a lot of folks, the word "urban" implies a gritty, deteriorated neighborhood with broken windows and graffiti. Andres Duany uses a strict definition based on form. "Urban Sprawl" is somewhat of a misnomer because most of what is labeled "urban sprawl" could more reasonably be called "suburban sprawl." This is really a topic for another thread, but I prefer a definition based on functionality. If most people get around by walking or transit including taxis, then it is urban. If most people get around by driving personal cars and only walk from the parking lot to the building, then it is suburban. By this definition, most of Cincinnati is suburban. Areas such as Avondale which were build in the automobile era yet still have decent transit and are somewhat walkable are somewhere between urban and suburban, though I would lean suburban because more people drive than take the bus, and Avondale is marred by too many parking lots. I think that for the most part, people who walk and ride transit a lot will tend to vote for transit. These are the people I call urbanites. People who always drive and never ride transit are the suburbanites. There's a group in between that drives sometimes and takes transit sometimes. (For the record, I own a car and use it for primary transportation, but I also ride the bus occasionally.) One of my friends summed up an election issue in this way: "People will vote for an issue if it benefits them, and will vote against it if it doesn't." In school levy elections, it is common for voters who have kids in school and for teachers to vote for the school levy. In the case of the stadiums, a lot of Reds and Bengals fans voted for the stadiums with no regard for any other issue regarding the stadiums. So, I think that for many voters, the streetcar issue really comes down to the question of "Will I use it or not?" If the voter lives in a suburban area and rarely goes downtown, then he will likely not vote for it. Obviously, if the voter lives in Over-the-Rhine, he is more likely to vote for it. The Metro Moves plan, in my opinion, tried to win the support of the suburbs by extending transit into suburban areas; this was a mistake, particularly on the west side. It failed miserably in the suburbs because it just didn't offer convienient service to most suburbanites. One of my friends said, "Yes, I would use it even if it was a little bit slower than driving and even if I had to walk a little bit to get to it. But this plan won't serve me because it doesn't come anywhere near me or where I want to go." The suburbs just don't have the density and are almost completely built around the automobile. There may still be benefits to suburbanites who don't use transit in the form of better development of the city and thus improved revenue to the City of Cincinnati as a whole, but so far the suburbanites have not accepted that argument. So, to reiterate my original point, in order for the streetcar to succeed under the current situation, the streetcar has to actually get built, and to get built it needs to be funded, and to be funded it needs the support of the suburbs. So far, it doesn't have the support of the suburbs. What can be done about that? (It also doesn't have the support of COAST, but in my opinion that isn't the biggest hurdle. COAST is a small but vocal minority that's just causing trouble in order to get attention.)

"St. Bernard and Silverton are no longer cities- They are now townships because of population loss." Not true. St. Bernard and Silverton are Villages, not Townships. There's a very big difference in what townships are allowed to do versux villages under Ohio state law. All governments in Ohio - Townships, Cities, and Villages - are losing population UNLESS there are new housing units being contructed. This is primarily driven by the fact that household size is shrinking. "We're looking to Louisville & Indy as UniGov models," The UniGov model is somewhat analagous to aggressive annexation by a city such as Columbus. In Cincinnati and Cleveland, aggressive annexation is blocked by all the little municipalities resisting it. In Kentucky and Indiana, state law allowed the central city to "annex" the surrounding suburbs, although they called it "Unigov" instead of "Annexation." Columbus is posting bigger Census numbers because it includes a bigger percentage of the suburbs, but the core area of Columbus isn't really doing any better than the core area of Cincinnati or Cleveland. This discussion of government is drifting away from streetcars, but my original point was that the proposed Cincinnati streetcar, whether it's a good idea or not, is being controlled by the majority vote, and the majority lives in the suburbs. It is unquestionable that the voters of the Downtown, Over-the-Rhine, and Uptown want better transit; however, it is also clear that the voters of Westwood, Mt. Washington, etc., are NOT in favor of the streetcar. Furthermore, even though the suburban parts of the Cincinnati metro outside of the City of Cincinnati do not get to vote on the issue directly, they still have influence. In order to win support for the streetcar, the streetcar supporters need to: 1. Win the support of suburbanites, or 2. Change the system so that the support of the suburbanites isn't needed, i.e., vote by neighborhood. "There are not bad people, but there are bad systems." - Deming

The neighborhood taxation idea is absurd only in the way that it is unlikely to happen. The paper infrastructure that our society has is just as important as the physical infrastructure; old agreements and contracts are hard to change. "If you want to make enemies, try to change something." - Woodrow Wilson. Beyond that, I think you just proved my point. Downtown and uptown generate almost half of Cincinnati's revenue. Westwood is Cincinnati's largest neighborhood by population but generates just 1% of the revenue. So, you could say that downtown and uptown are "subsidizing" Westwood. In fact, I wouldn't be suprised if Downtown, Uptown, and a couple other neighborhoods are "subsidizing" the rest of the City of Cincinnati, not to mention subsidizing a lot of the activity outside of the municipal limits. If it were somehow possible for each neighborhood to collect and control its own taxes, downtown and uptown would have ample funding to build the streetcar as well as solve a lot of other problems. One of the ideas debated by the founding fathers was that only people who owned property should be able to vote. A former presidential candidate, Ross Perot, suggested that Americans should vote in shares in proportion to how much they pay in taxes, analagous to the way a members of a corporation vote in proportion to the shares they own. The problem with the streetcar is that suburban residents are voting on what happens in downtown and Over-the-Rhine when they have no real interest in it. "Democracy is a terrible way to run a railroad" - M. King Hubbert I don't think that there is any kind of conspiracy, or that the media is to blame. The media is in business to make money, and most of their customers are suburbanites. The media's job is to tell them what they want to hear. If most suburbanites think that the streetcar is the dumbest idea in the world, then the media ought to tell them that. Plus, the media sells an awful lot of automobile advertisements. As for COAST getting a lot of media coverage, that's just the way the system works. The media seeks out stories that are interesting or popular because it helps sell more product. You don't see the media talking about the 95% of the mundane things that the City of Cincinnati does because they are boring. Plus, the average media customer just isn't interested in technical aspects of the streetcar, or ridership numbers, or budgets. Those are nerdy things. The average media customer wants to see human interest stories. So instead of discussing the facts, the media goes after Smitherman.

I wouldn't mind providing a completely separate parallel bicycle route somewhere in the vicinity of Mitchel, possibly with a new bicycle and pedestrain bridge or underpass crossing I-75. There's talk of a Mill Creek bikeway that partly takes advantage of the old canal, and it would be great to cross I-75 somewhere around Mitchel. Mitchel is a mess, and the local traffic gets tiied up in the interchange traffic. I was bicycling on Mitchel once when I saw a car accidentally make a left turn on the wrong side of Mitchel against traffic at a place where Mitchel is divided, and a bunch of cars followed her. Near head on collision!

From the little research that I have done, I have concluded that one could spend a lifetime researching Over-the-Rhine to the level of detail that Jeff has done on his posts.

Jake, all that is true, but most of what you said is history. The Cincinnati metro has a bit of a mess transportation-wise, and a lot of it is a result of the gas tax and federal policy. I am just appalled at some of the proposals coming out of ODOT, such as widening the Brent Spence Bridge, etc I have been to other cities both with and without rail that lacked interstate highways or the foreign equivalent, and there's something to be saif for cities that have done well without highways. What can we do to get out of the mess that we are in now? I've been following the streetcar proposal for all these years now, and am still skeptical that it will actually get built, and even if it does get built, I am skeptical that it will yield the results that it is supposed to have. The problem with the streetcar proposal is not a technical problem in my opinion. The problem is political. Despite all these years of campaigning and lots of hard work, the streetcar supporters have not been able to make the case to suburban residents that the streetcar is going to be a success. I can't tell you how many people have told me that they think the streetcar is the dumbest idea in the world. It's true that most of those people have never been more than a quarter mile from their houses without a car, and most of them have never walked the streets of Over-the-Rhine. I have an alternative idea: why not divide Cincinnati into neighborhoods that each set their own tax rate and each have control over the taxes collected in their own neighborhoods? Essentially, split up Cincinnati into lots of little cities with their own government. Downtown Cincinnati and Over-the-Rhine would then not be building highways and other infrastructure with associated maintenance cost in other neighborhoods, especially in ones outside of the Cincinnati Municipal boundaries! Then the residents of Downtown and Over-the-Rhine would certainly vote for the streetcar, and allocate funds to it, and they will probably also make a lot of other improvements as well. Part of the problem in Cincinnati is that the government is just too big. I'm not one of those anarchists that wants to do away with the government, either. I mean that folks in Mt. Washington shouldn't really have a say in what goes on in Over-the-Rhine, and vice-versa. Socrates theorized that any city with a population over 60,000 was ungovernable; architect Christopher Alexander advocates neighborhoods of about 8000 with local control. I've seen a lot of posts on this board that advocate larger, regional governments. The City of Cincinnati has a large government that is not working. Hamilton County has it's problems as well. OKI seems to do nothing but advocate more highway projects, most of them in sprawling on the periphery. I don't think that Norwood and St. Bernard should become part of Cincinnati. I think it should go the other way: Westwood, Avondale, Northside, Madisonville, etc., should become their own cities. The only reason I can see for larger city governments is to show bigger numbers in the Census. John, didn't you say that Metro Moves passed in the Downtown and Over-the-Rhine precincts?

Gee, sometimes I think that there really is a rail cult. I can give examples of vibrant cities without rail, or cities with rail that are not vibrant. Still, I agree that many cities with rail are vibrant. I guess it is assumed that vibrant cities are more desireable. Why, then, are suburban areas so popular while they are so dull? The people abandoned urban Cincinnati in favor of the suburbs even while Cincinnati was served by lots of rail including passenger railroads, interurbans, and intraurbans. COAST is not the reason why the streetcar lacks support. COAST is a small but vocal minority that opposes the streetcar for reasons unrelated to transportation or infrastructure. The streetcar lacks support because most of the residents of the Cincinnati metro are not interested in vibrant cities. Granted, many of them have never experienced a true vibrant, urban area. Most of the Cincinnati metro is suburban, even within the municipal limits, and most residents of the Cincinnati metro chose to live in suburban areas despite the fact that most suburban areas are dull. Proposing a streetcar to return vibrancy to cities assumes that people want vibrancy when it is clear that a majority do not value vibrancy over other reasons to live in the suburbs. As for return on investment, there are other things that the City of Cincinnati could do that would be better investments first, and some of those things would also make the City of Cincinnati more desireable for suburbanites.