Eigth and State

I saw a red bike ridden down Clifton Avenue today. That's the second one I've seen on Clifton.

^I'm trying not to be judgemental about the red bikes. I have never ridden one myself. I have been paying attention to them, and have only seen two riders, and I pass by the racks regularly.

I saw a woman - probably a college student - working her way up Clifton Avenue on a Red Bike, and she was struggling. I bet she doesn't do that again. I have been tracking the parked red bikes in the rack in front of McMicken Hall. They are in fact moving. Yet, it is rare that I ever see anyone riding.

The last time I did it, I went to the Fifth Third on Fountain Square. I didn't shop for rates as I figured there wasn't much I could do about it. Another time, I went to the airport and had to go through security, etc., just to get to the branch.

Historically, streetcars offered a smoother ride than automobiles because the streetcars travelled on rails while automobiles travelled on streets paved with stone or brick. When these stone or brick streets became paved with asphalt, not only did automobiles become more comfortable, but they also became faster, and caused more accidents.

Good catch. As I recall, both of them were built in Europe for use on the West Coast, or maybe Alaska. The Delta Queen has the distinction of being the only steam powered riverboat to have passed through the Panama Canal.

Technically, this is true, but traditionally, the festival organizers have an unwritten right to use the streets at a certain time and location. Yes, they have to apply for a permit each year, and yes, the city could deny that permit, but the organizers have political clout. Imagine if the City of Boston tried to shut down the Boston Marathon for some reason. That event is over 100 years old, and attracts runners from all over the world. Yes, the city has the power to do it, but is it good for the city? The key here is the greater public good. Who says that the streetcar is more important? Obviously, streetcar supporters want the streetcar. Festival organizers want the festival.

It's not on them. They were there first. This applies to any project, not just the streetcar. If you want someone else to move to accomodate your project, you can ask them politely, but you can't expect them to move out of your way, at their cost, every time.

I made it on one of the city tours. We entered the Race Street Station, which is awesome. The stairs have no handrails. The platforms have no handrails. There is water and debris on the floor. Everything is dark. While on the tour, I was thinking, "What if someone falls off this stair and gets hurt?" Nevertheless, people loved it. When the tour guide said "The tunnel goes on for another two miles, but we are going to turn around here," people were disappointed. One guy said that commercial caves like Mammoth Cave attracts people like crazy. All we need is some lights and safety improvements and we would have an instant attraction. Well, I guess it would take more than that, but you get the idea.

Jake - check St. Bernard City Hall for a framed photo on the wall showing the portal for a short tunnel / underpass.

The modern version of this movement is called the Michigan Left: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left

Speaking of parkways, I found it kind of refreshing that your photos didn't show any gas stations or other auto-oriented development. Almost all of the interchanges and most of the total length of interstates in the Cincinnati area are surrounded by development.

In general, making any kind of change is an uphill battle. Still, there's no reason why every street has to also be a motorway. Here's a photo of a street with limited automobile access.

A word of caution - planting grass or adding bike lanes is fine, but if you want to make Liberty Street or any other street more narrow and use the excess land for new buildings, you had better check what utilities are there. It can costs $millions to move utilities.

Moderator note: this thread has been pruned. Please keep it friendly.

^Keep in mind that new housing permits does NOT equate to new population, or even new housing. In Liberty Township, a new housing permit in a greenfield likely equates to one new single family house, and one new family, which likely moved in from somewhere else in the Cincinnati or Dayton metro. In the Cincinnati core, a new housing permit in an established area likely equates to a replacement of one housing unit torn down or rehabbed, with no new net gain of housing units or population.

I think those high-sided, double-ended boats, designed to take waves, were brought in by the Coast Guard. They look funny on the Ohio, and very awkward to load.

The City of Cincinnati has an annual budget of nearly $1 billion. There is plenty of money for rail transit. However, they spend most of it on other things.

^OKI is not obligated to do anything that makes sense. "Sometimes I think the purpose of OKI is to keep consultants in business." - an OKI employee :-o

Design for cars and for pedestrians are usually at odds with each other. A continuous right turn, with a larger turning radius, would have made it harder for a pedestrian to cross the ramp.

Yes, it's a little off-topic, but still interesting. Thanks for posting, and please keep them coming! :-)

^Assuming it is full.

^For those who don't know, Dixie Terminal used to be a transit terminal. Streetcars from Kentucky crossed the Suspension Bridge, crossed some overpasses, and made a loop inside the building. After the streetcars were retired, Tank buses did the same thing for many years. I think it ended sometime in the 1990's, when Tank buses used city streets instead. The overpasses were removed when Fort Washington Way was reconstructed. The stairway in the center of the photo led to the streetcar loop. Thanks for posting the photos. I really enjoyed those. :-)

I was fortunate to ride the system in Dusseldorf, Germany. It was a hybrid between subway in the downtown area, high speed light rail in the median of a motorway, and a one-way loop on streets in a neighborhood. It had a special convertable stair for high platform boarding in the subway with a mechanical system that changed to a regular stair like a city bus for street running. There was one stop in the motorway section at a traffic light where passengers had to cross the motorway. It seems that they got it backwards in Buffalo, with street running downtown and subway in the suburban section. In Dusseldorf, the whole system was fairly fast, with a limited number of stops. I don't necessarily see the streetcar as part of a larger , one-seat system. There seem to be too many stops downtown, and adding more vehicles will just clogg the streets even more.

This is the best sentence I have read so far today.