neilworms

Cincinnati should have never disallowed these kinds of signs through zoning. So much of what makes cities feel urban and vibrant is these sorts of signs. My favorite cities have some of these all over the place.

^-They could have done a better job addressing the second guy's concerns about why the streetcar was needed such as how the ride is nicer and how more people tend to ride streetcars and what not.

Not Steve Jobs at all. He was the guy who pretty much single handedly taught the tech industry the importance of soft skills. He may have been a touch on the sociopathic spectrum though.

I'm can't remember the details exactly but I did have an odd experience taking MAX from the Airport to my hotel in the Lloyd District. I think Google Maps told me to get off my Red train at the Gateway Transit Center and transfer to a Blue train to go downtown, but that didn't seem right so I just stayed on the train and ended up in the right place. I think the confusion was caused by the fact that some (but not all) of the inbound Red trains become a Blue train (so they actually go all the way from the Airport to Hillsboro) and Google Maps did not properly deal with that situation. That's exactly what happened to me, it looks like google has fixed this quirk as when I typed in the directions from the airport it gave me a one seat ride. Its weird esp given that Portland has had google transit for longer than any other city too.

I disagree. The Blue line serves the Aquarium and busy/lively wharf area. The Blue Line also goes directly to Revere Beach. The south Orange Line directly serves Chinatown and there are some significant TOD locations near it. While I think Boston made a mistake in tearing down the old Orange Line el down Washington Street, since the el cut through the heart of central Boston (and the relocated Orange Line is off to the side, duplicating the Green Line's Heath branch) I still find it useful. My biggest beef with the T is that the Green Line is just too congested and slow. Too many busy routes funnel into a single set of tracks. This may be the oldest section of subway in America, but it's past time to upgrade. I remember a pretty significant number of Orange Line stations having absolutely nothing around them...that was in 2002 so maybe things have changed. That line of course was built on (and under) a strip of land that had been demolished for an expressway that ended up getting cancelled. But north of downtown, the orange line was again mediocre, from what I remember. One of the stations was literally in line and directly underneath an elevated section of I-93 in an industrial wasteland. I don't think I ever got off the train at the Aquarium station so I don't know what was up there. But past Logan, the blue line didn't travel into neighborhood business districts from what I remember. It was sort of like an interurban or commuter line past that point, no doubt built in place of some wimpy industrial line that had no business back in the early 1900s. Compare all of those to the Red Line Alewife extension that opened around 1983...really one of the most incredible transit projects nobody talks about. That was a hugely expensive project that dug deep bored tunnels from the previous terminus at Harvard to Davis and Porter squares, then to the big park & ride at Alewife. It put the stations right in the ideal locations -- right beneath those squares, which are each pretty similar to Oakley Square or Lookout Square in Cincinnati. Ridership on that part of the Red Line is huge, and the rebuilt Harvard station is a really interesting and attractive design. The resemblance between porter square especially and the east side squares of Cincinnati is uncanny, I remember getting out of the subway there and thinking that this is what Cincinnati would be like if it had subway service... (along with the extra dense TOD that also came along with it).

They are most likely going to do a Mariano's style Kroger if I had to guess. Its going to take time to integrate them into the merger. I'm hoping that's the case as they pretty much told both Chicago and Cincinnati media that the aquisition was to better understand urban groceries that were missing in their hometown. See also: http://www.cspnet.com/mergers-acquisition-growth/mergers-acquisitions-news/articles/kroger-has-new-concept-vine Its pretty sad when St Louis which is not nearly as vibrant as Cincy these days and probably has higher poverty levels and yet - it has a proper and good urban Grocery - Schuncks takes good care of their hometown but Kroger does not (at least in terms of providing an urban grocery). Its shameful.

Manhattan was one of the first places to get rid of their streetcars - they scrapped them in 1935 for double decker buses: http://www.transitmuseumeducation.org/trc/background I believe Brooklyn had them for much longer.

Hadn't been on MARTA, but Portland's Airport station was weird, I had to transfer at another station to get downtown. Maybe it was the time I took the train I'm not sure. Seattle isn't too bad, though Seattles best asset IMO is their bus system which has a lot of frequently running express routes. It almost makes the bus useful.

Philly has streetcars and their heavy rail uses overhead wires (massive commuter system with overhead wires as well). Might be another good place to look. Parts of Japan too (Russia might not be so good because they are significantly poorer and more dysfunctional as a whole).

Lol, this brings to mind the oft quoted though probably not true Mark Twain quote. Cyber Cafes these days only really exist still in 3rd world countries. In most places cafes with wi-fi or co-working spaces have replaced that. In fact if they setup a co-working space type arrangement that would be way more innovative - an office work area that has spare monitors/keyboards/mice meeting rooms so that remote workers with laptops can get stuff done leaving their apartments without leaving home. Throw in a barista or two and you got something. I'm still super happy to see this not be used as farmland - yeah it was cool to have something so close to Findlay Market, but rebuilding lost density is so much better for the neighborhood its not funny.

Its probably not as good as the european train, but the coast starlight and some pacific surfliners in California do the same thing: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Xy3f9KeudCw/maxresdefault.jpg Some people even call the Santa Barbara region the American Rivera, because the climate is basically the same and its one of the few areas of coastal California where the coast line is to the north and the ocean to the south. The area is wonderful, its pretty much right where the LA trashiness ends.

I need to go back to Santa Barbara, ideally in the dead of January lounging around in 70 degree weather 8-). Did you get to see the Hearst Castle?

In Chicago with Metra Trains small fires are set on the switches to warm them up. Looks like NYC does the same on their commuter trains, they look cool (though I'm not sure if it is the right solution for a streetcar): http://i.imgur.com/2XZwOn1.jpg When snow gets really bad on the CTA they attach a snowplow to the front of the train. I'm pretty sure the streetcar can do similar quite easily: http://www.transitchicago.com/assets/1/misc_images/inline_winter_plowblades.jpg

Describes St. Louis's Metrolink to a T where its always a 10-15 min walk to where you are going.

Though IMO a lot of that has to do with the slow speed of the routes. Particularly in a smaller city like Boston with an overpowered train system (by American standards the coverage is probablt the best I've seen) its probably faster to go downtown then transfer than it is to take the crosstown route in a lot of cases. Chicago people do the same, though the size of the city makes it very hard to do in a lot of cases. I'm kind of wondering if google maps has changed this dynamic too because google will tell you the most efficient route to take...

Those look just like the ones they build in Chicago. I'm wondering if it was a developer from Chicago that did those.

It was the highlight of my week :-D . It tops my crazy CTA stories (everyone has them too) ;)

I still remember riding the blue line late on a weeknight and hearing a developmentally disabled guy sing Pink Floyd's the trial (specifically this line over and over again "Crazy, toys in the attic he's crazy") in response to a wannabe gangbanger who was cursing up a storm talking about how much of a bad guy he was and punching his handd along with other agressive posturing/gesturing.... fun ride. I do support late night transit everywhere, but there is no doubt it can get weird.

Actually the brown line runs until about 3am, the orange until about 1am, and the green until about 2am. Plus what a lot of people don't know is that there is a skeletal system of overnight bus routes usually denoted by N##. For instance Western, Ashland, Archer, and Chicago Ave buses run 24 hours - the routes may be altered (like the Ashland N9 runs from North/Clybourn Redline to 77th street instead of serving the north side). Locals know these routes (and they have come in handy, I particularly liked the N9 because it was more convenient for me to get to where I lived at the time on the near northwest side than the daytime buses (that is if I was lucky to catch it as it only runs every 30 mins after midnight). --- No, the real crazy thing is that HALF OF OTR is closed on Sunday. Its shocking and unacceptable in the 21st century for a city to have its hippest restaurant destination be pretty much shut down on Sundays. Get with the 21st century Cincinnati! Rhinegeist is fairly progressive with those hours... :/ Not really the case in Chicago - the red line after 2 am on a Friday/Saturday night in the summer is just as crazy now has it has been since I moved here. It does slow down in the winter, but everything here slows down in the winter. I'm wondering how much of NYC is just the fact that Manhattan has become overpriced for all but the wealthiest of 20 somethings and the overall age of people has gone up. (that and the NYC subway gets super weird late at night where the 1 runs to the P and Q trains but then detours to the T trains and then you have to take a shuttle, you get the idea...).

I apologize for overreacting earlier. Hope to see more good discussion here :)

Btw, I'd make an argument to local brewers/bars to chip in towards allowing this final run ;)

This is a question I also posed on Reddit, curious about professional opinions on this: Why hasn't anyone suggested running a drunk run at 2:15 am? I don't think one extra streetcar run at that time would cost that much extra money. Regular service would end at 1am, and then a final run would take place then to help people get home from bars on Friday and Sat night. Was thinking about how late night service worked on non 24 hour Chicago El trains, where the time table would say every 10-15 mins until... then it would show times for the last 3 train runs or so which weren't on as regular a schedule.

Yeah it was kind of weird with that block being so dark, now I understand why it was...

Btw, Polly gives way too much credit to Lavomatic, literally what did it was Senate, Dan Wright basically took the sort of restaurant Chicago's had for years and transplanted it to OTR. He was shooting fish in a barrel, but by local standards it was innovative and at the right place in the right time with a top notch execution.

I know someone somewhere asked to explain this stupid bus, I figured it out. Every bus that leaves downtown on the hour goes to Hyde Park (using a stupidly circuitous route), then to Madisonville (via bramble road/plainville eventually) where there is a turnaround. All riders are forced off the bus at the turnaround around Kenwood Ave just north of Madison road, then the bus after a 10 mins layover goes down Madison Road back towards downtown via Oakley. Every bus that leaves downtown on the half hour goes to Oakley then to Madisonville via Madison road after that, eventually ending up at the turnaround off Kenwood Ave north of Madison Road where all riders are forced off the bus. The bus then goes south on plainville and down bramble using the aforementioned illogical route to get to hyde park where it comes back to Madison road then to downtown. Oakley only gets one bus an hour :/. Hyde Park if you walk to Madison gets them every half hour. If you take the oakley bus to walk to Mariemont btw, you have to get off the bus for 10 mins and pay for a fare again at the stupid turnaround. This route is stupid. - plus I read old schedules (they are up on Nate Wessel's site) and until about 15 years ago this route actually ended in Mariemont which makes a heck of a lot more sense as a turnaround spot then some random side area in a sketchy neighborhood...