neilworms

Happy to see court street get more actviated, but pull through parking, really?

If Cincy is going to go this route, this is how it should be sold. Mt Adams is a natural tourist destination but its isolated from the rest of downtown - this would allow tourists and commuters a quick and easy way to get up to the top of Mt Adams and patronize business up there as well as uniting the core neighborhoods of the city closer together.

Sam Trans can at least use the hov lanes which helps a bit... Bart's payment is nuts what's craziest is that monthly passes are only available for muni pass holders. Whole system in the bay area is a broken mess (though coverage is great)

Narrowing Liberty Street would be a real coup. I doubt Cranley supports it though (but I do know neighborhood groups around it support that).

You'll be amazed what high rent pressures do to areas - check this out: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8927529,-87.6555106,3a,75y,269.28h,82.89t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1smqtWeMGLRZwQ32O_lqz1Kg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DmqtWeMGLRZwQ32O_lqz1Kg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D297.79895%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656 Most of these buildings right next to a major expressway interchange which produces a lot of noise and pollution (plus there are not unpleasant smells from the nearby chocolate factory which could be a factor) and most of them are fairly expensive condos and townhouses. Now I know you're going to say Chicago is apples to oranges, but I saw a 1 bedroom apartment being advertised in OTR next to Washington park for 1600/mo?! That's pretty expensive even by Chicago standards* - the marketplace is going to respond to that kind of pressure and you'll get people upgrading even less than desirable areas. Stranger things happen in Chicago, this area which is filled with trucks and smells from an active meatpacker district has within the last few years become one of the highest rent districts in the city due to its proximity to some of the best restaurants in the city everything from fancy high end to high quality mid market (and even a few really nice cheap carryouts): http://www.chicagobusiness.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/storyimage/CG/20150401/CRED03/150339950/AR/0/AR-150339950.jpg next to apartments like this: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/storyimage/CG/20150317/CRED03/150319802/AR/0/Developers-to-sell-West-Loop-apartments.jpg which go for like 1800-2200 / mo for a 1 bedroom! - One neighborhood over you can get a high end 2 bedroom for 2000-2200/mo and this is still highish - there are apartments in nearby neighborhoods going for like 1400/mo for a 2 bedroom. I guess what I'm getting at is at least in OTR that rules in Cincy have changed and we are going to see something like what's going on in more gentrified urban cities soon. I think when rent pressures drive values up to a certain level people are more willing to put up with stuff they wouldn't otherwise put up with just to be near the cool part of town ;) *I am wondering if its an outlier though, 1600/mo for a region with Cincy's per capita income is nuts...

Still Caltrain outside of peak hours only runs a train an hour. I know Sam Trans also runs express buses every half hour as well to fill the gaps, but these are two separate agencies with two separate fare schemes. While the clipper card has helped some of this its still ridiculous and overly fractures bay area transit for no good reason which IMO hurts the quality of services and puts a lot of extra strain on San Francisco's housing market. I wish the bay area would do what the MTA did a long time ago and just consolidate the 100s of transit agencies into one organization with shared fare schemes. I'd rather see that corridor (which has some really great railroad commuter towns along it, especially San Mateo) be strictly high speed rail service, leave the local stuff to BART.

I'm really hoping that San Mateo county gets on board and decides to join BART - its exclusion really hurts the bay area as a whole and provides a very large gap in the system that makes it useless for commuting to silicon valley and in turn makes it more difficult for dense development where its most needed in the region - in the many ticky-tacky suburbs along the peninsula

I agree with that statement, but considering neighborhoods like CUF, Covington North of 9th street, or even Betts-Longworth (tiny area I know) or Court Street in downtown Cincy there are plenty of areas that aren't quite places where one would have to "urban pioneer" as amenities are still pretty close by and they are generally safe places (or in Court Streets case the amenities are literally a block away), but they are still undervalued for one reason or another. Covington IMO is the worst offender, the housing stock is in pretty good shape, mainstrasse has a lot of bars and restaurants and its a 15 min walk to downtown (or a 5 min bike ride) - you could be in OTR in 15 mins with a redbike (or a 10 min uber/lyft ride for like 6-7 dollars). Also I'm not going to harp on anyone who wants to live in the middle of it all too, OTR for anyone who has bought into it will continue to grow as an investment for a while and there is totally an advantage to living in the heart instead of off to the side. Though I'll argue that Cincinnatians idea of what's acceptable walking distance is surprisingly short given the urban form and compactness of the core city ;)

I'm hoping its not just direct to DVD, Cincy needs to build its reputation as a city with gorgeous old architecture in any way possible.

Yeah I got in a debate with a friend in Logan Square about this - she didn't understand the basic economics of why having a larger apartment complex would be good for the neighborhood. Too many people get caught in this myth of small town compact neighborhood even though Logan Square is right off a 24 hour transit line that just happens to be one of the more busy ones in the whole country. I'm generally supportive of city policies that are encouraging station near TOD, because there are large swaths of development near EL lines that are underutilized and in order to keep rent down long term this is the best way to utilize both Chicago's transit infrastructure and support the growing demands for urban living that otherwise would swamp all neighborhoods near transit eventually leading to a San Francisco like gentrification crisis (which won't happen for a long time in Chicago, but the city needs to act now to prevent that from happening later - I have a feeling there will be a point where the growing parts of town will surpass the shrinking parts of town too - the last census was also distorted by the massive amounts of public housing teardowns last decade too...) She also was concerned about gentrification, but I feel this sort of thing addresses it, by providing more supply to meet high demand than a smaller development would provide. So long as the development looks good I don't have a problem and in its current form it looks pretty great and its totally better than what it replaced asthetically.

However I think Jake is right that there are a lot of undervalued markets - the example he provided wasn't a good one. Take a look at Covington for instance - its very bikeable to downtown (and walkable to a point) and yet property is still dirt cheap - its not like its a bottom rung slum, but its not exactly a hot neighborhood. The West End is more challenging, but its kind of a similar situation (and there you can literally walk to OTR, its kind of surprising that its been slow to catch on). Or look at Court Street, nothing has been turned around there, but it looks like cheap apartments are still there and I'm sure that if you wanted to make an investment there it would be cheaper than OTR in spite being a block away! Cincy has such a narrow outlook on their neighborhoods - the city is very fractured and its outlook on hoods is too even down to street to street in some areas. This is a good thing as it keeps the city varied in its environment (Its part of what makes Dayton so boring by contrast), but on the flip side it leads to this hyper local way of looking at things without seeing the bigger picture...

How many event centers can Cincinnati support? - Is there an intense love of private events in the city??? Its also kind of a shame to not see it become something like a brewery... However its better than seeing it get demolished...

Just gonna throw this out in case anyone else gets incredibly depressed like I do when they think of what was lost. Sorry if it's all been said before. #1, Cincinnati may no longer be on par with Boston, Baltimore, or Philly (where I lived for several years and adore), but at the same time, I couldn't dream of affording a house anywhere near the center of those cities. In Cincinnati I can. #2, we have to look at the vacant lots as opportunities for the future. Room for new things. Spaces for future forms of urban development. And #3, while buildings may be gone, the compact layout and streetscape of Cincinnati is pretty well intact, making it inherently much more pleasing to navigate than somewhere like Chicago (where I currently live). I took it for granted before moving to the Windy City how nice the narrower streets of Cincinnati are. Of course there's room for improvement there as well (I'm looking at you, Liberty. And what the hell, Bank St??). I also currently live in Chicago ;) - at least here there is a mayor here who supports little things like road diets, protected bike lines, and is even putting in a shared pedestrian / car street on Argyle... Though I'll agree with you the environment is more pleasant, particularly in the rare places where its fully utilized - I want to see more of that and a culture that is supportive of it too (too many people drive everywhere). This is why going to East Coast cities and San Francisco is such a wonderful thing for me. (and San Fran despite being the same age as Chicago, feels like an older city - weird right?) Cranley sadly is more interested in web infrastrcuture to remind people about traffic warnings because to paraphrase him that's the most important thing in Cincinnati now :roll: #2 As I say broken record, Cincinnati needs to really work on the infill it puts in - perhaps a ban on CR architecture and its ilk ;). What's generally being built here in Chicago is way nicer than almost everything being built in Cincinnati (though not all of it is good) - check out this project for instance: http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150930/logan-square/check-out-total-overhaul-of-mega-mall-replacement-project

Its also amazing how much has been lost. Cincy was more on par with Philly, Boston or Baltimore in its heyday.

The old megamall in Logan Square (the new Wicker Park as Wicker has been overrun by bros) is getting replaced by an absolutely fantastic looking infill project! http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150930/logan-square/check-out-total-overhaul-of-mega-mall-replacement-project This is why I harp on Cincy so much to improve its infill. It can happen, there are architects out there who know how to do much much better and this is it. I'll miss the megamall though, it was a really great little latino oriented flea market even if its building was extraordinarily ugly.

In an ideal world the streetcar would have dedicated lanes...

Did a drive through of the west end, and boy that neighborhood is in sad sad shape. There are pockets of redevelopment (and Dayton Street is pretty nice), but other than Betts-Longworth, the neighborhood needs a TON of work. Real shame too because there are more single family houses and generally the housing stock was more affluent than was in OTR - so there is a lot more detailing when it survives.

To my understanding (if all goes to schedule) the streetcar will be a factor, that should help with distance issues. One other observation - now that the core is getting populated again Cincinnatians need to start driving like they are in a big city - the slow driving drove me nuts - lots of unecessary traffic jams due to tepid drivers - I'm concerned about the streetcar getting stuck for this reason.

What about when their rooftop is complete? :D The redbikes needed to be somewhat closer to Arnolds. Not a problem for a Chicagoan who is used to walking the equivalent of at least 5 Cincinnati basin blocks every day just to get from place to place but it could be a deterant to Cincinnatians espicially those who insist on driving from Main Street to Wash park O_o

Yeah the gazebo stage was one of my favorite things this year - great to see it being used for what it was made for at this festival. I love it when a midpoint venue makes the band talk about how crazy the venue - JR JR talked about how they felt like they were at a zoo by playing there. It was just like last year when Gardens and Villa said they felt like they were General Grant delivering a speech to Union troops when at Memorial Hall. Also love hearing the bands genuinely complementing the city, noting how beautiful the architecture is - you can tell its beyond the normal working the crowd too... This does a ton to both raise the self esteem of Cincinnatians and raise the profile through word of mouth about the city around the country. There is the pygmalion festival in Champaign-Urbana the same weekend which is a lot closer for me, but I'd argue midpoint is competitive due to its setting - a typical middle-of-the-cornfield college town can't beat OTR for this kind of music festival. Midpoint needs to continue to think bigger and work to accommodate tourists and bands as much as possible (like having more low cost hotel options - I heard complaints from bands about there being no good cheap places to stay - no hostels and a lot of the Airbnbs in Cincy overcharge). Also, to my understanding, the streetcar will be up and running in time for the festival next year!

It was a fun year (though I'd argue that 2012 still was the best year of the whole event). The craft fair could have used some work, and they need to get back to having alternative events elsewhere in the city during the day that support the festival - the segway shop and Rhinegeist got it, but it would be nice to see more. I brought a friend from Chicago, who really enjoys the architecture and hidden gems of the city which I showed during the day. I like the day change, made it easier to get down without disruption to work, however Sunday really brought home something Cincinnati needs to change if it wants to get with the 21st century - Restaurants should be open in OTR on Sunday - a shocking number of them are closed. This is the hippest most with it neighborhood in the city and that makes no sense. I know that everyone deserves a rest day, but Cincy should join the rest of the north and make that day Monday which typically has less business than Sunday does and it fiscally makes more sense to close down stuff on that day. The only reason to continue to close on Sunday is to cling on to an old tradition that in a lot of the rest of the country is not there. We pretty much had to eat up by the University just to get decent food because very few places in OTR were open (only the stuff owned by the Bakersfield guys, which luckily are now 3 restaurants were open - though their wait times were inflated because well, nothing else was open). Also Chris Witterich from the Business Courier noted that the crowds seemed kind of sparse, did anyone else note this?

The other shocking thing about NYC is that it's the only 24 hour trains system in the world, Chicago has just 2 24 hour lines. Japan's trains go to bed really early even though the system is incredible...

Yeah I had similar issues last time I was in town :(. Bus detective is jankier but more reliable.

I like Nate's kiosk app for the same reason, at least how the beta looks: http://cincymap.org/blog/realtime-app-v0-3/

I'm not stating its a fundamentally easy system (route 11 is ridiculous-I agree and still don't fully understand the silly thing) but there are plenty of tools to mitigate the problems with the convoluted system design, the maps that Nate developed, Google maps transit directions, and bus detective (or similar apps). Nate is also working on a kiosk that shows realtime information - it also shows a map of the route selected. The bare minimum someone can go onto google on their home computer, print out transit directions using google and be done with it. Also when I encourage people to use the bus, I'm focused on those parts of the city where bus service is sorta satisfactory like Downtown, Northside, Clifton etc. Its not a big chunk of town, but you have to start somewhere.