Civvik

^ I think he meant the operating funds. Which is kind of true, there is still a real risk that operating funds will eat into the city budget. The line in the sand is whether you think that's OK. I do, because I believe in the ROI of the project. But others don't, and unfortunately at this time their skepticism is not totally baseless.

I love those pics.

^ Sorry, sounds too much like a penis reference.

YES, thank you. Every time I see a "new post" icon on this thread I get all excited and then I get in here and it's just Colday talking about his buffets. Get with the program people! I NEED INFORMATION!

Nothing tells a skeptic that transit works like a packed vehicle! :P

I would personally hope the south sidewalk...but then how would it swing back to the left turn lane to make the left? Seems dicey. IMHO Freedom Way seemed more comfortable.

Maybe they need the extra money for Duke negotiations?

The Enquirer just trolls itself, dude. If they wrote a story about Laure Quinlivan's left tit turning into a monster and terrorizing people in Butler County, people would read it, and write in about it. I find it hilarious.

This is why I hesitate to add another category for all the donkey-pulled parade floats. The Vegas monorail is pretty legit, but something about it just says amusement park ride to me...I dunno. Adding a whole other column just for that...I'll probably just add it to Heavy Rail. I would just delete Vegas as a city if I could, but I'd probably offend someone.

I thought their preferred vehicle was Diesel Multiple Unit?

Of course the Enquirer plasters Mallory's face on the article, and sure as shit stinks the third comment had to do with the streetcar. I'll give the Enquirer one thing, they know how to rally their pathetic base.

Transit is within an urban area, usually operated by a metropolitan transit agency. It can be a bus, a streetcar, a heavy train that runs on electrified tracks and is almost always separate from normal roads, a light train that is powered by an overhead wire and can run on separate tracks or in normal roads, a donkey-pulled parade float, or a wiremobile. "Railroads" or intercity rail connects cities to each other.

This is off the top of my head, so please add any corrections. A sticky thread could be made for this. This convo pops up in some thread about every 8 weeks.

I was actually talking to you! But then when I posted about being corrected, someone else corrected me! Ahhhhh! LOL

^You "corrected" me in the time it took for me to open the edit window, edit the post, leave the desk for a few minutes to do something, come back, and hit "accept." Kind of annoying. But it's the sign of an active forum!

Erased. Winter Park has Amtrack.

The unfortunate thing is that Charlotte is already years ahead of Cincinnati in all the things you mentioned, especially considering how long it can take for things to get accomplished in Ohio and especially Southern Ohio. We are merely playing catch up at this point. And unfortunately I think weather counts more than one would think... Trust me, after working and spending plenty of time in the Charlotte region, it is not ahead of Cincinnati in institutions of higher education and culture, neighborhoods, urbanity, etc. It's still a metropolis of BBQ-loving piedmont foothill southerners who live overwhelmingly in leafy ranch subdivisions that creep right up to the edge of downtown. They were infused with NYC bankers in the 80's and 90's, and are now reaping those cultural benefits. We are not playing catch up to Charlotte.

"In five years, you won't be able to find anyone that will admit voting against the stadiums." - Mike Brown, sometime around 1997. "The county should sell the stadiums." - Recent Enquirer letter to the editor, as reported by Jake above. Do not underestimate political grudges. They run deep. My statement's based on pretty solid data (which is rare for me, as I partake heartily in spewing opinion and judgement.) Historically, stadiums have mild economic impact. For 10 years we've been muddling along with two stadiums, an empty museum and an asteroid crater. Now, in the span of 36 months we will have turned on residential, world class waterfront park, restaurant, retail, fixed transit, and a completed street grid.

Actually scratch that, you could take the whole south curb lane off 2nd. It would become right-only at elm and we don't need a double-ramp to Pete Rose Way at Main, now that you can circulate down to Mehring from Main. That's a ridiculously wide lane, too, which could go a long way to taming 2nd, at least a little. ...or is that where they would put rail?

^ All good ideas. Unfortunately, I don't know how you would take lanes from the easternmost block of 2nd, as they all line up with a very expensive ramp going somewhere else. ...Well, I know how I'd take care of it, but they took away my bulldozer. :(

My spidey sense tells me that this place is going to fail so, so hard. That has all the street presence of the back end of a bus station.

North Carolina is on a roll. They have a better climate, more population/economic growth, beaches, and are now more educated than Ohio as percent of population with Bachelor's degrees. The public sector clients we had there were smart, sophisticated and open minded about economic development, transit, and urban design. And yes, Charlotte airport is a solid hub with excellent access to other cities. However, I think Cincinnati is doing exactly what it should be doing now to compete against Charlotte. It can't play Charlotte's money game, and it can't play Charlotte's climate game. But it can continue to invest in schools, transit, neighborhood redevelopment, keeping YP's, and growing its nascent beer/river city culture. I think these goals have a much better chance of keeping Cincinnati competitive than if it were, say, Detroit or Buffalo.

http://www.development.ohio.gov/research/documents/ALLSUBCOUNTY2010.pdf Open that in a real pdf reader to get table of contents shortcuts. I think the best way to tell the story is that Warren's growth rate declined by about 9% from 2000 to 2010. Clermont's growth rate declined by 60%.

They shouldn't be highways, they are city streets. The tendency for the DOT to turn streets into freeways is due to mobility obsession. You get any destination large enough, and ODOT wants to "serve" it with capacity. Everyone here is aware of this tendency. The only way to "get the city back" is to manhandle these big streets back into being what they should be about: access, not mobility. I do not want to believe that we have invested nearly a billion dollars just to reclaim 6 blocks that remain forever isolated from downtown by zooming traffic. The only way to address this stuff is to just decide that it has to change. Vine along Fountain Square is 5 lanes, and people seem to navigate it OK. Just because you can get off 75 onto 2nd and get right back on to 71 doesn't mean you should, or that the street should be designed that way. Clearly you can't two-way these suckers, but I think they are probably over-designed. Curiously, you seem to be arguing against your assertion that filling the caps out with buildings is better than a plaza, if the streets are too big and fast to promote a proper ped environment?