I found an example of a neighborhood fighting conversion of a rails-to-trails trail into light rail...look at the invective from the crowd.  From 1996: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1996-12-06/news/1996341129_1_glen-burnie-ritchie-highway-eighth-avenue

 

If you trace the path of Baltimore's light rail south from DT Baltimore to the neighborhood of Glen Burnie, you will see that the rail system ends at its maintenance facility, just north of the center of this inner-ring suburb's business district.  Beyond that point, a 13-mile freight corridor that would be perfect for light rail is instead occupied by this trail. 

Seattle is dealing with this exact situation right now. They had a rail line that they "temporarily" converted to a bike trail knowing that a big light rail plan was in progress and it would be converted to rail in the future. Well, that time is here now, and neighborhood residents are fighting against adding transit to that corridor. Once you turn it into a bike trail, you are basically killing your ability to ever run light rail there.

As long as we get light rail as far as Xavier, I don't really care about Wasson Way re: light rail. A hike bike trail connecting to the Xavier station would be an asset in and of itself. If there are some common sense moves to protect for it we can do now, fine, otherwise it's too far in the future to worry about.

 

I'm more concerned about maintaining a rail ROW on the north side of MLK.  Wasn't clear to me if the rendering of the new UC neuroscience building would do that. Basically since there is no plan for light rail it's hard to argue for people to maintain theoretical ROW as that area develops even though it's feasible now before they start building a bunch of stuff.

As long as we get light rail as far as Xavier, I don't really care about Wasson Way re: light rail. A hike bike trail connecting to the Xavier station would be an asset in and of itself. If there are some common sense moves to protect for it we can do now, fine, otherwise it's too far in the future to worry about.

 

I'm more concerned about maintaining a rail ROW on the north side of MLK.  Wasn't clear to me if the rendering of the new UC neuroscience building would do that. Basically since there is no plan for light rail it's hard to argue for people to maintain theoretical ROW as that area develops even though it's feasible now before they start building a bunch of stuff.

 

If you look at the way that UC has built along Jefferson, everything new seems to respect an imaginary mega-widening of that street.  So the sports bubble, Turner Hall, etc.  The building line is about 150 feet from the east side of Jefferson, so effectively about the same width as Central Parkway.

 

I talked to the guy from PB who designed the I-71 light rail line in the late 90s and he said that they were going to go along the north side of MLK, bridge Eden, and then travel under Highland, Burnet, and Harvey.  I imagine that they were going to go under Reading as well.  The space is there right now to pretty easily create a fully grade-separated route all the way from the proposed tunnel portal to I-71. 

 

The Wasson line has been identified as a light rail corridor since the 1970s by OKI.  Then this bike group, led by a guy who I absolutely do not trust, came out of nowhere back around 2010.  I put the plans from the 70s and 90s and early 2000s in his hand.  He still tells people there never was a a plan. 

 

 

 

My guess is the powers that be in Hyde Park along Wasson Road (Cranley, whoever the guy is you are referring to Jake, etc.) don't want Light Rail because they don't want their neighborhood to change.  No doubt adding Light Rail on that corridor some of the land directly on the line would densify especially on the southside, which isn't what the powers that be want IMO.  But the fact of the matter is that there is huge potential to add density along the corridor there that could really help reel in more of the demographic that wants the suburbia demographic in a city setting

I live a few blocks from the Wasson Way path and I just want something to happen with it soon.  I would love light rail, but that's a pipe dream right now.  A bike path will be awesome too.  When is this going to happen?  It seems like this is taking way too long for a relatively simple project. 

Transferring ownership of an active railroad to public ownership is a completely different process than transferring land owned by a typical company to a public entity.  Railroad law is very complicated, always involves federal courts, and so is very, very slow. 

 

Yet we had various Wasson Way proponents advertising that the trail would be constructed within a year of passage of Cranley's failed parks tax.  It was completely impossible, but they kept saying it, like a bunch of wannabe Trumps. 

The Wasson Way trail is gonna be yuuuge. The most luxurious bike trail, paved with solid gold.

Seattle is dealing with this exact situation right now. They had a rail line that they "temporarily" converted to a bike trail knowing that a big light rail plan was in progress and it would be converted to rail in the future. Well, that time is here now, and neighborhood residents are fighting against adding transit to that corridor. Once you turn it into a bike trail, you are basically killing your ability to ever run light rail there.

 

Temporary is often permanent.  Just take a look at the "temporary exit" from 471 S to Route 8 in Newport.  It's a 180 degree bend from the expressway onto Park Street, bisecting 2nd Street with housing and driveways literally facing the ramp itself, not to mention all of the houses located within the bend.  Temporary is just a word people throw around to lessen opposition in the short term when they know that it will be next-to-impossible to correct the situation at a later date.

City closes on purchase of RR between Montgomery Rd. and Wooster Pike:

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/cincinnati/city-of-cincinnati-finally-actually-owns-rail-corridor-for-wasson-way-project

 

Does this also include the land in Norwood where the yard was?  This is the most valuable piece of land since it could be sold off for 30 homes and has frontage on Montgomery Rd. 

My guess would be no, but that's an interesting question.  The right-of-way of the main track between Montgomery and Edwards is mostly within Cincinnati, except for one strangely conspicuous spot between Kendall and Burch.  If Cincinnati owns it, even if it's not in the city, I guess that's not unprecedented, similar to the way Cincinnati owned the Blue Ash Airport.  I'm sure Norwood can find a way to squander the development opportunities on Lexington.  The best case scenario I can picture would be cheap apartments with parking along the back, like you see in Oakley (MadMar/Heritage, Oakley Station) or a version of the University Station apartments.  Worse would be some vinyl monstrosities like the cheap Hope 6 crap built up in Roselawn around Seymour and Langdon Farm. 

Norwood is already exceptionally dense. 

 

Looking around on Google Maps I don't see a lot of park space in Norwood until you get to the far end of Sherman or north of the Lateral - nothing those southern areas can walk to, anyway.  There's the Evanston playground, which is nice, but you can't get to it from Lexington without walking on the thoroughly unpleasant Dana, and the Burwood playground which no one seems to know exists.  I'd propose a linear park along the trail, with trailhead amenities similar to Nisbet.  Could probably even link it to Burwood and get better utilization of it.

 

Sometimes the best development is no development - creating a buffer for that neighborhood with some amenities/attractions may be more valuable than another couple hundred residents.

I certainly wouldn't call Norwood "exceptionally dense". I'd say it's about average density, and has a higher percentage of single family homes than say, Bond Hill, which has a similar development density. The sprawling parking lots and nearly empty strip malls off Montgomery certainly don't help with the density.

Indeed, there's a lot of single-family development, and even the apartments have pretty big lots in the southeast quarter of Norwood.  It's actually quite suburban in nature, and when you have lots of yard you don't need much in the way of public parks.  It is unfortunate that the Williams Avenue School has paved its entire property rather than having at least one ball field or something.  Anyway, that doesn't mean a little playground or picnic shelter or something wouldn't be nice, but turning over that entire parcel to parkland would doom it to underuse.  Norwood is broke anyway, so they need to leverage their existing infrastructure for more development, not more emptiness.

I think Norwood has density by virtue of its large contiguous street grid, more extensive than many neighborhoods in Cincinnati. I've always been surprised they don't have a traditional neighborhood business district to match.  If they had mixed use buildings with street level businesses with apartments above, it might generate more revenue for them than strip mall development. This is a main argument of the website/group StrongTowns.

Wasson Way gets $750k in federal funds:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/10/18/wasson-way-gets-federal-funding.html

 

 

Updates:

 

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2016/11/11/shortened-wasson-way-plan-underway/92828806/

I have no idea why this city don't compete things to it full potential. Why half ass things ALL the time???

It's hard for the city to do things that aren't...you know...IN the city. 

So at best this trail connects Xavier to Rookwood and the Hyde Park Shopping Plaza?

No I believe it's going to be from XU to Wooster Pike in Fairfax. 

 

It's been known forever that they can't easily build the connection to the Little Miami trail because the railroad is still active along the Little Miami in this area.  This is not new news.  I think it's amazing though that we're this far along and we've seen no proposal for how to actually do it.  They're never going to get that railroad space and so are going to need to build bridges over it and who-know-what-else. 

I don't see that as being an issue really.  The trail could diverge from the railroad right-of-way at the entrance gate to Clare Yard and then hug the hillside to the north of the yard and then come back by the storage tracks below the Mariemont Concourse.  The only crossing of any sort in that situation would be at the driveway entrance. 

 

https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1Yrml6WNhpjBbUAD4akj_zo9eYjQ&ll=39.139808345711295%2C-84.375519&z=14

Very, very short section of Wasson Way to be built in 2017:

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/norwood-community/groundbreaking-date-set-for-phase-1-of-wasson-way-trail

 

This is from the intersection of Madison west to I-71 but not over it.  So it will be a short dead-end trail for the time-being. 

So you're telling me that Phase 1 doesn't even go anywhere? And it won't be useful until the second phase? What a boondoggle!

For all of the prescription drug abusing intensity of a few of the more visible Wasson Way characters, there is precious little information on what the hell is actually being built and when.  We're like 8 years into this and still no announced plan that I'm aware of for the treacherous, or at the very least mojo-sucking crossings of Montgomery, Madison, and Edwards.  Will those funny north/south crossings onto Wasson be closed? 

From the Web Site it looks as if it will only go from Tamarack to Madison Road, which will really benefit those wanting to bike from Tamarack to Whole Foods. Now that I see it on the map, half the length of the 'PART1' segment is just the same width of the Rookwood parking lot. Once finished we should get the Queen City Bike folk to just do laps all day and see if people start complaining about the increased number of bikers taking up parking in the neighborhood. Im thinking this is entirely so the Mayor can put this on his list of accomplishments before he runs for Mayor/higher office again.

 

 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tamarack+Ave,+Cincinnati,+OH+45207/@39.1453287,-84.4503171,896m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8841b2617c2bcc49:0x1da6bcc485991f2!8m2!3d39.1450851!4d-84.4541659

I'm really surprised by that, basically the first part only goes like 6 blocks or something.

Yeah looks like Cranley feels some pressure to have something point a finger at and said look I made that happen but he doesn't want to spend any real money.  The Hyde Park constituency is just one -- he's too busy buying off groups elsewhere to throw too much public money at people he's pretty certain are going to vote for him anyway. 

The tracks are now being removed from four miles of the right-of-way.

 

Click on Wasson's facebook posts if you want to see some truly ridiculous baby boomer comments.  Somehow people who live nearby are just now hearing about this.  Others are angry because the railroad will want to return soon. 

Work begins to create Wasson Way bike trail

 

 

Norfolk Southern Railway is removing railroad tracks and ties along the site of the future Wasson Way bike trail so that the city of Cincinnati can begin construction this summer.

 

The railroad’s crews will work on a 4.1-mile stretch between Montgomery Road and Wooster Pike, according to the city.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/02/21/rails-removed-to-pave-the-way-for-wasson-way-bike.html

All of the tracks from Edwards along Wasson to Hyde park plaza are gone now except the sections in pavement crossing streets.

New design for Wasson Way bike trail unveiled

 

 

The city of Cincinnati and the nonprofit group Wasson Way have released the design of the first 0.6-mile section of the trail that will run from Tamarack Avenue to Madison Road in Hyde Park.

 

The images show a path lined with trees, plants, grass and benches that is bifurcated in one part between a paved path for fast users and a gravel path for slower ones.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/05/02/new-design-for-wasson-way-bike-trail-unveiled.html

It looks like they took up all the tracks from behind Rookwood.

JC is going to fast track this in hopes that it helps get out the east side vote for him.

I came across this rail to bike/walking path conversion in Taiwan. It seemed like an interesting and cost effective way to convert an old rail line to a recreational trail while keeping the rails in place. This might be commonplace but I hadn't seen it before.

 

 

I came across this rail to bike/walking path conversion in Taiwan. It seemed like an interesting and cost effective way to convert an old rail line to a recreational trail while keeping the rails in place. This might be commonplace but I hadn't seen it before.

 

^That's beautiful! Are the boards wooden? I feel like in Cincinnati's climate, wood boards on the ground wouldn't last more than a few years due to rain/humidity/snow. But maybe they're rot resistant.

By the looks of the vegetation in the picture, rotting would be an even worse problem there. I wouldn't be surprised if it is another material.

Plastic boards have become quite popular. I wouldn't be surprised if that's not that material there.

I'm seeing comments elsewhere saying that the city is going to tear down and rebuild this minor bridge as part of Phase 1.  Can anyone confirm this?  They're all saying that it is to "accommodate future rail".  Seems like a foil Cranley can throw as an excuse for such a small and useless Phase 1. 

 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Grovedale+Pl,+Cincinnati,+OH+45208/@39.1453588,-84.449923,216m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8841b262c315f53f:0x865636ac3ff9c93d!8m2!3d39.145468!4d-84.44964

I don't know about that one but I do know the tiny Marburg bridge over the rail ROW is getting replaced, so maybe it's all part of the same thing.

The only explanation I can find is that they want to make it wide enough to install benches so people can sit and watch the nonexistent traffic below.  That seems like a colossal waste of money that could be better spent where needed on things like the crossings at Madison/Edwards or any number of other things.  It's already a wide bridge (cited as 29') which is more than enough for them to do what they want without rebuilding it.  Why it was made big enough for double tracks with abutments large enough for a three-track overpass I have no idea.  Jake, was this ever a possible alternate route for the subway?  It was only built in 1929. 

 

The Marburg overpass was pretty well kaput, or at least its deck was, and it's been scheduled for replacement for a while now. 

No the original rapid transit loop plan never had anything to do with this branch line.  In fact it would have passed beneath it in the exact spot and along the same way that I-71 does. 

 

Some people get confused when looking at the later-1920s map you see floating around more often than the original plan.  That's when the president of Cincinnati Milacron was appointed a Rapid Transit Commissioner and got the whole loop plan tossed in favor of a scheme that would have seen the line start and end at Madison Rd. in Oakley, almost right in front of his property.  They bought all of the property they needed to make it happen, with the rapid transit tracks paralleling the south side of the B&O mainline from Norwood eastward.  So that means the never-built eastern half of the loop would have paralleled Duck Creek north of Smith Rd., but instead of turning west to complete the loop in Norwood Waterworks Park, it would have turned east.  I'm not sure if they planned to build four parallel rapid transit tracks there or do a flying crossover and just use two. 

 

I ran out of time to really look into all of that when I was writing the book so I left it out.  But it's pretty obvious that if it had come to pass it would have set up Oakley as the region's #2 area and a possible challenger to Downtown Cincinnati for offices and shopping in the long-term.  That line with 2x service could of course been extended further along the B&O or really anywhere else in that area. 

 

 

 

Kevin Flynn tells Wasson Way they aren't getting any more city money!

 

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/18/kevin-flynn-wasson-way-group-no-more-money/328760001/

Shedding more light on this (and to follow up with you jjakucyk[/member] from last night), could the overpass have been built for a small yard never built for Cincinnati Builders Supply and Hyde Park Lumber? (Via https://historicaerials.com/location/39.145862940909964/-84.44850862026215/1956/18) The trestle over Duck Creek to the immediate west only has one track.

 

The Sanborn map (http://digital.cincinnatilibrary.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16998coll9/id/4240) also makes no indication of any big plans.

The Grovedale Bridge is going to be demolished: http://local12.com/news/local/grovedale-bridge-in-hyde-park-to-be-dismantled

 

Anybody know why the bridge has to be demolished (and replaced)? That seems like a big, heavy bridge... is it not structurally sound? Or is it not wide enough for the Wasson Way trail? Have they released details of the new bridge?

I saw Mel McVay from the city comment on a Wasson facebook group last night.  She said the long-term maintenance costs for the bridge were going to be very high.  They are going to reuse "as much of the current structure as possible".  I don't know what that means.  Possibly the abutments and piers stay and they simply build a new deck. 

I heard from the Wasson Way group, and apparently the City determined that long-term maintenance costs of the old bridge were expected to be so high, that a new bridge was justified.

I thought this was just a concrete bridge, but it's steel with concrete faces. Most likely, the steel beams have rusted or corroded significantly, necessitating their replacement.

Well it wouldn't be "just" a concrete bridge anyway, it would be reinforced concrete which has a lot of rebar in it to rust.  I assume part of the problem is that this is a ballasted deck structure which has problems with water pooling and resulting corrosion.  They're quieter than open decks which could be a factor in why it was built that way, but the benefits of smoother/faster running wouldn't have been much of a concern as this wasn't a major passenger carrying route. 

 

I would hope they can reuse the abutments, but even those aren't really a standard configuration.  The main span bears on the arched columns at the curb with a concrete span over the sidewalks.  https://goo.gl/maps/ru92UxGdXNF2  That shortens the main span, but it means even the abutments are in this odd configuration that may not be conducive to reuse.  It is almost 90 years old (built in 1929) too.  It's a little like the overpasses at Highland and Lester which were built at around the same time https://goo.gl/maps/Ke6LopG7ap52  There's some similarities to the bridges over Reading and Paddock by the Norwood Lateral too. 

 

I've never gotten a good answer as to why Grovedale is such a massive bridge though.  It's already wide enough for two tracks, with abutments wide enough to add a third.  By the 1920s truck competition was eating into rail freight, so I can't imagine N&W was expecting some huge increase in traffic or extra sidings into HP Lumber or LeBlond, which had already been there for a while at that point.

^ I wonder if historians in the future will ask the same question about why I-75 is being widened in the 2010s when the region has already sprawled to the max and just hitting the tipping point back towards urbanity.