The public engagement for the Gilbert Avenue Complete Street Project starts next Thursday the 21st. The work is being spearheaded by the Kleingers Group and the exhibits will be available on the city's project page afterwards. The meeting is being held at the Bush Recreation Center and will be an open house format allowing residents to stop by any time between 5:30 and 7:30 pm.
 

 

18 hours ago, Dev said:

The public engagement for the Gilbert Avenue Complete Street Project starts next Thursday the 21st. The work is being spearheaded by the Kleingers Group and the exhibits will be available on the city's project page afterwards. The meeting is being held at the Bush Recreation Center and will be an open house format allowing residents to stop by any time between 5:30 and 7:30 pm.

Thanks! Will try to attend. One question I'm curious about is how to get more street trees along Gilbert. The overhead utilities are mostly all on the east side of Gilbert. If we can't put those utilities underground as part of this, perhaps the road diet can create space for new street trees that don't conflict with the overhead utilities (so the trees can grow tall without getting amputated by Duke).

7 minutes ago, jwulsin said:

Thanks! Will try to attend. One question I'm curious about is how to get more street trees along Gilbert. The overhead utilities are mostly all on the east side of Gilbert. If we can't put those utilities underground as part of this, perhaps the road diet can create space for new street trees that don't conflict with the overhead utilities (so the trees can grow tall without getting amputated by Duke).

 

I was told in the past that the project costs have ballooned because they realized that the old cable car equipment is buried under the landscaped medians. That makes me think that they won't be interested in burying the utilities but we certainly need more people to ask about that more often to help popularize the idea. Every little bit helps.

Hopefully no changes are made that would prevent this from being an LRT corridor in the future.

Work has finally started on the Hamilton Avenue speedbumps in College Hill north of the North Bend intersection

It was announced this week at the Pleasant Ridge CC meeting that new 4 speed humps (one per lane) would be placed along Montgomery Road where the Library and non-profit Community Happens Here are located. Google Maps Link. DOTE stated they would be installed "by the end of the year."

 

There are also ongoing talks with the city to remove the rush hour lanes through the biz district and make it 24-hour parking. 

On 3/8/2024 at 11:55 AM, cincydave8 said:

It was announced this week at the Pleasant Ridge CC meeting that new 4 speed humps (one per lane) would be placed along Montgomery Road where the Library and non-profit Community Happens Here are located. Google Maps Link. DOTE stated they would be installed "by the end of the year."

This is not accurate. PRCC, like all the other community councils, will have the opportunity to submit a request for traffic calming on a major street. It is a competitive program, so there's no guarantee it will happen and construction will not start until next spring. DOTE updated their website for the program, which includes a pdf of everything that was previously submitted, and whether or not it got funded. Pleasant Ridge is not on the list because PRCC did not make a submission during the last round.

On 3/14/2024 at 1:09 AM, Dev said:

This is not accurate. PRCC, like all the other community councils, will have the opportunity to submit a request for traffic calming on a major street. It is a competitive program, so there's no guarantee it will happen and construction will not start until next spring. DOTE updated their website for the program, which includes a pdf of everything that was previously submitted, and whether or not it got funded. Pleasant Ridge is not on the list because PRCC did not make a submission during the last round.

 

It was again confirmed at this months PRCC meeting that one is coming this year. Not sure if the DOTE website is not correct or the PRCC leaders and stating it incorrectly. You can see how it was written in the post-meeting notes below. I guess time will tell.

Edited April 5, 20241 yr by cincydave8

On 4/5/2024 at 11:59 AM, cincydave8 said:

 

It was again confirmed at this months PRCC meeting that one is coming this year. Not sure if the DOTE website is not correct or the PRCC leaders and stating it incorrectly. You can see how it was written in the post-meeting notes below. I guess time will tell.

 

I have previously talked to the one person who is managing this program at the city and the website is the correct information. I also have it in writing in the form of an email from her.

If you don't believe me, or the website updated on March 12th, 2024 by that worker at the city, you can also look at the city's publicly available procurement website and see that there is no project in Pleasant Ridge out to bid right now. There is also this tweet from Mark Jeffreys, as well as the announcement from the city that he was referencing.

On 4/7/2024 at 10:00 PM, Dev said:

 

I have previously talked to the one person who is managing this program at the city and the website is the correct information. I also have it in writing in the form of an email from her.

If you don't believe me, or the website updated on March 12th, 2024 by that worker at the city, you can also look at the city's publicly available procurement website and see that there is no project in Pleasant Ridge out to bid right now. There is also this tweet from Mark Jeffreys, as well as the announcement from the city that he was referencing.

 

I didn't say I didn't believe you, I'm just relaying information, like I said, the PRCC folks may just be saying/writing incorrectly. 

Edited April 9, 20241 yr by cincydave8

College Hill voted last week on what they would like the configuration of North Bend Rd between Edwood and Collegevue to be once the city repaves the road in the coming years. Vote was in favor of making the current temporary condition of a bike lane on the north side of the road with parking on the south permanent. The city will repave North Bend from Hamilton eastwards in 2025, with the repaving of North Bend west of Hamilton to occur sometime in 2026.

Cincinnati plans to install ‘smog-eating’ pavement

 

The city of Cincinnati plans to overhaul Victory Parkway from Eden Park to William Howard Taft Road, making it a “complete street,” while also applying a special chemical to the surface to reduce smog.

 

The $3 million project is one-mile long and a part of the city’s transportation capital budget for fiscal year 2025, which begins July 1.

 

The transportation department will put an additive known as TiO2 on the pavement, which will “eat” some of the smog from vehicles’ tailpipes, according to John Brazina, the city’s transportation director.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2024/06/03/city-plans-install-smog-eating-pavement-eden-park.html

^the article doesn’t mention if the number of travel lanes (or lane width) will be reduced as part of this project. I hope they go down to just one travel lane. Anybody know what the design will look like for this project?

2 hours ago, jwulsin said:

^the article doesn’t mention if the number of travel lanes (or lane width) will be reduced as part of this project. I hope they go down to just one travel lane. Anybody know what the design will look like for this project?

There will be one travel lane in each direction with a center turn lane. They also better align some of the intersections that were too wide or at bad angles. More here: https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/sites/dote/assets/Victory_Parkway/20240411_presentation.pdf

 

3 hours ago, JYP said:

There will be one travel lane in each direction with a center turn lane. They also better align some of the intersections that were too wide or at bad angles. More here: https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/sites/dote/assets/Victory_Parkway/20240411_presentation.pdf

 

It's disappointing that the bike lanes are not protected for the entire length, but that's literally the only complaint. Those intersection redesigns are fantastic, and expensive, which should really help connect people to the park and conservatory.

Cincinnati makes changes to Uptown, Mount Airy streets

 

The city of Cincinnati is making changes to several streets around the University of Cincinnati as well as to Colerain Avenue in Mount Airy in order to make them more safe for people walking.

...

The changes include:

• Converting existing crosswalks to “zebra” configurations on Clifton and Jefferson avenues and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. A zebra crosswalk is painted with repeated vertical lines, instead of two, long horizontal ones, making them more visible. Those are expected to be done in September.
• The city already has extended curbs at various locations on those streets.
• The city also plans to install nine concrete speed cushions at various locations on Clifton, Jefferson and MLK to slow down traffic. Drivers can go over the cushions at the speed limit. The total cost is estimated to be $335,005, again funded entirely by the state. Construction is estimated to begin this fall and also will include “centerline hardening” making it more difficult for drivers to drift into traffic heading in the opposite direction.
• On Colerain Avenue, the city also has installed speed cushions, large pavement signage indicating the speed limit is 35 miles per hour and digital signs telling people how fast they are going. The city’s focus is on the hill near Colerain’s intersection with Raeburn Drive. In 2023, police performed 800 traffic stops on Colerain.

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2024/09/09/street-safety-zebra-cross-cushions-uc-mt-airy.html

Norwood and ODOT are working together for a planned resurfacing project of Montgomery north of the lateral that is turning out to become a 5-to-3 road diet. The extra space will allow for an extension of the painted bike lanes that were put on Montgomery by Cincinnati, although the southbound lane will dissolve into a sharrow as it approaches the Drex intersection to increase the amount of on-street parking. The rush hour parking restrictions will also be removed, so it'll be interesting if it gets utilized more consistently. The Lawn, Moeller and Irving intersections will be upgraded with either a RRFB, or PHB/HAWK lights. The Ross light will also be upgraded to have a flashing yellow arrow, which is something that is common in KY these days but I don't think I've ever seen in Ohio.

 

 

 

Edited October 2, 2024Oct 2 by Dev

DOTE has updated their Vision Zero website with the results of the latest round of traffic calming requests from community councils. Only 9 of 40 submissions made it within the funding limit. I'm counting 10 community councils that do not appear on the list at all, with Xavier receiving funding, and a submission for "Liberty Hill" also being included much further down the list. These will likely go out to bid before next year's summer construction season begins. The site also has a description for how the program will be adjusted next year as well as their policy on how to lower speed limits. The program for "major streets," which is this one, is being merged with the "minor streets." This means that community councils will be able to submit 2 requests, and it doesn't matter what the traffic count is. This also means that petitions are no longer necessary for consideration on lower volume streets, but that those residents need to go through their community council.

 

 

Edited October 3, 2024Oct 3 by Dev

DOTE presented 6 options for restriping Ridge Road. You can view the full presentation here. PR Community Council is asking for feedback here.