The area between Gilbert and I-71 is a mess today. It's really a sad mixture of a few old historic buildings, empty lots, and 60's era public housing. The street grid has been decimated, resulting in awkward little pockets of 1-way streets that are cut off from each other by the over built barriers of McMillan, Taft, MLK, Gilbert, Blair, and I-71. The MLK interchange will bring money to the area, and I hope that some of that development money is directed towards to high quality, affordable housing to restore and rebuild some of the neighborhood that has been destroyed over the decades. But the callous over building of the exit ramps leaves me worried that the project managers on this have absolutely no clue as to how to make a neighborhood livable.

 

 

The area between Gilbert and I-71 is a mess today. It's really a sad mixture of a few old historic buildings, empty lots, and 60's era public housing. The street grid has been decimated, resulting in awkward little pockets of 1-way streets that are cut off from each other by the over built barriers of McMillan, Taft, MLK, Gilbert, Blair, and I-71. The MLK interchange will bring money to the area, and I hope that some of that development money is directed towards to high quality, affordable housing to restore and rebuild some of the neighborhood that has been destroyed over the decades. But the callous over building of the exit ramps leaves me worried that the project managers on this have absolutely no clue as to how to make a neighborhood livable.

 

isn't the whole point of the project to enable the fastest ingress and egress of commuters from Blue Ash and Indian Hill to get to and from uptown jobs? I can't imagine anyone at ODOT is losing sleep over how "livable" the area is now or will be once the project is complete.

The area between Gilbert and I-71 is a mess today. It's really a sad mixture of a few old historic buildings, empty lots, and 60's era public housing. The street grid has been decimated, resulting in awkward little pockets of 1-way streets that are cut off from each other by the over built barriers of McMillan, Taft, MLK, Gilbert, Blair, and I-71. The MLK interchange will bring money to the area, and I hope that some of that development money is directed towards to high quality, affordable housing to restore and rebuild some of the neighborhood that has been destroyed over the decades. But the callous over building of the exit ramps leaves me worried that the project managers on this have absolutely no clue as to how to make a neighborhood livable.

 

isn't the whole point of the project to enable the fastest ingress and egress of commuters from Blue Ash and Indian Hill to get to and from uptown jobs? I can't imagine anyone at ODOT is losing sleep over how "livable" the area is now or will be once the project is complete.

This project was funded in the promise of bring 6000+ jobs to the area. We will see how that plans out. I doubt they would spend 200 million for a couple of doctors to get to their offices in uptown faster.

Unfortunately promises mean nothing since there's no accountability.  This project exemplifies the diminishing returns of further road/highway expansion.  The low-hanging fruit of improved mobility and economic development was picked decades ago, but we keep building because "it worked before why shouldn't it work now?"  Except now truly heroic sums of money are being spent to hopefully, maybe, someday do something better than just shift traffic patterns around slightly.  Imagine how many cycletracks, road diets, or new streetscapes this money could have funded.  Heck it's half the money for the 3C rail project, that'd get us from Cincinnati to Columbus. 

 

Regardless, I don't see this project being of any benefit to residential development, quite the opposite in fact.  Who wants to live within earshot of a highway?  Did Taft/McMillan help residential development?  Hopple?  Mitchell?  Smith-Edwards?  The traffic they generate is more conducive to retail and offices, and if the zoning preferences automobile-based development (drive-thru, lots of parking, single-use, etc.) then that will push residential away even more by creating a people-hostile environment that's unpleasant to live in. 

Speaking of accountability, does anyone know how much this thing will cost yet? Or are we still cool with building it and figuring the cost out later?

Speaking of accountability, does anyone know how much this thing will cost yet? Or are we still cool with building it and figuring the cost out later?

 

According to ODOT's State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) (available here: http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/Planning/STIP/Current%20STIP%20Project%20List/Current%20STIP%20Project%20List.pdf) (Project ID 77628) the current projected project cost is $101,491,249.

These photos are from Jan 30, 2016.

 

Lincoln Ave. overpass shifting to new piers to make room for rebuilt Taft exit ramp:

 

Looking north from Lincoln:

 

Lincoln Ave. overpass:

 

New ramp from MLK to I-71 south:

 

MLK overpass:

 

 

 

Old circa-1966 CL&N pier:

 

 

New Fredonia Ave. tunnel:

 

Old Fredonia Ave. overpass:

 

 

 

 

 

 

New ramp to I-71 north:

 

 

 

 

 

New Fredonia Ave. tunnel and the old and new overpasses:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Piers for new MLK to I-71 south ramp:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This thing is worse than Hopple in the amount of land it takes up and berms and other useless "green space" it generates.  It's like I-275/Eastgate, a very suburban geometry.  There's no surgical precision, which if you're going to ram a highway project through a city, you'd hope that they'd at least do as little harm as possible.  With ODOT though it seems to be more of a scorched earth policy, and whatever fragments of the neighborhood just happens to be left over is good enough. 

^I've always been bothered by this. Interchanges in tight urban areas should be kept compact, but of course that impedes the flow of traffic and can hurt sightlines so ODOT doesn't care. Useless patches of grass along an urban interstate are just that - they don't really add anything to the driving experience and the public doesn't have access to them, so it's just more money to waste on maintenance.

At least these walls look nicer than the fake stone they applied next to the Art Moderne walls by the 6th Street Viaduct.

So, wait, if you're going south and want to get off at Taft will you take the same exit as those getting off at MLK but then it splits and you continue alongside, but separated from, the rest of the highway until you reach the existing ramp that exits onto Taft?

Yes.

Okay that makes sense. I guess I never looked at the plans very closely because I had been wondering how two exits and an onramp all in such a small distance would work. But that answers that question.

^That's correct. It's so there's no weaving where the MLK southbound on-ramp dumps traffic onto 71, which happens to be right where the current off-ramp at Taft splits off.

 

EDIT: taestell beat me to it!

The Taft ramp will now pass in the area under the MLK overpass where an unnamed connection existed between Melish and Van Buren on the north side of the overpass.  It's pretty damn clever, I must concede.  Then that same ramp will continue under the Lincoln Ave. overpass, in between its piers and abutment, repeating the same approach.  The ramp is going to be a mile or more long. 

^ It seems like that configuration (a very long exit ramp in order to prevent weaving) is very common now, yet Covington opposed such a configuration for the new Brent Spence Bridge because "drivers would have to decide at Union Terminal whether they're going to Covington or continuing on I-75/71 South"... as if drivers wouldn't know their destination when they got on the highway in the first place.

^ It seems like that configuration (a very long exit ramp in order to prevent weaving) is very common now, yet Covington opposed such a configuration for the new Brent Spence Bridge because "drivers would have to decide at Union Terminal whether they're going to Covington or continuing on I-75/71 South"... as if drivers wouldn't know their destination when they got on the highway in the first place.

 

I think we all have experienced several times that when driving just because you know where you're going doesn't mean you're always paying close attention to how to get there.

But that shouldn't come at the expense of the safety of the people using the road. Weave lanes are a known problem and shouldn't be included in any project if there's a viable alternative.

^ It seems like that configuration (a very long exit ramp in order to prevent weaving) is very common now, yet Covington opposed such a configuration for the new Brent Spence Bridge because "drivers would have to decide at Union Terminal whether they're going to Covington or continuing on I-75/71 South"... as if drivers wouldn't know their destination when they got on the highway in the first place.

 

I think we all have experienced several times that when driving just because you know where you're going doesn't mean you're always paying close attention to how to get there.

 

Personally, when I am driving, I am constantly paying attention to road signs and making sure I'm in the correct lane to get where I need to go. It drives me insane when I ride with people who are in the wrong lane until the last minute and then have to cut over 2 lanes to get to the exit.

^Same. And I've learned that most people never realized that the little exit number tacked onto the top of the bigger sign tells you which side to be on to take that exit. If you're in an urban area where there are a lot of exits, some left hand and some right hand, it's useful to be able to see that sign from a ways away and know where to be. I hear so many people go, "I wasn't sure which lane I'd need" despite the signs giving you that information miles back.

^I've always been bothered by this. Interchanges in tight urban areas should be kept compact, but of course that impedes the flow of traffic and can hurt sightlines so ODOT doesn't care. Useless patches of grass along an urban interstate are just that - they don't really add anything to the driving experience and the public doesn't have access to them, so it's just more money to waste on maintenance.

 

And land that's permanently taken off the tax rolls.

It's like the original Fort Washington Way configuration with a mess of ramps and loops... which took over a generation to get cleaned up into the much tighter and more efficient current configuration.

It's like the original Fort Washington Way configuration with a mess of ramps and loops... which took over a generation to get cleaned up into the much tighter and more efficient current configuration.

 

I always marveled at the design for the original FWW. It had to be the mindset of that day and age to place so many sooo many ramps in such a small space. They had to be redundantly redundant. Wasn't there like an Exit 1K?

At least we have gotten a little bit better about how we cram highways into urban areas. Here was the plan for how the never-built "Taft Expressway" would have interchanged with I-71:

 

Oh god, no, I had blocked those plans from my memory. The thought of what the entirety of Uptown would be like today if that had been is nightmare inducing.

I feel physically ill looking at that "Taft Expressway" drawing. You should have prefaced that with a trigger warning :)

In the latest Planning Commission Packet, there were two approved demolitions in the "Walnut Hills Interchange Area" (the area around the MLK-I71 exchange): http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/about-city-planning/city-planning-commission/feb-19-2016-packet/

 

• 3005 Kerper Avenue
   
  
• 3046 Stanton Avenue
  

 

There is going to be a lot of vacant land in that area if the demolitions continue at this pace.

 

In more positive news, the Packet also shows that HGC wants to expand their office space at 2814 Stanton Avenue.

DOTE is looking to expand MLK from 7 lanes to 8 lanes, adding an additional lane on the north side between Vine and Harvey. Fortunately, it seems like the Democrats on Council realize this would move MLK in the wrong direction, so they might kill the proposal in committee.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/03/30/eight-lanes-on-martin-luther-king-jr-drive-some.html

“I’m not aware of any policy statement where we’ve said we prefer pedestrians over cars,” Flynn said.

 

OMFG.  It's already such a car-only corridor, but even so I can't believe he'd say something like that.  What I don't understand is, why add just one lane westbound but not also eastbound?  So there would be 4 lanes westbound but 3 eastbound.  Then east of Reading it goes to something like 54 lanes because...reasons. 

Why city is shelving MLK widening plans for now

Apr 13, 2016, 7:14am EDT

Chris Wetterich

Staff reporter and columnist

Cincinnati Business Courier

 

 

The city of Cincinnati will not ask for funding to expand most of a portion of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive from seven to eight lanes after City Council members questioned the wisdom of widening it.

 

The city had proposed asking for federal funds via the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments to add at least one lane on the north side of the road from Vine Street to Harvey Avenue as well as a shared bicycle-pedestrian path. There generally are seven lanes along that stretch today when there is a center turn lane.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/04/13/why-city-is-shelving-mlk-widening-plans-for-now.html

^Chalk one up for the good guys! Allocate the money to the Uptown Connection.

The bigger problem is that OKIRCOG only pursues money for projects like road widenings. You'd think that our regional planning organization would be pushing for much bigger and bolder things, but no.

^Chalk one up for the good guys! Allocate the money to the Uptown Connection.

You're welcome !

The new Fredonia bridge is open now and the MLK bridge is getting new fences installed... on both bridges, the fences along the guardrail seem absurdly tall. I'd guess they're almost 20' tall, which I don't recall ever seeing on other highway bridges.

 

Anybody know why these fences are so tall? This whole project feels so over-engineered and these fences are just one more way in which it seems designed without any sense of proper scale.

 

 

Tall fences are an alternative to the ugly curved ones used to discourage people from throwing things onto the highway below.  I do wish they'd go with black like on the I-75 Monmouth Avenue overpass.  https://goo.gl/maps/sUVS5NEaj9p

^ Perhaps the extra height is so they can sell advertising space on the bridges so that the project pays for itself. :evil:

 

I heard somewhere that this interchange was intentionally designed to be a suburban and sprawling as possible in order to demolish all the buildings between I-71 and Gilbert.

 

Urban renewal is alive and well here.

I heard somewhere that this interchange was intentionally designed to be a suburban and sprawling as possible in order to demolish all the buildings between I-71 and Gilbert.

 

Urban renewal is alive and well here.

 

 

Yeah that was apparent when they first showed drawings at City Hall back in 2009 or thereabouts, and I tweeted out that exact sentiment, then was confronted by a finger-wagging big wig that night.  They want to turn it into the next Smith/Edwards.   

 

I heard somewhere that this interchange was intentionally designed to be a suburban and sprawling as possible in order to demolish all the buildings between I-71 and Gilbert.

 

Urban renewal is alive and well here.

 

 

Yeah that was apparent when they first showed drawings at City Hall back in 2009 or thereabouts, and I tweeted out that exact sentiment, then was confronted by a finger-wagging big wig that night.  They want to turn it into the next Smith/Edwards. 

 

In regards to geometry and layout, Smith/Edwards is much more compact than the MLK configuration.

The graphic I saw in person, which never appeared online, and predated my possession of a smart phone with a camera, had low and mid-rise office and commercial on superblocks on either side of the highway, both north and south of MLK. 

 

They showed this stuff at a committee meeting (I think Chris Bortz was there but my memory is pretty foggy) and then got upset because somebody said something about it on Twitter. 

There is a new curb cut along Stanton, suggesting that there might be a developable triangle of land between Stanton, MLK, and the northbound exit ramp. Does anybody know if that land is, in fact, going to be sold to a developer? Ideally, that parcel would be developed in such a way that also allows access from MLK. Conceivably, a garage could be built in such a way that allows entrances from both Stanton and MLK. But I'm afraid that ODOT simply plans on planting grass in that huge space and leaving it to sit vacant.

 

 

^just like they did last time where you had that ghost grading for ramps that never happened

GCrites80s[/member] - What "ghost grades" are you talking about?

When you went southbound on 71, there was a ramp that joined 71 on the right near the old MLK bridge. It was that big grassy area on the right where additional ramps were planned but never executed. They felt the exits would be too close together.

When you went southbound on 71, there was a ramp that joined 71 on the right near the old MLK bridge. It was that big grassy area on the right where additional ramps were planned but never executed. They felt the exits would be too close together.

 

I believe that was a proposed and never built interchange with Victory Parkway. Not positive though.

I think you are talking about the planned Victory Parkway interchange that was never built. That's why the ramp from Montgomery Road to I-71 South is so long... the ramp from I-71 South to Victory Parkway was supposed to exit before the oncoming Montgomery Road traffic joined, to prevent weaving.

I think you are talking about the planned Victory Parkway interchange that was never built. That's why the ramp from Montgomery Road to I-71 South is so long... the ramp from I-71 South to Victory Parkway was supposed to exit before the oncoming Montgomery Road traffic joined, to prevent weaving.

 

Interesting. I always wondered why that onramp was so long.

Correct.  Here's ODOT's original drawing for the Victory Parkway exit.  You'll notice the modifications made to Gilbert Avenue which were made anyway, as well as to Victory Parkway itself.  Also note the old Deer Creek railroad tunnel just to the west of the new Blair Avenue overpass.

 

http://www.jjakucyk.com/urbanohio2/i71mlkvictory.pdf

I've always kind of wondered if the Victory Parkway interchange was scuttled not for the stated reasons but rather because plans to build MLK as it now exists were formulated after construction had begun on I-71.  The interstate in that area opened around 1966 but MLK was not completed until the early 1980s, so about 15 years later.  But when 71 was planned in the early 1960s, University Ave. still traveled directly through UC's campus and was the main cross-town street between UC and Walnut Hills.