Posted May 9, 200817 yr I'm driving down 4th stret thinking to myself, this is the best street in Cincinnati. Sure some of the archetcture has something to do with it but I also realized there are barely any surface lots on that street. Those lots are just such an eyesore and there are simply wau too many in Cincy. No corner should have more than 1 (its a crime that 7th and vine has 2) and to be honest I'd like to see most of them destroyed. Is there a way the govenment can build a 4 or 5 story garage to ultimately eliminate 5 surface lots? At the very least, can they give incentives to current surface lot owners to purse the garage option? May not be a huge issue that our city faces but it is by far the biggest eyesore we have.
May 9, 200817 yr the better plan would be to build a streetcar line and help speed the conversion of those lots into their highest and best use.
May 9, 200817 yr Believe it or not, the 1948 Metropolitan Master Plan called for a ring of parking garages around the downtown central business district, and a ring of surface lots around that, followed by a ring of freeways and ramps. The plan was more or less carried out. At that point in 1948, we still had streetcars! I had the pleasure of visiting 10 European cities and 2 Asian cities last year and the relative lack of surface parking lots was very noticeable.
May 9, 200817 yr surface lots don't exist in Europe. barely at least. They build lots underground or often times have arking in courtyards that are surrounded by buildings. Aethetics are obviously much more important to Europeans then Americans. We are only now just starting to get it but too often appearance stood in the way of progress. Evrytime I walk by 7th and Vine, I think how great it would be if a Whole Foods built something in one of those lots.
May 9, 200817 yr To be honest, I don't mind a few SMALL parking lots here and there, the disruption can make things kind of interesting. Of course, then you have places like Broadway Commons that are just terrible. Overall, Cincinnati doesn't have much of a parking lot problem right now. The demolition of buildings could perpetuate the problem in the future. I hope that doesn't happen. I would argue that the biggest aesthetic problem we have is Queensgate and the majority of the left side of the basin for that matter.
May 9, 200817 yr Sometimes I'd rather see a mega surface lot on the site of that mammoth garage on Fourth. :lol:
May 9, 200817 yr German cities tend to have massive parking structures, with lists of the parking spaces available on the main roads heading into town.
May 9, 200817 yr I don't like lots at all either, but Cincinnati has relatively few in the core and most of those are not that big. Head out to a western city and you will see what I am talking about.
May 10, 200817 yr The ones I feel the most pain about are the St. X lots that sit where the high school used to sit. These seem such a non-Christian/Catholic way to shepherd one's resources.
May 10, 200817 yr Evrytime I walk by 7th and Vine, I think how great it would be if a Whole Foods built something in one of those lots. http://www.urbancincy.com/2007/12/ive-got-your-downtown-grocery-right.html The ones I feel the most pain about are the St. X lots that sit where the high school used to sit. These seem such a non-Christian/Catholic way to shepherd one's resources. Is that where it got its name? It all makes sense now. That is the first time you've heard that?
May 11, 200817 yr Does Cincy have a real problem with Parking Lots? One thing that has always made an impression on me is how built up downtown Cincy still is. Go to a city like Dayton or Canton or Springfield and one can see how parking has actually altered the character of downtown to become much more open. Lester is right about 4th...a true urban canyon. You know you're downtown when on 4th.
May 11, 200817 yr Does Cincy have a real problem with Parking Lots? As someone from Columbus: Hell no lol Randy: Yeah, I know, it makes complete sense but the thought never crossed my mind for some reason. Good thing we have urban historians around here to explain these things lol
May 11, 200817 yr Does Cincy have a real problem with Parking Lots? One thing that has always made an impression on me is how built up downtown Cincy still is. Go to a city like Dayton or Canton or Springfield and one can see how parking has actually altered the character of downtown to become much more open. Lester is right about 4th...a true urban canyon. You know you're downtown when on 4th. Dayton's parking problem is more around downtown, not in it. Columbus' problem is IN it AND around it! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
May 11, 200817 yr A couple great things for Cincinnati are the removal of some large surface lots in the CBD area. First you have the riverfront parking lots which are now going to be removed for The Banks development (thank god). You also have the removal of the large surface lot at Central Parkway in between Race and Elm where the new SCPA is being built. That surface lot took up just about the entire block...it will now be reduced to a small service lot at the corner of 12th and Race for the new SCPA. Parker Flats is also getting built on once was a small surface lot at Central Ave and W. 4th Street.
May 12, 200817 yr Could Cincy allow food trucks to set up in downtown parking lots? http://www.citykin.com/2008/02/food-trucks.html
May 12, 200817 yr Athens has numerous omnipresent food cards, the best-known being The Burrito Buggy: http://www.burritobuggy.com/
May 13, 200817 yr surface lots don't exist in Europe. barely at least. I noticed a decent amount of surface lots in Edinburgh near the university, slightly north of the main thoroughfare (Holyrood?), the name of which I've forgotten. I don't think that the parking lots are so much of an aesthetic problem (except in certain places, for instance 7th and Sycamore and 9th and Court on Elm) as they are a huge economic waste. If our support system for the market was geared to urbanity rather than sprawl these sorts of places would get built on, and fast. The single most aesthetically pleasing parking related structure has to be the garage on 7th across from the Aronoff near where Frisch's used to be. Personally I consider the biggest aesthetic problem in Cincinnati is the trend to rip out massive portions of our hillsides for structures. This has been happening a lot in Mt. Adams, though the single worst instance of it that I can find is that Bigg's skytop place off Beechmont where the El Rancho Rankin Motel used to be.
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