33 minutes ago, Ram23 said:

 

The parking lanes on Central Parkway are striped as driving lanes, despite the fact that they are only driveable lanes for 2 hours a day on weekdays. 22 hours a day on weekdays, and 24 hours a day on weekends, they are parking lanes. IMO, they should be painted as parking lanes, since that's what they're used for most of the time. It's confusing for people who don't use the road often - it's easy to miss the hourly parking restrictions on the "no parking" signs, and the "caution cars parked" paint on the street is only marginally helpful:

 

https://goo.gl/maps/2jNWpUbPwzw5M2Kh7

 

The city does this all over the place, but it's troublesome here because Central Parkway doesn't really feel like a street cars would park on, it feels like a highway.

 

I agree. The lanes should be painted to be permanent, on-street parking. 

I don't think it's that confusing. There are plenty of places around the city where the roads are striped as four lanes, where the outer lanes become parking lanes at certain times (see Clifton Avenue and Hamilton Avenue [although the outer lanes were recently converted to full-time parking]) and drivers seem to understand it.

 

The reason Central Parkway is so confusing is because of Mann's Bend, which causes the layout of the road to keep changing from block to block, which confuses the hell out of drivers. Driving towards downtown, the road goes from 2 driving lanes to 1 driving / 1 off-peak parking to 2 driving / 1 full-time parking to 1 driving / 1 off-peak parking to 2 driving / 1 full-time parking. Add in the fact that many drivers are speeding, using their cell phone, or both, and you have a recipe for disaster.

^ I think the city should look into changing the way they paint parking lanes everywhere. Streets like Ludlow function okay because they've been parking forever, they feel more urban, traffic is slower, the parking fills up quickly and stays that way, etc. Other streets like Central Parkway or any of the west side arterials like Colerain Avenue seem to have more accidents than they should, or result in drivers slamming on their brakes and having to merge from a stopped position.

 

I agree with your second paragraph. Central Parkway is especially confusing because of the inconsistencies. If you follow it another few blocks further out of downtown, you find even more lane arrangements, like 1 inbound, 2 outbound lanes, sometimes with off-peak parking, then back to 2 inbound, 3 outbound where the bike lanes end.

Let's look at some traffic counts- use this site to see them

 

http://traffic.oki.org/

 

Liberty has 3 data points, they average about 15,750

 

Ludlow Business district 14,551. Four lanes, goes down to two most of the time

Hamilton at Blue Rock 15,059 (same)

 

 

 

 

I think DOTE did a study determining that the bike lanes on Central Pkwy didn't increase crashes. However, to the extent there is confusion where it's absent from other streets with driving lanes that become parking lanes, I think it's largely due to the fact that the road bed isn't sufficiently broken up by paint and (mostly missing) plastic bollards, so the "curb lane" doesn't feel like a curb lane. Adding an actual curb and/or some planters and/or actually substantial bollards could fix this.

Right, that study was "accidentally" released "early" and then pulled by Cranley since he didn't have a chance to spin doctor it, but the info still got out there that there were no more crashes than typical for a street like that.  I do agree that if done properly the cycle track would be up above street level a bit, which would help it stay at least a little cleaner.  The presence of a curb would much better communicate where the edge of the roadway is and make the parking situation more understandable.  Either way, I think it was Jeff Speck who said it best, "you don't have a bike lane problem, you have an intermittent parking problem." 

Here is a PDF of the 6-lane option that is apparently supported by Jeff Pastor (+ the five council members who supported the five lane option).

 

It looks like this option would not have lanes that convert between driving and parking lanes as I predicted. Instead, it would have:

• full time parking on the north and south sides of the street between Central Parkway and Elm Street (7 lanes wide)
• full time parking on the north side of the street but no parking on the south side between Elm and Sycamore (6 lanes wide)
• back to its current 7-lane configuration east of Sycamore

 

Edit: The above is incorrect, please see my post on the next page for the correct layout.

I think this is worse than the current configuration. All they are doing is eliminating parking from Elm to Sycamore. This doesn't help pedestrians. 

It reduces the pedestrian crossing distance by 20 feet compared to the street's current configuration.

Just now, taestell said:

It reduces the pedestrian crossing distance by 20 feet compared to the street's current configuration.

 

The new distance from curb to curb according to the drawings will be 63 feet. It's currently at 70 feet curb to curb.

 

At crosswalks, they are apparently adding bumpouts to the north, which reduces another 6 feet or so, leading to what? 57 feet?

On paper that looks like an improvement, but 10' that they are "eliminating" from the south side is currently permanent parking. That's not generally moving traffic. So we are ultimately seeing them remove a lane of parking and add bumpouts on one side. The parking is currently a safety feature for the pedestrians, who are more protected by moving traffic. Also, without parked cars on the south side, drivers going eastbound are going to be just as - if not more - emboldened to drive faster. All around I think this is a disaster of a compromise, and will doom any chance the city has of doing this well for the next 20+ years.

3 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

All around I think this is a disaster of a compromise...

 

Agreed, anything less than (or would that be more than?) the 50' pavement option isn't even a diet, it's going to Whole Foods one time and thinking you're being healthy. 

The travel lanes have been increased to 11’ from 10’.  At Republic the northmost lanes are 20’ (travel+parking) (parking can be accomplished with an 8’ lane so this could be 10’+8’=18’ instead.) 

 

This is a recipe for continued race car behavior

 

 

Just now, thebillshark said:

The travel lanes have been increased to 11’ from 10’.  At Republic the northmost lanes are 20’ (travel+parking) (parking can be accomplished with an 8’ lane so this could be 10’+8’=18’ instead.) 

 

This is a recipe for continued race car behavior

 

 

 

I couldn't find exact info on the current width of the lanes, but I thought they were 10' currently. The 11' is an increased width that will lead to even more speeding. I can't overstate how bad I think this proposal is. It will actively make things worse.

13 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

 

I couldn't find exact info on the current width of the lanes, but I thought they were 10' currently. The 11' is an increased width that will lead to even more speeding. I can't overstate how bad I think this proposal is. It will actively make things worse.

 

Yes, should have clarified, the 10’ was from the community approved five lane proposal.  Can’t find current width but they may vary. 

 

half measures and half a**ing don’t get you half way there. It gets you nowhere or worse. This city loves doing things that way though

Edited April 23, 20196 yr by thebillshark

This has been such a frustrating situation to follow. You have one of the most beautiful and prized urban neighborhoods in the country in OTR. Its revitalization has done more to lift Cincinnati's image than literally anything else in the past 30+ years, and one can envision a scenario where OTR becomes a nationally known destination ala the French Quarter. You have a super wide, ugly street that bisects the neighborhood, essentially cutting it into two pieces. There is a possibility to not only stitch OTR back into one cohesive neighborhood, but also create new land in this highly desirable, increasingly tourist driven area, and the Mayor and some of Council comes out against it?! Make it make sense! It's so incredibly short sighted and myopic to not seize this incredible opportunity. Turning Liberty into a beautiful, tree lined, pedestrian friendly street, while creating new land and opportunities for new infill should be an absolute no-brainer. Surely Cranley knows that OTR is Cincinnati's best shot for becoming a noteworthy domestic and international tourist destination. When the NYT and other national publications write about Cincinnati it's basically all they write about, because it's gorgeous, hip, designed in a way that wouldn't and couldn't be built today, and frankly, it's surprising to many on the coasts that such an environment exists in Cincinnati. Knowing this, you would think the city would fully support any and all efforts to remove barriers to success and to increase connections across from the booming southern portion to the largely vacant and untouched northern portions of OTR. The controversy over this project is baffling, but also so typical of Cincinnati's toxic political culture. 

Edited April 23, 20196 yr by edale

Who needs stupid tourists clogging up the roads when we can have a nice wide highway to funnel people to an MLS stadium?

With our current anti pedestrian, pro car administration I'll take this as a "win" regardless. Could it be improved? Hell yeah! But this is still considerably better than what we have currently with liberty street. I know it's settling, and we can and do better, but it is what it is unless we elect officials who give a damn about urban environments. 

In this new proposal there is an island only in the block between Elm and Race, and there is a crosswalk mid-block at Pleasant Street.  I like this one block.  The rest of the design is too much like it is now.

 

Left turns from westbound Liberty traffic south onto Republic Street should be eliminated with an island

Edited April 24, 20196 yr by Jimmy Skinner

Jeff Pastor is claiming that this compromise achieves the "same results" at a lower cost, and suggests we can pay for crossing guards on Liberty rather than just...designing the street to be safer.

 

 

 

The whole point of the project should be to slow traffic to make this less of a highway. I think this "compromise" proposal will only make cars drive faster due to the wider lanes, and removal of on-street parking along almost all of the southern curb (Elm to Sycamore). Hell, I'd prefer a "just add bumpouts" proposal (cheaper and could get narrower pedestrian crossings) over this 6-lane compromise

 

With the new proposal, would the water main still have to be moved? The PDF shows the water main near the southern curb. I wonder if that's part of why they are keeping the lane widths wider than necessary, to keep the water main in the southern-most lane. 

I'd also rather just add bumpouts, keep the parking on the south side, and then do this again in 2.5 years. This compromise is the worst of both worlds.

11 minutes ago, jwulsin said:

With the new proposal, would the water main still have to be moved? The PDF shows the water main near the southern curb. I wonder if that's part of why they are keeping the lane widths wider than necessary, to keep the water main in the southern-most lane. 

 

With the six lane option, the water main would not have to be moved. That is the whole reason the 6 lane option is being looked at right now—Jeff Pastor got on board because it "saves a million dollars" compared to the five lane option, due to the savings of not having to move the water main.

 

Sightly encouraging news. I have to say, I'm happy that Pastor is actually open to feedback.

Under the 5 lane option, it looks like the water main would be under the sidewalk. I don’t see why that’s so bad, or so much worse than it being under the street, especially since DOTE can control the width of the sidewalk and make it extra wide so no new buildings are built right up next to the water main.  But I’m not a civil engineer. 

 

It’s too bad.  If the city admin was pro pedestrian and pro bike, I’d question them a lot less when they say they can’t do something or something is too expensive.

26 minutes ago, thebillshark said:

Under the 5 lane option, it looks like the water main would be under the sidewalk. I don’t see why that’s so bad, or so much worse than it being under the street, especially since DOTE can control the width of the sidewalk and make it extra wide so no new buildings are built right up next to the water main.  But I’m not a civil engineer. 

 

It’s too bad.  If the city admin was pro pedestrian and pro bike, I’d question them a lot less when they say they can’t do something or something is too expensive.

Agreed.

I’d have to imagine that the value of the new real estate that’d be created with the 5 lane option would more than pay for the rest of the project. It’s one of those cases where I think one could legitimately argue that the project would pay for itself. In the grand scheme of things, $1million is not that much money, especially if it leads to tens/hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment. Pastor is acting very small town here, especially with this crossing guard nonsense. 

Just now, edale said:

I’d have to imagine that the value of the new real estate that’d be created with the 5 lane option would more than pay for the rest of the project. It’s one of those cases where I think one could legitimately argue that the project would pay for itself. In the grand scheme of things, $1million is not that much money, especially if it leads to tens/hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment. Pastor is acting very small town here, especially with this crossing guard nonsense. 

 

Cranley blew $1 million on the streetcar audit that found zero improprieties.  Plus he has given away tons of city property to donors like Tower Place for pennies.  

Why do local DOT's measure smaller roads by the Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) to determine the size of a road? I can understand using it to determine the useful life of a surface, or highway capacities, but beyond that, I don't see a lot of useful information being gathered.

 

A breakdown by the hour of how many cars utilize a road each day would be way more useful. As @thomasbw pointed out, Ludlow and Hamilton have similar daily traffic counts, but Liberty is treated differently. They are even removing the parking restrictions from Hamilton to make it safer, leaving it at 2 travel lanes and one turn lane all the time.

 

At every meeting for Liberty Street's road diet, the engineers talked about how traffic on Liberty isn't like a normal arterial streets. The traffic moves consistently throughout the week day 7am-7pm. No one side is used more than the other at each time of the day, which means you can't eliminate parking on only one side of the street in the morning and the other in the evening.

 

But that doesn't answer the question of how many cars actually use Liberty at its busiest hours. If traffic is pretty consistent during the 7-7 period, I would imagine the demand for lanes is actually less than the arterial streets like Ludlow and Hamilton at its peak.

 

So basically, I'm looking for information on:

1) How many cars utilize each direction of Liberty during the highest utilized hours?

2) How many cars can each design move at its most efficient?

 

I have a suspicion that Liberty at 1 lane in each direction with a center turn lane could handle most - if not all - traffic conditions. For some reason that information is never presented. Does anyone have info on this?

9 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

Why do local DOT's measure smaller roads by the Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) to determine the size of a road? I can understand using it to determine the useful life of a surface, or highway capacities, but beyond that, I don't see a lot of useful information being gathered.

 

A breakdown by the hour of how many cars utilize a road each day would be way more useful. As @thomasbw pointed out, Ludlow and Hamilton have similar daily traffic counts, but Liberty is treated differently. They are even removing the parking restrictions from Hamilton to make it safer, leaving it at 2 travel lanes and one turn lane all the time.

 

At every meeting for Liberty Street's road diet, the engineers talked about how traffic on Liberty isn't like a normal arterial streets. The traffic moves consistently throughout the week day 7am-7pm. No one side is used more than the other at each time of the day, which means you can't eliminate parking on only one side of the street in the morning and the other in the evening.

 

But that doesn't answer the question of how many cars actually use Liberty at its busiest hours. If traffic is pretty consistent during the 7-7 period, I would imagine the demand for lanes is actually less than the arterial streets like Ludlow and Hamilton at its peak.

 

So basically, I'm looking for information on:

1) How many cars utilize each direction of Liberty during the highest utilized hours?

2) How many cars can each design move at its most efficient?

 

I have a suspicion that Liberty at 1 lane in each direction with a center turn lane could handle most - if not all - traffic conditions. For some reason that information is never presented. Does anyone have info on this?

 

I suspect the same. NACTO guide says streets up to 25,000 daily volume can be candidates for 4-to-3 lane road diet conversions. Source: https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/streets/neighborhood-main-street/

Aren't most of the monitoring points for Liberty in the 14-18,000 range? 

33 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

I have a suspicion that Liberty at 1 lane in each direction with a center turn lane could handle most - if not all - traffic conditions. For some reason that information is never presented. Does anyone have info on this?

 

They could reduce it to one lane in each direction with no center turn lane -- essentially what it was originally -- and people would simply stop driving on it.  The traffic would disappear.  

Budget & Finance committee approved the 6-lane plan tonight. It is expected that full Council will approve on Wednesday.

 

However, it appears that parking will be permitted during off-peak hours on the south side of the street, contrary to my previous assumption.

 

So the layout would be:

• Central Parkway to Elm Street: full time parking on the north and south sides of the street (7 lanes wide)
• Elm to Sycamore: full time parking on the north side of the street & convertible driving / off-peak parking on the south side (6 lanes wide)
• Sycamore to Reading: current 7-lane configuration remains

 

 

Um, so what is actually different from what exists now?

On 4/24/2019 at 2:30 PM, ryanlammi said:

So basically, I'm looking for information on:

1) How many cars utilize each direction of Liberty during the highest utilized hours?

2) How many cars can each design move at its most efficient?

 

On 4/24/2019 at 2:41 PM, thebillshark said:

NACTO guide says streets up to 25,000 daily volume can be candidates for 4-to-3 lane road diet conversions. Source: https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/streets/neighborhood-main-street/

 

According to the data I obtained from DOTE, Liberty Street's highest traffic was during the 5:00-6:00 p.m. hour, when the street moved 834 eastbound and 845 westbound vehicles, for a total of 1679 vehicles.

 

The 24-hour total for the busiest section of the street was 8619 eastbound and 8628 westbound vehicles, for a total of 17,247 vehicles; so, well below the 25,000 vehicles per day that a street with 3 travel lanes can easily handle.

9 minutes ago, jmecklenborg said:

Um, so what is actually different from what exists now?

 

It is narrowed by one lane between Elm and Sycamore. The total width is reduced from 7 to 6 lanes.

18 minutes ago, taestell said:

 

It is narrowed by one lane between Elm and Sycamore. The total width is reduced from 7 to 6 lanes.

 

So still costly to implement but useless for achieving the goals, good job Cincinnati. 

9 hours ago, taestell said:

 

 

According to the data I obtained from DOTE, Liberty Street's highest traffic was during the 5:00-6:00 p.m. hour, when the street moved 834 eastbound and 845 westbound vehicles, for a total of 1679 vehicles.

 

The 24-hour total for the busiest section of the street was 8619 eastbound and 8628 westbound vehicles, for a total of 17,247 vehicles; so, well below the 25,000 vehicles per day that a street with 3 travel lanes can easily handle.

 

Yup.  Residents wanted a slow, narrow street, a handful of institutions wanted the parking, but the constant all along was that DOTE would not accept any tradeoff that required reduction of capacity, even when the NACTO numbers suggest a reduced capacity street may work.  So, we'll end up with a Frankenstein of a street.  

Edited April 30, 20196 yr by thebillshark

I'll repeat that I would rather have the mayor's 7-lane with bump-out plan than this 6-lane plan. It's embarrassing. At least we could justify right-sizing the street in 3 years if we just add bump-outs now.

New plan for narrowing Liberty Street heads to vote

 

 

Cincinnati City Council could vote today on a new plan to narrow Liberty Street, although it probably will not have the potential to return the same amount of land for redevelopment as the one originally supported by a council majority and nearby neighborhoods.

 

The latest conceptual plan calls for Liberty to be reduced from seven lanes to six, with the city eliminating one lane of traffic on the south side of the road. The northernmost lane would have 24-hour per day parking. The five remaining lanes would have two traffic lanes in each direction and a combination of turn lanes and medians in the center, while the southernmost lane could have parking after 7 p.m.

 

The city administration would gather additional community input before releasing a final design for the project, said Councilman Chris Seelbach, its sponsor.

 

The new plan is different from the five-lane plan endorsed by all of the area community councils and council Democrats with the exception of Pendleton, which is located mostly outside of the project area, and Councilman David Mann. That plan also would have returned up to 20 feet of developable land to the south side of the street. 

 

Liberty Street was two lanes until the 1950s, when the city demolished dozens of buildings to make it wider. 

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/05/01/new-plan-for-narrowing-liberty-street-heads-to.html

20 minutes ago, ColDayMan said:

New plan for narrowing Liberty Street heads to vote

 

 

Cincinnati City Council could vote today on a new plan to narrow Liberty Street, although it probably will not have the potential to return the same amount of land for redevelopment as the one originally supported by a council majority and nearby neighborhoods.

 

The latest conceptual plan calls for Liberty to be reduced from seven lanes to six, with the city eliminating one lane of traffic on the south side of the road. The northernmost lane would have 24-hour per day parking. The five remaining lanes would have two traffic lanes in each direction and a combination of turn lanes and medians in the center, while the southernmost lane could have parking after 7 p.m.

 

The city administration would gather additional community input before releasing a final design for the project, said Councilman Chris Seelbach, its sponsor.

 

The new plan is different from the five-lane plan endorsed by all of the area community councils and council Democrats with the exception of Pendleton, which is located mostly outside of the project area, and Councilman David Mann. That plan also would have returned up to 20 feet of developable land to the south side of the street. 

 

Liberty Street was two lanes until the 1950s, when the city demolished dozens of buildings to make it wider. 

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/05/01/new-plan-for-narrowing-liberty-street-heads-to.html

 

Note that the accompanying photo shows the original plan, not the 6-lane plan. 

So under the current plan, the sidewalk along the south side of Liberty will be extended to where the cars are parked in that photo, right? If parking is still going to be allowed on that side of the street, then the eastbound side of Liberty will have one travel lane and a turn lane or median depending on the block? I'm still confused about the alignment of this project, but it seems like the wider sidewalk would at least be an improvement over current conditions, and a better option than the proposed bump outs.

Another "worse option" compromise from this administration.

 

The only glimmer of hope is that one day a more bike-friendly leadership/DOTE paradigm can install protected bike lanes on it.

40 minutes ago, edale said:

So under the current plan, the sidewalk along the south side of Liberty will be extended to where the cars are parked in that photo, right? If parking is still going to be allowed on that side of the street, then the eastbound side of Liberty will have one travel lane and a turn lane or median depending on the block? I'm still confused about the alignment of this project, but it seems like the wider sidewalk would at least be an improvement over current conditions, and a better option than the proposed bump outs.

 

You got it, except during rush hour. During rush hour the parking on the south side will become a travel lane. So there will be no parking buffer between the sidewalk and the cars going 45 mph. 

11 minutes ago, JYP said:

Another "worse option" compromise from this administration.

 

The only glimmer of hope is that one day a more bike-friendly leadership/DOTE paradigm can install protected bike lanes on it.

 

If we would just shrink it to 5 lanes now with parking on either side (temporary for now until it's proven the road can handle permanent parking almost all the time to further shrink it to 3 lanes of travel all the time) we wouldn't need bike lanes because the street would be designed to look like a 25mph zone.

Some Tea Partier is Solon is sure to find out about this and definitely vote for Cranley for U.S. Senate when he runs as a Republican

2 hours ago, ryanlammi said:

 

If we would just shrink it to 5 lanes now with parking on either side (temporary for now until it's proven the road can handle permanent parking almost all the time to further shrink it to 3 lanes of travel all the time) we wouldn't need bike lanes because the street would be designed to look like a 25mph zone.

 

Yes- we could have tried a temporary 3 lane trial at some point during the last seven years,  or taken traffic data when the number of lanes is restricted for other reasons (happens every holiday season in front of the free store food bank,) but we didn’t. 

Edited May 1, 20196 yr by thebillshark

So for those fluent in city zoning...what can actually be built with the extra 10 feet that couldn't before?  

 

Also, I think not narrowing Liberty at Central Parkway is a big missed opportunity to build something nice at that SE corner and redefine the turn into OTR, which is currently pretty unimpressive.  

Council backs new Liberty Street plan

 

 

Liberty Street will be reduced from seven lanes to six, including one 24-hour-a-day parking lane under what supporters hope is the final major vote on the project before Cincinnati’s administration constructs the changes.

 

City Council voted 8-1 for the latest plan, making it veto-proof. Councilman David Mann, a Democrat, opposed it because he was not satisfied with the level of detail offered by the administration about how the street would be narrowed and how much it could still change given that the ordinance calls for even more community engagement. 

 

Mayor John Cranley said positive things about the plan’s co-sponsor, Republican Councilman Jeff Pastor, who the mayor said listened to critics of the plan and pushed for changes. Cranley suggested even more changes to the plan, including discarding plans to narrow the street near Chatfield College, which has concerns about the loss of parking, and starting the project around Walnut Street. Chatfield is on the south side of the street while the 24-hour parking lane will be on the north side. 

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/05/02/council-backs-new-liberty-street-plan.html

LOL at Cranley's "suggested changes" that basically amount to doing nothing. What a worthless idiot. 

I was surprised to see today that the city just installed new curb cuts and painted new crosswalks at the intersection of Liberty and Main. I find it odd that they're doing this now, because, if the most recently approved plan for the Liberty Street Road Diet is still moving forward, the city will be redoing this entire intersection again in the very near future...