PG Sittenfield confirmed today on Twitter that they need 1 more council member to vote yes, currently only 5. Vote will take place either tomorrow or thursday.

 

If you haven’t emailed your city council memebers now is the time to do so. It’s do or die at this point for the road diet.

Liberty road diet passed 5-2 today in council...Cranely has said he has not made a decision on whether he will veto the project or not. 

He did say that he expects the project to create a “major traffic jam” (which is total nonsense, of course), so I suspect he might try to veto.

It might help if their is a push to email mayor cranley and persuade him to not veto the project....

 

[email protected]

 

Its worth a shot.

Liberty Street project passes, but its final fate is unknown

 

 

A project to remake Liberty Street by narrowing it from seven to five lanes, adding developable land to the southern part of the street and improving pedestrian safety passed the Cincinnati City Council on Wednesday 5-2, but its fate is uncertain because of Mayor John Cranley’s opposition to it.

 

Cranley could veto the ordinance or let it become law without his signature. His office said the mayor had yet to decide.

 

Council members Chris Seelbach, Greg Landmsan, Wendell Young, Tamaya Dennard and P.G. Sittenfeld backed the measure. All are Democrats. Council members David Mann, a Democrat, and Jeff Pastor, a Republican, voted “no.”

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/10/10/liberty-street-project-passes-but-its-final-fate.html

Ever since FC Cincinnati settled on their West End/OTR location I've been willing to accept that we are probably going to get a watered down version of this plan. That said I don't understand why it is so hard for people to figure out what is proposed. They say "reduce from seven to five lanes" directly underneath a photo of 5 lanes of traffic.

Unsurprisingly, it sounds like Cranley will veto. Does this mean the project is dead for good, or could it theoretically be revived when Cranley leaves office?

 

I’m not 100% sure....I imagine if they put bumpouts and carry through with the watered down version then the original version will be dead for good.

If they add bump outs, you'd have to remove at least the north side bump outs to go back to the original version. If the concern is the water main, then maybe they need to add some protected bike lanes as a buffer. Don't have to move the water main for that. 

5 minutes ago, thomasbw said:

If they add bump outs, you'd have to remove at least the north side bump outs to go back to the original version. If the concern is the water main, then maybe they need to add some protected bike lanes as a buffer. Don't have to move the water main for that. 

Exactly. So maybe in 2021, we can try again. Until then, happy motoring everyone! 

Anybody know where exactly the water main is, relative to the southern curb? Would there be a problem putting sidewalk over the water main? 

I hope those oldsters in Mason are happy. Will they be around to vote for Cranley by the time he runs for statewide office?

1 hour ago, jwulsin said:

Anybody know where exactly the water main is, relative to the southern curb? Would there be a problem putting sidewalk over the water main? 

 

I’d be really interested in this information too. Just how much is this last minute obstacle really an obstacle? Is it being presented as insurmountable when it could be dealt with with a small (cheap) modification to the plan? 

It probably doesn't even exist, or barely exists.  It's like the "electric wire suspended in oil" that Smitherman invented to advertise the impossibility of expanding the streetcar up the Vine St. hill. 

Maybe there is still a chance: 

 

PG Sittenfeld: “Definitely still alive. I think there's a great opportunity for someone like say,

@votePASTOR, to play hero here on a totally non-partisan issue. Alternatively,

@ChrisSeelbach and@dsmann115

could potentially reach a compromise between themselves.

According to the older CAGIS data I have (mid 1990s) there's a 10-inch water main under the north side of the street only, basically aligned with the original street.  

 

 

Looks like Jeff Pastor got on board.

 

 

What a monumental day for OTR. It would  have been such a shame to see a toned down version of the diet with nothing but bump outs like Cranley wanted. Glad PG Sittenfield stepped up to the plate and got city council to sit down and negotiate.

 

I know that some were opposed to the FCC stadium in the West End because of the potential impending doom that it may have brought to the Liberty St diet...but I'm glad we got the best of both worlds; A world class MLS stadium that will draw people from across our suburbs, Ohio, and various states and countries to visit OTR for the very first time...and a long needed diet to Liberty Street that will drastically improve the connectivity of South and North of Liberty into one cohesive historic area (again), and aide in pedestrian safety and walk-ability. It's a win-win in my book. 

Edited October 17, 20186 yr by troeros

I was kinda hoping the next administration would do a better road diet which would really open up room for development.

Bipartisan council coalition set to override Cranley vetoes today

 

Five Democrats and one Republican on Cincinnati City Council are expected today to override Mayor John Cranley’s vetoes of funding for the city’s major business accelerators, the Center for Closing the Health Gap and a project that will narrow Liberty Street to five lanes. 

 

The group of council members expected to vote for the overrides include Republican Jeff Pastor and Democrats Chris Seelbach, P.G. Sittenfeld, Greg Landsman, Wendell Young and Tamaya Dennard. Legislation also will be introduced to tweak the sources of funding for the various items.

 

If the overrides are carried out, it will be a major defeat for the mayor, who held a blistering news conference last week accusing council of fiscal irresponsibility in the closeout budget for fiscal year 2018, which ended on July 1.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/10/17/bipartisan-council-coalition-set-to-override.html

Cranley scolding others for being fiscally irresponsible.  So sez the man who stole $50 million from the pension fund. 

Cranley is still hinting that the road diet won't happen. He's basically saying that council has allocated funding for the project but doesn't require DOTE to move forward with the "final" plan that was presented to the community. So, don't let out a sigh of relief just yet. Cranley's going to keep f***ing with this project.

This project is such a no-brainer but has no real need for urgency that Cranley is just going to keep extracting concessions for the rest of the time he's in office.  He's a spectacular jackass. 

Today marks three months since City Council passed a funding plan for the Liberty Street road diet and instructed the administration to move forward with the project. Yet there is no evidence that the city is doing anything. The city's website for the project hasn't been updated in 6 months. I emailed the new DOTE director yesterday to try to get a status and haven't received a response.

Sounds like the response to the city's bike plan.  "Well there's nothing that SAYS we have to follow through on it."

Except that for the Liberty Street project, City Council did pass a legally binding ordinance providing the funding and directing the admin to move forward with the project. I don't think a similar ordinance exists for the bike plan.

I emailed the DOTE director one week ago to ask for a status update on this project and have received no response.

 

I emailed several council members and they all replied and said they're looking into it.

We did some digging and found that the city is studying several new options for Liberty Street that were not part of the previous community input sessions and do not narrow the total width of the street.

 

What happened to the Liberty Street road diet?

 

The idea of adding bike lanes returned in early October 2018, when city staff began to “brainstorm different scenarios for Liberty Street that do not involve moving the water main,” according to an email sent by a city staff member. The bike lane options would allow for some safety improvements to be implemented without narrowing the total width of the street, so they wouldn’t require the water main to be moved. However, these options would not achieve the “top priority” of the original project: significantly reducing the pedestrian crossing distance and reconnecting the northern and southern halves of the neighborhood.

Reducing the crossing width is critical.  And slowing down the cars.  I cross it daily and feel it is only a matter of time before I become a statistic.  The cars race through, trying to beat the lights going both east and west, and pay no attention to pedestrians or bikes crossing north to south.

To Travis's article, looks like the city is opening up the design again publicly. Just got this notice:

Quote

 

As another mention yesterday included the Liberty Street Safety Improvement Project. We will share all upcoming meetings, so everyone is aware of opportunities to learn more about this project and stay updated. Please see below and one is tonight, 6pm at Chatfield College. 

Liberty St Safety Improvement Project Meetings:

·         OTR Community Council – Parking and Transportation committee mtg – this Thursday (tonight) 7th at 6 pm – confirmed

·         OTR Community Council mtg – Feb 25th (OTR Rec Center) - confirmed 

·         OTR Community Council mtg – March 25th    - To be confirmed

·         Open House in OTR – probably April – To be confirmed

 

 

Unfortunately I have other plans so I can't make it to tonight's meeting. Hopefully residents there will ask some questions about why the city has decided to go back to the drawing board and ignore all of the community input that they have already gathered over the past 5 years.

I don't mind the bicycle options but if the city was serious about on-street bike lanes they would have been presented as options 3 years ago.

The new alternative labeled "Buffered Bike Lane Option 1" is basically what was included in the OTR Brewery District Master Plan. In the one of the Woodward Theater meetings, Jeff Raser asked DOTE to include an alternative like this, and the city added it for the following meeting. However, the city's statement is correct: "Bike lanes were determined to not be a high priority and were eliminated from the options very early in the process. The top priority was pedestrian safety with a focus on the long street crossings that exist today."

 

I think of it this way. The automobile traffic lanes are exactly the same in "Buffered Bike Lane Option 1" and the "5 Lane Option". Both have a center turn lane, one full-time travel lane in each direction, and outer lanes that serve as peak travel lanes/off-peak parking. The only difference is what they do with the remaining 20' of space. The bike lane option keeps the street 90' wide and uses those 20' for bike lanes. The 5 Lane Option narrows the street to 70' and gives 20' back for development.

 

From what I observed at the meetings, the community was overwhelmingly in favor of the 5 Lane Option because it reduced the crossing distance for pedestrians and better accomplished the "stitching the neighborhood back together" goal.

I have been informed that, as @mcmicken said, the city is about to begin doing another round of "public engagement" that will last until April, and the project will ultimately go back to council and the administration for another vote. DOTE now hopes to start construction around spring of 2020.

I still don't understand how DOTE still thinks there's a capacity issue in the basin. If they're worried about people getting to the FC stadium they can just take Central Parkway and it'll take basically the same amount of time.

18 minutes ago, BigDipper 80 said:

I still don't understand how DOTE still thinks there's a capacity issue in the basin. If they're worried about people getting to the FC stadium they can just take Central Parkway and it'll take basically the same amount of time.

I’m starting to think this may be about the parking meter revenue they would forego by having no parking on Liberty 7am-7pm. They are planning on installing parking kiosks

1 hour ago, thebillshark said:

I’m starting to think this may be about the parking meter revenue they would forego by having no parking on Liberty 7am-7pm. They are planning on installing parking kiosks

Easy solution: keep the 5-lane option and allow paid parking all day! That’s my preferred configuration. 

I'd like to see a study estimating the cost of a cut-and-cover tunnel under Liberty between Central Parkway and Reading.  One lane in each direction an a single central access point either at Vine or Main.  Get rid of the "Liberty St. Connector" between Sycamore and Reading and return Liberty St. proper to its original ridiculous narrow width of 20 feet, or whatever it was. 

^ Jake, you should call up your buddy Elon and see if he’d do a Boring Company project for your idea. 

Is there a way on CAGIS (or elsewhere) to view where water mains and sewers are located? 

12 minutes ago, jwulsin said:

Is there a way on CAGIS (or elsewhere) to view where water mains and sewers are located? 

 

 

^Interesting. Is there a way to get more up-to-date info? I pulled down the "yearly" and "quarterly" files from CAGIS, but there doesn't seem to be anything that includes utilities: http://cagis.org/Opendata/File_Info.txt

Yeah, that's not in the public data.  The set I have is about 20 years old now that I got from school, and it includes sewer, water, and electric utilities, but not gas or telecom.  The sheer number of electric poles is monstrously depressing. 

5 hours ago, BigDipper 80 said:

^ Jake, you should call up your buddy Elon and see if he’d do a Boring Company project for your idea. 

 

It would be cut-and-cover. 

2 hours ago, jjakucyk said:

Yeah, that's not in the public data.  The set I have is about 20 years old now that I got from school, and it includes sewer, water, and electric utilities, but not gas or telecom.  The sheer number of electric poles is monstrously depressing. 

 

The public GIS data can be downloaded here:

 

http://cagismaps.hamilton-co.org/cagisportal/mapdata/download

 

I believe the utility information can be found by sending FOIA requests to the respective bodies - GCWW, MSD, etc. I think they charge a fee.

5 hours ago, jwulsin said:

Is there a way on CAGIS (or elsewhere) to view where water mains and sewers are located? 

 

In one of the Business Courier's articles, a DOTE official implied that if the street were narrowed, the water main would be located under the sidewalk on the south side of the street. He said that we couldn't have manholes in the sidewalk and that's the reason the water main would need to be moved. I don't understand that explanation, because there are plenty of places in the city where there are manholes in the sidewalk, including several streetcar stops and the new sidewalk bump-outs on Main Street.

 

This is just another anecdote that leads me to believe that the water main issue is a macguffin and the real issue is stadium traffic.

Here's an example of a sewer manhole right in the middle of a sidewalk. I'd love to know why sewer manholes are OK but water manholes aren't.

What exactly is a water manhole? You don't enter a water main as it is a closed system where the sewer system is not.  Are you referring to on of the a curb key cover?

I have no idea, I'm just going off of DOTE's statement that the water main can't be located under the sidewalk because you can't have manholes in the sidewalk, which is clearly false.