Liberty St isn't a "freeway"... but this report on "Case Studies in Freeway Removal" includes a lot of relevant information for what makes a reduction in road capacity work (or not work): http://www.seattle.gov/Transportation/docs/ump/06%20SEATTLE%20Case%20studies%20in%20urban%20freeway%20removal.pdf

 

They include case studies from Portland, San Francisco, Seoul, Chattanooga, Trenton, Vancouver, Toronto, and Milwaukee.

 

This is useful information as we go into the Public Meeting on March 1st with DOTE. We have to communicate that a reduction in capacity is a) what the people want and b) won't have adverse effects to surrounding areas.

 

Key findings :

• Reduction of roadway capacity reduces the number of auto trips
  
• “Spillover” traffic can be absorbed
  
• Freeway removal does not require a major shift to transit. 
  
• Freeway removal has a catalytic effect
  
• Design is key
  
• Reductions of roadway capacity must be managed, mitigated and monitored over time.
  
• Freeway removal should only be undertaken after careful consideration of trade-offs.
  
• Freeway removal should be part of a larger strategy.
  

If you could claw back 20 feet of land from Liberty Street, I think it would be really cool for the pocket park on the SE corner of Central Parkway and Liberty.  You could plant a new line of trees adjacent to the narrowed street, and they could form a canopy along with the current trees planted along the edge of the current street over a nice little promenade.

Yeah - though I think it'd be best to add a corner building. If Chatfield College wants to expand, that'd be a perfect space for a new building. You could fit a building that is 90' deep with more than 8,000 sq ft foot print. Then the "pocket park" could extend east. That row of locust trees is nice, and it'd be even nicer with another row parallel to them in the narrowed Liberty right of way. The older, more mature trees are also create a nice space.

The good news is that it's all City-owned property, so presumably it could happen pretty easily IF the city were on board and wanted to encourage this kind of development.

I know the City isn't looking at the Liberty road diet west of Central Parkway... but if they did, they could get rid of the awkward curved section of Liberty between Central Ave and Central Parkway. The southern edge has a radius of 954' and the northern edge has a radius of 1050'. That block looks like the street is bloated, with a beer belly spilling over its waistline. Not a good look for an urban block.

 

On a related note, what's the story behind the building on the SW corner of that intersection? Looks like it has an Oakley logo on it. I think it was originally built as a bank, but I can't remember which bank.

The good news is that it's all City-owned property, so presumably it could happen pretty easily IF the city were on board and wanted to encourage this kind of development.

 

Yeah, the diagram you attached would be a good balance between encouraging development on an all-important corner spot and maintaining existing trees.  If not a Chatfield College expansion then a Sam Adams tap room with condos or apartments or office above perhaps. 

I know the City isn't looking at the Liberty road diet west of Central Parkway... but if they did, they could get rid of the awkward curved section of Liberty between Central Ave and Central Parkway. The southern edge has a radius of 954' and the northern edge has a radius of 1050'. That block looks like the street is bloated, with a beer belly spilling over its waistline. Not a good look for an urban block.

 

On a related note, what's the story behind the building on the SW corner of that intersection? Looks like it has an Oakley logo on it. I think it was originally built as a bank, but I can't remember which bank.

 

One could argue the section of Liberty in the West End between I-75 to Central Parkway needs a road diet just as much as the OTR portion.  It seems there is an equal or greater amount of pedestrian traffic trying to cross the street in that area.

You're right about the amount of pedestrian traffic... that stretch of Liberty has a lot of people walking back and forth, due to the large apartment complexes on the north and south side of Liberty. Back in 2014, CMHA announced in their 5-year strategic plan that they expected to demolish the Stanley Rowe Towers... but I haven't heard anything since then.

 

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2014/05/26/public-housing-slated-demolition/9602943/

I know the City isn't looking at the Liberty road diet west of Central Parkway... but if they did, they could get rid of the awkward curved section of Liberty between Central Ave and Central Parkway. The southern edge has a radius of 954' and the northern edge has a radius of 1050'. That block looks like the street is bloated, with a beer belly spilling over its waistline. Not a good look for an urban block.

 

I have been thinking the same thing. When they narrow Liberty east of Central Parkway, they will be forced to address that curved block in one way or another since that's where Liberty would funnel down from 7 lanes to 5 (or less). However they will probably only re-stripe this block and not redo the streetscape until some point in the future when the road diet moves west.

I recorded audio from tonight's presentation. The audio quality is not good at all, but here it is in case anybody wants to listen: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/224802/March%201%20-%20Liberty%20St%20meeting.m4a

 

If you weren't there, here's a quick summary: 3-lane option is considered unfeasible because it resulted in unworkable backups in the models. 4-lane option is considered too unsafe, so DOTE is not considered going forward. 5 lane option was the most popular option, based on # of votes in the online poll. The curb-side lanes would be parking in non-peak times (7pm-7am). This configuration creates develop-able space by adding 20' to the southern side, and could be converted to the 3-lane option by adding bump outs in the future.

 

The other options were variations of 6 and 7-lane options that nobody, not even the presenters, wanted to talk about.

 

The "goal" of the meeting was to pick a "second option" - in addition to the 5-lane option - to study further. But it seems like the 5-lane option is really the only one that anybody was interested in.

 

Although it's not my first choice configuration, I would be happy if the city moved forward with the 5-lane option as it represent such a huge improvement over the status quo. The hours of street parking could be negotiated over time to increase the hours during which parking is allowed, hopefully eventually being extended to 24-hours, and then bumpouts could be added at the intersections. By adding 20' to each of the parcels on the southern side of the street, I think it would make those parcels significantly more attractive for development... which ultimately will have the most dramatic impact on changing the Liberty streetscape.

 

Good news. I couldn't make it, but it sounds like it turned out great. That's my opinion exactly. We can always convert that option to the 3 lane option with permanent parking on either side.

 

I would rather not move forward than use one of the six/seven lane configurations.

Yeah, the main goal should be shrinking the width of the road and creating additional land for development. How the lanes are configured for parking, bike lanes, etc. is far less important in my opinion (though I always lean toward maintaining as much street parking as possible as it greatly improves pedestrian comfort compared to fast moving traffic immediately adjacent a sidewalk).

The 5 lane option is my preference as well. I guess my second choice would be the newer 3-lane option (3B?) that included 1 travel lane in each direction, a center turn lane, and dedicated bike lanes on both sides. Although somehow that 3B option was extremely wide and didn't result in much space being given back for development.

I'm all for the 5 lane option as well. It gives back 20' of development space to the south side which is a huge amount of land. Across 4-5 stories of buildings that can easily be an extra 15-25 residential units per block depending on size of units. That's a lot of additional people that can fit into that space.

 

And more importantly, as others have pointed out, the 5 lane option is only one quick step away from being the 3 lane option with permanent parking lanes. Incremental improvements are sometimes the only way to fix a problem.

 

The 6 and 7 lane options are laughable and should be thrown away immediately. They aren't an improvement at all.

Let's not forget, when it comes time to actually implement the plan, we need to push city council to find a way to fund the burying of utilities along Liberty Street.

This article is behind the pay wall, but you can join WCPO right now for the special rate of $20/year: (and save $10 more with the promotion code DYER):

 

http://www.wcpo.com/news/insider/liberty-street-option-some-neighbors-prefer-for-narrowing-street-might-not-be-feasible

 

It's got some good graphics and good in depth analysis by the author Joe Rosemeyer. 

 

Here's the interesting part:

 

About 20,000 vehicles a day is the maximum the FHWA says is feasible for a three-lane road diet; as for rush-hour traffic load, the FHWA says anything above 875 vehicles per hour per direction probably won't work.

 

The city data is a mixed bag, with the average daily traffic coming in below the recommended maximum, but some key areas of Liberty Street hitting well above the maximum rush-hour load.

 

Specifically, data from the section between Elm and Race streets showed 16,000 to 17,000 vehicles on Liberty on Nov. 13 and 14, 2012; that's well below the 20,000-vehicle threshold the federal government uses as guidance.

 

At this point there is a graphic with traffic by 15 minute breakdowns and it looks there's about 700-800 vehicles per direction for 4:30-5:30 PM.

 

But a week earlier, at Vine Street, a city consultant counted 912 vehicles headed westbound during Wednesday evening rush hour on Nov. 7, 2012; the next day, the consultant counted 966 vehicles headed westbound at Race Street during the same evening rush hour, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., suggesting the high load wasn't a one-day fluke.

 

So it appears it's right at a threshold....

I heard an interesting tidbit earlier this week. Apparently some of the money that was originally going to be used for the Liberty Street narrowing project was diverted to be used for the Ziegler Park project. Now, I think Ziegler Park is a great project that will have a big positive impact on the neighborhood. But I think some politics were being played to push the Ziegler Park project forward in order to take money away from the Liberty Street project.

I heard an interesting tidbit earlier this week. Apparently some of the money that was originally going to be used for the Liberty Street narrowing project was diverted to be used for the Ziegler Park project. Now, I think Ziegler Park is a great project that will have a big positive impact on the neighborhood. But I think some politics were being played to push the Ziegler Park project forward in order to take money away from the Liberty Street project.

 

That's interesting but I think the current order of projects is appropriate. One, the garage going in under Cutter Playground as part of the Ziegler park project enables the SCPA renovation to take place without building that ugly above ground parking garage that was going to wrap around the building. Two, it will give Main Street a boost and link up with redevelopment efforts going on in Pendleton.

 

If you recall the failed Cincinnati park levy had 5 million in it for Ziegler, yet the project continued without skipping a beat when the levy failed, so maybe if they got that money the Liberty project would have received some seed funds or something.

 

The Liberty narrowing is such a huge project, and has the possibility of opening up so much space for development that I'm sure must have the support of 3cdc. Hopefully it's part of their five year plans or something. Also it's probably a good thing we seeing how the rest of the neighborhood is developing and will see the streetcar begin operations before jumping right in- otherwise we might not build what we end up wanting.

 

As an aside I cannot look at Liberty without seeing this now: https://cincinnatiideas.wordpress.com/liberty-and-race-underground-garage/. I don't think we'll get the density we want without it.

 

 

Liberty should wait for Cranley to be gone so that it can be done right.

A survey of Liberty Street in its current form:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are the lane widths on Liberty today? I don't remember if the DOTE ever mentioned the possibility of reducing lane widths (independent of reducing # of lanes).

^They are 10 feet.

Curb to curb is 70' so the lanes are all 10' wide, which is pretty much what they should be. 

^ and ^^ thanks!

The Business Courier did a great piece on the proposed Liberty Street Road Diet in this week's print edition:

 

Freeing up Liberty Street could spur development

 

Everyone seems to be in support of a narrowed Liberty Street except for the CEO of the Crossroads Health Center, who appears to be completely clueless on urban issues:

 

But Norton said he’s puzzled by the idea of narrowing a road that was widened nearly 60 years ago.

 

“They fought so many years about widening roads. Now they’re talking about narrowing it,” he said. “There’s a lot of money spent on stuff to do stuff that they already spent money doing the opposite on.”

There's another idea to make Liberty Street better

Jun 1, 2016, 2:24pm EDT Updated Jun 1, 2016, 2:26pm EDT

Chris Wetterich

Staff reporter and columnist

Cincinnati Business Courier

 

In Friday’s cover story, we dived into the leading plan to make Liberty Street safer, more pedestrian- and bike-friendly, and to return up to 20 feet of right of way for development.

 

But while it looks like the city is heading in that direction today, it’s not the only plan out there.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/blog/2016/06/another-idea-to-make-liberty-street-better.html

New poll from the Business Courier: Do you support narrowing Liberty Street? Please vote!

This morning there were workers taking down a tall, mature tree next to Crossroad Health Center, where Moore St dead-ends into Liberty. I hate seeing tall trees come down, so I hope there was a good reason it had to come down. Anybody know why it's coming down? The block bounded by Liberty, Walnut, Moore, and 15th is owned/controlled almost entirely by 3CDC ("OTR Holdings LLC") and/or Urban Sites ("BSG2 LLC").

 

Streetview: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1127477,-84.5150463,3a,90y,149.35h,92.86t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sU3VNBQQf0q8WCuh65XTOqw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

Grainy photo from this morning:

 

 

I always see people hanging out under that tree. Maybe they are taking it down to discourage the crowd that gathers there.

I always see people hanging out under that tree. Maybe they are taking it down to discourage the crowd that gathers there.

 

That would be a really terrible "solution"

I always see people hanging out under that tree. Maybe they are taking it down to discourage the crowd that gathers there.

 

I'm afraid that was the motivation... similar to when cities got the misguided idea that their urban parks would be less attractive to criminals if they took away all the trees, and in doing so simply made the parks less attractive to everybody.

I always see people hanging out under that tree. Maybe they are taking it down to discourage the crowd that gathers there.

 

That would be THE WORST reason to take it down. Liberty Street attratcts riff raff BECAUSE it is desolate. Turning it into more of a no mans land by ripping down trees will certainly make things worse and completely repel the everyday pedestrians that balance things out.

My guess would be the proximity to that utility pole is the reason the tree is coming down; the pole looks like it is just for CATV and/or telephone for those few buildings on Moore Street.

I always see people hanging out under that tree. Maybe they are taking it down to discourage the crowd that gathers there.

 

They took out the tree and concreted it. Odd. On Main, we are busting out concrete to add street trees. On Liberty, we're doing the opposite.

There aren't any utilities running from the pole, so I don't think the tree was getting in the way of anything. There were 2 support cables running from the pole to the nearby building, but those cables are just support cables for the post. It doesn't make sense why the tree had to come down.

 

Just a head's up that the next meeting with the Cincinnati DOTE is tomorrow night:  https://www.facebook.com/events/179761635777915/

 

From the engineer's presentation at the last OTR Community Council meeting, there may be some flourishes (curveballs?) added to the basic plan.  One thing that was mentioned was converting Moore St. into a one-way so that a turn lane from westbound Liberty onto Vine could be added (currently a left turn there is prohibited.)  A pedestrian island at Pleasant Street was also mentioned to complete the Washington Park to Findlay Market walkable corridor. 

 

Also after discussion on Facebook tonight, a potential shortfall of the proposed plans is that the current sidewalk width (6' in some places) on the north side of the street may be too narrow for it to be adjacent to a traffic travel lane and feel safe.  My suggestion would be to take some of the width returned to development on the south side (2'-4' or so) and add it to the north side sidewalk, and then add street trees or planter bollards to form a barrier to traffic.  I think eventually the goal would be to make the sidewalk-adjacent travel lanes into permanent parking (which would then form a barrier to traffic,) but I don't think DOTE is ready to take that step yet.  If the north side sidewalk is redone, perhaps the utilities could be buried at the same time giving the street a very nice clean look.  This would be expensive, but this is also meant to be a transformative project, a centerpiece for one of America's greatest historic districts, so we should aim high. 

Hmm. I don't see why Moore Street would need to be converted to one-way for that plan to work. If you could remove the left turn from Liberty to Moore and replace it with a left turn from Liberty to Vine, that would be fine.

I know the City isn't looking at the Liberty road diet west of Central Parkway... but if they did, they could get rid of the awkward curved section of Liberty between Central Ave and Central Parkway. The southern edge has a radius of 954' and the northern edge has a radius of 1050'. That block looks like the street is bloated, with a beer belly spilling over its waistline. Not a good look for an urban block.

 

On a related note, what's the story behind the building on the SW corner of that intersection? Looks like it has an Oakley logo on it. I think it was originally built as a bank, but I can't remember which bank.

 

I've been wondering how they would deal with this section. They could give the northern portion back to Sam Adams and this block would then serve as the transition between the fat and skinny parts Liberty Street.

Hmm. I don't see why Moore Street would need to be converted to one-way for that plan to work. If you could remove the left turn from Liberty to Moore and replace it with a left turn from Liberty to Vine, that would be fine.

 

Yeah. I agree. I think it is because DOTE *thinks* a two-way Moore needs the turn lane off of  Liberty. Right now, that center turn lane allows for a left turn from Liberty onto Moore. If Moore is one-way southbound, then - the "thinking" goes - that turn lane can be removed, allowing for a dedicated turn lane onto Vine. But you could also leave Moore as 2-way and simply prohibit left turns from Liberty eastbound onto Moore. Or alternatively, you could just have Vine and Moore share that turn lane. Yes it would lead to more congestion, but oh well.

 

I'm visiting Spain at the moment, and it is a reminder of how far we in Cincinnati (and more generally in the US) have to go in recognizing that wide streets with fast cars are fundamentally incompatible with urban living. If you want a street to be livable and attractive to businesses/tourists/residents/etc, then you need to design it in a way that will slow cars down. Period. Full stop. If DOTE can't recognize this, then they need to get a new job. At the last meeting, they basically said any design that "reduces capacity" is a non-starter. I hope they change their perspective.

Hmm. I don't see why Moore Street would need to be converted to one-way for that plan to work. If you could remove the left turn from Liberty to Moore and replace it with a left turn from Liberty to Vine, that would be fine.

 

Yeah. I agree. I think it is because DOTE *thinks* a two-way Moore needs the turn lane off of  Liberty. Right now, that center turn lane allows for a left turn from Liberty onto Moore. If Moore is one-way southbound, then - the "thinking" goes - that turn lane can be removed, allowing for a dedicated turn lane onto Vine. But you could also leave Moore as 2-way and simply prohibit left turns from Liberty eastbound onto Moore. Or alternatively, you could just have Vine and Moore share that turn lane. Yes it would lead to more congestion, but oh well.

 

I'm visiting Spain at the moment, and it is a reminder of how far we in Cincinnati (and more generally in the US) have to go in recognizing that wide streets with fast cars are fundamentally incompatible with urban living. If you want a street to be livable and attractive to businesses/tourists/residents/etc, then you need to design it in a way that will slow cars down. Period. Full stop. If DOTE can't recognize this, then they need to get a new job. At the last meeting, they basically said any design that "reduces capacity" is a non-starter. I hope they change their perspective.

 

They haven't changed their perspective yet. I specifically asked about Moore St remaining two way and just eliminating the left turn from Vine. Apparently that's not possible because some people will break the law and make the turn anyways.... That's literally the response I got. I should have followed that up with a question regarding the necessity for things like speed limits.

 

So the other element that was left out of the discussion so far is that the city wants to make Walnut two-way north of Liberty. So this mini-project would consist of:

 

- Adding left turn from Liberty to Vine (and taking away left turn from Liberty to Moore)

- Converting Walnut from one-way southbound to two-way (north of Liberty)

- Converting Moore from two-way to one-way southbound

 

I think that's a good trade that will greatly increase overall mobility.

Another mini-project that was discussed was making Green Street two-way and changing Pleasant Street to one-way southbound north of Liberty. While I'm not a big fan of this whole "let's make Pleasant Street a pedestrian corridor" idea, I think Green Street desperately needs to be changed to two-way as its current configuration makes no sense.

Havent seen this posted before, but found this zooming in on photos again. If the road diet subject had a header image this should be it!

^awesome find!

Question...

 

I know the whole benefit to this road diet would be to return new parcels of land for development. My question, how would that work for Elm St and other streets that don't have vacant parcel land that border Liberty St? For instance Elm and Liberty will cap North of Liberty soon, and South of Liberty on Elm has a remaining block of smaller buildings, without vacant land. Would that street still see potential development on top of the 2 bookends already there? Or would there simply be wider sidewalks and less traffic lands for that particular scenario.

 

 

The road diet would return about 20' to development. Every block on the south of Liberty has open land on it as a result of how Liberty was widened in the first place. Even places like the southwest corner of Elm and Liberty where a building is very close to the corner will see plenty of room for new construction. It could likely integrate existing buildings if necessary as well.

That's absolutely exciting stuff. Still think this should be carried all the way towards sycamore and Pendleton though. I know it's a major corridor that leads to the highway, but people still need to cross the street that live in those areas as well.

That's absolutely exciting stuff. Still think this should be carried all the way towards sycamore and Pendleton though. I know it's a major corridor that leads to the highway, but people still need to cross the street that live in those areas as well.

 

Nothing has been finalized or funded... but the City's DOTE website says "While the project encompass the entire Liberty Street corridor, the first phase will concentrate on Liberty Street from Central Parkway to just east of Sycamore Street."

http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/dote/dote-projects/liberty-street-safety-improvement-study/

I'm wondering if there's some nefarious reason why we haven't heard much about this project recently. Now that 3CDC has acquired a significant chunk of land at Liberty and Elm, and will probably build a parking garage there, maybe they want to preserve the current width of Liberty Street to more easily funnel cars to that garage.

I was actually thinking the opposite. I never had much hope, despite the public engagement process, the the DOTE ever really wanted to narrow the ROW. Now that bigger players are buying property along the south side of Liberty I feel like some major players in the room stand to gain a windfall of 20' of extra developable land. Having a developer, whomever it is, being able to gain 4,500 sqft of extra land to develop in an area as 'hot' as OTR right now seems like there may actually be enough of a push to get this project done.

 

I might be wrong, but I feel like 3CDC (or any developer) would rather have more land to build a larger garage and more apartments above, as opposed to keeping an extra lane of traffic to get in and out of their development. 20'x225' is 25 extra parking spaces (at typical 20'x9' spaces), thats a lot of extra cash even before you add the extra tenant space above.