Police: Taser doesn't stop 'combative' highway bicylist

 

A bicyclist led Campbell County police on a more than six-mile-long chase Tuesday afternoon on westbound Interstate 275 before being subdued by a Taser and arrested several counties into Northern Kentucky.

 

That's quite an impressive bike ride - climbing several hundred feet of hill after having been tazed is no small feat.

He was juicing.

More local bike news...bicyclist found dead in creek after flipping over guardrail at 1am.  So we can reasonably speculate that this guy had his license suspended and was biking home from a bar: 

 

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/brown-county/bicyclist-found-dead-in-brown-county-creek-identified

Woman who hit and killed Michael Prater back in January sentenced to 13 years:

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/anderson-township/driver-melinda-woodall-sentenced-to-13-years-for-killing-cyclist-michael-prater

 

I don't like how this article goes out of its way to mention that he was wearing a helmet.  It's a reporting habit carried over from motorcycle accidents.  Fact is that motorcycle helmets do a ton more to protect people on motorcycles than do bicycle helmets.  Someone riding a motorcycle without a helmet is much more of a fool than someone without a helmet on a bicycle. 

If they didn't mention it everyone would probably be blaming the cyclist assuming he wasn't wearing a helmet. Why not include the info? It seems relevant even if it isn't as effective as a motorcycle helmet.

Everyone who rides road bikes wears a helmet every time and they all wear them properly.  The moms who this sort of reporting is geared toward are the ones forcing their kids to wear helmets while riding training wheel bikes around their driveways, and they basically never are wearing the helmets correctly.  Go for a ride on the Loveland trail and you'll see kid after kid wearing helmets improperly. 

^I hear ya.  But I think in this case, because the prosecution made a big deal about how his head smashed her windshield, it's relevant information.

With the popularity Red Bike has had in the basin/uptown and NKY, I wonder if there is any thought to expand to other clustered neighborhoods? Putting stations in Oakley, Madisonville, Hyde Park, Columbia Tusculm, Mt. Lookout, O'bryonville, and maybe one by Xavier....i would think this would prove to be popular and a great way to get between the neighborhood business districts.

We actually just interviewed Red Bike's Executive Director Jason Barron on The UrbanCincy Podcast and asked about future expansion possibilities. In terms of expanding into new neighborhoods vs. filling in the gaps in existing neighborhoods, he said he is looking for more feedback from places like UrbanCincy. So feel free to leave a comment on the episode linked above if you have a strong preference one way or the other.

 

My gut feeling is that we need to focus on filling in the gaps within neighborhoods before expanding. He mentioned that they got a grant specifically to install the one station in Northside. So if somebody is stepping up and paying to add stations in Oakley or Madisonville, go for it. But Red Bike wants to get more return on their investment, they should add more stations that make people more likely to use Red Bike for short trips.

If you're interested in Red Bike, I highly recommend the latest episode of the Urban Cincy podcast:

http://www.urbancincy.com/2016/09/episode-64-jason-barron-of-red-bike/

 

They talk about expansion strategies... and the pros/cons of each approach. Jason Barron seems to be a smart guy and has the right set of priorities for growing the system.

 

Our hills represent a big (obvious) challenge for the system, so I was surprised that they didn't even touch on the idea of integrating electric bikes into the system. There are several bike share systems around the world that have begun to incorporate electric bikes. I was in Madrid recently, and despite being a relatively flat city, they have a lot of electric bikes. I'm curious to learn more about how much additional it would cost to support a fleet of electric bikes. It might not be worth the $$, but I'd like to see the option explored.

 

 

 

With the popularity Red Bike has had in the basin/uptown and NKY, I wonder if there is any thought to expand to other clustered neighborhoods? Putting stations in Oakley, Madisonville, Hyde Park, Columbia Tusculm, Mt. Lookout, O'bryonville, and maybe one by Xavier....i would think this would prove to be popular and a great way to get between the neighborhood business districts.

 

 

I live in Mt. Lookout and the square is really close to Hyde Park Square, almost exactly 1 mile if not less going up Lindale.  That also could be a fairly tough hill for people to navigate.  I think there wouldn't be too much demand between Mt. Lookout and Hyde Park considering they aren't too far away at all and the hill.  Mt Lookout to Oakley would also be tough with the steep hills in between Wasson and Lindale.  Oakley and Hyde Park could be pretty popular but they would probably need to add some signage or something of the sort to navigate the best route between.  Just my $0.02

Hyde Park and Oakley have the benefit of being accessible to Wasson Way without needing to navigate any steep hills. So, Red Bike is looking at connecting Xavier to those neighborhoods, building off the spine of Wasson Way.

 

Barron also discussed the opportunity of growing Red Bike in the West End, which has lots of residents and has the potential to be a very bike friendly neighborhood: flat topography, short distances,  proximity to CBD and OTR.

I live and work in CUF and I hardly ever see anyone using the bikes.  Many days -- weeks even -- without a single sighting.  I saw zero during the winter months last year and have seen people riding one near UC perhaps 5 times all summer.  One time back in June or July I saw a gang of 20 people riding them the wrong way on Calhoun.  They obviously emptied out more than one station full of bikes. 

 

I did see a girl riding assertively up W. Clifton at the bend last week.  It was the first time I've ever seen a girl going up any of the hills who looks like she does it routinely.  She had the right kind of bike -- a relatively new and lightweight aluminum commuter bike with toe clips. 

 

I've gotten two flat tires on Spring Grove so far this year.  The city is not sweeping that road to the curb routinely.  Last week I saw a screwdriver -- not a screw...a screwdriver -- in the bike lane.  The amount of gravel and other debris on Spring Grove at the bend near Hopple is probably the worst spot.  The street sweeper is clearly cutting that corner every single time. 

 

 

I've gotten two flat tires on Spring Grove so far this year.  The city is not sweeping that road to the curb routinely.  Last week I saw a screwdriver -- not a screw...a screwdriver -- in the bike lane.  The amount of gravel and other debris on Spring Grove at the bend near Hopple is probably the worst spot.  The street sweeper is clearly cutting that corner every single time. 

 

Report it to the city's customer service system.  Mention that it's posing a dangerous situation (gravel and other debris can cause you to crash) and the city can't be so lax about addressing it. 

My gut feeling is that we need to focus on filling in the gaps within neighborhoods before expanding. He mentioned that they got a grant specifically to install the one station in Northside. So if somebody is stepping up and paying to add stations in Oakley or Madisonville, go for it. But Red Bike wants to get more return on their investment, they should add more stations that make people more likely to use Red Bike for short trips.

 

The other thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is that expansion to additional neighborhoods would complicate the process of rebalancing the stations as they fill up, possibly even necessitating an additional truck or workers. Whereas filling in gaps should alleviate some of that problem, making rebalancing less of an issue. The more that a system like this can operate without human intervention, the better.  That being said, it would be great if Red Bike eventually did expand, but I think better converge in downtown, OTR, Covington, Newport, and Bellevue is the better option in the short term.

I noticed about a month ago that there is a switchback going from Central Parkway up to MLK/Hopple street that is pretty much done. Why can't we have more stuff in the city like this?! It was so nice to be able to take my time going up the grade rather than having cars flying past.

 

It is still technically closed (I emailed the project manager to see when it would be opened), but there is enough room by the closed signs to scrape by.

 

It's not a great design though, as it just drops you perpendicular to Central Parkway. Anyone know if there is any reasonable design to integrate that in to bike lanes if the city decides to continue them further up Central? I can't imagine anything that doesn't involve a full interchange or a bike/pedestrian bridge.

 

I can take pictures in the next day or two if anyone is curious about this.

Seriously?  Just received this today, for a request submitted in MARCH.  Fuck Cranley. 

 

Service Request #SR16018038

Staff Closing Comments:

Unable to sweep between cones on bike lanes.

The status of your request for service has been changed to CLOSED.

If the service requested was for Rumpke recycling, Duke Energy, Cincinnati Bell, ODOT, Time Warner, or Cincinnati Gaslight, the request has been forwarded to the appropriate outside agency.

If the request was for a City service, the service has been completed or scheduled by the assigned department.

If you believe that this request should not be closed, because the work has not been completed or the problem still exists, please send me a message [email protected] or call (513) 591-6000.

Service Request #: SR16018038

Type of R! equest: < STRONG>STREET SWEEPING

Status of Request: Record Closed, work completed or no longer necessary

Priority of request: STANDARD

Address: 2310 CENTRAL PKWY

Location: 2310 CENTRAL PKWY, CINC - GJ1324133571

Community: CUF

Description: Request entered through the Web. Refer to Intake Questions for further description.

INTAKE QUESTIONS

1. Is there debris in the roadway? Yes

2. If there is debris in the roadway, what is it? Gravel, dirt, broken glass, sticks, automobile debris (hub caps, windshield wipers, broken turn signals)

3. What section of the street would you like swept? Central Parkway bike lanes between Liberty Street and Marshall Avenue

4. Please provide any additional information that may help us serve you. Lots of gravel and dirt and sticks and other debris in the bike lanes on b! oth sides of the street, especially in the block between McMillan and Marshall. It's to the point that it's actually dangerous, beyond dangerous even.

Date of Request: 03/15/2016

Time of request: 8:56 PM

 

You should send an email as a followup and see how the city justifies this. As I've said before, how hard is it to buy a John Deere Gator and use that for plowing the snow and sweeping the bike lanes? For them to act like it's "impossible" to maintain the bike lanes is absurd.

The cities standard street sweepers fit just fine in the bike lanes, I have seen them sweeping the bike lanes on two occasions, albeit both were shortly after the bike lanes were built (and I haven't seen them since).

BCycle just announced their two newest bikes, the Dash and the Dash+: http://www.bcycle.com/single-news-item/2016/10/12/bcycle-introduces-bike-share-industry-s-first-fully-integrated-ecosystem

 

I'm really glad Cincinnati decided to go with BCycle because it's clear they are - at least for now - still investing in improving the technology (bikes, apps, stations) that will make the system continue to improve over time.

 

The Dash is their newest "smart" bike (built-in GPS and touchscreen) will be able to be "docked" at existing stations or at any traditional bike rack. I'm not clear how this will work in practice. How will they know if a bike is at a public bike rack versus in somebody's apartment? I assume they've figured out the details - maybe there are only designated places you can dock it, which are verified by GPS... in which case, it could make the system more flexible and able to expand to certain areas without needing to build additional stations.

 

The Dash+ is an electric bike with a mid-mounted motor. I'm excited about this because it could help a lot in a hilly city like Cincinnati. Midmount motors are much better at handling hills than hub motors. I'm hoping that the Dash+ can integrate with our existing stations without any expensive modifications. If that's the case, I'd love to see Red Bike add some of the Dash+ bikes to their fleet to see if/how they change the nature of which hills are "navigable".

 

 

The lack of a top tube continues to force the entire bike to be much heavier than it would be otherwise.  There aren't many women in dresses jumping on these things.  So everyone suffers because 2% of the potential ridership is wearing a skirt or whatever. 

On the podcast with Jason Barron, he was talking about the heavier weight of the bike being an advantage for people that haven't been on a bike in 10+ years, which I think is a good number of Red Bike riders.

In most cities with bike shares, as the number of bike share rides goes up, the number of private (non-bike share) rides ALSO go up. In other words, the bike share systems are not "cannibalizing" existing bikers. Rather, they're getting more bikes on the street, which makes the streets more welcoming to all bikers. In other words, the bikes are not optimized for a confident biker like jmecklenborg[/member], and that's ok because the system is targeting a different audience.

 

I think the Red Bikes' combination of the weight, the lack of a top tube (a benefit to all riders, not just those who wear skirts), and the geometry (handle bars above seat)... all make for a very "reassuring" ride, especially for cyclists who are new to riding in urban environments. Of course, those traits also make the bikes less efficient and harder to climb hills. But overall, I believe the Red Bikes are the right design for the job they need to perform, which is to maximize the number of non-bikers comfortable hopping on a bike for short trips.

 

That's why I'm excited for the Dash+, because it will retain the benefits of being very comfortable but also gain power to allow for the ability to climb hills. In Madrid, <a href="https://www.accessiblemadrid.com/en/blog/bicimad-public-bike-rental-service-madrid">their bike share system</a> has ~1,500 electric bikes and it's great to see how easily people are able to traverse the city.

To help with the issues on the cleaning of the bike lanes in some areas, instead of taking it on as individual citizens would it make sense to get those who run redbike and the city cycle advocates to push it instead. It seems like they would have more pull in the system especially with redbike being one of the things the mayor seems to tout as a success. Hate to see a new redbike user crash in an unswept pile of glass and gravel on the parkway. Especially in an election year. :wink:

 

I was just looking around on Google Maps and found that Canton, Ohio has contraflow bike lanes:

 

 

It's so insane that Canton is adding these super-progressive features to make cycling easier and Cincinnati continues to drag our feet.

^Straight alignment, flat grade, wide street - In fairness, it wasn't that hard. Cincinnati streets simply aren't that easy.

 

This particular street in the photo doesn't look all that inviting. Not only does it pass through a sea of parking lots, it is cut off from adjoining property by fences.

Cleveland has one by Cleveland State University, whereas there is a contraflow lane and a shared lane in the opposing direction. The one pictured isn't in a super high traffic area, but it's surprising Canton, a notably blue collar community, has this. And back-in angled parking spots too? (Faints.)

 

Cincinnati still has many more bike lanes than Canton probably ever will, and has the protected bike lanes on Central Parkway. For what it's worth, those protected lanes bring more casual cyclists out of the woodwork a regular bike lane and contraflow lane will ever do - even if they are no longer being maintained (per jjakucyk[/member]),

^Straight alignment, flat grade, wide street - In fairness, it wasn't that hard. Cincinnati streets simply aren't that easy.

 

This particular street in the photo doesn't look all that inviting. Not only does it pass through a sea of parking lots, it is cut off from adjoining property by fences.

 

Well this street started out as a five lanes wide (three travel lanes with parallel parking on both sides) and you can still see that if you click on the image to go to Street View and set the date back. They seem to be taking traffic calming seriously there, as they reduced it to two travel lanes, added 2 bike lanes, and moved all the parking to one side which allowed a pretty substantial bump-outs at crosswalks, significantly reducing the crossing distance for pedestrians.

 

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it seems like everywhere except for Cincinnati is catching on, doing road diets, and adding bike lanes. The only place I have seen contraflow bike lanes in person was Portland. What do Portland and Canton have in common? Very little. But they both make it work. We could make it work, too, but we don't have the will.

I get your point, and I agree that Cincinnati could use much more in the way of protected bike lanes and such.  That said, Canton could probably close off some streets entirely and call them bike/pedestrian paths and still not have it effect traffic in any way.  It's got a road network that far exceeds the daily demand for the shrunken market it serves.  In contrast, some of the streets in Cincinnati that could most benefit from bike lanes, such as Taft and McMillan in Uptown serve huge numbers of cars basically non-stop for 12-15 hours a day. Relieving pressure points (like the MLK exit hopefully will for Taft) is a key to freeing up some of these streets for more bike infrastructure.  When a street is clogged with cars all the time, the concept of removing lanes so that a few dozen bikes can move through in a dedicated lane sounds like lunacy.  The conflict is, of course, that these are the streets that are most dangerous for cyclists.  A street that doesn't receive that much traffic relative to its capacity is one where cycling in the roadway would generally be acceptable.  It's a tricky situation, for sure, and it's only exacerbated by the sorry state of public transit in the city.

When we have these discussions with the DOTE everyone gets so bent out of shape about the amount of cars a street can handle, like Cincinnati somehow has Atlanta or NYC levels of traffic. It doesn't. And these cities have bike lanes everywhere. Human beings don't start out in cars, its not our default position. We need to remember that the roads are for people first and we just kinda gave them to automobile drivers because traffic.

 

So we should take them back!

We need to remember that the roads are for people first and we just kinda gave them to automobile drivers because traffic.

 

Explain. Roads exist to move vehicles (a bike is a vehicle), sidewalks exist to move pedestrians.

No. A road is a type of right of way, which is used to move people between things in non-rights of way, like buildings. A person can move on foot, bike, horse, moped, car, or train. Depends on what the right of way is designed to give preference to. Cincinnati made the decision at some point to make it really easy to drive. If we woke up tomorrow and there was a singe narrow car lane and 30 feet for bikes, people would bike. And we'd change our land use patterns to accommodate the newly preferred mode of transport.

No. A road is a type of right of way, which is used to move people between things in non-rights of way, like buildings. A person can move on foot, bike, horse, moped, car, or train. Depends on what the right of way is designed to give preference to. Cincinnati made the decision at some point to make it really easy to drive. If we woke up tomorrow and there was a singe narrow car lane and 30 feet for bikes, people would bike. And we'd change our land use patterns to accommodate the newly preferred mode of transport.

 

I'm sorry, but you're getting into a theoretical explanation of what a road is, rather than speaking in real terms. What about the movement of goods? Is that not an important function of roads? Roads, as we use the term colloquially, are the pathways we've allocated for vehicles to move through. We don't call pathways on college campuses roads because they move people from point A to point B.

 

If there was a single narrow car lane and 30 feet for bikes, people might bike assuming they're going a relatively short distance, they're able bodied, they're not hauling anything with them, they're not going up a huge hill, etc. Bikes move a very small number of people, even in the most bike-friendly locales, and it's not just because we've 'made driving easy.' To deny the usefulness of cars and trucks as means of transport and as a necessary tool for economic advancement is stupid, imo. Not every street should be as auto-centric as Taft or MLK, but not every street should be as pedestrian focused as say, Pleasant Street. 

It's important to consider the difference between a "road" and a "street" (and an "alley" for that matter). Even though we think of those suffixes as meaningless these days, there was a meaningful distinction historically. Roads are optimized for getting people from Point A to Point B. Streets are optimized for circulating people around between the various destinations along that street, not for long-distance travel. So if bike lanes, raised crosswalks, and other traffic calming features slow down travel times on a street... drivers just need to deal with it because streets should not be designed for maximum speed or minimal travel time.

 

I think it's easier to understand John's point if you look at a picture of a street from the 1930s. Yes, there were typically sidewalks distinct from the rest of the street, but you usually didn't have "lanes" at that time. The street was kind of a free-for-all where bikes, cars, streetcars, pedestrians, horses, etc., had to slow down and watch where they were going. The idea of travel lanes didn't really start until the automobile lobby pushed the idea that streets were for motor vehicles and pedestrians shouldn't be in that ROW. And they invented the term "jaywalking" to describe pedestrians in the street. But this is actually somewhat counterintuitive. By adding lines and traffic signs and traffic lights, you require the driver to think less and take less responsibility for the way they drive. When a driver hits a pedestrian (even when they're in a crosswalk!) we blame the pedestrian for getting in the car's way.

in an effort to make everyone slow down and actually think about the way they drive. Cincinnati took a baby step towards this with the redesign of Short Vine but they didn't go far enough. Even though they essentially made it into a "woonerf" they couldn't help themselves put to put back all of the signs and pavement markings.

^If you want to do that, you pretty much have to take away all the traffic control devices all over town. People aren't going to get it if it's only 1 or 2 streets.

We need to remember that the roads are for people first and we just kinda gave them to automobile drivers because traffic.

 

Explain. Roads exist to move vehicles (a bike is a vehicle), sidewalks exist to move pedestrians.

 

Start reading here and follow the related links:  http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2009/071209.html

I think it's easier to understand John's point if you look at a picture of a street from the 1930s. Yes, there were typically sidewalks distinct from the rest of the street, but you usually didn't have "lanes" at that time. The street was kind of a free-for-all where bikes, cars, streetcars, pedestrians, horses, etc., had to slow down and watch where they were going. The idea of travel lanes didn't really start until the automobile lobby pushed the idea that streets were for motor vehicles and pedestrians shouldn't be in that ROW. And they invented the term "jaywalking" to describe pedestrians in the street. But this is actually somewhat counterintuitive. By adding lines and traffic signs and traffic lights, you require the driver to think less and take less responsibility for the way they drive. When a driver hits a pedestrian (even when they're in a crosswalk!) we blame the pedestrian for getting in the car's way.

in an effort to make everyone slow down and actually think about the way they drive. Cincinnati took a baby step towards this with the redesign of Short Vine but they didn't go far enough. Even though they essentially made it into a "woonerf" they couldn't help themselves put to put back all of the signs and pavement markings.

 

I get the concept of the woonerf, and I've experienced them first hand in travels to The Netherlands. They work on narrow streets that don't carry many cars.  I went to planning school, I get the basic concepts of shared streets and what not, and I'm not against any of these things.  But there's an over romanticization of the shared street concept, mostly due to the quaint images of small Dutch towns that come to mind when describing the concept.  Look at traffic patterns in cities in modern India, Africa, SE Asia for what happens when you have minimal traffic infrastructure and large loads of vehicles (bikes, cars, motorbikes, etc) using the roads/streets.  It's chaos.  Pictures from the 1930s also look chaotic, and I would think that the idealized, imagined versions of what these streets were like would be far less desirable if we were actually able to go back in time and experience them first-hand. If we want to reduce road capacities, we need to offer better options for public transportation, so that people have options to leave their cars at home.  The answer isn't just making driving (the dominant mode of transportation in Cincinnati and this country) more inconvenient.  That impacts bus riders just as much as it does drivers, and it simply stalls economic output and diminishes quality of life.  I'm not opposed to bike infrastructure at all- far from it.  My initial post was simply trying to point out the difficulties of implementing bike infrastructure on highly used streets.  The streets that most need bike lanes are often the ones where it's most difficult to implement them.

I want to like the idea of shared space, I really do, especially for removing all the clutter associated with standard operating procedures today (signs, poles, meters, paint, etc.), but so far I haven’t seen that it’s been done right. There’s a telling statistic from analysis done in London about Exhibition Road which states:

 

“if vehicle flows are greater than 100 per hour, pedestrians will not use the vehicle zone as a shared space”

 

That’s a painfully low threshold unfortunately. Above that traffic volume, cars become bullies and shove everyone else to the side. It might be doable with huge throngs of pedestrians and cyclists to keep up a better car/non-car ratio even in the face of a higher absolute number of cars, but can that be maintained 24/7/365? I doubt it. It’s because of this low traffic threshold and the fact that it does add confusion and uncertainty that even the Dutch, who first implemented the idea, are generally not bothering with it except in a few very specific places. In Britain too it’s been hit or miss, with some areas working well and others not.

 

Looking at the context of American streets, which were built excessively wide before automobiles even existed, the problems are even worse.  The only reason we have sidewalks is because it was too expensive to pave our overly wide streets from building-to-building in the days before asphalt, so building owners and later the municipal government took it upon themselves to extend porches and later sidewalks into the right-of-way to give people a place to walk that wasn't a muddy quagmire.  That's the only reason.  Look at very early movies and you see people walking and biking and doing all sorts of things all over the street, sidewalk or not, as long as it's dry.  People didn't even look when "crossing" because there was no such thing, and nobody expected to be run down anymore than if they were stepping into a hallway from their office or hotel room. 

 

When people talk about congestion on city streets in the pre-automobile era, they're usually referring to streetcar congestion.  In Cincinnati until I think the 1920s every single downtown streetcar line passed Fountain Square.  Proposals to move some lines to 4th Street were met with huge opposition, as if walking one extra block was such a big hurdle.  That said, by the time you got to OTR or the West End, let alone any of the hilltop communities, traffic of any sort was basically nonexistent.  You'd have a streetcar go by every few minutes, maybe a wagon or bicycle, but otherwise it was super quiet.  Even downtown in the middle of the day there was very little going on in the street compared to the sidewalks. 

 

http://www.shorpy.com/node/8920

http://www.shorpy.com/node/11952

http://www.shorpy.com/node/8222 (note that every street is almost completely empty)

 

It wasn't until about 1906 or 1907 that you started seeing cars on downtown streets with regularity, and they quickly took over because the few who could afford them had all these huge mostly empty streets to play around on and park their cars with impunity during the day (in most cities leaving any vehicle parked on a street overnight was forbidden).  It wasn't until later in the 1920s that downtown parking started to become an issue, and after WWII elsewhere.  There's photos of my street in Hyde Park next to the Madison Road streetcar line from 1938 when it was being rebuilt, and of the nine houses only one had a driveway, let alone a garage. 

 

The best solution seems to be the “really narrow streets” or “narrow streets for people” paradigm championed by Nathan Lewis who I linked above. These are basically pre-industrial street geometries with generally no more than 20 feet from building face to building face. It’s common in medieval Europe and continues to be the standard throughout much of Japan and other Asian countries even in the suburbs. By being so narrow, these streets are naturally scaled to people walking, and the enclosure prevents motorists from driving too fast, though they’re still allowed.

 

It’s trying to retrofit the oversized streets and intersections of industrial age cities that is more difficult because they’re already flawed pedestrian environments due to the excessive spacing, motorists feel entitled to use the space, and difficulty of getting enough pedestrians, cyclists, etc. to fill up all the extra room. This is why in post-industrial Europe where cycling is most prevalent (The Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and to a lesser extent Germany) they reallocated space from their post-industrial hypertrophic streets to cycling and transit lanes leaving comparatively less space for only motor vehicles, even though they still have similar building-to-building widths as we do.  This for instance could be any of Cincinnati's 40' main streets (Vine, Hamilton, Ludlow, McMillan, Woodburn): https://goo.gl/maps/huW5AibBzUP2 or some of the wider behemoth streets like MLK, Montgomery, Liberty, or Jefferson https://goo.gl/maps/3peC8cu8Yrm  It's certainly all about priorities.  In Copenhagen, when a street becomes too busy, they remove a lane, either to dedicate to better cycling infrastructure or bus lanes.  The mindset is "this street is busy because it's too attractive to drivers and the alternatives aren't sufficient."  Imagine a US traffic engineer with that sort of attitude. 

Unfortunately there is a lot of ridiculous driving on the narrow side streets around UC because a lot of 18-24 year-old dudes are showing off to girls either riding in their car or who might be walking down the street.  People speed on Ohio, Warner, Wheeler, Rohs, Riddle, Probasco, and throughout Corryville all the time because they're trying to impress somebody.  The population is older in Mt. Adams which is why you don't see people screaming down Ida, Hatch, or whatever.  But sometimes raging dudes do rush off Columbia Parkway up Hill or Parkside, again, likely because they've got a girl in the car or one has gotten them upset.   

Too bad that stuff doesn't actually impress girls. I've always been good with cars and motorcycles and found out first hand. But I was only 17 when I learned it didn't work. Dudes will spend tens of thousands of dollars on that stuff only to watch the girl leave with an unemployable Smooth that's addicted to heroin. I did have a girl jump on the back of my bike once then ended up going to a party with her later that day but nothing came of it.

Not every street should be a woonerf and not every street should have bike lanes but we had a plan for a network of on-street bicycle lanes that is now frozen. The only thing going on are expensive trails. We have a DOTE that either is incapable or unwilling to implement these portions of the bike plan and a six-year road resurfacing plan that is squandering the opportunity to implement said plan.

 

I don't place blame squarely on the DOTE because we also do not have political leadership interested in these things. Favorable political leadership is what allowed progress to happen in previous years. We need to shift the conversation to why narrowing streets, adding bike lanes, curb bump outs and other traffic calming strategies are beneficial to residents, neighborhoods and communities. We need to talk about how these things can maximize people capacity, not car capacity.

 

Right now the motorist exists above all else and it will be that way for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately the administration is very reactionary when it comes to these issues. They are starting to take traffic calming in Northside more seriously but only because a person was struck and killed on Hamilton Avenue. The administration needs to adopt a "Vision Zero" type policy to implement traffic calming and bike lanes across the city, rather than waiting until someone is killed and then fixing the specific street where that occurred.

Well UC isn't doing jack squat either -- in fact, their central public focus since the Brian Kelly era has been getting into the Big East Big 12.  They're not going to sacrifice accessibility to Nippert Stadium by the car-driving public for some bike lanes.  They have not gone to bat in the least to reduce parking minimums or get developers to build less parking for wealthy student apartment complexes.  We've probably seen upwards of 2,000 structured parking spaces added by private developers since the recession, all so college kids who won't incur student loans can take cars they didn't have to buy with them to school.  That leaves plenty of allowance money to buy drugs. 

 

 

Too bad that stuff doesn't actually impress girls.

 

Well free drugs do, and there is, as ever, an enormous amount of drug activity going on in the student neighborhoods. 

Here are some moms riding around with their kids in the red bike baskets...I've seen this with some regularity:

Apparently, the sidewalk on the east/north side of Eggleston is being widened to turn into a shared use path, that will connect Pete Rose Way to Court St. I'm not really clear if that means the public right-of-way is being widened or not, because based on CAGIS maps it looks like the public right of way ends at the sidewalk. But the trees have been cut down (sad face), and I'm pretty sure the widened path will extend into what is private property. I'm not sure how this shared-use path will work when it passes underneath 1-71, since the pillars are big obstacles in the sidewalks currently.

 

Here are photos showing the trees being cut down:

 

Here is streetview showing the trees and how wide the lanes are. I'd much rather see Eggleston go down to 1 primary travel lane (9' wide) +  https://www.google.com/maps/@39.106271,-84.506202,3a,75y,332.46h,70.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s1AC62JalPDHXlcVGtm3IHA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

Does anybody know more about the design of this path? I like bike paths, but I am frustrated when we cut down trees, widening an already wide street. It would be better to remove one of the travel lanes width on Eggleston and add an on-street bike path.

 

^I think it would have been a lot better to do an on street path and save the trees as well. But with our current leadership we just don't do things correctly. Nothing pleasant to form an edge between the street and that sweltering sea of parking now.  I hadn't heard anything about this plan previously. Making the city a lot uglier and worse. As you said it's not clear how this would even work underneath the underpasses. I'd rather ride my bike in the street and keep the trees

Right. Cranley views trails and shared bike/ped sidewalks as acceptable places to bike, but taking space away from cars for bikes is out of the question.

Cranley is racing to get a few fragmented paths in place so he can point to them during his doomed campaign.  Dude likely won't make it past the primary. 

I'll tell you, for trying to bike someplace you need to go wouldn't it be easier to bike in the street? Seems to me if you were off in one of these shared paths it would be hard to keep track of who has the right of way when you  cross intersections.

I'll tell you, for trying to bike someplace you need to go wouldn't it be easier to bike in the street? Seems to me if you were off in one of these shared paths it would be hard to keep track of who has the right of way when you  cross intersections.

 

Exactly.  Biking on Eggleston looks relaxed now but it isn't because it has odd intersections.  People get impatient, both bikers and drivers, with the long red lights.  There is a lot more unusual car activity there than on any of the downtown streets, which are all very easy to bike.