^I do think Eggleston is an important route for bikes though, because it's the fastest and easiest way to get from the riverfront to OTR.

The sign for this project has been up since summer. It's fairly idiotic, particularly when you consider that the southern terminus does not have a crosswalk on the East side of that intersection at the entrance to Sawyer Point. I had a feeling they were going to butcher

^Admittedly I don't ride on Eggleston at rush hour or after a Reds game or anything, but that is already a great street for cycling.  Traffic is light, the road is wide, and it connects a lot - if you're riding downtown from Walnut Hills/Eden Park and points east, it's the best connector to the riverfront.  I will likely not use the shared path, especially as it terminates oddly.

Shared paths suck because you have to slow down and look both ways when going through a crosswalk. Unless it's completely separated from the street grid, or there are no intersections, shared paths are usually terrible.

Full separation of uses is the ultimate goal of any trail system, but of course costs much more and requires a lot of land.

North of Reedy Street they're narrowing the median, and it's all marked up with paint as of yesterday.  Looks like this was designed as little more than a wide sidewalk that bikes can use, fail.  Eggleston is so wide it would be a perfect opportunity for proper Dutch/Danish style cycle tracks on each side of the street, but you know, Cranley, and I'm sure the Sheriff's Department is all "hurr durr parking."  Here's the contract document, it's a crappy scan so the drawings are kind of hard to read:  https://www.google.com/url?q=http://data.cincinnati-oh.gov/views/ryyu-kdd2/files/033f861b-30c0-4b31-84c3-98cc39fc3e62&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwjD6ca8g_TRAhVLwYMKHUb1AFkQFggGMAE&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNGMLn3PtEFo7UkBuiKtJ2WrwsY2zA

Ugh. Not only is this a missed opportunity (to do on-street cycle tracks), it seems to be worsening the existing streetscape by removing trees and shrinking the medians. Seeing how much more extensive the project is (shifting the median around a few feet here and there, redoing the curbs, removing etc), it's even more incomprehensible now. The medians are already landscaped nicely with plantings and granite pavers. Why does the city want to spend $600k on this? How does this pass any reasonable cost-benefit analysis? It won't be successful as a bike facility. It removes nearly 30 "mature-ish" trees. And it will neither increase nor decrease traffic capacity (seems like the travel and turn lanes have not changed substantively)... so who actually benefits from this expensive project? $600k of streetscape improvements could be much better spent on any number of potential street improvements around the city.

Ugh. Not only is this a missed opportunity (to do on-street cycle tracks), it seems to be worsening the existing streetscape by removing trees and shrinking the medians. Seeing how much more extensive the project is (shifting the median around a few feet here and there, redoing the curbs, removing etc), it's even more incomprehensible now. The medians are already landscaped nicely with plantings and granite pavers. Why does the city want to spend $600k on this? How does this pass any reasonable cost-benefit analysis? It won't be successful as a bike facility. It removes nearly 30 "mature-ish" trees. And it will neither increase nor decrease traffic capacity (seems like the travel and turn lanes have not changed substantively)... so who actually benefits from this expensive project? $600k of streetscape improvements could be much better spent on any number of potential street improvements around the city.

 

The Mayor needs to bump up his resume and urbanist cred among the Washington crowd. Only this.

To be fair the trees they cut down weren't all that mature.  Rather stunted I would say.  Yes they were bigger than new plantings, but not a lot.  They do seem to have a lot of new trees in typical tree grates in the plan, but again that's a sidewalk design.  We should've gotten something like this https://goo.gl/maps/hfGxb9tzW992 or this https://goo.gl/maps/NUwJ6AWCo5B2

Bike trail will connect key parts of a major Greater Cincinnati park

 

A key piece of a bike trail that will better connect Northern Kentucky is near completion, according to a regional cycling group.

 

The Ludlow Connector Trail is a shared-use path that will connect the eastern and western parts of Devou Park as well as provide pedestrian and cyclist access to the large park from Ludlow, which only has access to Devou Park by car today. It is expected to be finished by this spring.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/03/07/bike-trail-will-connect-key-parts-of-a-major.html

Cincinnati will be repaving 112 lane-miles of streets this year. Our city's Bike Plan called for bike lanes to be added as streets are repaved. Unfortunately, due to our stubborn mayor who dislikes on-street bike lanes, the plan isn't being implemented and this opportunity is being squandered. The Cranley years will go down as "the lost years" when it comes to our city's bike infrastructure... nearly 500 lane-miles repaved during his first term and not a single new bike lane.

Cincinnati will be repaving 112 lane-miles of streets this year. Our city's Bike Plan called for bike lanes to be added as streets are repaved. Unfortunately, due to our stubborn mayor who dislikes on-street bike lanes, the plan isn't being implemented and this opportunity is being squandered. The Cranley years will go down as "the lost years" when it comes to our city's bike infrastructure... nearly 500 lane-miles repaved during his first term and not a single new bike lane.

Weren't Delta and Riverside bike lanes added under Cranley? Or did those get done under Mallory?

Some stuff that was cued up under Mallory happened during the first months Cranley was in office. 

Right, I think the in-progress stuff still happened, but I think there was essentially a mandate handed down of, "don't include bike lanes going forward." What makes matters worse is that the city borrowed money to implement a Capital Acceleration Plan in order to repave even more streets during the Cranley administration.

But where are those streets?  Aside from Woolper, I haven't seen a single rebuilt street, anywhere.  And we're three years into Cranley's reign of terror and there has been precious little progress on the West MLK project. 

Kellogg got repaved between Wilmer and Salem.  Spring Grove south of Hopple Street is in progress, very slow progress, mostly sidewalk work still, including the bumpouts that seem designed specifically to block bike lane construction.  Spring Grove and the Dooley Bypass in Northside were also finally done (they were awful), and that was a big miss because the Mill Creek Trail is so out of the way and discontinuous, especially with such limited access.  Same for Elmore and Colerain that were two-wayed.  Central Parkway north of Marshall is a huge miss, and it's not like Marshall itself couldn't also have lines.  Herschel near Kilgour School was repaved, as was Linwood, with no love.  Marburg and Markbreit in Oakley had potential.  Same with Lincoln Avenue in Walnut Hills, since MLK is a total fuck-up.  Piedmont Avenue through the hospital would've been good, especially since they've been restricting parking on it.  Tennessee Avenue was a miss.  Much of Ludlow through the Clifton business district is on the docket, but that's a tough one.  Ezzard Charles is also on the service request website, though not the brochure, same with Rhode Island. 

Most of the streets that got repaved in Northside were not part of the Capital Acceleration Plan. They were part of the I-75 Mill Creek Expressway project. Since the highway ramps to/from Northside got removed, it no longer made sense to keep those as one-way funnels, so they could be returned to two-way traffic. It's actually a bit annoying the way they striped these roads. Instead of just doing a standard 4 lane road with 2 lanes each way, they added a bunch of lane shifts so that they could have left turn lanes at key intersections. Traffic engineers love dedicated left turn lanes.

 

I had the same feeling as you about the Spring Grove Avenue work. It does seem like they intentionally added those sidewalk bump-outs in a way that would prevent the bike lanes from ever being extended up to Northside. Yet another squandered opportunity.

I barely noticed the bumpouts.  The Spring Grove lanes have never been contiguous nor are they regularly cleaned. They end down by JD's Honky Tonk and then I think start up once again south of the viaduct.  I can't remember.  I bike there fairly often because it's flat and there is virtually no traffic on Spring Grove at night or on the weekends.  I bike down Spring Grove to Dalton then across Mehring then out Riverside then up Delta then back to my house on WM H Taft for a pretty relaxed 20-mile ride.  If I have two hours before I have to be somewhere I do that ride because I know it takes around 80-90 minutes.  If I have less time I cut back at Collins then Taft. 

 

The Ludlow Ave. hill has had bad pavement for a long time.  I don't notice it on my heavier bike but my road bike bounces all over the place in the right lane and I'm touching the brakes the whole way down.  I'm often tempted to ride right on the double yellow just to get off the rough pavement but with the police station right there I've never done it. 

 

I don't believe the Sycamore Hill has been repaved in at least 20 years.  It still has an invisible but mean bump in it right at Milton St. that has probably sent at least one hill-bombing biker over their handlebars. 

 

​Park + Vine owner gets new gig

 

 

The former owner of Over-the-Rhine retailer Park + Vine has a new job at a Greater Cincinnati environmental group.

 

Danny Korman will advocate for bicycling as trails ambassador for Green Umbrella, whose mission is to coordinate environmental and sustainability collaboration among 200 members including nonprofits, businesses, educational institutions and governments.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/03/20/park-vine-owner-gets-new-gig.html

Bike trail in the works for this Cincinnati park

 

 

The Cincinnati Board of Park Commissioners and the Cincinnati Off-Road Alliance are crafting a plan to build an off-road, multi-use mountain bike trail in Mount Airy Forest.

 

The groups will discuss the plan at a public meeting at 6:30 p.m. April 19 at McKie Recreation Center, 1655 Chase Ave.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/04/05/bike-trail-in-the-works-for-this-cincinnati-park.html

^That plan is 10 years old.  I don't know why the hell it has taken so long to happen. 

^That plan is 10 years old.  I don't know why the hell it has taken so long to happen. 

 

Because the park board has been staunchly opposed to any MTB trails for ideological as opposed to technical reasons. 

Nobody hikes in the sliver of land between West Fork and I-74.  The trails were proposed for that area and the McFarldand Woods side over the park, which gets fair less use than the Colerain Ave. side. 

^That plan is 10 years old.  I don't know why the hell it has taken so long to happen. 

 

Because the park board has been staunchly opposed to any MTB trails for ideological as opposed to technical reasons. 

 

A lot of other user groups have been staunchly opposed in the past and likely still are.

Nobody hikes in the sliver of land between West Fork and I-74.  The trails were proposed for that area and the McFarldand Woods side over the park, which gets fair less use than the Colerain Ave. side.

 

I just did on Sunday. It's surprisingly peaceful in places.

I last hiked it about five years ago in the winter and the trails were not well-maintained.  I remember that hike because I got a call from some guy I went to college with who told me he had just joined the French Foreign Legion and was shipping out the next week.  I haven't heard from him since. 

I last hiked it about five years ago in the winter and the trails were not well-maintained.  I remember that hike because I got a call from some guy I went to college with who told me he had just joined the French Foreign Legion and was shipping out the next week.  I haven't heard from him since. 

 

This would explain the radio silence-

 

"The legion has 6,800 men of 150 nationalities, from Afghans and Chinese to Romanians and Britons. Its rules are strict: new recruits must give up their identity and start a new life under a fake name, but later they can revert to their real identity.

 

For the first five years, they must live in dormitories in barracks. They are not allowed a mobile phone or a bank account and they cannot drive a car. The training regime is notoriously tough but applications are still high: of the roughly 8,000 men who apply each year, 1,000 are accepted.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/17/french-foreign-legion-soldiers-trial-recruit-death

Damn.  I didn't really know what the French Foreign Legion was. 

 

I did some trail running in the regular part of Mt. Airy last fall.  The first time I went there...there was a trail running event.  So I by total chance did my first run in months on a trail that had hardcore runners on it.  Another time I unknowingly ran into a section of the park that was closed for hunting. 

^I was deep in a trail in Alms Park I think it was with my girlfriend when I saw a sign about Active Hunting, it was right before I dropped off onto the residential road west of the park into Columbia Tusculum and had to turn around.  It really annoyed me because we had walked so far already and had to go all the way back around and it was kind of a cold, cloudy day.  To warm up then we got Starbucks which I hardly ever drink and I got the large regular coffee and chugged it but since I was so thirsty/dehydrated I started to have a weird anxiety attack that lasted about 2 hours

I always found patronizing Hamilton County parks vastly different than say, a Columbus-area MetroPark or a Cincinnati city park.

^I was deep in a trail in Alms Park I think it was with my girlfriend

 

In 2010 when I was writing my book I walked the old interurban ROW through Laboiteaux Woods (yes, I had to look up how to spell that), which is just about the most obscure spot in our most obscure city park.  I walked down into a gully to take a photo of an old bridge abutment when I heard a rustle in the bushes.  Some dude and his woman were definitely looking for a place to do it.  The problem was there was only one way out of the pit I was in and it meant having to climb up a gravely slope and walk right by them.  Which I did.  So these people imagined they were hundreds of feet from anyone else when some guy WITH A CAMERA comes climbing out of a pit where there was no obvious photography subject.  It was pretty damn awkward. 

 

In other mountain biking news, I think it was on that walk when I walked (or climbed, rather) some of the steep slopes Duke maintains along the high tension wires that run from its coal plant in Lawrenceburg to General Electric.  It creates a mowed gash across Mt. Airy Forest and Laboiteaux Woods.  I told the guy who runs Spun that we should start an alleycat-type mountain bike race following those high tension wires.  His eyes lit up but nothing happened.  It's like sitting around coming up with dumb band names. 

 

 

 

 

^Haha, that would be awkward for certain, that must have scared the bejeezus out of em.  I live close by and have my own apartment so that wasn't the intention of the walk, but I imagine teenagers in Mt. Lookout and other people use these heavily forested urban parks for many things.  I can't tell you how many times I've walked right into teenage weed smoking session on trails in the Cincy area parks, honestly it happens more times than it doesn't.

^Haha, that would be awkward for certain, that must have scared the bejeezus out of em.  I live close by and have my own apartment so that wasn't the intention of the walk, but I imagine teenagers in Mt. Lookout and other people use these heavily forested urban parks for many things.  I can't tell you how many times I've walked right into teenage weed smoking session on trails in the Cincy area parks, honestly it happens more times than it doesn't.

 

All fights at my high school were carried out 1/2 mile away at Caldwell Park:

http://www.cincinnatiparks.com/central/caldwell-preserve/

 

I did throw one unanswered punch in the gym during a dance (specifically, during a "mixer") but otherwise people had enough sense to take it completely off school grounds. 

 

 

 

Laure Quinliven's campaign manager can't ride a bike:

 

It would be easier if his back tire had air.

Another bicyclist killed on 52 by a driver under the influence of heroin:

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/anderson-township/one-dead-after-car-collides-with-bicyclist-in-anderson-township

 

Yes, the exact same scenario and on the exact same road as last year's fatality. 

The man killed was William Rust, owner of Candle Lab OTR on Vine Street.

 

It's unbelievable that despite these incidents, the city continues to ignore the adopted Bicycle Master Plan and continues to tell cyclists that they should ride in the street.

Maybe this will be a catalyst?

Cranley doesn't believe in on-street bike lanes or cycle tracks (protected bike lanes) because he does not believe that car drivers should be inconvenienced by having street space taken away from them. Nothing is going to change until he is out of office.

This incident wasn't in the city.  It's Anderson Township on a highway under the authority of ODOT.  Of course that doesn't make it ok, or nobody's problem. 

The man killed was William Rust, owner of Candle Lab OTR on Vine Street.

 

It's unbelievable that despite these incidents, the city continues to ignore the adopted Bicycle Master Plan and continues to tell cyclists that they should ride in the street.

 

Bill is in one of my  business networking groups. It's a tragedy. So sad.

Bicyclist hit and seriously hurt in the Spring Grove Ave. bike lane near the Crosley Building:

http://www.wcpo.com/news/crime/hit-and-run-crash-injures-cyclist-renewing-calls-for-safer-streets-in-cincinnati

 

I biked Spring Grove southbound twice this weekend.  Tons of debris in the bike lane throughout.  Tons of gravel and glass, as usual, near I-74.  Large 2"+ bolt in the lane near Marshall Ave. 

The bicycle center at The Banks appears to have not opened for the season.  The space has been mostly gutted and there are no bikes to be seen.  The website is still active but says "see you in the spring!".

 

 

 

There is a new bike path under construction parallel to MLK between Cilfton Avenue and Central Parkway. It's not open yet, but it's built. It crosses Dixmuth Avenue and a driveway or two, but has very few crossings. It negotiates the hill at Central Parkway with a pair of hairpin turns. The other side of MLK has a sidewalk. I'm interested to see how this turns out.

 

 

 

 

Cincinnati's largest park to get mountain bike trails

 

Cincinnati’s largest park is getting mountain bike trails.

 

The Cincinnati Off-Road Alliance (CORA) has been granted permission by the Cincinnati Board of Park Commissioners to construct a four- to six-mile natural surface trail located in Mount Airy Forest.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/08/21/cincinnatis-largest-park-to-get-mountain-bike.html

Has anyone seen an update on the guy who was hit 1-2 months ago on Spring Grove?  I hope that he has a chance of getting back on the bike. 

The city is pulling the plug on the 2.2 mile trail that was going to run parallel to Kellogg, connecting Salem and and Sutton. It's too bad since it means the federal funds which had been pledged can't be used:

 

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2017/09/27/ohio-river-bike-trail-project-hits-dead-end-cincinnati-abandons-project-u-s-funds/703182001/

Cranley Administration Cancels Riverfront Bike Trail and Fails to Notify Anyone

 

In the Cincinnati Enquirer's article: Ohio River bike trail hits dead end as money woes force Cincinnati out you don't see Mayor John Cranley's name, but you should. Former Mayor Mallory agreed to the project and if was still the Mayor the article would have at least included a phrase saying the Mayor's office had no comment.  That would be enough to connect the Mayor to the issue.  Instead the transportation and planning director was thrown under the bus (sorry) for this in-action.

 

http://www.cincy.blog/2017/09/cranley-administration-cancels.html

A bicyclist from Cincinnati was struck and killed recently by a 75 year-old in South Carolina:

http://counton2.com/2017/11/09/cyclist-dead-following-accident-with-vehicle-in-colleton-county/