Here's when the final part of Little Miami Trail could be completed

 

Design of the final segment of the Little Miami Scenic Trail needed to connect it to the Ohio River Trail – and eventually downtown Cincinnati – will be completed by 2019, with construction set to be finished by 2021.

 

The Great Parks of Hamilton County has secured a $4.3 million grant to build a bridge across the river that is needed to connect the trail to the Otto Armleder Park and Lunken Airport trails. According to trail group Green Umbrella, another $730,000 in funding is needed to complete the project’s $5.4 million cost.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/01/16/heres-when-the-final-part-of-little-miami-trail.html

In Cincinnati's bid for Amazon HQ2, they attempted to talk up our bike infrastructure:

 

“[Cincinnati] has implemented the city of Cincinnati Bicycle Transportation Program to making bicycling an integral part of daily life in Cincinnati, so that persons of all ages and abilities can utilize bicycles for all types of trips,” the proposal said. “The city is in the midst of projects to install bicycle lanes on several major thoroughfares, including a number of them downtown.”

 

But back in reality:

 

Cranley has opposed the installation of on-street bicycle lanes in the city and called its only protected, on-street lane a “disaster.” While the city is spending tens of millions in borrowed money repaving its streets, bicycle lanes have not been added, with one exception, alongside the work as specified by the Bicycle Transportation Plan approved by City Council.

Cincinnati's largest park to get mountain bike trails

 

Cincinnatis 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

 

I heard today that they have or are about to start construction.  They hope to have 2 miles open in late summer. 

 

 

Red biking up W. Clifton:

 

 

The real question is, did they make it to a dock within 30 minutes?

 

Or alternatively, why not just dock them and walk up the hill without lugging a heavy Red Bike if you can't pedal up it?

I think a lot of people who use Red Bike don't actually understand how bikesharing is supposed to work. I have seen people lock up their Red Bikes to the bike racks in front of Rhinegeist, literally right next to a Red Bike docking station. But, hey, if you want to go over the 30 minute limit and pay extra, good for you.

I saw a guy bike up W. Clifton about two weeks ago on a red bike.  He looks like he lifts weights.  He was totally gassed by the time he got to the curve.  I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've seen anyone actually physically pedal one up to the curve. 

 

Meanwhile, this hill is not a big deal if you have a commuter or mountain bike with a low gear (and a total non-issue on a carbon road bike).  The bike share bikes are simply too heavy and the "upright" geometry means your pedal strokes have less power. 

 

I saw a guy bike up W. Clifton about two weeks ago on a red bike.  He looks like he lifts weights.  He was totally gassed by the time he got to the curve.  I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've seen anyone actually physically pedal one up to the curve. 

 

Meanwhile, this hill is not a big deal if you have a commuter or mountain bike with a low gear (and a total non-issue on a carbon road bike).  The bike share bikes are simply too heavy and the "upright" geometry means your pedal strokes have less power. 

 

 

A Red Bike race up W. Clifton could be the new Straight Street Climb!

The Red Bike limit is 60 minutes, I believe.

I think a lot of people who use Red Bike don't actually understand how bikesharing is supposed to work. I have seen people lock up their Red Bikes to the bike racks in front of Rhinegeist, literally right next to a Red Bike docking station. But, hey, if you want to go over the 30 minute limit and pay extra, good for you.

 

I've got a sense that a lot of people view it as "recreation" instead of transportation and simply don't realize that its primary purpose is to get you from A to B and not for you to diddle around in Smale Park for 3 hours.

I think a lot of people who use Red Bike don't actually understand how bikesharing is supposed to work. I have seen people lock up their Red Bikes to the bike racks in front of Rhinegeist, literally right next to a Red Bike docking station. But, hey, if you want to go over the 30 minute limit and pay extra, good for you.

 

I've got a sense that a lot of people view it as "recreation" instead of transportation and simply don't realize that its primary purpose is to get you from A to B and not for you to diddle around in Smale Park for 3 hours.

 

For some people, the primary purpose IS to diddle around in Smale Park, and I see no problem with that. For other people, it might be a way to commute from OTR to downtown. It's a sign of a good system if it can work for a variety of uses.

 

Based on the latest data (I forget where I saw it), it appears that the Uptown ridership is quite low. I think that is a combination of a) the hills, b) the bike-hostile roads of MLK, Clifton, Jefferson, Taft/McMillan, c) reluctance on the part of UC to place the stations in the middle of campus (all stations are around the periphery of campus). Not much can be done to get rid of the hills, but making the roads around Uptown better suited to biking with on-street bike lanes could help. I don't know why UC seems reluctant to put Red Bike stations on campus, but maybe it has to do with a desire to promote their own "Bearcat Bike Share" program: https://www.uc.edu/af/pdc/sustainability/campus_initiatives/transportation/bike_share.html

 

OSU opted to put a different bike share system on campus that's incompatible with Columbus' bike share system. What an awful missed opportunity to have a single bike share system that "just works" for everybody.

Are these campus bike systems at either school student-operated? By that I mean not just being the face of the system regarding customer service and sitting on committees but all aspects of the system. I can see schools wanting to do that.

OSU opted to put a different bike share system on campus that's incompatible with Columbus' bike share system. What an awful missed opportunity to have a single bike share system that "just works" for everybody.

 

Cincinnati is really lucky NKY wanted to expand RedBike instead of doing their own thing.

Yeah, that's a good point. We are very unique in the fact that we have a bike share system that spans 2 states and 4 cities.

US 50 is being repaved from Lawrenceburg Rd to Saylor Park and a bike lane is being added from Cleves to Saylor Park.  I assume this is part of Ohio River Trail West.

I rode the Ceasar Creek mountain bike trail for the first time two weeks ago.  Ho-lay, it is totally insane.  The video can't capture the primitive conditions as compared the smooth and slick conditions at Devou or Mitchel Memorial. 

 

 

Not once, but maybe 4-5 times the trails absolutely dive-bomb into creek beds with root tangles and big rocks breaking up the approach.  I don't know who these people are who are sticking these sections but it's definitely the toughest thing I've experienced anywhere near Cincinnati. 

 

 

A photo by Bob Schwartz from Sunday's Cincinnati hill ride.  This is Frederick in Northside:

Super-LAME.  Lebanon's park board is building a bike park, but they sold the naming rights to some sort of LAME-O health insurance company!

 

https://www.lebanonbikepark.org/about/

 

Opens this Saturday, June 2. 

 

There are photos here:

https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/premierhealthbikepark/

Super-LAME.  Lebanon's park board is building a bike park, but they sold the naming rights to some sort of LAME-O health insurance company!

 

https://www.lebanonbikepark.org/about/

 

Opens this Saturday, June 2. 

 

There are photos here:

https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/premierhealthbikepark/

LOL. The name is pretty ridiculous... it's like the output of a random word generator that got stuck and put out too many words: "Premier Health Atrium Medical Center Bike Park". Will they call it PHAMCBP?

 

But in all seriousness, I'd rather have a bike park with a ridiculous name than no bike park at all. I want Cincinnati to find a spot to build a pump track and bike park... I think the closest one right now is out west of the airport at England-Idlewild.

I think that's where they want you to go when you biff

 

So you get to lay there with a bone sticking out and have to ask the paramedics if the place is in-network

 

Or else you get a million dollar bill

 

But in all seriousness, I'd rather have a bike park with a ridiculous name than no bike park at all. I want Cincinnati to find a spot to build a pump track and bike park... I think the closest one right now is out west of the airport at England-Idlewild.

 

The Kahn's site would have been perfect or the long strip of land that used to be a small railroad yard next to the scooter place on Montgomery Rd. Technically in Norwood but nevertheless a very central location that is rumored to become an auto dealership. 

 

In Pittsburgh they have a paved oval track with banked turns for road bikes.  I think it's close to a half mile.  I remember sketching out paths on Google Earth for the Kahn's and Norwood sites and it would have worked at either.  They'd need an underpass to allow bikes to get in the infield for BMX/mountain bike stuff. 

 

 

 

Hard to believe but Blue Ash is launching its own bike share system completely independent of Red Bike:

https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/blue-ash/blue-ash-becomes-region-s-first-suburb-with-its-own-bike-share

Turd Ferguson is tearing up the Cincinnati mountain bike trails...

CORA just announced that they've entered a partnership with the Parks to build trails at Mt Airy. Good news.

 

This is like a 5-year delay.  I seem to recall that the original plans were for trails on the McFarland Woods side of I-74 but the trails that they will be building will be wedged in the sliver between I-74 and West Fork Rd. 

 

The big difference between the two areas is that the McFarland Woods section would have enabled bikers to "drop in" from the parking area to a relatively relaxed trail.  The West Fork sliver is going to be much more rugged and require bikers to pedal upwards immediately from the parking lot, meaning you're burning a lot of gas from the word go. 

 

The big problem with Devou is that -- you get out of the car and immediately burn up a lot of energy just getting to the trail.  It's like 5 minutes of climbing as these idiots rain down on you coming back to the parking lot.  Devou has a bad combination of kids and hardcore downhill guys going in opposite directions on the same trails.  McFarland Woods I imagine could have been like Mitchell Memorial -- one-way and low-key.  Instead I'm worried that Mt. Airy is going to be a dangerous trail with a lot of downhill people running Casey Jones into people puttering up the same trail. 

 

This past weekend I attempted to mt bike the existing hiking trails in the forgotten sliver of Mt. Airy Forest where the mountain bike trails will be built.  They are just as steep and inhospitable as I remembered them.  I wiped out about 2 minutes into the attempt and turned around. 

 

The ground breaking is July 2. 

Council has approved $200k of funding for Red Bike to expand the system to Bond Hill and also add some ebikes to the system.

Is this Red Bike's desire, or is it what the city wants Red Bike to do? I'm worried an isolated Bond Hill operation is going to struggle. It would make way more sense to continue an expansion into more of northern OTR, West End, and a few select locations in Queensgate.

Well at least Bond Hill isn't hilly.  I almost never see someone riding one in and around UC.  Last weekend I saw a 60+ year-old couple biking down the MLK path next to Good Samaritan Hospital.  I have absolutely no idea where they were going.  I thought about stopping to ask them if they needed help because they looked mildly lost and were headed into a red bike desert. 

Is this Red Bike's desire, or is it what the city wants Red Bike to do? I'm worried an isolated Bond Hill operation is going to struggle. It would make way more sense to continue an expansion into more of northern OTR, West End, and a few select locations in Queensgate.

 

Walnut Hills and Evanston would also be logical extensions of the system into mixed/low income areas

What can Red Bike, along with the city, do to educate and their customers that riding on sidewalks is not permitted? A group of us were walking along E. Pete Rose Way (between Eggelston & Broadway) last Saturday heading to the Reds game and two different times we were asked (*ding *ding, coming through) to move over by people riding on the sidewalk. With so many people walking to/from the game, some pushing strollers, I don't get why they think they have the right of way in that situation.

Council has approved $200k of funding for Red Bike to expand the system to Bond Hill and also add some ebikes to the system.

Where'd you see/hear this? Just curious to hear more details on the ebikes. I've tried to see if any other B-Cycle cities have launched ebikes, but I can't find any examples. The B-Cycle website doesn't mention any electric models. I recently rode a Jump ebike in DC and it was truly revelatory: going up long steep hills, in 95 degree heat, I didn't even break a sweat. Electric Red Bikes could be game changers here in hilly Cincinnati.

What can Red Bike, along with the city, do to educate and their customers that riding on sidewalks is not permitted? A group of us were walking along E. Pete Rose Way (between Eggelston & Broadway) last Saturday heading to the Reds game and two different times we were asked (*ding *ding, coming through) to move over by people riding on the sidewalk. With so many people walking to/from the game, some pushing strollers, I don't get why they think they have the right of way in that situation.

 

Redesign the streets to make people feel safer. You have to make it obvious to people that bikes belong in the street, and that includes motorists.

^I agree.  I'm an avid cyclist, but cars are fast and dangerous on those streets down around the stadia and I'll hop onto the sidewalk sometimes too.

Incidentally, I have seen some BMX and mountain biking videos where trick riders are incorporating B-cycle type stations into their tricks.  Like doing endos into open dock stations, doing hand stands on docked bikes, bunny hopping the station, etc. 

Yeah I have a red bike pass and I feel like riding on the sidewalk is completely understandable on 2nd, 3rd, and even the east half of 5th. Those stretches are basically highways.

^I agree.  I'm an avid cyclist, but cars are fast and dangerous on those streets down around the stadia and I'll hop onto the sidewalk sometimes too.

 

Yep, I try to stick to the no sidewalk policy as much as possible. When I lived in a more bike-friendly city I never biked on the sidewalk. But here I sometimes make exceptions because I'd rather not end up in the hospital or dead.

I don't get why people flip out over the sight of someone on the damn sidewalk.  The real danger is always pedestrians who aren't looking where they are walking. 

 

I recently had a series of vision tests done at the Cincinnati Eye Institute (I've been having extreme sensitivity to bright light) and scored very high on the visual field test, which tests peripheral vision.  It's a fact that a lot of people suffer from eye conditions that cause them to have much narrower fields of vision than normal people.  I get that we assume that these people can see us but they actually can't, but why would such a person not have the habit of looking left and right on a regular basis?

 

Also, I recently almost ran over a 7 year-old kid on the Short Vine sidewalk who walked with his head cocked in one diretion for 20 feet and somehow did not hear the knobby tires on my mountain bike or the clicking of the coasting gears.  I slammed on the brakes just 10 feet from him, which caused a screech, but he still didn't hear it.  To me these sounds are very obvious and cut through city noise because they are unusual.  The kid wasn't deaf because he was talking to someone.  I was on the sidewalk because I was carrying a handful of mail to the post office's sidewalk mailboxes. 

 

 

 

 

I don't get why people flip out over the sight of someone on the damn sidewalk.  The real danger is always pedestrians who aren't looking where they are walking.

 

Why is it the responsibility of a pedestrian on the sidewalk to constantly look over their shoulder to avoid getting run over by a cyclist?  It is a sideWALK after all.  There is little reason for cyclists to not be in the street and if you're hell bent on riding on the sidewalk it is your responsibility to yield to pedestrians not the other way around.  I've known too many people injured by irresponsible cyclists who expect pedestrians to be on full time high alert to avoid being hit by them.

^Yeah... there are some rare occasions when it's necessary to bike on a sidewalk, but in those rare cases, I bike very slowly, make sure I don't make any sudden movements, and give pedestrians TOTAL right of way. People walking on a sidewalk should never be scared/startled by a biker quickly coming up behind them and slamming on their squeaky brakes. 

Sidewalk bicycling is one of my biggest pet peeves. I see it constantly in front of my office on Main Street. Often times people on bikes fly by with zero regards for pedestrians. I have had bikes creep behind me without warning, or turned a corner only to almost hit a cyclist. It's been proven that instances of sidewalk biking are dangerous for pedestrians, which is why they are regulated as motor vehicles.

^Yeah most cities had paved sidewalks before they had paved streets, or the streets were cobbles versus a smoother concrete or brick sidewalk surface, so bicyclists couldn't resist the sidewalks.  There are almost zero pedestrians in 99% of Cincinnati so the anti-sidewalk thing is pretty overblown.  For example, you could probably bike the Central Parkway sidewalk from Plum St. north to Cincinnati State and maybe have to pass 1 pedestrian. 

 

I should get a camera for my bike because some of the stuff you see people do out there is just like...what just happened?  I also should do a mountain-bike-on-streetcar tracks video to illustrate why people should be riding mountain bikes as commuter bikes like everyone did in the 90s.  We're already seeing a steep decline in the fixie trend -- thank god.  Five years ago everyone from independent bike shops to Wal-Mart were selling narrow-tire fixie bikes that were completely impractical for anything other than decorating a loft apartment. 

^Yeah most cities had paved sidewalks before they had paved streets, or the streets were cobbles versus a smoother concrete or brick sidewalk surface, so bicyclists couldn't resist the sidewalks.  There are almost zero pedestrians in 99% of Cincinnati so the anti-sidewalk thing is pretty overblown.  For example, you could probably bike the Central Parkway sidewalk from Plum St. north to Cincinnati State and maybe have to pass 1 pedestrian. 

 

I should get a camera for my bike because some of the stuff you see people do out there is just like...what just happened?  I also should do a mountain-bike-on-streetcar tracks video to illustrate why people should be riding mountain bikes as commuter bikes like everyone did in the 90s.  We're already seeing a steep decline in the fixie trend -- thank god.  Five years ago everyone from independent bike shops to Wal-Mart were selling narrow-tire fixie bikes that were completely impractical for anything other than decorating a loft apartment. 

 

Sure, but the areas where there are more people walking around like downtown and OTR need to have some level of on-street bike infrastructure because that is where there are more pedestrians. I would argue this for most of the neighborhood business districts as well. Not every street needs a bike lane, but if we want to encourage pedestrian-oriented corridors and districts, we need to get bikes off the sidewalk at those places.

Meh, just widen the sidewalks by a foot and call them multi-use paths. Done and done!

 

/s

Meh, just widen the sidewalks by a foot and call them multi-use paths. Done and done!

 

/s

 

Because that's not what's done in countries that actually have decent cycling mode share.  That's a deprecated bandaid non-solution.  Look at places that have figured this out and have people of all ages and abilities riding. 

 

Narrow streets like you find in OTR with permanent street parking and low traffic volume (most east-west streets) can be tamed such that cycling within the roadway is comfortable enough.  https://goo.gl/maps/zqJVKmyd7bs  Somewhat wider version:  https://goo.gl/maps/AoDNK2ykxmS2

 

Somewhat larger north-south streets start needing separate physical infrastructure.  There's too much traffic to just say "ride in the street" but the sidewalks are also too busy and cluttered with poles and trees and such.  This could easily be Walnut Street https://goo.gl/maps/uYy1CBA72F52  Race/Elm:  https://goo.gl/maps/PgzNfWe1CN62  Even downtown could have something like this:  https://goo.gl/maps/94KhKyVrfkF2 

I don't think that random bike lanes like what we have in Cincinnati right now are really going to attract a significant number of people to bicycling.  To do that there would need to be high-quality wide protected bike lanes on every single major street.  Not a quarter, not half -- ALL of them.  So protected bike lanes on every downtown street, and 200+ miles of other city streets.  That's inconceivable in this political climate, since our city has a "working" downtown instead of a museum downtown like most of Europe.  There is space to do this in our downtown by eliminating on-street parking on one side of each street, but I just can't conceive of that actually happening.  It's hard to conceive of 2 lanes of Reading from the casino to Bond Hill being sacrificed for bike lanes, plus Burnet, plus Highland, etc. 

 

Let me add that the maintenance of our existing bike lanes continues to suck.  I rode CP over the weekend and there was all sorts of crap in the lane, including the #20 bus.  Last week, old cell phones, nuts & bolts, and plenty of glass and gravel in Spring Grove. 

 

 

I don't think that random bike lanes like what we have in Cincinnati right now are really going to attract a significant number of people to bicycling.  To do that there would need to be high-quality wide protected bike lanes on every single major street.  Not a quarter, not half -- ALL of them.  So protected bike lanes on every downtown street, and 200+ miles of other city streets.  That's inconceivable in this political climate, since our city has a "working" downtown instead of a museum downtown like most of Europe.

 

I like the vision. Perhaps we can start with just OTR, with this as the selling point:

 

Before 3CDC existed, Cranley's vision for OTR was to make it a tourist destination, not an actual neighborhood with a mix of residents, office workers, and visitors. He famously met with a developer who wanted to fill OTR with Hard Rock Cafe and Dick's Last Resort style tourist trap establishments. Even with all of the residential growth in Downtown and OTR, Cranley still does not view the CBD and OTR as "neighborhoods" and still wants to prioritize making it a place where visitors can come down and have their fun, then drive home. For that reason I think he's going to try as hard as possible to not let the Liberty Street narrowing happen.

I can't speak for all of Europe, but just because downtowns look like museums doesn't mean they are.  Downtown Copenhagen, the medieval core, has one of the lowest populations of the city's neighborhoods.  That's because it's mostly businesses.  Yes some of it is tourist stuff, but that's where the design firms, banks, accounting offices, and other "normal" businesses are.  They're just not in skyscrapers with million square foot floor plates.  The buildings aren't overtly commercial (they originally weren't, or were only ground floor retail with apartments above that are now offices), so it's hard to see.  The hub-and-spoke train system they have shows that the core of the city is still the major draw.  I don't think most large-ish European cities are much different. 

I don't think that random bike lanes like what we have in Cincinnati right now are really going to attract a significant number of people to bicycling.  To do that there would need to be high-quality wide protected bike lanes on every single major street.  Not a quarter, not half -- ALL of them.  So protected bike lanes on every downtown street, and 200+ miles of other city streets.  That's inconceivable in this political climate, since our city has a "working" downtown instead of a museum downtown like most of Europe.

 

I like the vision. Perhaps we can start with just OTR, with this as the selling point:

 

I think electric bicycles/electric scooters could end up being the microtransit solution that traditional bicycles and driverless shuttles will not be, and it will be politically easier to argue to give up a lane to them.  But simply marking off a lane isn't good enough.  There needs to be a reconstruction of the street that does not put alternative modes on the periphery of a car sewer.  The only places where ordinary people seem to tolerate biking on normal roads without special facilities are vacation destinations like Put-In-Bay. 

 

One obvious way to give priority to bicycles in OTR is to re-cobble/brick the streets but have a smooth concrete or smooth stone surface for bike lanes.  So basically what exists on Elm with the streetcar tracks but delete the tracks.  But we have heard silly arguments in the past regarding the supposed needs of emergency vehicles.  The fact is that every police/fire/ambulance has a monster soft suspension on it, so that's just a convenient excuse.  Snow removal is probably the bigger concern, but I don't remember any problem in Athens, which had tons of brick streets. 

 

Yeah, OTR could be a start, but the city is huge and I just have a really tough time imagining the city budgeting $100 million to reconstruction of significant stretches of all of the secondary roads in addition to the main ones that would be necessary to turn this place into a cycling paradise.  They'd have to fight people and businesses all over town with repeats of the "Mann's Bend" situation on Central Parkway.