I was thinking the best place for a home for the blind now would be the Dennison Hotel on Main. Served by Streetcar to Findlay, near the public library (huge amounts of support for the blind there) and on the 11 and near the 4 lines which serve CAB. Also on the 19 which will serve the hospital complex in uptown, and the 46 which will serve Christ. 

I actually really liked that building.  It was a fine example of 1970s Modernism...a style which is already hard to come by.  I particularly loved the slanted tin roofs which were a nice gesture toward the vernacular.  I often find preservationists hypocritical in this regard.  Apparently some styles aren't worthy of saving.

 

I understand that this particular location was out of place in a very important historic district.  I'm sad to see it go, but I understand the reasoning behind it.  However, I'm really sickened by the reactions of some in the wake of the destruction of a fine piece of architecture.  Let's just hope that whatever replaces it lives up to the architectural integrity of what was lost.

^Yeah, somebody needs to do a coffee table book on suburban credit unions before they are all lost to progress. 

I was thinking the best place for a home for the blind now would be the Dennison Hotel on Main. Served by Streetcar to Findlay, near the public library (huge amounts of support for the blind there) and on the 11 and near the 4 lines which serve CAB. Also on the 19 which will serve the hospital complex in uptown, and the 46 which will serve Christ. 

Unfortunately, AFAIK, the materials for the blind have been shipped off to Clevo. I guess the mail order library business made more sense to the pinks so they consolidated in one place. It certainly didn't sit well with the local blind population.

I did a post on it but, being an idiot I didn't provide a link. Well, the Fishwarp would have moved the article anyway.

http://quimbob.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-march-19-1901-sisters-florence-and.html

But I think your arguments apply to the large aging boomer population just fine. Make it a senior center.

The just demolished building at 1507 Elm was the Samuel W. Bell home for the blind.  They moved to Green Township soon after the 2001 riots.

 

http://www.samuelbell.org/7.html

We're getting a bit off-topic here. Back on track, please.

The just demolished building at 1507 Elm was the Samuel W. Bell home for the blind.  They moved to Green Township soon after the 2001 riots.

http://www.samuelbell.org/7.html

Dear lord, that place is in the middle of nowhere & requires a half mile walk down a street with no sidewalks to get to a bus stop.

a warehouse under a rug

The just demolished building at 1507 Elm was the Samuel W. Bell home for the blind.  They moved to Green Township soon after the 2001 riots.

http://www.samuelbell.org/7.html

Dear lord, that place is in the middle of nowhere & requires a half mile walk down a street with no sidewalks to get to a bus stop.

a warehouse under a rug

 

To be fair, it might be less stressful for blind people to live in a less-busy environment. I don't know any blind people, so I wouldn't know. But I could imagine being able to walk a decent distance without concern for getting run over might trump typical accessibility concerns. Not that walking paths and transit access are mutually exclusive.

The just demolished building at 1507 Elm was the Samuel W. Bell home for the blind.  They moved to Green Township soon after the 2001 riots.

http://www.samuelbell.org/7.html

Dear lord, that place is in the middle of nowhere & requires a half mile walk down a street with no sidewalks to get to a bus stop.

a warehouse under a rug

 

To be fair, it might be less stressful for blind people to live in a less-busy environment. I don't know any blind people, so I wouldn't know. But I could imagine being able to walk a decent distance without concern for getting run over might trump typical accessibility concerns. Not that walking paths and transit access are mutually exclusive.

8th is right, this is starting to go off topic but then mass transit & the disabled is an issue.

Anyway, I hope you never find yourself disabled, but trust me, if you ever are, you will _not_ want to be put out to pasture or coddled.

IMO, transit advocates ought to leverage to ADA in order to secure more equitable funding for those who don't have the option to drive themselves around. This, again IMO, has great potential to help level the playing field a bit. The blind/visually impaired, mentally handicapped, elderly who cannot drive, etc are at a distinct disadvantage due to our built environment being autocentric. I wonder which city/state/transit agency/advocacy group will be the first to pursue this avenue. Perhaps Cincinnati? Perhaps SORTA?

Somebody gets pushed in front of a subway train in NYC, and COAST spends days screaming about how dangerous rail transit supposedly is. As I write this, I-275 is entirely shut down in Springdale due to a 50-car pileup, I-75 is shut down in Butler County due to a 40-car pileup, and I-270 in Columbus is closed due to a 30-car pileup. That sound you hear from COAST is crickets chirping.

"Bloody streetcar boondoggle causes roads to not get salted...

 

murderous streetcar...

 

your children are no longer safe...

 

salt barns sit empty as Mallory feeds homeless trolley..."

That last part is complete crap. The city has tons of salt right now because last year they bought the most in decades and no snow showed up.

Par for the course for BOAST

That last part is complete crap. The city has tons of salt right now because last year they bought the most in decades and no snow showed up.

 

I think your satire meter might need to be checked. That said, COAST has never let facts get in the way of crackpot rhetoric, so satire becomes meaningless.

We should take the long view of COAST's antics. And be happy about what they're doing.

 

None of these modern streetcar systems has ever failed. All have achieved ridership and economic development benefits far in excess of what was expected. All of them have now been expanded.

 

The same will be true here in Cincinnati, which has a better plan with more diversity of uses being served than any of the other systems' first phases.

 

So the more shrill COAST gets, the easier they are making our job of expanding the streetcar to other neighborhoods and for renewing the conversation about light rail here. They have put all their chips on stopping the streetcar, which can no longer be stopped. It will be built, it will be very successful, and Cincinnatians will finally realize how little credibility the COAST/Cranley/Luken types have.

 

This happens in most cities that build light rail or streetcars. After the first lne is open, no one listens to the COAST-types anymore. They are permanently diminished by their opposition to something most citizens come to value.

Oh boy...Another one from the cartographer ->  http://cincymap.org/blog/the-streetcar-5-on-the-back-of-branding/  :roll:

^ I never knew about the airporter downtown. Only $2 nice.

I wish the airport was more useful - $500+ for a flight from Chicago - no thanks.  Someone should start up a bus to shuttle people from Downtown Cincy to the Dayton airport :P.

I wish the airport was more useful - $500+ for a flight from Chicago - no thanks.  Someone should start up a bus to shuttle people from Downtown Cincy to the Dayton airport :P.

 

If it were offered, a la Megabus, I'd do it.

^ I never knew about the airporter downtown. Only $2 nice.

I have used the airport bus a few times. It is not a normal bus. It has nicer seats. They play some kind of TV stuff. The stop at the airport is kinda sucky in inclement weather. It's mainly used by airport employees. I don't know if I ever saw another flyer on the thing.

Or instead of a bus to the Dayton airport to fly to Chicago, just take the Mega bus?

Just announced: Cincinnati to host 2015 All-Star Game.  Hopefully this will get everyone off their butts and get this streetcar line operational in time for the event. 

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130121/SPT04/301140041

w00t

 

Yes. Let's get the streetcar operational by then!

Or instead of a bus to the Dayton airport to fly to Chicago, just take the Mega bus?

 

I think the point was that it was $500+ for a flight with a layover in Chicago.

>Let's get the streetcar operational by then!

 

And it'll be a goal for other things too. 

Fantastic news!!!

 

It'd be nice if the 2nd phase of the Banks is done by then too.

Would be awesome. Other cities have sped up processes to get things done like this, I hope we can but its all in Dukes hands

its all in Dukes hands

 

That's a scary thought

And right on schedule unemployed deadbeat Mark Miller chimes in:

 

COAST ‏@GOCOAST

MLB All Star Game coming to town, & the Streetcar is so far behind schedule, it won't be ready for it! Imagine! http://is.gd/UF9xJH

10:08 PM - 21 Jan 13 · Details

 

 

Yeah Miller won't have a job in 2015 either. 

And right on schedule unemployed deadbeat Mark Miller chimes in:

 

COAST ‏@GOCOAST

MLB All Star Game coming to town, & the Streetcar is so far behind schedule, it won't be ready for it! Imagine! http://is.gd/UF9xJH

10:08 PM - 21 Jan 13 · Details

 

This tweet is so maddening and representative of the childishness of it all. An obstructionist is now complaining about missing deadlines.  That's rich. 

The best part of that guy dribbled down his mother's leg. I'll be glad when COAST is irrelevant, and when the local media wakes up to that fact.

In response to Nate's blog post about the streetcar vs. branded bus services, look at it this way: a transit agency can spend its money until the end promoting a bus service or it can build a rail line that advertises itself.  I've never heard of a subway or streetcar line having to be branded and promoted by a transit agency. 

 

If you have ridden a particular Metro bus route many times, when you ride a new route you will revist much of the nervousness.  Where, exactly, are the stops?  When do I pull the rope?  I find that these uncertainties are compounded when traveling a new route outbound for the first time. 

 

Rail eliminates those uncertainties and the station locations never change.  People in Boston in 2013 can board trains on the Cambridge-Dorchester subway at the exact same stations they did in 1912 when the line opened.  They can transfer to the exact same Green Line subway-surface lines at Park St. 

 

Even if somebody hasn't ridden the subway in their city for 10 years, when the time comes to ride it again, they know how it works -- where to get on, where it goes, where they'll get off. 

I've already seen one bus line move away from the stop in front of my business in less than 3 years. On the sign you can see where there used to be a third that is now covered up with tape.

I think buses did okay right after the streetcars were scrapped in cities around the country because everyone remembered how the network worked.  But within 10 years there are so many newcomers to an area that rather than suffer the embarassment of asking where the buses run people just avoided that awkward social situation.  Even now you will regularly see people at bus stops asking questions about how the buses run. 

 

 

 

After reading a couple of the Cartographer's long winded streetcar diatribes I have to wonder if he suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, of if he's a savant?

I actually think he brings up some valid arguments, but a few of said arguments won't work in the political culture of Cincinnati - a better line would be ideal, but the amount of fighting to get anything done other than what's already been laid out would be immense - even getting to where Cincy is now was a horrible uphill battle requiring great leadership to achieve.  I would not lump him in the same category as a COAST idiot who's using the project for personal financial and political gain which some of you guys seem to be doing.  This is a guy who cares about and supports transit and wants to make it the best it can be - which is why I really don't appreciate all the name calling towards him.  He should treated by people opposed to his arguments with a  "hey lets agree to disagree" attitude instead of the usual reaction one would give to a COAST shill.

 

From my perspective against his arguments: This is more a pilot project than a final goal and hopefully eventually the system will be more of a system than just a line.  Its not perfect, but lets get what we can get and push forward for something better down the road.

 

I wish his arguments were brought to light way earlier in the process, because now its too late to make fundamental changes to make it a better system.  Still it should be built as not starting it now, we will never see something more comprehensive come to light.  Stating these arguments he's presenting now instead of earlier in the process alienates him from a lot of people who are on his side as the project's been battled to death and is at the point where further scrunity is not welcomed by its supporters even if its way above the usual trolley folley nonsense.

To echo Jake's point: I just returned from Toronto after using their extensive and robust streetcar network and although it is a far larger system it was still easy to tell where the streetcars went. At one point we had to transfer to the bus and had a hard time figuring out which bus went where from the streetcar line.

 

Also it's much more evident how the streetcar network helped preserve the vibrancy of independent businesses along the main commercial corridors. The transit system has fostered a viable and diverse economy that I doubt would have been viable without fixed street rail.

 

Finally, I am still amazed and appreciative at how quiet and smooth a ride the streetcars provides over the bumpy and noisy experience riding city buses.

Biased Barry Horstman chimed in this morning with an anti-streetcar quip:

 

‏@barryhorstman

Today, even supporters might concede 1 plus to Cincinnati streetcar not being built yet: not having to wait for it in single digit temps

9:44 AM - 22 Jan 13

 

 

 

Scraping off your car windows in single digit temps is much more pleasant.

 

Not.

Related post on Facebook from a friend living in NYC: "I think one of the top 5 reasons I moved to New York City was so that I'd never have to scrape my car again..."

Scraping a car off is one of the worst everyday experiences in places with cold winters. It is a terrible way to start a day. Waiting for a bus or streetcar when it's cold is so much more tolerable than getting your hands soaking wet and frozen only to feel like you've finished successfully cleaning off your car to have the windows freeze on the inside the moment you start breathing when you get into the car. You have to wait in the cold one way or the other, and one method doesn't involve frozen hands.

 

I'm really hoping that with the All Star game being in Cincy in 2015 that the city will really strive to take the fastest approach possible to getting this thing operable. It would be a huge shame if it wasn't available for visitors to take up into downtown and OTR before and after the game. I'm also hoping that this prompts a hotel developer to build a hotel in the Banks, but that's more of a stretch I think that getting this thing finished.

I've already seen one bus line move away from the stop in front of my business in less than 3 years. On the sign you can see where there used to be a third that is now covered up with tape.

 

Even the oft-criticized Waterfront Line in Cleveland shows what the permanence of rail can mean. The WFL was forecast to carry 600,000 riders per year, but instead carried over 800,000 in its first full year (1997). Those were the waning years of the Flats East Bank, which was acquired and demolished by a developer whose grand plans for a transit-supportive development stalled during the Great Recession. So starting in 2009, GCRTA shut down the WFL on weekdays and ran it only on weekends or for special events. Point is, the WFL did not go away because of rail's permanence.

 

So when the Great Recession ended and the Flats East Bank development started up again, GCRTA pledged to restart the WFL during weekdays again too. It is due to return to weekday operation this spring to the serve the first phase of Flats East Bank, with residential phases to start construction possibly by year's end. If this were a bus line, it would have been fully removed and not given the developer any reason to rekindle his investment here, or in a form supportive of transit and pedestrians, or perhaps not get built at all, anywhere. But the rail line was kept and so was the developer's promise....

 

 

 

 

 

Even in the few instances of rail's failure, its permanence means there is always an opportunity for it to survive the ebbs and flows of the built environment around it and to ultimately shape the physical form of its surroundings into something denser, mixed and thus more transit-supportive.....

 

Flats East Bank circa 2005

 

Flats East Bank planned 2015

What will Cincinnati look like in 2015?

 

(slideshow circa May 2012)

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?avis=ab&dato=20120509&kategori=news06&lopenr=205090801&ref=ph

 

 

 

I'll be glad when COAST is irrelevant, and when the local media wakes up to that fact.

 

The only time I ever hear about COAST is on UrbanOhio. I'm getting pretty tired of it too.

>Scraping a car

 

One cost of vehicle ownership people never include is the cost of buying a home with a garage. This was more important in the past when cars rusted out so quickly but people have kept building them out of habit.  I have a 13 year-old Honda that to my knowledge has never spent a night in a garage and it only has only a dot or two of rust and still has the original exhaust.

 

 

>This is more a pilot project than a final goal and hopefully eventually the system will be more of a system than just a line.  Its not perfect,

 

A thought I had the other day is people are mentally shortening the distance between Downtown and Findlay Market because they are connected by straight, level streets (also it's north-south, which people tend to shorten compared to an east-west disance [people speak dramatically about driving "cross country" but not from Chicago to New Orleans]).  GABP and Findlay Market are roughly the same distance from one another as Hughs Corner and Peeble's Corner, but nobody EVER makes that walk, in part because McMillan St. is a little hilly. Another similar distance is UC Hospital to Xavier University.  The connecting streets aren't straight and the route dips down to Victory Parkway so people perceive the distance to be longer.

 

 

I actually think he brings up some valid arguments, but a few of said arguments won't work in the political culture of Cincinnati - a better line would be ideal, but the amount of fighting to get anything done other than what's already been laid out would be immense - even getting to where Cincy is now was a horrible uphill battle requiring great leadership to achieve.  I would not lump him in the same category as a COAST idiot who's using the project for personal financial and political gain which some of you guys seem to be doing.  This is a guy who cares about and supports transit and wants to make it the best it can be - which is why I really don't appreciate all the name calling towards him.  He should treated by people opposed to his arguments with a  "hey lets agree to disagree" attitude instead of the usual reaction one would give to a COAST shill.

 

From my perspective against his arguments: This is more a pilot project than a final goal and hopefully eventually the system will be more of a system than just a line.  Its not perfect, but lets get what we can get and push forward for something better down the road.

 

I wish his arguments were brought to light way earlier in the process, because now its too late to make fundamental changes to make it a better system.  Still it should be built as not starting it now, we will never see something more comprehensive come to light.  Stating these arguments he's presenting now instead of earlier in the process alienates him from a lot of people who are on his side as the project's been battled to death and is at the point where further scrunity is not welcomed by its supporters even if its way above the usual trolley folley nonsense.

 

Thanks for saying this.  Although I disagree with Nate's posts on the streetcar for the reasons you've listed, he's a friend of mine who is sweet, funny, and brilliant.  He loves urban living and mass transit, doesn't own a car, and is basically the polar opposite of a COAST jerk.  Feel free to slag his ideas all you want, but personally insulting him and calling him autistic is out of bounds.

 

And yeah, The Banks to Findlay Market is a doable walk but most people aren't going to do that for grocery shopping.

So Todd Portune was in Mariemont tonight, and here's what one attendee reports:

 

"I'm at the Eastern Corridor meeting in Mariemont at Mariemont Elementary School.  Commissioner Portune just finished speaking.

 

In speaking a few minutes ago in response to a question, Commissioner Portune went out of his way to trash the streetcar project to this audience very aggressively.  He claimed that the proposed Eastern Corridor rail project would stimulate "much more" economic development than the streetcar.  In making this statement tonight to this suburban audience, Commissioner Portune  obscured the fact that the conception of the streetcar (before Senator Shannon Jones recruited state legislators to remove state funding for it) was to connect the University campus to the river and stimulate development along its entire path from Downtown to Uptown.

 

Portune stated that, at this point in time,  he believes that the funding for the Eastern Corridor RAIL project is MORE secure than the funding of the Eastern Corridor HIGHWAY.

 

Re the Eastern Corridor rail, Portune said that because of the various funding options, he foresees funding coming to the Eastern Corridor RAIL project sooner than the funding for the highway relocation of Route 32. One of his exact statements was "The rail portion is moving at a quick pace."

 

WASSON R-O-W: Portune also talked about how there is "renewed interest" in the Wasson line for passenger rail.    He said about this that "We are in the process of seeeing if this (Wasson rail line) can be brought online sooner."

______

 

So there you go. 

 

Bashing the streetcar in this context is probably better for the streetcar, in a bizarre way. The streetcar is a better line with an LRT connection. And separating the two conceptually is probably better for getting support for LRT in the county.

A follow-up comment from the person who attended the meeting in Mariemont tonight:

 

"Portune's languge really shocked me.  Any comment one one way or the

other about the streetcar was completely irrelevant to what people in the

audience asked him.  They did not come to this meeting to talk about the

streetcar, but it was Portune who decided (I suppose) to try and score

some cheap approval from suburbanites by trashing the streetcar."