So it wasn't the fact that they care for the future in SLC. It was the Olympics. Interesting

^ Nope, SLC has built a couple more LRT lines since the Olympics and is about to start on a streetcar line.

 

It's attitudinal.

The olympics caused the federal government to fund 80% of the firststreetcar line. Once it was done, the residents approved a sales tax increase to fund additional expansions because they loved it.

^ I recall that a year or so after it opened, SLC's first ligh rail line was named "Retailer of the Year" by the downtown business association.

Oh another fortune teller. With those predictive abilities, you must be sitting on a beach someplace counting your dividend checks, correct? Where is it written that newspapers are going to last forever, especially with the increasingly shoddy reporting they are asking their customers to accept? Though I do agree they will last forever if people who can make a difference just sit on their ass and take it.

 

I decided to do a little something about it by creating my own blog. Here's my first post....

 

http://neo-trans.blogspot.com/

Oh another fortune teller. With those predictive abilities, you must be sitting on a beach someplace counting your dividend checks, correct? Where is it written that newspapers are going to last forever, especially with the increasingly shoddy reporting they are asking their customers to accept? Though I do agree they will last forever if people who can make a difference just sit on their ass and take it.

 

I decided to do a little something about it by creating my own blog. Here's my first post....

 

http://neo-trans.blogspot.com/

 

Hey that's cool. Great job!

Oh another fortune teller. With those predictive abilities, you must be sitting on a beach someplace counting your dividend checks, correct? Where is it written that newspapers are going to last forever, especially with the increasingly shoddy reporting they are asking their customers to accept? Though I do agree they will last forever if people who can make a difference just sit on their ass and take it.

 

I decided to do a little something about it by creating my own blog. Here's my first post....

 

http://neo-trans.blogspot.com/

Thanks for this post! My parents live in Warren/Niles area and complain about the lack of transit options. They live in Howland Township, so they also complain about the lack of sidewalks and amenities to bike. My mom has said that she would bike to work because it is so flat, but the roads are not really safe for bikers, particularly the SR-82/Warren-Sharon Rd/E Market St. interchange that she would have to travel through to get from home to work and back.

Oh another fortune teller. With those predictive abilities, you must be sitting on a beach someplace counting your dividend checks, correct? Where is it written that newspapers are going to last forever, especially with the increasingly shoddy reporting they are asking their customers to accept? Though I do agree they will last forever if people who can make a difference just sit on their ass and take it.

 

I decided to do a little something about it by creating my own blog. Here's my first post....

 

http://neo-trans.blogspot.com/

 

Great start... I'm doing what I can to spread the word about your new blog.

^ I put it on my blogs link list as well.. hopefully all 5 of my readers will check it out :)

Thanks!

So in the end it's up to us to provide the news coverage via Web news sites in cities like Cincinnati -- and put them out of business.

 

That is unfortunately not going to happen.

 

Given the fact that the Enquirer gets thinner and thinner each year and, they STILL to this day can not provide a decent website that isn't clunky, user unfriendly and hard to navigate all while not grasping how to use social media and online multimedia - I'd say it will happen sooner rather than later.

So I drove the streetcar route again today-- It really is so amazing how much vacant property there is up race and elm between henry and Liberty. 

 

While 3CDC owns almost everything between elm and race from Washington Park to Liberty, is all of that property past liberty random owners? Abandoned? Anyone have any info on who owns most of the empty property around Findlay Market?

^ The Corporation for Findlay Market owns a lot of it.

Given the fact that the Enquirer gets thinner and thinner each year and, they STILL to this day can not provide a decent website that isn't clunky, user unfriendly and hard to navigate all while not grasping how to use social media and online multimedia - I'd say it will happen sooner rather than later.

 

I'm hopeful that the organization which runs http://www.soapboxmedia.com/ (they also have media operations in Cleveland and other cities but with different publication names) will grow into this role. How are they on the streetcar?

^ They support it.

Then we should support them.

Ol Charlie Winburn is proposing 13 strategies to revitalize the Cincinnati’s economic foundation. Number 11?

 

"They should abandon the streetcar. This will open up $64 million in new bonding capacity so that we can use the capital funds in attracting new business to Cincinnati."

 

 

Budget advice for City Council

In December 2009, I recommended to Mayor Mark Mallory and City Council to cut $17 million from the city administration and in December 2010 I made similar recommendations totaling $28 million. Sadly, I did not get one council member to support me in making the tough decision to “right size” our local city government and create a structurally balanced budget either year.

 

I have only been on City Council for the past 13 months, compared to some of my colleagues who have been on here for six years.

 

The truth is that this council has failed for six straight years to achieve a structurally balanced city budget, while continuing to proudly brag about how they have voted against the budget over the last few years. I guess they thought this was a solution to the budget problem. This action only kicks the can of delay further down the road. I do commend council members Jeff Berding and Chris Bortz for their hard work and diligence to get five votes on their proposals in an attempt to get a balanced budget. Many of the reductions are due to their work.

 

cont

Winburn is such a clown, I can't believe he is back on Council!

Given the fact that the Enquirer gets thinner and thinner each year and, they STILL to this day can not provide a decent website that isn't clunky, user unfriendly and hard to navigate all while not grasping how to use social media and online multimedia - I'd say it will happen sooner rather than later.

 

I'm hopeful that the organization which runs http://www.soapboxmedia.com/ (they also have media operations in Cleveland and other cities but with different publication names) will grow into this role. How are they on the streetcar?

 

I have a feeling Gordon Bombay may be right, and it's part of a bigger picture. 

 

Unless the way we access the internet fundamentally changes (which I really, really hope it doesn't - or we can likely kiss sites like this one and most of our blogs goodbye) it'll be tough to have any type of online, trusted, legitimate news source.  There just isn't a funding model that will work.  Soapbox isn't anywhere near as large as the Enquirer, and if they ever hope to be some day they will need a lot more advertising dollars.  Once they have the ad revenue flowing in, they'll be in the same back-scratching business the Enquirer is in.

The don't have to be as big as the Enquirer, they just need to out-last the Enquirer.

Wake me up when the Enquirer building forecloses. We have a full thread on the decline of newspapers already - which I started.

Hmm, do you think I'll be able to ride the streetcar come Winter 2011?

^ No way. Winter 2013? I hope so.

BTW folks, this thread has over 12,000 posts!  That is a much larger number from even the second-largest thread!  Congrats to all!!!

Summer 2013 I'd say is a pretty good guess.

Wake me up when the Enquirer building forecloses.

 

So even if the Enquirer goes out of business someday and a new tenant occupies their space or one of the other existing tenants at 312 Elm take it over, do you still want us to let you sleep?

Anyone heard anything new about a ground breaking date?  What's the hold up at this point?  Are they just waiting for Duke Energy to give their official estimate on relocation costs? 

^ Not before April. They are jumping through all the Federal hoops right now. No problems, just takes time.

^ Stupid NEPA...

^ Stupid NEPA...

 

We could always wait until Rep. Mica guts NEPA, then have another go at it! But by then, a stationary object becomes a much easier target for Citizens Against Virtually Everything (CAVE), er, COAST.

^ I think we're fine, really.

I know. It's facetious Friday. ;)

Has anyone heard if the opposition is going to try to get signatures for a May ballot issue?  On January 4th it was reported they had about 30 days to get them, but they were still deciding.  I might have missed an update, but I am hoping they are not trying for some sort of under the radar campaign to surprise the backers.  Considering it would cost the city $400k just for this issue it would seem somewhat hypocritical.

Then we should support them.

 

Yes.....we should.

From: Today's Building Cincinnati:

Contract expiration, FTA require new streetcar bids

 

Due to the expiration of a prior contract and strings attached to federal funding, the City of Cincinnati is in the process of soliciting requests for proposals (RFP) from construction contractors for the first phase of its streetcar project.

 

Stacy and Witbeck, Inc. had filled the role since signing a contract with the City in June 2009, but that contract expired on December 13.

And, as a condition of being awarded a $25 million federal Urban Circulator Grant to help fund the project, the City is required to use Federal Transit Administration procedures for selecting a new contractor.

From: Yesterday on WLWT

Red Tape Holds Up Streetcar Groundbreaking

Officials Hope To Break Ground Soon

 

 

CINCINNATI -- The Cincinnati streetcar project appears to be stuck in neutral thanks to some bureaucratic red tape.

 

City leaders said federal agencies need to be satisfied that construction of the streetcar won't harm the historic aspects of Over-the-Rhine.

 

The National Environmental Policy Act requires a thorough review, which is not moving as fast as some city leaders would like.

 

"The real key to the whole streetcar project … is going to be when we can connect downtown to the whole University Hospital area," said Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls. "And that really should be something that people should be supportive of because that means jobs, jobs and more jobs."

^The idea that the streetcar would harm the historic aspects of OTR is utterly adbsurd, considering there were streetcars along the route historically.  Reintroducing tracks and catenaries won't hurt the characteristics that make the neighborhood historic.

^ There are no serious issues. Historic preservation types just want a better idea of what the shelters will look like. I agree with them. It's a critical part of the overall design.

You can rely on the local media to try and blow this benign process up into a big deal.  The best part of that story was the end.  If it's true that opponents are aiming for November, then I don't see anything stopping construction from starting before then.

I still don't understand why we can't be moving manholes, gas and electricity lines right now.  That can be done with the OKI or Ohio TRAC money and is borderline unrelated to the streetcar installation.  There are over 100 manholes that need to be moved because they are along the streetcar line (vine street has almost 50 alone)

If you have ever looked through all the documents required for a route, its mind numbing. Every government, quasi government, non-profit, etc geographically near a proposed rail (or freeway) has an opportunity to weigh in. Even when its not a full blown NEPA process. So much "environmental justice" to prevent the diasaster that became neighborhoods after the freeway system got built.

 

Unfortunately, most people dont know this and the media who are against it love to use it as a tool for a project being "stuck in red tape"

 

If that were justification for a story, newspapers could employ an entire department of writers to talk about projects that are "stuck in red tape"

 

Keep the mojo guys!!

I'm normally all for preservation, but this is silly.  The streetcar's aren't even historic to begin with, why pressure them to put in historic canopies.

 

Also, there is way too much environmental reviews required for transportation projects, the whole thing should be streamlined.  Yes there was a lot of bad garbage in the 1960s, but I think times have changed and the process is too slow.

^ I'm guessing the canopies won't be historic. But scale and transparency are important. Lighting too.

I think the newer streets in OTR (the Gateway for instance) are almost sterile compared to their historical counterparts.  Pick up a  book and look at any image of downtown/OTR in the early 1900's, and you'll see signs, stalls, etc. crowding the streets everywhere.  Even in this image from 1973, there appears to be a lot more going on by the presence of historic and new aesthetics mixed together:

 

 

So, in other words, I'd welcome new, attractive streetcar shelters :)  I also wish we could bring back more of those huge old signs, instead of the tiny ones the new places in the Gateway put up.

Wow... In that pic you truly get a sense of the vitality that was lost along Vine St. Even the trolley poles in the pic still have the lamps atop them.

Where can I find more images like that!  I've only been in the region for a few years and would love to see some great shots of Cincy over the years. 

 

Look at the sidewalks!  They look packed.

 

That's approximately 7th and vine right?

^^those cobra head lights are pretty bad in the background.

^^ Taken from the Fountain Square sky walk August 1973.  That's 6th st signage at the very front and Vine St. Hill at the very end.  These are from the US National Archives:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/3887894424/#

 

^Agreed.  The amount of visual clutter is mind-boggling.  Cobra head's have no place in an urban setting.

That image is amazing.  A lot of DT urban design guidelines these days prevent this type of signage from existing.  The new Gateway signage is sterile and too similar. 

It's too bad that the de facto standard here in Cincinnati is a cobra head on a wood utility pole.  I'm constantly flabbergasted when streetscaping projects install all this great new pavement and planters and new post lights, but they leave the utility lines AND the cobra heads too.  Is it really necessary to have twice as many lights?  Why are we paying for this? 

 

That makes me wonder if there's going to be any effort to clean things up a bit along the streetcar route.  It doesn't have to be anything fancy, but there's going to be all sorts of new trolley poles put up along the way, and they should double as street lights too.