Author: John Yung

John joined UrbanCincy in 2011 and immediately established himself as a key member of the UrbanCincy team. A native of Chicago, transplanted to Lebanon, Ohio in his teenage years, John currently resides in Cincinnati’s historic Mt Auburn neighborhood. John earned a Masters of Community Planning degree from the University of Cincinnati in 2013.

Categories
Up To Speed

New iPhone will expose Cincinnati’s lack of open data

New iPhone will expose Cincinnati’s lack of open data.

With the imminent introduction of the next generation iPhone from Apple, the new phone and iOS interface is poised to eliminate Google Maps in favor of Apple’s own mapping software package. The move, which will come by fall of this year, provides driving directions but relies on third-party applications to provide transit directions. The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) is one of the top ten agencies that does not provide the necessary open data necessary to create a transit app to replace Google Maps. More from The Atlantic:

The strategy relies on a pretty big assumption, and third-party developers need open data to build these tools…Many cities still aren’t sharing their data, including big ones like Atlanta, Phoenix, and Detroit. Along with hundreds of other metros, these cities do provide their transit data directly to Google for use in Google Maps, using a standardized format Google developed known as the General Transit Feed Specification (or GTFS). Giving data to Google is not, however, what developers mean when they talk about “open data.”

Categories
Business Development News

City leaders partner with Walnut Hills to advance two-way street conversions

Peebles Corner was once the scene of Cincinnati’s original uptown; however, the Walnut Hills neighborhood began to decline as people moved further away from the center city. The quality of the neighborhood’s historic fabric still echoes that grandeur.

Neighborhood leaders have now become accustomed to people driving past many of these buildings along McMillian Avenue, past Interstate 71 (I-71), at a speed much faster than the posted speed limit of 30mph. The one-way street allows drivers to move through Walnut Hills at a speed that threatens pedestrians and makes the business district an unpleasant place for someone to linger.

The negative impacts of one-way streets through urban neighborhoods have been long documented, and cities across the country are beginning to convert these stretches of roadway back to two-way traffic. Thus far there have been encouraging results.


Two-way street cross section for Walnut Hills. Rendering provided.

“The street design should help make the Walnut Hills business district a destination again, instead of serving as a raceway through the neighborhood,” said Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls (C) in 2010 after introducing a motion to move forward with additional study work.

Qualls also believes that while streets should serve local traffic, they also need to create an atmosphere where people can live, work, shop, walk and bike safely.

In June 2012, Cincinnati City Council’s Livable Communities Committee met to discuss the proposed conversion of McMillian Avenue and William H. Taft in Walnut Hills. The conversion, which has been approved and will start this fall, will be in place on both streets east of I-71. Department of Transportation & Engineering (DOTE) officials and consultants from URS Corporation briefed the committee on the reconfiguration of both streets.

Kevin Wright, Executive Director of the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation sees the change as part of a broader strategy to revitalize the Peeble’s Corner Business District.

“We think the two-way conversion is going to be a huge help in terms of both physical and economic development, but it’s important that we don’t view it as a panacea,” Wright told UrbanCincy. “Transportation improvements like this are essential to redevelopment efforts like ours, but in order to create real change we will also need to focus on safety, cleanliness, design, business development, and physical development; all of which we are working on now.”

The recommendation to transform the two streets in Walnut Hills came from the Uptown Access Study which examined the idea. Since that time, the City of Cincinnati has conducted eight public meetings on the issue, and looked at possible alternatives, like adding bicycle lanes to both streets.

The final choice made by the City was focused around maintaining traffic flow from the western portions of both streets across I-71, and eliminates parking on one side of the street.

“The design isn’t perfect, but is still a big step in the right direction,” explained Wright. “It is our hope that the corridor will look completely different two to three years from now, and that the city will look to make some modifications to the design of the street at that time.”

Categories
News Opinion Politics

Steve Chabot Attempts to Overturn the Will of Cincinnati Voters

There they go again. After two failed initiatives (Issue 9 and Issue 48) to defeat fixed rail public transportation at the ballot boxes, enemies of the Cincinnati Streetcar project are once again moving to bar the city from completing what has been billed as crucial to the economic development of Over-the-Rhine and downtown. This time they found an ally at the congressional level.

Last week, Representative Steve Chabot (R), Ohio’s District One representative, and native of the west side of Cincinnati coyly inserted an amendment into the Transportation Housing and Urban Development (THUD) bill that would bar the use of federal dollars in funding any project in Cincinnati that is on a “fixed guideway” system. The bill is currently in the Senate where it will be voted on and forwarded to the President for his signature should it pass.

The amendment, which reads, “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to design, construct, or operate a fixed guideway project located in Cincinnati, Ohio,” is designed as an attempt to stop the Cincinnati Streetcar project. The amendment’s language mirrors that of both Issue’s 9 & 48 but has even broader and more far reaching consequences than either of the two failed ballot initiatives.

According to the Federal government, a fixed guideway is defined as:

Any transit service that uses exclusive or controlled rights-of-way or rails, entirely or in part. The term includes heavy rail, commuter rail, light rail, monorail, trolleybus, aerial tramway, inclined plane, cable car, automated guideway transit, ferryboats, that portion of motor bus service operated on exclusive or controlled rights-of-way, and high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lanes.

This broad definition means that not only would the amendment preclude that no federal funding go towards the streetcar project but that federal funds would also be barred from being used towards any improvement of the following city projects:

  • Upgrading the city’s overcrowded freight rail system: The city has previously asked for state and federal funding to add a “fourth main” freight rail line expanding the regions freight rail capacity and reducing the impact of an existing freight rail bottleneck along the three main freight lines adjacent to the Mill Creek. The City can’t even ask for this solution if the amendment goes forward.
  • Development of the city’s Bus Rapid Transit system: SORTA and the City have been conducting studies on implementing BRT on several streets in Cincinnati including Reading Road and Montgomery Road. This amendment will make it impossible for the project to utilize much needed federal funds to buy buses and construct stops and street improvements.
  • Development of the Eastern Corridor and Wasson Line for light or commuter rail: Both of these rail lines would connect downtown to the east side of the city. Without federal funds neither project can even be studied. This includes any study on the possibility of a “Rails and trails” combined bicycle path on the Wasson Line.

This amendment is a poison pill meant to punish the progress of Cincinnati and its revitalizing urban core and overrules and ignores the will of the city electorate. It serves only the shortsighted will of vocal minority and threatens to leave our entire metropolitan region at a competitive disadvantage against other regions as we move towards a 21st century economy.

We strongly urge supporters of transportation infrastructure to write Ohio Senators Sherrod Brown (D) and Rob Portman (R) to remove this overly restrictive language from the THUD bill. Additionally, we encourage supporters of transportation infrastructure in Ohio’s First Congressional District to give Representative Chabot an earful over this callous disregard towards voters in his home district.

Happy Independence Day!

Categories
Development News Politics

City officials hoping for surge of resident input on final day of community planning survey

Plan; Build; Live; these three words represent the process of developing and implementing a future vision. Cincinnati recently embarked on an endeavor to reform its land development codes and streamline the process of applying for a building permit.

The initiative which is aptly named, PlanBuildLive aims to achieve comprehensive reforms including the development of the city’s first form-based code.


PLAN Cincinnati Open House. Image provided.

Last month, the city hosted a four-day,city-wide Urban Design Workshop to engage residents in building a better community. One of the exercises from the workshop included a six question survey about city priorities.

The survey, called, What Would You Tell Her?, starts by stating that a friend has recently been elected to City Council, and then lists some options of advice the participant would give to their council friend on certain issues. Participants are also encouraged to come up with their own solutions to the hypothetical problems.

According to Della Rucker, who is working on the PlanBuildLive initiative, the survey “asks people imaginary but pretty real-world-relevant questions about urban development and maintenance regulation issues.”

Rucker went on to say that the survey has received a lot of responses thus far. Those interested in taking the online survey can do so through today. Results will then be released in-person and online after June 20.

Categories
Business Development News Politics

The Triumph of Cincinnati’s Center City Plan

Cincinnati was a different place ten years ago. It was a city still reeling from the destruction left behind by the civil unrest in 2001, and had a downtown in decline with retailers closing up shop and office vacancies soaring. The Banks project was regarded as a pipe dream, a field of mud between the elevated islands of sports stadiums and a lonely museum overlooking construction on the opposite side of the Ohio River.

Over-the-Rhine was a different place ten years ago as well. The corner of Twelfth and Vine Street consistently rated as the most dangerous in the city. Block after block of boarded buildings stood silently as echoes of an era time forgot. This was Cincinnati’s center city, a dried up husk of its former glory where redevelopment projects stalled and floundered and everyone returned home before dusk.

My, how far things have come.

In ten years time, the city center has experienced a resurrection from what appeared to be a near death experience. Fountain Square now attracts concerts and events, The Banks has become reality, Over-the-Rhine is being revitalized before our eyes, and it seems like every day there is a new project, a new store, a new cultural amenity, or a new festival choosing the downtown area.


Phase one of The Banks has been built [LEFT], and a major revitalization of Over-the-Rhine is underway [RIGHT]. Photographs by Randy A. Simes for UrbanCincy.

There is a saying that it takes a village, but in this case, it took a plan to change the area’s trajectory.

The Center City Plan as conceived in 2002 by consultants as a report to the city’s Economic Development Task Force. What the plan did is lay out a vision and way forward for the city to begin restoring the vitality of its largest economic center.

“The Economic Development Taskforce was a public-private partnership that looked at how the city could thrive,” City Spokesperson, Meg Olberding, explained. “The task force laid out a structure whereby the public and private sectors each have their role, but must work together.”

The task force made 23 recommendations, in total, including the creation of a one-stop permit shop, establishment of the Port Authority as an economic development agency, and the formation of the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC).

City officials and 3CDC were tasked with making the goals laid out in the Center City Plan a reality. In particular, the plan detailed four initiatives aimed at restoring vitality.

  1. Redevelop Fountain Square: The plan recommended that the city, “transform Fountain Square into the city’s retail, cultural and civic heart”. Consolidation of retail at street level and creation of an attractive public space went into the redesign of the square. The removal of pedestrian skywalks also seen as a way to focus pedestrian activity on the street.
  2. Revitalize Over-the-Rhine: With regards to Over-the-Rhine the plan said, “Without intensive focus on Over-the-Rhine, efforts in the center city will be wasted.” Starting with a focus on the Vine Street corridor as the primary retail corridor, the plan envisioned a catalytic development agency spurring redevelopment along Vine Street in the historic neighborhood. The plan was to start at Central Parkway and work north towards Liberty Street.
  3. Build the Banks: The plan initially tasked the agency that would become 3CDC with the mission of building The Banks project. Years later the project moved forward under a steering committee to overcome conflicts that arose from the various parties involved in the riverfront redevelopment.
  4. Restore Washington Park: It was recommended that the city, “Implement a comprehensive development strategy to make Washington Park a civic treasurer.”

Of the many recommendations that stem from the Center City Plan, nearly all of them have been implemented or are in the process of being implemented today. The success of the plan, and those implementing it, can be seen every time a new project breaks ground, a new business opens shop, or a new cultural attraction takes root.

Other less visible accomplishments can be credited to the implementation of the other recommendations of the Economic Development Task Force such as the evolving direction of the Port Authority, the Plan Build Live initiative, and the city’s revised marketing approach.

Olberding concluded that, “This has proven to be a winning strategy for the City and one that will be more and more important as we take Cincinnati to the next level of growth and opportunity.”