Aside from public policy in general, if there are two topics that define UrbanCincy they are transportation and urban design. So often these two elements are beautifully captured in photographs, and, in special occasions, through wonderful videography as well. Such is the case with Geoff Tompkinson‘s timelapse video of New York City.
The European-based photographer has been known for his global travel and breathtaking imagery. One of his more recent videos is New York Noir, which is an alternative to his originally produced Moving Through New York.
The roughly three-minute video takes viewers through some of New York’s most impressive transportation structures, while also taking a general tour of some of the city’s most well-known urban spaces.
Tompkinson’s video of New York is just one in a series of timelapse videos he has put together in a series that has also included Istanbul, Hermitage, Venice, St. Petersburg and Chicago, which is also embedded below for your viewing enjoyment.
The temperatures are cooling down and the summer festival season is drawing to a close. That means that this weekend’s Second Sunday on Main street festival will be that last of the year.
As is always the case, there is a theme for the festivities at this month’s event. In a nod to the changing seasons, SSOM will celebrate in ‘Fall Carnival’ fashion with a pumpkin market, costume parade, live music, food trucks, an outdoor biergarten and trick-or-treating.
Crosswalk Painting at SSOM [Provided]
There will also be the standard collection of dozens of local vendors and specials at Main Street businesses.
In addition to the costume parade, which will take place at 3pm at the MOTR Stage, organizers say that there will also be a costume swap where people can bring any clean, still wearable costumes with them and take home something else of their choosing for free.
Crosswalk painting will continue this month, as it has in the past, and represent the fourth crosswalk along the several block-long stretch of Main Street. Festival organizers say that the crosswalk to be painted this Sunday is at Fourteenth Street and Main Street, and will get started at 12pm with artist Pam Kravetz.
Another interesting component of this month’s SSOM will be the celebrity chef demo at Mr. Pitiful’s with Chef de Cuisine Mapi De Veyra and area bartender Tyler Delmatto who is known for his work at Quan Hapa and Asian Food Fest. This demonstration is also free and will take place at 2:30pm.
Second Sunday on Main is a free event open to the public and is one of the city’s oldest open streets festivals. Festivities on Sunday will run from 12pm to 5pm, with Main Street being closed to vehicular traffic from Thirteenth Street to Liberty Street.
EDITORIAL NOTE: UrbanCincy is an official media partner of Second Sunday on Main; and is proud to support the city’s oldest open streets festival.
Central Parkway Protected Bike Lane [Eric Anspach]
As bicycling continues to grow in popularity in Cincinnati, the city has built out more and more bike infrastructure. These new accommodations, including the new protected bike lanes on Central Parkway, are making it safer for bicyclists and are attracting more riders.
The Central Parkway Cycle Track provides a new protected, on-street route for bike travel between downtown and neighborhoods to the north, including Northside, Camp Washington and Clifton.
City transportation planners say that there has been apprehension for many cyclists to ride in high volumes of speedy traffic. This is particularly true for Central Parkway, which officials say was often avoided by many due to the intimidating nature of the street’s design that favored fast-moving automobiles. Since the opening of the Central Parkway Cycle Track, however, city officials say that there has been a substantial increased in bike traffic there.
Central Parkway Protected Bike Lane [Eric Anspach]
Central Parkway Protected Bike Lane [Eric Anspach]
Bike advocacy groups consider the project to be the first of its kind in Ohio. It stretches approximately about two miles from Elm Street at the edge of downtown to Marshall Avenue in Camp Washington.
The protected lanes differ from other bike lanes recently built in other locations around the city in that they are separated from moving traffic by a painted median several feet wide. To further delineate the two modes of traffic, the median also includes flexible plastic bollards spaced about 15 to 20 feet apart. This separation then pushes on-street parking out away from the curb.
At one point along the parkway, close to Ravine Street, the southbound lane leaves the street to run on a newly constructed path along the sidewalk for several hundred feet in order to allow 24-hour curbside parking. The off-street path is made of concrete dyed in a color intended to resemble brick.
During the heated debate over this design change, many expressed concern that construction of the new pavement could result in the loss of a large number of trees. Fortunately, due to careful planning and design coordination between city planners and representatives from Cincinnati Parks, who have oversight of the city’s landscaped parkways, they were able to preserve many of the trees in this area. According to city officials, only two trees in total were lost due to the lane.
Transportation officials are now working to link these protected bike lanes along Central Parkway with future bike routes along Martin Luther King Drive and on the reconstructed Western Hills Viaduct.
Furthermore, after work on the Interstate 75 reconstruction project near Hopple Street is complete, planners will consider the extension of the protected lanes north to Ludlow Avenue. But first, Mel McVay, senior planner at Cincinnati’s Department of Transportation & Engineering, told UrbanCincy that the first segment needs to be examined first, and additional community feedback will be necessary.
“We need to see how successful the first section is,” McVay explained. “It [the second phase] will depend on what the community wants.”
EDITORIAL NOTE: All 25 photos were taken by Eric Anspach for UrbanCincy in late September 2014.
Whether you know it or not, the standard width of traffic lanes on our roadways has increased over the years. The standard set forth by most state DOTs is now 12 feet for a typical lane. An increasing amount of evidence, however, shows that these widths create safety problems for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists alike. Furthermore, the additional width adds significant costs to the price of building and maintaining our roadways, and squanders valuable land. More from CityLab:
On city streets, most drivers ignore posted speed limits, and instead drive the speed at which they feel safe. That speed is set by the cues provided by the environment. Are there other cars near me? Is an intersection approaching? Can I see around that corner? Are there trees and buildings near the road? Are there people walking or biking nearby? And: How wide is my lane?
[…]
Our lives are currently being put at risk daily by fifty state DOTs and hundreds of county road commissions who mistakenly believe that high-speed street standards make our cities and towns safer. In my most considered opinion, these agencies have blood on their hands, and more than a little. There are many standards that they need to change, but the easiest and most important is probably the 12-foot lane.
There aren’t many official skateparks throughout the region. Some spaces have become popular destinations for skateboarders, while others have been labeled as unwelcoming due to their designs intended on keeping skateboarders away. But has the design of skateparks often been their ultimate road block from being implemented, and would a more multi-purpose design help rectify that? More from Next City:
Inga Saffron, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s architecture critic, noted in her review that Franklin’s Paine Skatepark Fund had to raise $4.5 million to bring their vision for Paine’s Park to life, and they did so by “badgering state, city, and private funders to pay for the project.” The space reveals the shift in how skateboarders and architects imagine skateparks. But it also represents a surge of civically engaged skateboarders who are taking city building seriously. The kids who clung to their boards in the ’80s and ’90s have grown up, some of them into advocates. San Antonio has a “skate plaza” program. Seattle welcomes boards not only to skateparks, but “skate spots” (1,500 to 10,000 square feet) and “skate dots” (smaller than 1,500 square feet). Portland’s system has branched out to designate skateboard routes in the city’s downtown.
