The City of Cincinnati has partnered with the MidPoint Music Festival (MPMF), for the second consecutive year, to offer expanded bicycle parking options.
This year’s MPMF is shaping up to be the biggest yet, and as a result, city officials say that they will convert nine on-street automobile parking spaces into bicycle-only parking stalls. Each stall will include a lockable bike corral that can accommodate up to 12 bicycles comfortably.
The spaces will be temporary in nature, and will be removed at the end of the three-day music festival which begins today.
“We want to encourage festival goers to try going carless this year,” explained Cincinnati’s Department of Transportation & Engineering (DOTE) director, Michael Moore. “With all of the venues located in such a compact area in OTR and Downtown, this is a great opportunity to experience how easy it is to get around town on a bicycle.”
The converted spaces will compliment an existing permanent collection of structured bicycle parking throughout the Central Business District and historic Over-the-Rhine. Those hoping to take advantage of the bicycle parking options during this year’s MPMF can refer to the following map for guidance.
Cincinnati leaders announced a major step today in moving forward the construction schedule of the Cincinnati Streetcar, after a recent memo from City Manager Milton Dohoney conceded that the project had been delayed to summer 2015.
According to the August 28 memo, city officials had not been able to resolve negotiations with Duke Energy over utility replacement costs. A new legislative package, which is set to go before the Budget & Finance Committee on September 24, seeks to sidestep the negotiations and start the next phase of utility relocation work on the streetcar.
“It is not feasible to sit idle awaiting an outcome,” City Manager Dohoney explained in a prepared statement.
The first piece of legislation establishes a $15 million account from which the City will advance the work for the Duke Energy utilities until the City and the energy company can fully address who must pay for the relocation of electrical and gas lines under city streets. This figure is what was disclosed to the City by Duke Energy as the cost of utility relocation and design work.
While both parties reached an agreement to the three feet separation from the tracks, as is used in other cities, the ongoing issue is over who is responsible to pay the cost of utility relocation. The City has maintained that the streetcar is a transportation improvement project and that Duke Energy is responsible for utility relocation costs.
City officials broke ground on the streetcar project earlier this year. Photograph by 5chw4r7z.
Funding for the account will come from part of the recent $37 million sale of land adjacent to the former Blue Ash Airport. As recently reported by UrbanCincy, the City of Cincinnati sold most of the former airport land to the City of Blue Ash for a new park but retained approximately 100 acres.
Once an agreement is reached in the dispute, the City expects that the $15 million will be recovered and become available for other investments throughout the city. According to City officials, by fronting the cost of utility relocation work, it will be able to avoid potential legal disputes and any further delay or cost increases.
The second piece of legislation changes the funding source for repayment of $14 million of the $25 million in notes issued as part of the original streetcar project proposal. According to the City’s finance department, the funding shift does not add cost to the project but instead shifts the funding temporarily from the Downtown South TIF District to a fund created in 1995 that collects service payments from Westin/Star, Hyatt and Saks. Half of these funds are reserved for housing projects throughout the city and the other half is currently unallocated. Once the City revises the districts revenue funding it will be able to assess how much debt it can borrow against the revised Downtown South TIF District.
The final item for consideration is a right-of-way ordinance confirming and clarifying the City’s existing historic rights for utility relocation. This legislation, also enacted in other large Ohio cities, unequivocally asserts a municipality’s authority to require a utility in the public right-of-way to relocate its facilities – at the utility’s sole cost – when required in order to accommodate construction of a public improvement.
City officials have disclosed to UrbanCincy that they are confident an agreement with Duke Energy will be reached. In the meantime, this procedure will allow crucial construction of the streetcar to advance, including track construction work and ordering of the streetcar vehicles.
“Cincinnati is still growing and the streetcar project is still a part of that,” City Spokesperson Meg Oldberding told UrbanCincy. “This should be a good signal that the streetcar is moving forward.”
The Budget & Finance Committee meeting will be held on Monday September 24 at 10:30am in Room 300, in City Council Chambers at City Hall.
UPDATE: The two items passed through City Council’s Budget & Finance Committee 6-3 with P.G. Sittenfeld (D), Charlie Winburn (R), and Christopher Smitherman (I) voting in opposition. The Budget & Finance Committee is made up of the full nine-member City Council which is expected to pass the measures by the same margin at their regular meeting this Wednesday.
The residents and boosters have cause to celebrate. Downtown Cincinnati has added more than 5,000 residents over the past five years. Over the past decade, crime has also dropped approximately 25 percent, retail occupancy rates have improved to their best levels in five years, and overall employment is up.
Crave is one of dozens of new businesses to open downtown so far in 2012. Photograph by Randy Simes for UrbanCincy.
All of the progress has neighborhood advocates excited about the state of their slice of Americana, and they want the whole region to learn more about the progress.
“Live It Up Downtown is an opportunity to celebrate our vibrant residential community,” David Ginsburg, President and CEO of DCI, stated in a prepared release. “A lively group of residents will be on hand to meet and find out first-hand why they chose to live downtown.”
According to organizers, the event will run from 3pm to 11pm on Fountain Square, and will feature realtors and property managers on-hand to provide information about downtown living options. There will also be scheduled entertainment, live music, food and drink available for purchase, and more than 30 small businesses and organizations on-hand to discuss their involvement in the center city.
Those interested in checking out available residential units downtown will be treated to open houses at the American Building, Lofts at Fountain Square, The McAlpin, Glass House Lofts, 18 East Fourth, and Current at The Banks from 3pm to 6pm.
Due to the Reds home schedule, we had to adjust our regularly planned meeting time for this month’s URBANexchange at the Moerlein Lager House. Instead of being held on the first Tuesday of the month, we will be holding it on Thursday, September 13 from 5pm to 7:30pm.
This month we will be getting together just as we have been, but to jumpstart the conversation we thought we would give it a transit theme. We hope you come to discuss ideas that could help improve urban mobility.
Attendees enjoy the Moerlein Lager House and conversation at the August 2012 URBANexchange. Photograph by John Yung for UrbanCincy.
All of the ideas submitted will be reviewed by the UrbanCincy team. The person with the winning submission will then have their idea profiled in an UrbanCincy.com feature story. Will we also do a drawing, from the submitted entries, for a free Metro monthly bus pass courtesy of the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA).
The themed transit discussion corresponds with the Metropolis & Mobility Seminar taking place at the University of Cincinnati, and we have confirmed that Paul Grether, Metro’s Manager of Rail Services, will be among those in attendance.
Other notable transportation experts are also expected to be confirmed within the coming days, so stay tuned for those announcements as we get closer to the event date.
Those interested in attending are encouraged to stop by the biergarten at the Moerlein Lager House (map) anytime between 5pm and 7:30pm. There is no entry fee, but we do strongly encourage you to support our host establishment by purchasing food or drink while you are there.
Due to scheduled events at the Moerlein Lager House, it is expected to be a bit more crowded than usual. As a result, we recommend that you arrive early so that we can reserve additional space as is necessary.
The Western & Southern Open is taking place right now, and a men’s and women’s champion will be crowned this weekend in what has become one of the world’s top ten tennis tournaments.
Once finished, the tournament will have drawn hundreds of thousands of tennis fans to Mason, but more importantly, it will have given Cincinnati exposure to millions of television viewers around the United States and the world.
The tournament is a huge regional draw, and it gives the region an annual chance to make its pitch as to why people should visit, invest, or move to the region. This year, the Cincinnati USA Convention & Visitors Bureau decided to build off of Lonely Planet’s choice of Cincinnati as one of its top travel destinations for 2012. Unfortunately, however, the 30-second commercial does not come close to selling the narrative written by the independent travel guide.
There was no mention or view of the Contemporary Arts Center in the recent Cincinnati USA television commercial. Photograph by Thadd Fiala.
“Seen Cincy lately? The pretty city on the Ohio River – off the main cross-country interstates – gets bypassed by many road trippers, but it’s quietly transformed itself in the last decade into a worthy weekend getaway,” Lonely Planet wrote about Cincinnati. “Life centers around the river – much which can be seen by foot: river walkways are best on the Kentucky side, reached via a couple bridges including John Roebling’s Suspension Bridge (a prequel to his famous Brooklyn Bridge). Narrow, twisting (and steep) brick roads of the Mt Adams district lead past 19th-century Victorian townhouses and the free Cincinnati Art Museum, while the once-dangerous, emerging Over-the-Rhine, just north of downtown, is home to the Findlay Market and a sprawling collection of historic Italianate architecture.”
After reading that, someone unfamiliar with Cincinnati may be intrigued to visit the city to experience its architecture, waterfront, historic neighborhoods, and judge the stated transformation first-hand. What Cincinnati USA’s television spot showcases (see below), however, is the tried and true regional selling cards to families looking for an affordable weekend getaway.
There is nothing wrong with selling a good product to a captive audience, but if Cincinnati wants to start attracting new people and new interest, it will have to do something new.
If Cincinnati USA wants to build on the Lonely Planet mention, then they should sell the region on what Lonely Planet is pitching. Show the millions of tennis fans a scene from Over-the-Rhine on a Friday evening, Fountain Square on a Saturday night, the twisting streets of Mt. Adams, the University of Cincinnati’s Main Street, people biking across the Purple People Bridge, and shoppers at Findlay Market on a Saturday morning.
Fortunately, the Cincinnati USA commercial did pay attention to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center which was prominently mentioned in the Lonely Planet write-up.
“Best, though, is the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, open since 2004, on the banks of the river where many slaves escaped to freedom in the 19th century,” concluded Lonely Planet’s writers.
Cincinnati has always been an affordable place and a great place for families. This narrative has been perfected over many decades. This strong calling card should not, however, preclude the region from telling the world about a new narrative that has come to life over the past decade. It’s a story about a resurgent city focused on youthful energy, innovation, independent thought, music, and a unique urban core that is hard to match anywhere in America.
