Tag: northside

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News Transportation

Final Designs Revealed for Long-Envisioned Northside Transit Center

Shelter Design

One of Cincinnati’s most popular neighborhoods will soon get its very own transit hub.

With more than 13,000 people boarding or exiting buses every day, Northside has long been one of the region’s busiest transit hubs. This is partially due to the neighborhood’s high population and business density, but also because of the numerous transfers from the eight bus routes there (15x, 16, 17, 19, 20, 23x, 27, 51).

This high transit ridership also creates an odd conversion of buses from all over the city. In an effort to clean up the operation of these bus routes, the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority has long been trying to streamline and enhance operations at Knowlton’s Corner.

After years of work, that vision is finally becoming reality with the $320,000 Northside Transit Center.

“Northside has been working to improve bus traffic through the neighborhood for most of two decades, and the pieces are finally falling into place,” said Ollie Kroner, President of the Northside Community Council.

“Metro presented preliminary plans to the community in July. I would say we are a hard group to impress, but their drawings really exceeded expectations,” Kroner continued. “This should be good for commuters, and also good for our business district.”

Its location is further complimented by the nearly location of a large Cincy Red Bike Station at Hoffner Park.

Cincinnati-based MSA Architects has completed its designs for the new transit hub in the heart of the Northside business district immediately south of the recently completed $15 million Gantry Apartments development. The new facility will boast dedicated bus lanes, boarding platforms, passenger shelters, bike racks and lockers, and real-time arrival technology.

The plan also calls for a significant upgrade and expansion of an adjacent parking lot, which SORTA officials envision as also serving as a miniature park-and-ride facility with 18 allocated spaces.

Project officials say that the Northside Transit Center project is expected to be completed by late 2017.

Larger Implications
Northside has become the center point for the city as hit-and-runs with people walking and biking have increased. In September, this even led to the community organizing public demonstrations urging City Hall to reduce the speed limit through the business district, while also committing to other safety improvements city-wide.

The implementation of the Northside Transit Center will significantly help consolidate bus traffic through the popular business district, while also create a safe and hospitable place for people to wait for their transit connections.

“We have the second busiest transit hub in the city after Government Square, in a neighborhood that was built before we had cars,” Kroner told UrbanCincy. “The transit hub should make riding the bus easier, more comfortable, and safer in Northside.”

While the City of Cincinnati has not committed to a Vision Zero campaign, or an official Complete Streets policy, residents continue to call for such measures.

Meanwhile, the move also comes as Metro attempts to reinvent its region-wide bus system in order to better connect people with jobs. Historically, many bus systems relied on what is called a spoke-and-hub system that ran all routes to a central downtown transit center. This train of thought has changed as cities have become increasingly more mixed-use and diverse.

Metro officials plan to unveil a new regional transit plan in early 2017, and may possibly put a transit tax increase before votes next November to help implement the recommendations laid out in that plan.

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Business News Transportation

Is Cincy RedBike America’s Most Financially Successful Bike-Share System?

RedBike Monthly Ridership Totals
RedBike Monthly Ridership Totals

Since launching nearly two years ago, RedBike has been embraced by the region in a way even the bike-share system’s early proponents had not imagined.

When RedBike opened to the public on September 15, 2014 it included 29 stations, but has since swelled to 57 stations spanning two states, four cities and more than a dozen neighborhoods. The ability to expand and integrate the system across state and city lines is particularly notable as it is a feat most other bike-share systems in North America have not yet achieved.

This relatively rapid expansion has been fueled by higher than expected ridership. As of early July, RedBike had hosted 116,739 rides – or about 5,300 per month. Bolstered by more than 1,500 annual members, these ridership totals translate into some 17,683 different people who have ridden a RedBike.

“Red Bike has gotten off to a dream start. Our community has embraced this new form of transportation,” Leslie Maloney, President of the Red Bike Board of Directors and Senior Vice President of the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation, said in a prepared release. “We will work to continue providing the highest quality and most fun transportation option in Cincinnati.”

Following the trends of bike-share systems elsewhere throughout the world, approximately 74% of its riders have either never ridden a bike before or at least not within the month before RedBike opened. This data makes many bike advocates in the region looking for ways to improve road safety for the surge of new cyclists out on the streets.

The biggest news in RedBike’s recently released annual report, however, pertains to its finances.

While many bike-share systems around the country have struggled financially, RedBike has been able to operate in the black since its inception, and has grown its cash reserves year-over-year.

In 2014 RedBike had a total of $234,251 in expenses and $1,144,911 in revenues. That net income grew in 2015 when the bike-share system had $484,389, but $1,740,792 in revenues. This net income, RedBike officials say, is used to purchase capital equipment necessary to keep the system fully functional.

While it is difficult to find bad news in the financial details released by RedBike, one might look at the fact that direct program income (user fees) cover only 65% of program expenses. When factoring in sponsorships, a fairly reliable and steady stream of income, it covers nearly 118% of program expenses.

All of the other income sources help to further stabilize the system, keep it operating at reliable and optimal levels, and are helping build a reserve fund that could be used to offset unexpected capital expenses or lower than anticipated operational performance.

“UC Health is thrilled to be the presenting sponsor of the RedBike program,” said Dr. Richard P. Lofgren, President and CEO of UC Health. “As someone who lives downtown, all I have to do is look outside to see how successful this program is, and how bike share has been embraced by the citizens of Cincinnati.”

Categories
News Politics Transportation

Cincinnati’s $109M Capital Acceleration Plan Ignores Adopted Bike Policy

City Manager Harry Black announces CAP kick-off [Provided]

On Thursday, the City of Cincinnati celebrated the start of its bold, new road rehabilitation effort. The six-year program will include the resurfacing and rehabilitation of aging streets, replacement of city vehicles outside of their life cycle, and establish a new focus on preventive road maintenance that city officials will save money in the long-run.

The $109 million Capital Acceleration Plan is a strategic policy shift at City Hall, and represents a large infusion of money into road repair. The new focus on preventive maintenance is particularly noticeable as it represents an eight-fold increase in spending on that front.

“This is much bigger than just spending money to improve the condition of local streets. CAP is about making an investment in the city and people who live here,” City Manager Harry Black said in a prepared release. “This strategic investment in our roadways and infrastructure will serve as the foundation of Cincinnati’s sustained long-term growth.”

City officials say that the investments will improve the condition of 940 center-line miles of streets over the next six years. In its first year, its $10.6 million for street rehabilitation and $4 million for preventive maintenance, officials say, will impact 16 different neighborhoods and improve 120 center-line miles of roads.

With so many streets poised to be improved over the coming years, many people advocating for safer bicycling and walking conditions on the city’s roadways were optimistic that across-the-board improvements could be made. In fact, their cause for optimism is not without cause. The City of Cincinnati’s Bicycle Transportation Plan, which was adopted by City Council in June 2010, calls for incremental improvements to the city’s bike network as road resurfacing projects take place.

“Many of the facilities recommended in this plan can be implemented in conjunction with already scheduled street rehabilitation projects,” the Bicycle Transportation Plan notes. “When this coordination occurs, costs for implementing the bicycle facilities may be reduced by over 75%.”

According to officials at the Department of Transportation & Engineering, such savings can be achieved since the capital costs can be shared for both sets of improvements, and labor costs can be maximized.

The Bicycle Transportation Plan goes on to state that City Hall will be opportunistic and take advantage of every occasion where bicycle facilities can be included with street rehabilitation projects or other capital projects. Taking such an approach, the adopted policy says, “will reduce costs to the lowest levels possible.”

City Hall, however, has fallen woefully behind on the implementation of the recommendations made in the Bicycle Transportation Plan; and the current administration has even made a point of noting that they do not generally support the idea of on-street bike facilities. Rather, Mayor John Cranley (D) and his administration have focused on investing in off-street recreational bike trails.

Such an approach has left many people who use bikes as a means of transportation frustrated; and with $69 million of CAP going toward road improvement projects, it would seem like a great opportunity to maximize the improvements by performing these projects in a manner that also improves safety conditions for the city’s rapidly growing number of people commuting by bike.

Based on statements from City Hall, however, it seems that it will prove more so to be an opportunity lost; and put the city in an impossible position to meet its adopted policy objectives within their target time frames.

Categories
Development News Politics

10 Questions and Answers With Cincinnati’s New Sustainability Coordinator

Oliver Kroner 2016The City of Cincinnati’s Office of Environment and Sustainability recently hired Oliver Kroner as the office’s new sustainability coordinator. In this position Kroner will work with the long-time director of the office, Larry Falkin, in implementing programs and projects that help reduce the city’s carbon footprint and impact on the environment.

I sat down with the Northside resident, who goes by Ollie, to ask him 10 questions about his new role and vision for the city.

Randy Simes: First of all, congratulations on the new position. Could you tell us a little about yourself and how you got to this point in your career?
Oliver Kroner: Thanks Randy, I am very excited for the role and the potential for impact. My background has included work in sustainability issues in a number of different capacities. As an environmental scientist, I have worked in the nonprofit and academic sectors conducting research around the environmental and human health impacts of chemicals in our lives.

In the last few years as President of Northside Community Council, we have led several green initiatives in an urban planning and development context. As an entrepreneur, I have worked in green development, renewable energy, and the sharing economy. In many ways the Sustainability Coordinator role combines the skills I have developed in these different roles.

RS: Larry Falkin has been in charge of this office since its inception. Is there anything in particular that you are hoping to learn from Mr. Falkin as you settle into this role?
OK: I’m grateful for the opportunity to work for Larry and OES. He has a good grasp of where we have come from, and what opportunities lay before us as a city. Much of our time together so far has been spent meeting City officials and community leaders. It is probably his ability to weigh information and see an issue from different perspectives that I really hope will rub off on me.

RS: You have a background working with communities that may be at-risk to chemical exposures. Do you see this experience assisting you in this role?
OK: I worked as an environmental scientist with the TERA Center, which is now part of the University of Cincinnati. The Center specializes in chemical risk assessment – analyzing, modeling, and quantifying risk in a way that can be communicated to regulators or communities. I expect the ability to communicate analytical findings and regulations to be valuable in this role.

RS: Sustainability can mean a lot of different things. What does it mean to you in general, and in relation to this specific role?
OK: Sustainability is probably the most intriguing and most complex issue facing humanity. There are large global trends at play that have some pretty scary potential outcomes. We have the opportunity to redirect some of these trends in ways that would benefit quality of life, the environment, and the economy. But to do so will require the cooperation of economics, science, and behavioral modifications.

It is my role as Sustainability Coordinator to work with City of Cincinnati government, businesses, non-profits, and community members, to help these forces align, develop clear steps forward, and establish systems for bench marking and tracking our progress. Our Green Cincinnati Plan has outlined some bold goals- I intend to help Cincinnati advance these goals and lead by example.

RS: What would you say has been the greatest accomplishment of OES since its inception?
OK: OES helped move the City of Cincinnati to 100% green energy and reduced city emissions by 247,000 tons carbon dioxide each year.

RS: What do you think is an area where OES could further grow and make a positive impact in the community?
OK: Considering that approximately 60% of Cincinnatians rent their homes, that most of our building stock is very old, and that we have 30% of our population living in poverty – incentivizing upgrades to rental units could offer significant quality of life gains and energy savings.

One of the first items on my desk is to develop a dashboard to track our progress on various sustainability initiatives. We hope that these data will help us determine where to focus our efforts.

RS: How do you primarily get around town (i.e. walk, bike, bus, car)?
OK: I live with my wife, Libby, and our two boys, Quincy and Julian in Northside. We can put our boys in the wagon, and walk to almost anything we want to do. If I have to cross town, I drive an old diesel Mercedes that runs biodiesel in the warmer months. We’ll take the bikes out for fun, but bike commuting with toddlers is pretty tough! We have Red Bike passes here at the office to zip around Downtown.

RS: You mentioned that you live in Northside. What attracts you to that neighborhood? Would you recommend it as a place to live for other people?
OK: Northside is a community in the strongest sense of the word. We moved back from Boston because we wanted to live in a place where strangers walking on the sidewalk looked each other in the eye and said hello, and we found that here. The walkable historic business district, the old houses, the food scene, live music every night of the week, all surrounded by green space – it’s pretty easy to live here. If that sounds appealing, you should probably come spend a day here.

RS: Paper or plastic?
OK: I brought my own bags, thank you.

RS: Anything else?
OK: I know UrbanCincy has a loyal following of thought-leaders with many ideas for improving our city. I welcome ideas! Please reach out at oliver.kroner@cincinnati-oh.gov.

Categories
Business Development News

Construction Set to Begin on Cooperative Clifton Market Later This Month

Existing Conditions at Clifton Market [Eric Anspach]

After a hard-fought fundraising campaign, Clifton Market is expected to begin construction at the end of this month to convert the former 22,000-square-foot Keller’s IGA into a cooperative grocery store.

Incorporated in January 2014, the group behind Clifton Market successfully purchased the former IGA in April 2015, after a year of negotiations and challenges. Since that time, the group has raised money by selling ownership shares, acquiring two loans totaling $3 million to cover the costs for the building’s renovation and purchase of equipment, and securing a 12-year tax abatement from the City of Cincinnati that is valued at $1,063,000.

When the IGA closed in 2011, Clifton and other nearby neighborhoods were added to Cincinnati’s collection of food deserts – places where people are unable to easily access a full-service grocery store.

Following the store’s closure, Clifton residents met and decided to find a way to bring a grocery store back to the neighborhood. According to Marilyn Hyland, a Clifton Market board member, the group of citizens decided that a co-op model would be the most effective, allowing the group to pool their money in order to accomplish their common goal.

Hyland explained to UrbanCincy that the IGA closed, in part, due to problems stemming from the Great Recession, but that the grocery store was still doing around $200,000 in sales a week in its final days.

Clifton Market’s grocery market analyst, Keith Wicks, says that he predicts the new store will draw approximately 15,000 people a week, while also creating 35 new full-time jobs.

While there are a number of other grocery store projects either underway or in planning stages in Corryville, Northside and Avondale, Clifton’s store is expected to be bolstered by its proximity to high population density, along with the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati State Technical & Community College, and Hebrew Union College.

Other neighborhood leaders, meanwhile, are excited for the additional foot traffic the store will bring to the historic business district, along with the reintroduction of local and organic produce to Ludlow Avenue.

“The amount of activity that will flow through the market will aid other Ludlow Avenue businesses in attracting customers, from the surrounding neighborhoods and beyond, into our business district,” said Brad Hawse, a member of the Ludlow 21 working group.

Hawse says that the group is looking forward to increased development in the area as young Americans continue to choose walkable, urban neighborhoods as their preferred locations to live, work, and play.

“This will also provide our neighborhood residents a convenient way to get healthy food without needing to drive or take the bus to a neighborhood across town,” Hawse explained. “This will not only decrease the amount of time they need to spend on grocery shopping, but also reduce the number of automobile trips our community needs to make.”

The development team says that they are currently waiting on their building permit to be approved, and hope to begin renovation work by the end of February. If all goes according to plan, Clifton Market is expected to open near the end of summer.