Tag: planning

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Up To Speed

Better Streets are Better Public Places

Better Streets are Better Public Places

As many communities start to require a complete streets approach to roadway planning it is important for cities such as Cincinnati to remember the elements of good street planning or face the consequences of the STROAD. Kaid Benfield highlights the ingredients to creating a great pedestrian friendly street that serves as a place to visit instead of a way to pass through. Read more at the NRDC Switchboard:

But, when I say that a street is not just a “street,” I mean that it is not just a surface for motorized travel.  It is also the sidewalk, the curb, the trees and “street furniture” that line it; the facings of the shops, homes, and other buildings and uses along the way.  It is not just about transportation, but also about civic definition and social and commercial interaction.  It is a system, at a minimum, and should at least aspire to becoming a place, as Victor asserts.

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Up To Speed

After 20 years of results, it turns out that transit skeptics in St. Louis were wildly wrong

After 20 years of results, it turns out that transit skeptics in St. Louis were wildly wrong.

Hamilton County residents voted on a half-cent sales tax in 2002 that would have transformed the region’s transportation options. Through that new funding, the region would have completely rebuilt and restructured its bus service, built five light rail lines, and several streetcar lines. Much skepticism, touted by opponents and not unlike what St. Louis voters experienced in their own public vote 20 years ago. The difference is that St. Louis voters approved their measure while Cincinnatians did not. It turns out that the opponents and skeptics in St. Louis were wrong…wildly wrong. More from the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

To say there were doubters that the fledgling MetroLink light-rail service would catch on with riders back in 1993 would be a monumental understatement…Costello also recalled how Washington “bean counters” assured locals that “there is no way that you will meet your ridership numbers.” By contrast, he said, MetroLink exceeded the projected 10-year levels within two years.

Nations recalled how a 1987 report predicted light-rail ridership in St. Louis would be about 3 million by 2000. That year, he said, people boarded trains more than 14 million times…MetroLink now logs more than 17 million boardings a year — many of them commuters and students. Regional leaders also credit light rail with spurring residential and commercial development near stations.

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Up To Speed

Millennial cohort will have over-sized impact on retail, real estate

Millennial cohort will have oversized impact on retail, real estate

The Millennial Generation, also known as Echo Boomers or Generation Y, is roughly defined as people born between the early 1980s and early 2000s. As members of this generation start to make up a bigger portion of the workforce, and eventually become a bigger force in politics, a number of changes are bound to take place. In addition to preferring urban living in greater numbers than Baby Boomers and Generation X, Millennials also have different preferences when it comes to media, technology, shopping, transportation, and politics. More from Urban Land Magazine:

Over the last two to three years, echo boomers have been fueling the demand for rental housing in urbanized areas. Since 2009, there has been a steady increase in multifamily construction, climbing from 109,000 units in 2009 to 245,000 units in 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The new multifamily rentals are not limited to coastal cities. For example, from January to September 2012, Houston’s multifamily housing development rate increased 70 percent over the same period in 2011.

Demand for rental units has increased most dramatically in tech centers such as San Francisco and the Silicon Valley area; Austin, Texas; Denver; Boston; and New York City. But even without the tech industry serving as a catalyst, the sheer size of the echo boom demographic has fueled demand for apartments—particularly those located in high-amenity cities and suburban agglomerations.

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Development News Politics Transportation

Financing Falling Into Place for $108M MLK Interchange Project

Planning and financing is progressing for construction of a new interchange between E. Martin Luther King Drive and Interstate 71. The $108 million MLK Interchange will fill the most obvious gap in the area’s expressway system – zero access to Uptown from northbound I-71 and circuitous access from southbound I-71 via the William Howard Taft ramp.

The Taft and McMillan ramps will remain under the state’s current plans, but the new MLK Interchange will become the preferred point of access for the University of Cincinnati, Children’s Hospital, the Cincinnati Zoo, University of Cincinnati Medical Center and surrounding residential neighborhoods.

MLK Interchange Site
Martin Luther King Drive as it passes over I-71 presently. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

In addition to the MLK Interchange, the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) broke ground on the reconstruction of I-75’s Hopple Street Interchange. This project will reconfigure W. Martin Luther King Drive west of McMicken Street to meet Hopple Street on a new bridge above Central Parkway.

Two years ago UrbanCincy reported on these two transformative projects, planned for each end of Martin Luther King Drive, which will dramatically change the way motorists access the region’s second largest employment center.

The MLK Interchange has been the subject of considerable attention during the first half of 2013 due to the controversy generated by COAST when it worked to block Cincinnati’s Parking Modernization & Lease deal. The deal, which is now proceeding after a lengthy legal battle, was originally envisioned as the source for the $20 million local contribution to the interchange project.

In addition to blocking the parking deal temporarily, the injunction prevented the City of Cincinnati from passing emergency ordinances. This detail jeopardized the streetcar project, as it was timed perfectly to coincide with council’s need to allocate additional funds after construction bids returned much higher than expected.

MLK Interchange Preferred Alternative
Financing is beginning to fall into place to fund the preferred alternative for the $108M MLK Interchange. Provided.

In April, an effort led by COAST and City Council member Chris Smitherman (I) gathered the necessary signatures to place the parking lease ordinance on the November 2013 ballot. However, on June 12, the parking lease injunction was overturned by Judge Penelope R. Cunningham, wife of anti-streetcar and anti-parking lease 700 WLW talk host Bill Cunningham.

With the ballot issue avoided, streetcar and MLK Interchange planning resumed.

On July 9, the Ohio Controlling Board approved $4.2 million for property acquisition near the planned MLK Interchange in anticipation of a July 2014 start date for the project. Then, on July 22, Ohio Governor John Kasich (R) announced that a portion of his $3 billion lease of the Ohio Turnpike will fund the state’s contribution for the project.

The turnpike deal, which is similar in its strategy to Cincinnati’s parking lease, has hypocritically been spared the legal obstructionism of COAST or the criticism of talk radio hosts.

The City of Cincinnati is hosting a neighborhood meeting on July 24 at the Hampton Inn & Suites in Corryville at 3024 Vine Street between 5pm and 7pm. According the city, the meeting is “intended to guide the Uptown neighborhoods, institutions and city in visioning the future character and nature for the corridor.”

City officials say that formal presentations will be given on the half-hour, and that those who are unable to attend can still submit their comments or questions until Friday, August 2, 2013. Those wishing to submit their comments outside of the meeting can either email info@uptownconsortium.org or send in written correspondence to the Uptown Consortium at 629 Oak Street, Suite 306, Cincinnati, OH 45206.

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Up To Speed

Miami developers are turning away from cars, can Cincinnati be next?

Miami developers are turning away from cars, can Cincinnati be next?.

Cincinnati has seen a wealth of private real estate investment over the past decade. The problem, however, is that almost all of that investment is oriented toward those residents and workers using cars to get there. But in Miami, a city known for its flashy cars, a new development is looking to change that mindset. More from The Atlantic:

Miami and cars. They go together like piña and colada, right? Well, maybe so. But one new luxury condo in the heart of downtown is making what is, for this Florida city, a bold move. The building in many ways fits the profile of recent development in Miami’s reviving core: It has 36 stories, 352 units, and 10-foot ceilings.

But as for parking? Zero of that. Not for private motor vehicles, anyway. The Centro, as it’s called, will have a five-car Car2Go auto share station featuring the city-backed service’s distinctive, blue-and-white Smart cars; covered bike parking; and, if Miami gets bike share, maybe one of those stations as well.

The project breaks ground this fall, and the parking-garage-free tower was made possible by city zoning that allows no parking garages in buildings that are close to transit in densely developed areas.