Not being a traffic engineer, I don’t know exactly how big a radius you need to maintain highway speeds, but those curves look a little tight to me for how high the volume is in that stretch of 75. I would love to see what downtown would be like if West End and Kenyon Barr had remained more intact though.
Since it will be jammed with traffic, people will have no trouble navigating those curves at the 15-20 MPH stop and go speeds common to I-75 in that section.
In NY on 490 there's a pretty tight turn that tells traffic to slow from 55 to 50 and it doesn't really slow traffic at all and the turn is still possible at 60-70 mph although it gets a little sketchy lol
The West End could have been the Lower East Side of Cincinnati if they had had enough foresight to have planned Cincinnati correctly. It’s a genuinely missed opportunity.
This is honestly a big part of the answer. A lot of the interstate projects *just so happened* to carve right through minority neighborhoods and usually created a pretty literal "wall" between rich white neighborhoods on one side and poor non-white neighborhoods on the other.
Oh for sure. I live in Chicago now and the Dan Ryan expressway is a monument to the damage that vicious urban planning can do to a population.
Not only did it eliminate a huge amount of housing stock for the segregated black community, it put up a literal wall between those neighborhoods and the rest of the city that remains today. Add in the parks around the Hyde Park/UChicago community and you’ve got a completely isolated area that intentionally (to my mind) is offered no economic opportunity.
It’s offensive to the idea of America that it exists in that form.
Edit - Happy Cake Day!
There are absolutely perfectly good reasons why routing the highway through West End was the most direct and least expensive and easiest to engineer option that there was. But any decision has a human and ethical cost. And you can’t help but wonder if that area had been white and middle class instead of black and poor, whether the city would have decided that choosing a more difficult or more expensive option was worth it to avoid the fallout. It’s easy to see why an engineer would choose the path that they did, but it’s also east to see why a background noise of racism and classism would make that decision easier to make and harder to question.
It was fully intended to go across the county. But it ends there because the residents of Montgomery and Indian Hill had the political capital and lawyers to fight it, and with the hope gone of Blue Ash Airport ever being a major transport hub gone the political willpower of state, county, and city officials also evaporated.
Until they rebuilt the Montgomery terminus as a roundabout you could still see the old stub of asphalt on the eastbound side that was supposed to continue all the way to 275.
I feel like they could redirect a lot of traffic if they put in a big bridge instead of the Anderson Ferry that connected to 275 by the airport. A majority of the west side could get to both NKY and Anderson without having to go through downtown.
The Delhi-Villa Hills connector. All the cyclists would love it too.
I guess they could add “Old” to the name, if every street name has to make sense. Out here in Harrison we have a West Rd. that in some parts actually runs north/south, we also have a Dick Rd.
In PDF form: https://dkdsgn.com/bsb.pdf
I am not a civil engineer or roadway designer, but I have _ideas_.
I acknowledge right off the bat that this proposal is untenable due to the serious financial cost that would come from buying out all of the businesses in Queensgate and rebuilding the West End street grid. But a boy can dream, right?
Unlike other proposals, this one maintains and even improves highway access and connections, opening up access to downtown, the new southern West End, and the West Side with better US-50 connections. And by separating the bridge connections from US-50, the sprawling mess of highways is untangled and rerouted away from being right next to downtown.
## Major changes:
- Reroute I-75 south straight to the river, then turn to the bridges
- Extend 71 trench to 75
- Extend the downtown street grid west
- Separate US-50 interchange from bridges
- Reroute rail line to follow 75
- Relocated the coal barge port elsewhere
- Space to expand convention center over Central Ave
- New indoor sports arena
- Parks, business, and residential space
## Why it will never happen:
- $$$
- Massively disruptive construction that would make it near impossible to keep the interstates open
- Rerouting railroads is incredibly difficult to make happen
- Relocating entrenched business like the coal port and UPS
- Lack of willpower
I’d argue that this is actually less disruptive than the current proposal. You can completely build the new segment without having to really close down lanes or anything and then just switch traffic to the new freeway and remove the old, closed stretch. And you really don’t have to acquire that many properties - I’ve actually looked at a similar route and you can do it with removing probably less than 10 light industrial buildings that can easily be rebuilt elsewhere.
Yeah,and it goes down to 40mph there. Not the solution. Unless you enjoy the weekly overturned semi. This is why the cut in the hill was rerouted years ago.
I don't know why I looked into this so much despite the fact this city has nothing to do with me.
I did learn that there seems to be about a decade between the construction of I75 to I71 which is probably why it looks like that.
In regards to bring in new blocks, you could probably get that out of the current space it it was reworked or even rezoned the space. It looks like it follows the common US trend of commercial spaces requiring way too much parking spaces. So even if you could get new blocks, a lot of the space will end up being parking space.
If we look at [Cincinnati's zoning map](https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/sites/planning/assets/File/Zoning(1).pdf) too, most of the space that would be opened up would be MG and CG-A which are processing fabrication, storage, manufacturing, and general commercial (e.g. retail, restaurants, offices) respectively. The latter one that would probably work with the blocks is only the small space around the Interstate. Because of this, the benefit of opening up additional blocks is very minimal if not nonexistent as you'd have to get the additional approval from the zoning committee to rezone this area for this extra portion of this insanely expensive project.
Even when exercising eminent domain the government is still required by law to provide fair compensation for that which it is taking. That's assuming that there's not even a legal fight over it, which you know there would be.
we should just take it 🤷🏻♂️ progress is far more important than whatever the hell these businesses have going on and idc how many folks downvote me. the common good must not be stopped for profit.
Honestly, since most of that is related to storage and manufacturing, the government has probably been bought out by companies to not rezone that area that would allow different construction. You're gonna have to ask the government to not take the money which is gonna be pretty hard.
With the hard turns on the approach and the climb, assuming existing bridge slope, this will cause significant truck slowdowns. But I like your thinking
True, but the average speed will go up. Many places will put bends like this in specifically to slow people down when approaching merging roads.
It reduces accidents and people hitting their breaks.
This is too improve the city at the cost of reduced highway efficiency. We already replanned the city to make efficient highways, we should undo that or do the opposite.
Question, and this is a question I've had for the civil engineers that laid out this mess in the first place as well: why merge 71 and 75 right before they cross a bridge? Especially now that we are (supposedly) getting a new bridge. Keep 71 on Brent and dedicate the new bridge to 75. Merge them in KY where there is more unused space for a large interchange.
They kind of are doing this already in current plan. New bridge is all thru traffic, Brent Spence will carry local/ramp traffic. Basically need to decide thru or local at WHV and Kyle's lane and get in appropriate lanes there. If in thru lanes, no exits until past downtown in both directions.
I like that better than the current system for sure. I do fear it's going to cause a lot of last second lane changes, and thus accidents. It seems to me a traffic pattern like that requires drivers that read the 1 mile warning signs at the very least.
Putting the two highways on one bridge or two doesn't really make much of a difference though. That connection still needs to exist for drivers that are connecting between 71S and 50W, or 75S and 471.
Too damned hilly of an area. Y’all forget, putting the cut in the hill was an engineering feat in itself, before they had to do it again. Two separate interstates would have made NKY an awful place to live.
Yeah if you don’t care about the cities that were there. It’s bad enough they destroyed the city as they did. Why would you want that even more just to have another highway?
There is almost nothing there, what are you talking about? There's like a liquor store and some warehouses. You could easily merge the two before you even get to 9th Street.
Yeah, good luck with those hills. It’s good you asked civil engineers, one of which I happen to be, because you do not know what you’re talking about. Cut and fill takes sooo much more area than you realize.
The new bridge is already planned to be parallel with the old one, you would literally just need to merge them, no circle interchanges, no fancy overpasses or under passes. Just two roads at the same grade merging. You are greatly overestimating how much land that would take. It's something that would easily fit between western Ave and goebel park. The hills aren't even a factor there.
They’re actually doing this already in several cities, and it’s been done before in other cities. It’s sort of a grassroots movement. In North America, we fell hard for the automobile in the mid 20th century and started planning cities around cars, and i think now people are starting to realize that living in that sort of environment kind of sucks
Back when I was in school for civil engineering my professor showed us a bunch of maps of interstates like this that seem to cut through population centers rather than going around.
He asked us to think of reasons why this may be the case, and what the benefits of it are. After a while nobody there could find a good reason to do this.
So he pulled up new maps predating the interstates he had shown before. And everywhere the freeway made an illogical turn was right through the middle of redlined neighborhoods (Black communities).
So next time you're stuck in traffic remember it's because of racism.
I thought about that, but highway would still have to run through there to connect 75 to 471 and 71 to 50. Putting the two bridges next to each other allows us to essentially stack their supporting infrastructure and inland depth intrusion in one spot instead of two. And going across the river at an angle would only make the bridge longer and even more expensive (he says as he proposes buying, razing, regrading, and rebuilding 250 acres of already-occupied land).
Here's another idea that probably won't work for reasons I haven't fully considered. Keep the Brent Spence bridge for I-71. Build a new I-75 bridge diagonally across the river from the first curve on 75 in your drawing and connect it with I-71 on the Kentucky side. This eliminates many of the tight curves from your proposal and moves some of the spaghetti of the I-71/I-75 junction to the Kentucky side of the river. Possibly keep connections from SB 75 to NB 71 and SB71 to NB75 on the Ohio side of the river to simplify the junction on the Kentucky side.
I’ve often wondered why even have I-71 and -75 merge downtown. What about carrying I-71 over DCB and I-471, then 275 W to where KY-16 joins? A new I-71 could then follow the path of KY-16 to the I-71/75 split. FWW could then be filled in and US-50 routed around this new park they are contemplating between 2nd and 3rd streets as a split boulevard. Not sure if the lights and lower speed on 50 would be enough to deter folks from using downtown to jump over rather than stay on the new 71. Miles of new interstate wouldn’t be cheap either, but it might save on a new bridge.
With this proposal, in 50 years people will be saying, "why the fuck did they put the highway along the riverfront?"
the best possible solution is to bury 75 from Union Terminal to the bridges, as it is all already far enough below grade for it.
anyone have 200 billion dollars?
Those turns are too sharp but really this isn't far off from what the goal actually should be. That bridge should be moved west. Possibly reroute some of 75 in KY to straighten it out there too. This would reclaim a lot of land downtown and give space for a new stadium.
So if the businesses/people in the area do not want to move, what then? Eminent domain? I am loathe to use force to fix a problem that used force to be where we are today. Where would you put the coal docks?
Also, as noted, your curves are much sharper than anything proposed, that would cause massive slowdowns in that area.
I appreciate that you actually brought ideas, but let us not act like money does not matter. People in general seem to want to act like it does not, until it does. This would be a 30+ year, 100B dollar solution. No way anyone wants to sign up for that.
[As I noted in my comment going into more detail](https://www.reddit.com/r/cincinnati/comments/xx90y3/comment/iraopm8/); it would absolutely be very expensive and contentious, relocating numerous such businesses.
The thing is, there's no reason for the coal dock to be right downtown anymore. Nothing right there uses massive amounts of coal today. It all gets trucked across Mehring Way and loaded into train cars.
And it's not like coal will continue to be a big business. Coal power plants are rapidly decommissioning, and the last major use is for steel production. Coal use peaked in 2005-2008, and it's fallen to about half that since then. It will continue falling.
And it's not like coal is a big industry. The restaurant chain Chipotle employs more people than the coal industry.
Actually they are building a conveyor to simplify the coal transfer. It doesn’t need to exist right there but also… why not? Industry needs to coexist in the city.
> Industry needs to coexist in the city.
No, cities are for young people with money and their dogs to talk about how much better they are than people that live in the suburbs.
- The strangulation of downtown by 75
- The confusing and sprawling mess of ramps at the foot of the bridge
- The valuable real estate immediately adjacent to downtown wasted on low-density industry
Strangulation of downtown? Really? I do not see that at all.
Seen way, way, way worse in LA, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago...and do not even get started about NY/NJ!
Industry is important, very important, and has its place IN A CITY, not just shoved to the edges/burbs for the "other people" to deal with.
Look I get it, you have a vision, and I applaud it, but IMO (and of course it is just that, an opinion) none of those "problems" rise to the level of incurring decades and 10's of billions of dollars to correct.
**ODOT review: Bridge Forward - Cincinnati proposal to create 30 new acres over I-75 not feasible**
Just saw this earlier today ....
The idea was to put the I-75 interchange for the bridges below ground. That would allow the concrete to be placed overtop and create up to 30 additional acres of usable city blocks. The group says it would also better connect Queensgate to downtown. But after reviewing the proposal, ODOT Press Secretary Matt Bruning says it’s not feasible."The problem is that ... as we analyze those from an engineering standpoint, to build them as they were proposed would require us to do a pretty steep grade to get traffic from subgrade in that trench up to the bridge," Bruning said.
Bruning says it would require at least an 8% grade. That may not sound like much, but for comparison, Bruning says the Cut-in-the-Hill is 5%. He says that steep grade creates an issue for truck drivers.
[https://local12.com/news/local/i-75-interchange-odot-review-plan-30-new-acres-city-blocks-not-feasible-downtown-cincinnati-queensgate-brent-spence-covington-northern-kentucky-nky-bridge-forward-local-12-wkrc-tristate-ohio-ky-indiana-news](https://local12.com/news/local/i-75-interchange-odot-review-plan-30-new-acres-city-blocks-not-feasible-downtown-cincinnati-queensgate-brent-spence-covington-northern-kentucky-nky-bridge-forward-local-12-wkrc-tristate-ohio-ky-indiana-news)
As someone involved with bridge forward the only complaint they had about the design was caused by 4th street having a bridge. Without 4th street cutting across the grade isn't 8%. We got basically no feedback whatsoever from ODOT before they released this.
Bridge Forwards plans were meant to Kickstart a conversation. The graphics done by GBBN were not engineering perfect but gave a sense of what we wanted to do. It was feasible to figure out where 50's ramps would go and fit.
Ideas like this thread have are the kind of conversation we want. We want to hear your ideas. Your visions. And I applaud the op for coming up with this.
Despite the news were still pushing for changes to the 75 approach, including narrowing and trenching 75 and rightsizing the land it takes up whilst facilitating connections.
This is not Bridge Forward. That half-baked cut-and-cap plan cuts off 75S from 471, 75N from 50, 471 from 75N and 50.
My proposal here is both more ambitious while also being more effective at repurposing land and reducing interstate snarl.
Grading is important, of course. None of this is any more aggressive than the grade between trenched 71 in Fort Washington Way and the Brent Spence Bridge.
I've not run the numbers to get the exact grade, but the 75-to-bridge ramp runs all the way to the curve by the riverbank.
I'm going to sound like an idiot for saying this, but there's a bunch of run down buildings in queen city that are abandoned factories from what I've seen. Why doesn't the city just Eminent Domain that shit, tear it down, parcel the land out and put it up to auction for residential works?
Still my fave:
GBBN has an amazing plan that could condense this to a Banks style structure that would free up 30 acres. They have this planned without displacing residents or removing established ramps into the city. As much as I would love an overhaul of Cincy’s public transportation altogether, this plan is worth a read and well within the established 2B funding that has been set aside for the project already.
https://bridge-forward.squarespace.com/
It would cost less and be worse for noise pollution and quality of life for nearby residents and workers. But this is pie-in-the-sky, never-gonna-happen thinking anyway.
Since we're spitballing... What about transporting everyone from Ezzard Charles to Kentucky using a warp portal or one of those holes Wiley Coyote uses?
I believe this was the original planned route for 75 and the bridge. It was supposed to be further west and follow the same route as the train tracks. It was more direct. I forget why they changed it but they ended up going with the cut in the hill. It might have been because or rail right aways.
Also, I like the idea but it would force a ton of industrial relocation which you already know.
Looks like the current plan does simplify some of the spaghet and opens up a little bit of real estate on the east side of the freeway. It's immediately next to the highway and in between ramps, so that sucks, but it's real estate nonetheless.
Beware massive PDF:
https://brentspencebridgecorridor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/BSB-Exhibits.pdf
Why's it unfeasible, if don't properly along with section be section it can be obtained, just have to make sure it's properly ventilated, reduce flood potential, and install pump other irrigation systems to keep from backs ups of water and that.
FYI, trenching is what we did with 71 along the riverfront. This isn't a trench-and-cover proposal so no need for ventilation concerns.
It's unfeasible for really only one reason: money.
I like this but wouldn’t a sharp bend on a major highway (one of the country’s biggest) cause more accidents? I can’t imagine people going 65-80 mph coming up on a sharp bend. I know nothing about this just making an observation.
I like this idea it would restore the west end.
Please accept my most sincere apologies for having the audacity to have an idea and share it. That was incredibly disrespectful of me to be so intrusive and wasteful of your precious time _on Reddit_.
Most of what you call "new downtown real estate" isn't really new, it's already occupied by businesses. The current planned spaghetti also already gives back 10 acres or so back to city from current interchange.
Good luck getting railroad to let you reroute that line. Have to jump through billion hoops just to work near a rail line much less reroute one.
Also, that big curve looks like too small of radius unless road is superelevated (tilted) considerably which isn't ideal for safety. It also would have to be climbing up to get to bridge deck elevation so big chunk would be elevated.
If only they had done this back in the 50s
My first thought as well, that space WAS usable….
Not being a traffic engineer, I don’t know exactly how big a radius you need to maintain highway speeds, but those curves look a little tight to me for how high the volume is in that stretch of 75. I would love to see what downtown would be like if West End and Kenyon Barr had remained more intact though.
Let’s bank the curve like a nascar track to keep speed ;)
Lol, and then if you take the turn too shallow you ramp directly into the river, I like it!
Don't pass on the outside, Cole.
samir, you’re breaking the car.
Hail Melon!
Since it will be jammed with traffic, people will have no trouble navigating those curves at the 15-20 MPH stop and go speeds common to I-75 in that section.
The ramps to and from the bridge and 71 are already tight turns so clearly that’s not a dealbreaker
In NY on 490 there's a pretty tight turn that tells traffic to slow from 55 to 50 and it doesn't really slow traffic at all and the turn is still possible at 60-70 mph although it gets a little sketchy lol
There are several turns like that on I70 in KC and Topeka, too. They have big warnings to slow down, but people still fly around them.
I drove through Kansas City earlier this year and absolutely made that mistake.
Well people go 90 on I-75 so that just wouldn’t be safe
Kenyon Barr was not a neighborhood. It was a designation for demolition.
Kenyon barr would be super cool to visit in VR if someone took the time to make it
The West End could have been the Lower East Side of Cincinnati if they had had enough foresight to have planned Cincinnati correctly. It’s a genuinely missed opportunity.
Also not a traffic engineer but my current city has hard banks just with reduced speed limits.
I assumed that space *was used* but I’m not super up Cincy history
But then how would they have destroyed all those black families’ houses?
This is honestly a big part of the answer. A lot of the interstate projects *just so happened* to carve right through minority neighborhoods and usually created a pretty literal "wall" between rich white neighborhoods on one side and poor non-white neighborhoods on the other.
Oh for sure. I live in Chicago now and the Dan Ryan expressway is a monument to the damage that vicious urban planning can do to a population. Not only did it eliminate a huge amount of housing stock for the segregated black community, it put up a literal wall between those neighborhoods and the rest of the city that remains today. Add in the parks around the Hyde Park/UChicago community and you’ve got a completely isolated area that intentionally (to my mind) is offered no economic opportunity. It’s offensive to the idea of America that it exists in that form. Edit - Happy Cake Day!
Check out segregation by design ;)
It was done the way it was done on purpose--to kick out as many people from downtown as possible.
God damnit racisim fucking everything up again.
I think we found us one of them racist highways.
I can imagine at the time due to contemporary engineering practices the river was an obstacle that forced them to route the highway the way they did
There are absolutely perfectly good reasons why routing the highway through West End was the most direct and least expensive and easiest to engineer option that there was. But any decision has a human and ethical cost. And you can’t help but wonder if that area had been white and middle class instead of black and poor, whether the city would have decided that choosing a more difficult or more expensive option was worth it to avoid the fallout. It’s easy to see why an engineer would choose the path that they did, but it’s also east to see why a background noise of racism and classism would make that decision easier to make and harder to question.
Absolutely the entire reason why
[удалено]
It was fully intended to go across the county. But it ends there because the residents of Montgomery and Indian Hill had the political capital and lawyers to fight it, and with the hope gone of Blue Ash Airport ever being a major transport hub gone the political willpower of state, county, and city officials also evaporated. Until they rebuilt the Montgomery terminus as a roundabout you could still see the old stub of asphalt on the eastbound side that was supposed to continue all the way to 275.
Destroying black neighborhoods was the point
[удалено]
Just need to add in a train system that goes from Cincy to the Airport.
Step into my father's blimp and we can discuss it.
I was told not to get into strangers blimps
Do you have snacks?
Just window seats
How much extra? Is it worth the extra cost?
It's about 5 1/2 pallets extra.
That is an impressive amount of memes jammed into this exchange
I, too, spend far too much time second guessing everything I do in Cities Skylines.
First glance I thought this was a cedar point ride mock up
I feel like they could redirect a lot of traffic if they put in a big bridge instead of the Anderson Ferry that connected to 275 by the airport. A majority of the west side could get to both NKY and Anderson without having to go through downtown. The Delhi-Villa Hills connector. All the cyclists would love it too.
so tear out *another* part of the city.
Build a bridge where the ferry goes back and forth. Connect the bottom of Anderson Ferry to Amsterdam rd.
but then the name of the street wouldn't make sense anymore
I guess they could add “Old” to the name, if every street name has to make sense. Out here in Harrison we have a West Rd. that in some parts actually runs north/south, we also have a Dick Rd.
I was driving on 75 though Springboro/Franklin area and a "Sharts Rd" caught my eye on the GPS 😂
“When in Rome..”
Been there, done that...
Impossible. It would completely destroy Delhi's deep cultural heritage.
In PDF form: https://dkdsgn.com/bsb.pdf I am not a civil engineer or roadway designer, but I have _ideas_. I acknowledge right off the bat that this proposal is untenable due to the serious financial cost that would come from buying out all of the businesses in Queensgate and rebuilding the West End street grid. But a boy can dream, right? Unlike other proposals, this one maintains and even improves highway access and connections, opening up access to downtown, the new southern West End, and the West Side with better US-50 connections. And by separating the bridge connections from US-50, the sprawling mess of highways is untangled and rerouted away from being right next to downtown. ## Major changes: - Reroute I-75 south straight to the river, then turn to the bridges - Extend 71 trench to 75 - Extend the downtown street grid west - Separate US-50 interchange from bridges - Reroute rail line to follow 75 - Relocated the coal barge port elsewhere - Space to expand convention center over Central Ave - New indoor sports arena - Parks, business, and residential space ## Why it will never happen: - $$$ - Massively disruptive construction that would make it near impossible to keep the interstates open - Rerouting railroads is incredibly difficult to make happen - Relocating entrenched business like the coal port and UPS - Lack of willpower
I’d argue that this is actually less disruptive than the current proposal. You can completely build the new segment without having to really close down lanes or anything and then just switch traffic to the new freeway and remove the old, closed stretch. And you really don’t have to acquire that many properties - I’ve actually looked at a similar route and you can do it with removing probably less than 10 light industrial buildings that can easily be rebuilt elsewhere.
Interesting, but I am wondering why I75 needs to trenched. Your route comes up next to the river. What happens if it floods?
I’m taking the lazy river to work if that happens
What about those 2 90 degree turns
Bank ‘em like a luge course 🛷
That.....could work. Minus sliding down it in winter.
These turns are no tighter than 71 S heading into Fort Washington Way or the turns in the ramps in the proposed ODOT plan.
Yeah,and it goes down to 40mph there. Not the solution. Unless you enjoy the weekly overturned semi. This is why the cut in the hill was rerouted years ago.
Lol traffic through there is less than 40mph like 95% of the time.
Almost there
Semi-trucks shouldn't be driving through downtowns anyway
Slow down?
We all by Tesla Cybertrucks and float
Same thing we've done elsewhere: build a levee or flood wall.
I don't know why I looked into this so much despite the fact this city has nothing to do with me. I did learn that there seems to be about a decade between the construction of I75 to I71 which is probably why it looks like that. In regards to bring in new blocks, you could probably get that out of the current space it it was reworked or even rezoned the space. It looks like it follows the common US trend of commercial spaces requiring way too much parking spaces. So even if you could get new blocks, a lot of the space will end up being parking space. If we look at [Cincinnati's zoning map](https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/sites/planning/assets/File/Zoning(1).pdf) too, most of the space that would be opened up would be MG and CG-A which are processing fabrication, storage, manufacturing, and general commercial (e.g. retail, restaurants, offices) respectively. The latter one that would probably work with the blocks is only the small space around the Interstate. Because of this, the benefit of opening up additional blocks is very minimal if not nonexistent as you'd have to get the additional approval from the zoning committee to rezone this area for this extra portion of this insanely expensive project.
we need to stop “buying them” that’s the problem. it’s time to take them. the government can build this shit and they should.
Even when exercising eminent domain the government is still required by law to provide fair compensation for that which it is taking. That's assuming that there's not even a legal fight over it, which you know there would be.
we should just take it 🤷🏻♂️ progress is far more important than whatever the hell these businesses have going on and idc how many folks downvote me. the common good must not be stopped for profit.
You seem to have missed the fact that we can't just take it. Eminent domain requires paying a fair price for seized properties
Honestly, since most of that is related to storage and manufacturing, the government has probably been bought out by companies to not rezone that area that would allow different construction. You're gonna have to ask the government to not take the money which is gonna be pretty hard.
With the hard turns on the approach and the climb, assuming existing bridge slope, this will cause significant truck slowdowns. But I like your thinking
True, but the average speed will go up. Many places will put bends like this in specifically to slow people down when approaching merging roads. It reduces accidents and people hitting their breaks.
I would pay double taxes to have this
Soooo basically the Big Dig in Boston? Took 30+ years, and it still takes 1+ hour to get to Logan airport at 3PM...
This is too improve the city at the cost of reduced highway efficiency. We already replanned the city to make efficient highways, we should undo that or do the opposite.
Question, and this is a question I've had for the civil engineers that laid out this mess in the first place as well: why merge 71 and 75 right before they cross a bridge? Especially now that we are (supposedly) getting a new bridge. Keep 71 on Brent and dedicate the new bridge to 75. Merge them in KY where there is more unused space for a large interchange.
They kind of are doing this already in current plan. New bridge is all thru traffic, Brent Spence will carry local/ramp traffic. Basically need to decide thru or local at WHV and Kyle's lane and get in appropriate lanes there. If in thru lanes, no exits until past downtown in both directions.
I like that better than the current system for sure. I do fear it's going to cause a lot of last second lane changes, and thus accidents. It seems to me a traffic pattern like that requires drivers that read the 1 mile warning signs at the very least.
Putting the two highways on one bridge or two doesn't really make much of a difference though. That connection still needs to exist for drivers that are connecting between 71S and 50W, or 75S and 471.
You can have the connection, but it matters because it's a massive bottleneck.
Too damned hilly of an area. Y’all forget, putting the cut in the hill was an engineering feat in itself, before they had to do it again. Two separate interstates would have made NKY an awful place to live.
There is more than enough room to merge two highways between the river and the cut in the hill.
Yeah if you don’t care about the cities that were there. It’s bad enough they destroyed the city as they did. Why would you want that even more just to have another highway?
There is almost nothing there, what are you talking about? There's like a liquor store and some warehouses. You could easily merge the two before you even get to 9th Street.
Yeah, good luck with those hills. It’s good you asked civil engineers, one of which I happen to be, because you do not know what you’re talking about. Cut and fill takes sooo much more area than you realize.
The new bridge is already planned to be parallel with the old one, you would literally just need to merge them, no circle interchanges, no fancy overpasses or under passes. Just two roads at the same grade merging. You are greatly overestimating how much land that would take. It's something that would easily fit between western Ave and goebel park. The hills aren't even a factor there.
Yes they are. You really don’t understand the amount of land impact every interchange entails. And also, curves are a thing
You seem to not know where I'm talking about or you aren't familiar with the topography of this city.
Could the whole thing be elevated? Not sure if that would be more or less expensive.
This is the exact problem the Big Dig had to correct in Boston. It's also being explored in Seattle
They’re actually doing this already in several cities, and it’s been done before in other cities. It’s sort of a grassroots movement. In North America, we fell hard for the automobile in the mid 20th century and started planning cities around cars, and i think now people are starting to realize that living in that sort of environment kind of sucks
Back when I was in school for civil engineering my professor showed us a bunch of maps of interstates like this that seem to cut through population centers rather than going around. He asked us to think of reasons why this may be the case, and what the benefits of it are. After a while nobody there could find a good reason to do this. So he pulled up new maps predating the interstates he had shown before. And everywhere the freeway made an illogical turn was right through the middle of redlined neighborhoods (Black communities). So next time you're stuck in traffic remember it's because of racism.
Or instead of turning to the old bridge continue straight over the river on a new bridge
I thought about that, but highway would still have to run through there to connect 75 to 471 and 71 to 50. Putting the two bridges next to each other allows us to essentially stack their supporting infrastructure and inland depth intrusion in one spot instead of two. And going across the river at an angle would only make the bridge longer and even more expensive (he says as he proposes buying, razing, regrading, and rebuilding 250 acres of already-occupied land).
Yea you’re right. Make it all underground tunnels
It’s beautiful
Here's another idea that probably won't work for reasons I haven't fully considered. Keep the Brent Spence bridge for I-71. Build a new I-75 bridge diagonally across the river from the first curve on 75 in your drawing and connect it with I-71 on the Kentucky side. This eliminates many of the tight curves from your proposal and moves some of the spaghetti of the I-71/I-75 junction to the Kentucky side of the river. Possibly keep connections from SB 75 to NB 71 and SB71 to NB75 on the Ohio side of the river to simplify the junction on the Kentucky side.
I’ve often wondered why even have I-71 and -75 merge downtown. What about carrying I-71 over DCB and I-471, then 275 W to where KY-16 joins? A new I-71 could then follow the path of KY-16 to the I-71/75 split. FWW could then be filled in and US-50 routed around this new park they are contemplating between 2nd and 3rd streets as a split boulevard. Not sure if the lights and lower speed on 50 would be enough to deter folks from using downtown to jump over rather than stay on the new 71. Miles of new interstate wouldn’t be cheap either, but it might save on a new bridge.
With this proposal, in 50 years people will be saying, "why the fuck did they put the highway along the riverfront?" the best possible solution is to bury 75 from Union Terminal to the bridges, as it is all already far enough below grade for it. anyone have 200 billion dollars?
The best solution is to bury 75 under the river. Anybody have $500 billion?
Those turns are too sharp but really this isn't far off from what the goal actually should be. That bridge should be moved west. Possibly reroute some of 75 in KY to straighten it out there too. This would reclaim a lot of land downtown and give space for a new stadium.
It’ll be like lakeshore in Chicago
So if the businesses/people in the area do not want to move, what then? Eminent domain? I am loathe to use force to fix a problem that used force to be where we are today. Where would you put the coal docks? Also, as noted, your curves are much sharper than anything proposed, that would cause massive slowdowns in that area. I appreciate that you actually brought ideas, but let us not act like money does not matter. People in general seem to want to act like it does not, until it does. This would be a 30+ year, 100B dollar solution. No way anyone wants to sign up for that.
[As I noted in my comment going into more detail](https://www.reddit.com/r/cincinnati/comments/xx90y3/comment/iraopm8/); it would absolutely be very expensive and contentious, relocating numerous such businesses. The thing is, there's no reason for the coal dock to be right downtown anymore. Nothing right there uses massive amounts of coal today. It all gets trucked across Mehring Way and loaded into train cars.
And it's not like coal will continue to be a big business. Coal power plants are rapidly decommissioning, and the last major use is for steel production. Coal use peaked in 2005-2008, and it's fallen to about half that since then. It will continue falling. And it's not like coal is a big industry. The restaurant chain Chipotle employs more people than the coal industry.
Actually they are building a conveyor to simplify the coal transfer. It doesn’t need to exist right there but also… why not? Industry needs to coexist in the city.
> Industry needs to coexist in the city. No, cities are for young people with money and their dogs to talk about how much better they are than people that live in the suburbs.
I mean, we used eminent domain to create the problem. Why not use it to fix the problem?
What problem though does this "solve"? Not desire, not wish, but what problem?
- The strangulation of downtown by 75 - The confusing and sprawling mess of ramps at the foot of the bridge - The valuable real estate immediately adjacent to downtown wasted on low-density industry
Strangulation of downtown? Really? I do not see that at all. Seen way, way, way worse in LA, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago...and do not even get started about NY/NJ! Industry is important, very important, and has its place IN A CITY, not just shoved to the edges/burbs for the "other people" to deal with. Look I get it, you have a vision, and I applaud it, but IMO (and of course it is just that, an opinion) none of those "problems" rise to the level of incurring decades and 10's of billions of dollars to correct.
>Strangulation of downtown? Really? I do not see that at all. 👨🦯
Demolish the interstate.
T R A I N S R A I N S
And electrify those bitches. Diesel and battery trains suck.
Stay home. Do nothing.
I wish. I love Cincinnati but the downtown feels so empty due to all the highways
**ODOT review: Bridge Forward - Cincinnati proposal to create 30 new acres over I-75 not feasible** Just saw this earlier today .... The idea was to put the I-75 interchange for the bridges below ground. That would allow the concrete to be placed overtop and create up to 30 additional acres of usable city blocks. The group says it would also better connect Queensgate to downtown. But after reviewing the proposal, ODOT Press Secretary Matt Bruning says it’s not feasible."The problem is that ... as we analyze those from an engineering standpoint, to build them as they were proposed would require us to do a pretty steep grade to get traffic from subgrade in that trench up to the bridge," Bruning said. Bruning says it would require at least an 8% grade. That may not sound like much, but for comparison, Bruning says the Cut-in-the-Hill is 5%. He says that steep grade creates an issue for truck drivers. [https://local12.com/news/local/i-75-interchange-odot-review-plan-30-new-acres-city-blocks-not-feasible-downtown-cincinnati-queensgate-brent-spence-covington-northern-kentucky-nky-bridge-forward-local-12-wkrc-tristate-ohio-ky-indiana-news](https://local12.com/news/local/i-75-interchange-odot-review-plan-30-new-acres-city-blocks-not-feasible-downtown-cincinnati-queensgate-brent-spence-covington-northern-kentucky-nky-bridge-forward-local-12-wkrc-tristate-ohio-ky-indiana-news)
As someone involved with bridge forward the only complaint they had about the design was caused by 4th street having a bridge. Without 4th street cutting across the grade isn't 8%. We got basically no feedback whatsoever from ODOT before they released this. Bridge Forwards plans were meant to Kickstart a conversation. The graphics done by GBBN were not engineering perfect but gave a sense of what we wanted to do. It was feasible to figure out where 50's ramps would go and fit. Ideas like this thread have are the kind of conversation we want. We want to hear your ideas. Your visions. And I applaud the op for coming up with this.
Despite the news were still pushing for changes to the 75 approach, including narrowing and trenching 75 and rightsizing the land it takes up whilst facilitating connections.
This is not Bridge Forward. That half-baked cut-and-cap plan cuts off 75S from 471, 75N from 50, 471 from 75N and 50. My proposal here is both more ambitious while also being more effective at repurposing land and reducing interstate snarl.
No, I know it's not the same just found it interesting that their reasoning ended up just being the grade from entrenched highway to the bridge ramps
Grading is important, of course. None of this is any more aggressive than the grade between trenched 71 in Fort Washington Way and the Brent Spence Bridge. I've not run the numbers to get the exact grade, but the 75-to-bridge ramp runs all the way to the curve by the riverbank.
I'm going to sound like an idiot for saying this, but there's a bunch of run down buildings in queen city that are abandoned factories from what I've seen. Why doesn't the city just Eminent Domain that shit, tear it down, parcel the land out and put it up to auction for residential works?
Still my fave: GBBN has an amazing plan that could condense this to a Banks style structure that would free up 30 acres. They have this planned without displacing residents or removing established ramps into the city. As much as I would love an overhaul of Cincy’s public transportation altogether, this plan is worth a read and well within the established 2B funding that has been set aside for the project already. https://bridge-forward.squarespace.com/
Elon Musk could do it! #boringcompany
Do it, Do it now. Please.
Do it.
Please.. no more.. it’s been under construction since it was built.. just finish it and let it be for a few years
Trenching roads rarely works.
I don't understand this comment. "Rarely works" in what way?
Cost?
[удалено]
I can chip in $8.95.
3.50
What if it was elevated?
It would cost less and be worse for noise pollution and quality of life for nearby residents and workers. But this is pie-in-the-sky, never-gonna-happen thinking anyway.
Since we're spitballing... What about transporting everyone from Ezzard Charles to Kentucky using a warp portal or one of those holes Wiley Coyote uses?
That’ll never pass code.
At that rate, maybe our great grandkids will see what 75 looks like without being speckled with orange cones
I believe this was the original planned route for 75 and the bridge. It was supposed to be further west and follow the same route as the train tracks. It was more direct. I forget why they changed it but they ended up going with the cut in the hill. It might have been because or rail right aways.
Dayton spent ten years trying to get 75 through it straighter. The curves actually caused more congestion.
I think is a good idea
Can you please rotate this map so it's north-up and actually makes sense?
Also, I like the idea but it would force a ton of industrial relocation which you already know. Looks like the current plan does simplify some of the spaghet and opens up a little bit of real estate on the east side of the freeway. It's immediately next to the highway and in between ramps, so that sucks, but it's real estate nonetheless. Beware massive PDF: https://brentspencebridgecorridor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/BSB-Exhibits.pdf
Not a bad idea but you know in any scenario like this 3CDC would swoop in.
Ask Boston how that went…
This is a very different project than the Big Dig. This is more like Fort Washington Way on steroids.
Ah, I get what you mean. In that case I’m interested.
This would be my dream.
Why's it unfeasible, if don't properly along with section be section it can be obtained, just have to make sure it's properly ventilated, reduce flood potential, and install pump other irrigation systems to keep from backs ups of water and that.
FYI, trenching is what we did with 71 along the riverfront. This isn't a trench-and-cover proposal so no need for ventilation concerns. It's unfeasible for really only one reason: money.
I like this but wouldn’t a sharp bend on a major highway (one of the country’s biggest) cause more accidents? I can’t imagine people going 65-80 mph coming up on a sharp bend. I know nothing about this just making an observation. I like this idea it would restore the west end.
I think you'd just have to worry about flooding for the portion of the bend closest to the river but it otherwise sounds like a fantastic idea.
Flood wall.
stop putting putting homes next to rivers
a) That's a super tight turn, especially NB, so I doubt it. b) Why rob precious river front are for a highway?
Infeasible, then what’s the point? It would be great if I lived in a mansion downtown, but that’s not feasible…..
Please accept my most sincere apologies for having the audacity to have an idea and share it. That was incredibly disrespectful of me to be so intrusive and wasteful of your precious time _on Reddit_.
Most of what you call "new downtown real estate" isn't really new, it's already occupied by businesses. The current planned spaghetti also already gives back 10 acres or so back to city from current interchange.
Good luck getting railroad to let you reroute that line. Have to jump through billion hoops just to work near a rail line much less reroute one. Also, that big curve looks like too small of radius unless road is superelevated (tilted) considerably which isn't ideal for safety. It also would have to be climbing up to get to bridge deck elevation so big chunk would be elevated.
Why don't we just raze all of lower Price Hill and build fancy condo's? It's just poor people and they don't matter, ask any of the elite in Kenwood