Parker Flats Friday

Yesterday the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments was on the roof shooting video to put together an information piece to educate area leaders and people on the replacement bridge.
I have a better idea for reducing congestion on the bridge, put a toll on it, if people really want and need it they should be willing to pay for it right? And don't give me any crap on we need it for the economy, the study they did showed for every dollar invested in the bridge it will return $0.28 in benefit. Now they way I figure it the streetcar is going to return $2.78 and the CAVE* men say thats a boondoggle, and its gonna have a return 9 times better than the bridge so how much of a waste is the bridge to nowhere?
It was kind of interesting watching everything go by, can't believe I didn't get the camera up fast enough for the helicopter on the truck.

Parker Flats July 15
Parker Flats July 15
Parker Flats July 15
Parker Flats July 15
Parker Flats July 15

you could cut it with a knife
Parker Flats July 15

later on with all my yuppie free time and disposable income we were off to Soho for some sushi. You need the disposable income that only a McyD's hamburger flipper can earn to eat at Soho. Or so some people would have you believe.
Soho Sushi

Still trying to figure out if I eat wasabi for the sushi or sushi for the wasabi
Soho Sushi
Soho Sushi
Soho Sushi
Soho Sushi

nice
Soho Sushi

nothing else to do? theres always something happening on the square.
Fountain Square


* Citizens Against Virtually Everything[where: 45202]best place to learn how to live downtown cincinnati ohio the ethos of Cincinnati

5 comments

8 comments:

  1. Nice looking sushi.

    I'm all for congestion charges - I think it's generally a good principle (all else equal) to have users pay the cost for their transportation. ...With the Brent Spence carrying 160k per day and the streetcar hypothetically carrying 5k, I think it's very unlikely those numbers cited are correct (And I very much doubt one could find a peer reviewed study to back them up). But we do that highways just about pay for themselves in gas tax (and I'm all for a slight increase to make them pay for themselves), while the streetcar is only expected to pay for 25% of it's expense w/ fares.

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  2. Joe,
    You're saying the engineers that ran the numbers don't know what they are doing? They built that interchange for Ikea because they found it would return $1.10 for every dollar spent.

    Highways only cover 58 percent of their costs from user fees, including the gas tax. The rest comes from bonds sold to China.

    So a slight increase? No you'd need at least $1 a gallon tax increase to even start breaking even.

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  3. Is the goal of a toll to push people to the more modern Big Mac bridge, or to raise funds to fix the old bridge (and reduce congestion)?

    To be honest, a bridge tool makes sense given the abuse of 1-75, but wouldnt toll booths just increase congestion (and moreso for us going from exit 6 to exit 2)?

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  4. No, I was more questioning the streetcar estimate. I'm not sure what the .28 return on the Brent Spence was measuring, maybe how much more valuable a new bridge would be than the current one. But there's only so much longer the current bridge can last, and that highway traffic is extremely important for Cincinnati, both for commuting and shipping. I feel weird making this argument as it seems so evident - I mean, look at all that traffic.

    If highways are paid 58% by user fees and the current gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon, if we proportionaly increased fees to a 100%, the tax would be 31.7 cents an increase of $0.13. That doesn't seem draconian, am I missing something?

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  5. 58 percent of their costs from user fees, including the gas tax

    So the gas tax is a portion of the user fees.

    So you don't believe the traffic engineers estimates even though they used them to justify building the exchange at Ikea?

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  6. What interchange/exchange at Ikea? Are you saying they're going to be building one or that one is there?

    Allen Rd has no on/off ramp, you have to continue north to Union Center.

    -JTM

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  7. I didn't say only increase the gas tax, but rather proportionaly increase all fees (which the gas tax is the bulk of). Not this makes a huge difference as fuel taxes make up the bulk of their revenue.

    On your Ikea point - I'm not familiar with that interchange, but yeah if they're saying there will be a 72% loss on the bridge project, I don't believe them. But more so, I question whether that's really what they're saying. Do you have a link or anything?

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  8. Bob;
    You like the Shoe Haus? I got my best shoes there last year. I really like stores where the owners are there everyday running the place.

    ReplyDelete