I have visited the communities of Ripley and West Union, Ohio en route to other locales, and decided to pay both a visit. I came away impressed by the architectural stock and vibrancy of Ripley, and their close association with their downtown and its extensive history, although I was disappointed with the quality of West Union. Very few buildings were in good condition and there was a perceived lack of development and upkeep in the community.

Be sure to check out the Ripley, Ohio and West Union, Ohio pages for even more photographs.

Ripley, Ohio

Located in Brown County, Ohio, Ripley is a village of 1,800 along the banks of the Ohio River, approximately 50 miles southeast of Cincinnati.

The first settlement at Ripley was by Colonel James Poage, who arrived in Ohio from Staunton, Virginia in 1804 to claim 1,000 acres. A veteran of the American Revolution, Poage was among a group of veterans who received land grants as a result of their military service. The town of Staunton was laid out in 1812, although it was renamed four years later in honor of General Eleazar Wheelock Ripley who was an American officer in the War of 1812 that had fatally wounded.

Ripley was known as an important stop along the Underground Railroad due to its proximity to the Ohio River, fueled in part by sympathetic citizens. A number of abolitionists lived in the town at the time, including John Rankin, John Parker, a former slave, and Dr. Alexander Campbell.

Today, Ripley is known for its 55-acre National Historic District, wonderfully maintained churches and residential districts and a blossoming downtown.

1 A classic diner lines a quiet street overlooking the Ohio River.


2 Beautiful churches dot Ripley's cityscape.


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5 There are a few disused structures.


6 This is scheduled for demolition. The front walls are bulging outward.


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8 Downtown. The further north one goes, the less vibrancy there is.


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13 An awesome market in the center of town.


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West Union, Ohio

Geographically isolated, West Union, Ohio is a village in Adams County with a population of nearly 3,000. It has served as the county seat since 1804, when it was relocated from Manchester.

Today, the community is a hub for agriculture and a growing number of Amish.

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18 Not too bad.


19 Hometown shops line their streets.


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Again, be sure to check out the Ripley, Ohio and West Union, Ohio pages for even more photographs. Enjoy this set!

You know that the Cincinnati Enquirer will present a logically-sound, factually-based editorial when it begins with an antiquated image of a train derailing by the alluring Peter Bronson. In his latest tirade against rail transport and transit, Bronson makes a bold statement that the City of Cincinnati has been attempting to move forward on a fully-taxpayer supported $200 million "trolley."

Bronson, before pounding away on your latest editorial, did you bother doing any fact checking? Phase One of the Cincinnati Streetcar project is estimated to cost $102 million, leaving a deficit of $98 million on your account. Both phases would only cost $185 million, still $15 million short of your estimate. All but $30 million remains unfunded.

Did you know that for each dollar invested, the city would stand to gain $14 in new economic activity? That is to say, with a streetcar, higher densities in residential development can be achieved further from the downtown core towards Liberty Street and McMicken Avenue without wholesale reliance on costly developer-funded parking garages and surface lots that reduce the amount of buildable space and increase the cost of development. With residential components in place, commercial and retail storefronts would soon follow -- a classic supply-and-demand equation. Thus, economic activity is generated and sustained.

Furthermore, Bronson states that the Cincinnati Streetcar system of the past "went out of business." While this is true, the advent of the automobile that required the wholesale removal of tracks and the Great American streetcar scandal led to the streetcar's demise in Cincinnati. Many of the prominent streetcar companies of the past were organized into holding companies by the 1920s and 1930s, and many automotive-based corporations, such as General Motors, Firestone Tire and Standard Oil of California made investments in the new holding corporations in return for exclusive supply contracts.

As the automobile proved to be more profitable to these automobile-based corporations, most of the holding companies began scrapping their streetcar systems, most between 1936 and 1950. The electric-traction cars were then replaced with General Motors buses.

The scandal came full face when nine corporations and seven individuals were indicted in the Federal District Court of Southern California on two counts under the U.S. Sherman Antitrust Act. They were charged with conspiracy to control a number of transit companies to form a transportation monopoly, and to monopolize the sales of buses and supplies to companies owned by these holding companies.

In 1948, the lower court rulings were overruled and the defendants were acquitted on the first count of conspiracy. The companies were fined a paltry $5,000, while the individuals were fined only $1. The verdicts were upheld in an appeal in 1951.

Bronson, I fail to see how an illegal monopoly that gave automobiles a distinctive advantage, that was verified by a U.S. government attorney in 1974, could compete against an arguably cheaper streetcar.

You continue to debate the issue of rail further into your post, comparing mass-transit to a "train set" and stating that it would require "ongoing subsidies" because "hardly anyone rides trains." That could be further from the truth. Amtrak has been experiencing record ridership (second link) throughout its entire system, and I won't even begin to state how popular the rail network is in Europe. I hope that you are truly not that obtuse, Bronson, to make a brazen statement against European transit.

On to the topic of subsidies: highway transportation is subsidized. Highways are not revenue-generating avenues, unless they are tolled, and your fuel surcharges, both at a state and federal level, are not enough to cover the costs of new construction and maintenance. In 2009, the federal Highway Trust Fund went bankrupt -- monies that are allocated to thousands of construction projects across the nation. As a result, many transportation departments, such as Arizona and Washington, have put an immediate hold on any highway infrastructure project that uses federal funding.

Of course, the stop-gap Congress is considering a one-year fix that would cost taxpayers $8 billion with no accountability and no hope for a long-term solution. Yet Bronson, you rail at a paltry "$200 million" that has a proven economic return on investment and accountability. Furthermore, the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, now merged into the U.S. Government Printing Office, reported that there existed substantial subsidies to highway transport.

In a case study, the "Crossroads Report on Highway Subsidies in NJ," a publication put forth by Komanoff Energy Associates, a Manhattan-based economic consulting firm, stated that government spending on roads in New Jersey exceeded motor vehicle user-derived revenue, such as fuel taxes, by $733 million annually. Taxpayers made up the remainder, regardless if they used the roadway or not -- effectively subsidizing traffic.

For an interesting perspective closer to home, here is a passage from "Lawmakers skeptical of 3-C's' Passenger Rail" article in the Toledo Blade, published February 13, 2009:



While Grossman does correctly state that highway infrastructure needs investment, and that passenger rail does not generate sufficient income to support itself, it should be noted that roadways do not generate enough income to support themselves through fuel taxes alone. Taxpayers make up the remainder though property and sales taxes, and therefore highways are subsidized. Don't worry Bronson, that statement was attributed from the Federal Highway Administration.

It will be interesting to see what the next tall tale, complete with zero sources or validated statements, will bring.

The City of Cincinnati has given the Drop Inn Center an ultimatum: move to a new facility being purchased by the city or lose city funding. The Drop Inn Center, located at the corner of 12th and Elm streets in Over-the-Rhine, is within close proximity to the nearly-complete School for the Creative and Performing Arts and along the proposed Cincinnati Streetcar loop. The new location has been rumored to be the former Nu Blend facility at 40 East McMicken.

Workers at the Drop Inn Center have already made a semi-public statement, stating that they "will not be moved" although they did not understand or comment on the implications of losing city funding would have on the shelter's operations. Drop Inn, the largest homeless refuge for the city, serves over 2,700 annually, according to its statistics. The web-site does not mention funding and cost breakdowns, repeat visits and other detailed data, and repeated calls to Drop Inn were not acknowledged and conveyed no additional information. In other words, there is little accountability for the success rate that the Drop Inn has had, or the effect it bears upon Over-the-Rhine and Cincinnati on the whole.

According to the Cincinnati Police Department and various police officers who work the beat in the vicinity of Washington Park, the social service conglomeration is within an area of Over-the-Rhine that has seen no visible improvements in crime since the 2001 riots. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, 16% of the general homeless population have a mental illness, rising to 22% for African-American's, however, the California Psychiatric Association estimates that up to 40% of the homeless have a mental disorder, and that many suffer from potentially violent tendencies. The potential for altercations and crime, especially around young children at the upcoming school, has pitted the city against the homeless coalition. One side cites the safety of the children and general public, while the other clamors for additional support and monies for treatment and housing.

Their potential relocation would only assist in the redevelopment of one of the prominent locations in Over-the-Rhine, only a block away from Music Hall, Memorial Hall, the Gateway Quarter, the new School for the Creative and Performing Arts and downtown. Adding into the mix is the reconstruction of Washington Park and its associated underground parking garage. These investments are revitalizing a section of Over-the-Rhine that was neglected and abandoned for decades, even as 49% of the historic building stock has been demolished. Without major infusions of capital from investors and forward-thinking business leaders and residents, the lower-half of Over-the-Rhine would have remained a haven for crime and deterioration, a black eye for Cincinnati.

But one should not ignore the social ills of the homeless. While the city is threatening to dissolve funding for the largest shelter in the city due to the high rate of crime in the vicinity and the potential for a PR disaster, the Drop Inn Center's relocation to a larger and undoubtedly more modern facility on East McMicken would offer greater resources to the chronically homeless. Many require medications to treat mental illnesses and resources in order to become a contributing member of society, and the withdraw of funds could leave the homeless with no options.

Balancing the needs of the homeless is a an uphill battle and gamble, when one compares the inherent undesirability of residing adjacent to homeless shelters and known pockets for crime.

It's no secret that Over-the-Rhine has a high crime rate, although that rate has sharply fallen since the 2001 riots due to increased police patrols and enforcement. One of the largest successes have been within the Gateway Quarter, bounded loosely by Central Parkway, Liberty, Republic and Walnut streets. For instance, 12th and Vine was one of the more notorious corners in the neighborhood, racking up an impressive 500 service calls only several years ago, most for assault and drugs. This was reduced to only a handful last year and zero for 2009, a marked improvement.

For 2007, there were 390 part one incidents, a sharp decrease from years prior -- statistical data from the Cincinnati Police Department. In a complete unsubstantiated press release, WalletPop stated that the predicted crime rate was 457 for 45210 and 45214, with a one in four chance of becoming a victim in one year.

WalletPop has declined comment at the publication of this entry, although repeated calls and inquiries were made to the author of the article and web-site. UrbanUp stands by it's stance that WalletPop's commentary and evidence was unsubstantiated and unfounded, and wholly unsourced, and therefore should not be considered a credible or reliable reference to crime in Cincinnati.

The paranoid fear over rail transportation has begun, now that nine individuals were killed and dozens injured in a Washington D.C. Metro accident. The accident, involving two Metro trains that were operating over 50 MPH between two stops, was the second such incident in the 30 years of Metro's history. According to Nathaniel Livingston, a surmised lawyer that operates Cincinnati Black Blog, he infers that the Cincinnati Streetcar proposal could be potentially unsafe because of the Metro incident.



Nathaniel, I had respect for your generally well regarded and thought-out blog posts until today. How can you be fearful of a streetcar system that has never had a recorded fatality? Or for a rail network that produces only a handful of deaths a year? For the sake of discussion, let's compare automobile deaths versus that of an airline or automobile.

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there were 22,707 rural automobile fatalities and 17,467 urban automobile fatalities for 2007. For passenger railroads, there were a mere 4 passenger fatalities for 2007. Let's now jump over to mass transit and compare the fatality rates. Lumping in all transit rail that includes light rail, heavy rail and commuter rail, there were only 125 fatalities, 33 of which occured at grade crossings. Fatalities that occured at grade crossings all but involved trains hitting automobiles and trucks stuck or stopped at grade crossings.

Let us now look at the raw data differently and compare it on an equal scale. The following transit data has been taken from the American Public Transportation Association and the National Transit Database of the Federal Transit Administration for 2003, and were averaged. For 2003, fatality rates per 100 million passenger miles for automobiles is .89, commuter rail is .03, rapid transit (rail) is .47, light rail is .23 and bus is .07.

We also cannot ignore the fact that there were 714,354 automobile fatalities between 1990 and 2006, versus 189 light rail fatalities.

Urban public transit modes are thereby much safer than automobiles. In addition, Nathaniel, there have been no recorded deaths on a modern-day streetcar.

Can we cut the hysteria and focus on the facts, rather than what you read and poorly surmised from various news articles? What you "think" you read doesn't translate into facts.

This is the third installment of a photographic series covering the built environment in Cincinnati.

Click on the respective links in the headers for even more photographs and information.

Over-the-Rhine

My neighborhood, and damn proud of it as gritty as it is in parts.

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2 Viewed from this angle, Cincinnati is incredibly dense. Too bad that in reality, surface lots pockmark the journey towards downtown.


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4 The following are views along Central Parkway east to west, once home to the Ohio and Erie Canal and later our incomplete subway.


5 The building stock resembles nothing of the designs inside Over-the-Rhine. This was more 'public facing' and was on a busier throughfare, and was subsequently redeveloped in the earlier 1900s. If only the trend continued on, we might have seen more of Over-the-Rhine's Italianite structures demolished.


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8 Bleh.


9 The Emery, where I live! A large unused theater attaches to the rear.


10 American Building


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12 School for Creative and Performing Arts, the only public school dedicated solely for that purpose. Quite a diverse structure that replaces a mega surface lot next to Washington Park.


13 YMCA

Gateway Quarter

The Gateway Quarter is a mixed-use development project bounded by Central Parkway, 13th, Vine and Race streets in Over-the-Rhine. It is being developed by the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation, or 3CDC, along with The Model Group, Urban Sites, B2B Equities and Northpointe Group. The four-phase project is slated to have 400 residential units completed by 2010, with each new year coinciding with each new phase of the project.

14 New units along 12th Street.


15 A streetscaping project is underway along Vine that involves burying utilities, installing new sidewalks and brick pavers, and repaving the roadway.


16 Trinity Flats


17 Fourteenth and Vine at Trinity Flats, which replaced a one-level cinder-block building.


18 Lackman Lofts on the corner of 13th and Vine.


19 The always sexy Mayor Mallory speaking at the Gateway Quarter phase III open house.


20 13th and Vine.


21 A view down 14th Street.


22 The 1400 block of Vine Street that will soon be redeveloped.


23 The 1300 block of Vine Street.


24 Lackman Lofts at 13th and Vine.

Over-the-Rhine

Again!

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26 Memorial Hall


27 Abandoned church.


Be sure to check out the Cincinnati, Ohio and the Over-the-Rhine for even more photographs and information!