Cincinnati's Metro's routing and scheduling are pretty exclusively geared towards the notion of getting dayshift workers from the neighborhoods to the central business district.
This routing scheme is getting kinda shaky as businesses & homes shift here and there but Metro seems to be slowly adapting.
Where their model really fails and they seem to be doing nothing about it - is scheduling.
While fine for standard dayshifters, the frequency of trips in the 11 PM to 1 AM time slot makes it hard for second and third shift workers to use the system. The problem gets even worse if the rider has to transfer. This can mean 30 - 40 minute waits at midnight at Government Square in January. Frequently these buses are very off schedule, too.
This plan does not address the needs of a society that is increasingly becoming a 24 hr society.
Even as a traditional dayshift society, a common activity is the worker going out on weekend evenings.
Metro's schedules are exactly the same on Friday nights as Monday through Thursday. Saturday is even worse with less frequent trips and some routes not being served at all. I doubt all routes would need the increase in trips on Friday and Saturday evenings, but investigating, locating and targeting centers of entertainment for more active service seems to be a good place to start.
Metro tries to work with different areas - primarily in the outer regions (King's Island) but neighborhood business organizations might do well to petition Metro (or Metro petitioning communities) about adding these late night runs.
As the city embarks on a streetcar system, I wonder if they will continue this antiquated and provincial scheduling scheme. It makes little sense in the downtown area that is a hub of entertainment and conventions to not have frequent late night service.

This May 3rd and 4th, Cincinnati celebrates Cannabis Liberation Day along with hundreds of cities around the World.

On Saturday, May 3rd
START THE CELEBRATION AT HEMPROCK'S MUSIC HEMPFEST
Riverfront West Sportspark Pavilion
7958 Harrison Ave.
in Miamitown, Ohio
Doors open 7:30pm

Music Guests include:
EAZY
The Frankl Project
Open Mind Productions
VEDGE &
The One Man Electrical Band

Also featuring BURNDEM GLASS REEFERGIRLS
RAFFLES, VENDING, FOOD & BEER CONCESSIONS.

Ticket price is $5.00 a Head plus party all night with a primitive campsite for only $5.00 for each tent.

On Sunday, May 4th
Head Downtown for the Rally & March!
Fountain Square 3:00-6:00pm

At the GMM Downtown Rally, we'll have Speakers, Hemp organizations, Hemp & Drug war info, plus lots of fun, including!!!...

Music Guests VEDGE & EAZY

Prizes for Best Political Signs & Best Rally Outfits & Costumes!

A DRUM CIRCLE at 5:15!!! LED BY RICH SPIRIT DRUMS
Please bring your drums & other musical toys & join in!

MARCH STARTS AT FOUNTAIN SQUARE AT 5:45, LED BY REEFERROACH & THE DRUMMERS!
ENDS AT THE FEDERAL BUILDING AT 6:00pm!!!

Guest Speakers & Organizations include:
Gatewood Galbraith, Craig Lee, HempRock, North Ohio NORML, Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR), Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Ohio Patient Network, MMJActionNetwork, Kentucky Marijuana Party, Conservatives For Cannabis, Cincy Attorney Timothy Smith, Paul Green, Blunt Politics, Cincy Bud Kid.

Guest MC's Doc Diablo & Senor Bull, Colonel Cannabis!

For more details on both events email or call the
HempRock Hempline
513-68-4-HEMP
www.hemprock.com


SPONSORS...

HUSTLER CINCINNATI
411 Elm St.
Cincinnati, Ohio 513-421-3769
1038 Lebanon St.
Monroe, Ohio 513-539-6969

HEMPTATIONS CINCINNATI
2034 Madison Rd.
Cincy, Ohio 513-871-HEMP

RANDY'S WIRED PAPERS
1-888-34-RANDYS

Shortly after moving to Cincinnati I found the super cool hillside stairway system that gives peds an easy shortcut between neighborhoods.
This pedestrian path/stairway is really wicked cool, tho.

Note all the criminals congregating.....

Civil injustice strikes Ohio

Cleveland Plain Dealer
Bob Ewing

For 40 years, Meredith and Luther Ricks did everything the right way. They worked hard, saved carefully and raised a family in their modest Lima home. They were poised to enjoy their retirement years in peace.
Despite their four decades of hard work, however, an absurdly unjust law has turned their hope for the American Dream into an outrageous nightmare at the hands of the Cleveland FBI.
Both of the Ricks spent their careers at the Ohio Steel Foundry, eschewing lavish spending to save for a comfortable retirement. Not trusting banks, Meredith and Luther kept their life savings in a safe inside the house.

Last summer, two violent intruders broke into the Rickses' house. Luther and his son fought with the burglars. After his son was stabbed, Luther broke free, got his gun and saved the family by shooting one of the intruders and scaring the other off.
When Lima police arrived, the Ricks' nightmare should have been over - but it was just beginning.
The police entered the house and discovered the family safe. Because a small amount of marijuana was inside the home - used by Luther to ease his painful arthritis, hip replacement and shingles - the officers decided to confiscate Meredith and Luther's entire life savings, more than $400,000.
Shortly afterward, the FBI got involved - not to help the stricken family, but to claim the money for the federal government.
Such is the result of civil forfeiture laws, which represent one of the most profound assaults on our rights today.
Civil forfeiture can apply to virtually any property: cars, houses, boats and, as the Rickses' case demonstrates, even money. The property can be seized merely on suspicion that it was used in connection with a crime or resulted from criminal activity.
The police did not charge Luther for the shooting - he acted in self-defense - or for the small quantity of marijuana he used as medicine. Under civil forfeiture, the government can confiscate money or property without proving that a person is guilty of criminal misconduct.

While criminal forfeiture requires that a property owner be found guilty of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, civil forfeiture does not require that the owner even be accused of a crime, much less convicted. The government proceeds directly against the property it wants to take, which means owners are not entitled to any of the protections they would receive if they were accused of a crime.
This bizarre practice was not widespread in the United States until alcohol prohibition and has been used extensively since drug prohibition stiffened in the 1970s and 1980s.
The FBI's adoption of the Lima police's forfeiture is not unusual - the federal government regularly seizes property that was originally confiscated by local authorities and then splits the resulting profits. In Missouri, for example, authorities were recently caught turning forfeitures over to the federal government in order to avoid a legal requirement that proceeds go to schools.

The abuses don't stop there. In the 1990s, police in Louisiana were stealing innocent people's property by fabricating drug crimes. They used the proceeds for ski trips to Aspen.
Civil forfeiture is now a nationwide epidemic with proceeds from federal civil forfeiture alone reaching hundreds of millions of dollars each year. This is part of a larger trend over the past several decades of weakened property rights protection.
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark Kelo case that government officials can use eminent domain to buy your home, business, church or farm and then hand your property over to another private entity so long as the new owner promises to generate more tax revenue with your land.
Importantly, a nationwide backlash is under way. Ohio leads the country with a historic unanimous ruling in 2006 by the state's Supreme Court that reined in the awesome power of land confiscation. Forty-two states have now reformed their laws on land grabs, making it harder for governments to take your property to boost their tax revenues.
We desperately need a similar backlash against the abuses of civil forfeiture. Thankfully, Meredith and Luther Ricks are fighting back. With free legal help, this week they filed a notice with the Cleveland office of the FBI, demanding the return of their life savings.
Governments should protect, not plunder, our property. Common sense and justice demand that the rampant abuse of civil forfeiture must end.
Ewing is the assistant director of communications for the Institute for Justice, the nation's leading legal advocate for property rights.

Story here.

Another reason to fear downtown Cincinnati
Wild Horses

Horse takes off with carriage
BY CARRIE WHITAKER
What started out as a calm carriage ride downtown for four adults turned ugly Saturday night when the horse pulling the carriage tossed its driver and took off.
Cincinnati Police found the driver of the carriage near Vine and 6th streets and believe the horse galloped about a block-and-a-half south on a Vine Street sidewalk before passengers jumped or were dumped out of the carriage.
One passenger, a woman in her 20s, suffered a head injury. Cincinnati Sgt. Matt Vogeler said her injury was not life-threatening. The driver was transported to the hospital, with what looked like a back injury, Vogeler said.
After losing the passengers, the horse pulled the carriage, then on its side, another half block, dropping horse treats and horse droppings along the way before police were able to stop the horse.
A police unit chaperoned the horse back to its Covington-based business. The name of the carriage company was not immediately available Saturday night.
Vogeler said there was minor damage to the Macy's building and damage to the carriage, but no other damage was reported.

Story here.

Wrecking Springfield
Taking the lead of Building Cincinnati, I give you a one shot of Wrecking Springfield. A few interior pictures of the soon to be demolished Springfield North High school and some shots on and around Plum Street of homes slated for demolition to make way for the big new hospital.
North High


Plum Street

Sneak Peek at new Springfield High School

Residents interested in getting a sneak peek at the new Springfield High School can do so on Saturday, April 5, from 1 to 4 p.m.
District officials and board members will be on hand to showcase the construction progress of the combined high school set to open to students on Sept. 8.
Tours will be offered, while students and staff answer questions about the high school, located at 701 E. Home Road.
Organizers from the Springfield Alumni Foundation will also be on hand to answer questions or take donations for an auditorium in the new high school.
The $60 million project is just a few months away from completion. North High is set to be demolished shortly after the last day of school on May 20 to make way for parking lots and green space.
If you can't make Saturday's event, there will be another on Wednesday from 4 to 7 p.m.
Students must be in eighth grade or older to take the tour. All participants must wear long pants and close-toed shoes.
The open house is handicap accessible, but the tour is not. For more information call (937) 505-2800.

Story here.

UPDATE
-PICS-
here
here
here
here