Opening Day Traffuck

By Antony-22 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=128883204

I‘VE LIVED IN CINCINNATI since 1963, making this my 62nd year here. In all that time, the Cincinnati Police Division (of the Department of Safety) has never understood how to manage crowd control.

This is not intended as a slam against cops. Individual officers have displayed enormous courage, dedication, and understanding of the community throughout the years.

No. This is no crack at the police on the street. This is a clear failure of the institution of the Police Division. A political failing. The division’s notion of dealing with gatherings of crowds of 5-6 figures in size is to close off the exits. People have stopped coming downtown for the WEBN fireworks on Labor Day going back almost fifty years because the traffic handling practices of the CPD are so kack-handed as to make large gatherings in the central basin impossible to escape.

Great American Ball Park, the home of the Cincinnati Reds, has a stated capacity of just under 45,000 — call it 50,000. Plus there is space for about that number in bars, restaurants, parks, and suchlike in the area on which it stands, known locally as The Banks.

The Banks consists of four east-west streets — Mehring Way, Freedom Way, Second Street/Pete Rose Way, and Third Street. Between Second and Third runs a feeder expressway called Fort Washington Way, which carries Interstate 71 and US 50 across downtown and connects with I-75 — and six north-south streets, Elm, Race, Vine, Walnut, Main, and Sycamore. Elm, Vine, and Main are one-way northbound, the others one-way south. The police division’s brilliant policy is to permanently close East Freedom Way between Walnut and Main and to close Main Street between Mehring Way and Second Street on game days, blocking access to the main gate of the ballpark and the hotel and restaurants across the street except by foot traffic.

This has the net effect of funelling all traffic heading north into Downtown onto Elm, Vine, and Main streets. Getting there is another problem. Second Street, which catches traffic coming to The Banks from I-75 (north and south) is always wall-to-wall and treetop tall, bumper-to-bumper and blocking intersections when lights change.Third Street, which catches traffic coming in from the north and east of town on I-71 and Columbia Parkway (US 50) is pretty much the same. There are bars on the north side of Third Street and on the north-south streets in the block between Third and Fourth. A ramp to I-75 South runs from the intersection of Third and Elm and from Second and Main to I-71 North.

If you find yourself on The Banks during the crowd-in for a major event, either at GABP or Paul Brown Stadium at the west end of the Banks facing Elm Street, your best bet is to cross Second and Third on Elm, Vine, or Main and head north to more acessible exits on Fourth and Fifth. Those are your best ways out of the area — unless you want to go south into Kentucky, which is limited to two bridges into Covington and one into Newport. Otherwise, (to go into KY), you have to take the Interstate, with limited access and exits, meaning you have to go relatively farther to get away from the crowd and the traffic.

Smart and experienced drivers know all this and use it to avoid the pain of getting stuck in traffic. Apparently, the Police Division doesn’t. You will always see gridlocked intersections and pairs of officers standing around with coffee go-cups in hand, apparently doing nothing. Why, oh why, don’t the supervisors detail officers to direct traffic?

Last Thursday was opening day of the Reds’ 2025 season. It used to be that the Reds’ opener was the league’s. The Reds were the first professional baseball team. In essence, the foundation of the National League. But back in the ’70s or ’80s (as I remember it), whingers got a stranglehold on MLB policy and took that honor from the Reds and made it — scorn quotes — “fair,” sharing the honor around the entire system. This year, the official league opener was a game at Cleveland, the Guardians (bring back Chief Wahoo!) vs somebody else.

It’s been a tradition of long standing in Cincinnati to hold a parade on the Reds’ opening day. It starts at Findlay Market, an open-air produce and meat market in upper Over-the-Rhine (18 blocks uptown) and runs down to the ballpark, where it notionally disperses. (Details fuzzy as I’ve never attended, choosing to avoid the traffic hassles.) Once again, the Police Division fucks up traffic by closing streets and privileging certain activities. Forgetting that the purpose is to move the maximum amount of traffic possible through the impact zone.

That day, my first fare was a pair of young ladies picked up in Columbia-Tusculum (the original settlement of the city on the east side) going down to The Banks to watch the game on TV at a bar down there. My navigator — for once having a better handle on traffic conditions than I — directed me across Fort Washington Way out US 50 west into Queensgate in order to pickup Second Street from the west end of it on the Clay Wade Bailey bridge to Covington. I came across Second Street and down the hump to Elm by PBS (Idiots sold the naming rights to Paycor, but to me, it’s still Paul Brown Stadium). I slid down Elm to Freedom Way and headed east toward Vine. In their infinite wisdom, CPD had closed Freedom Way a block farther west than normal, so I dropped the girls at Vine and West Freedom way and headed up Vine Street into town, intending to go up into Over the Rhine and avoid the mess on The Banks.

I think I sat at Second and Vine through about five cycles of the lights. (Where was somebody stopping cars from blocking the intersection and pedestrians from crossing against the light?) Sitting at the light, one could watch parade vehicles (this was somewhere around three hours after the end of the parade) tooling along Third Street, not contributing at all to the smooth and efficient movement of traffic. Plus the same hassles of blocked intersections and gormless (probably tipsy) pedestrians crossing against the light.

Okay. Pretty much normal for game day. Eventually, I got across Third Street and headed up Vine toward town. As I climbed the hill on Vine in that block between Third and Fourth (and, BTW, passing up good fares that were out of reach to me, stuck there in the gridlock), I saw that the intersection at Fourth and Vine was FUBAR. Construction had been ongoing for months on the tower at the SW corner and there were semi-permanent orange plastic Jersey barriers blocking half the lanes. (No work going on, of course — Opening Day being a High Holy Day in this town. I can’t fathom why permit holders are allowed to block a lane of traffic when there’s no work going on in it.) But there were still two lanes of traffic running westbound (4th is 1-way west). There was a barrier across the left lane on Vine (which is one-way north) and there was traffic coming AT US (!!) on Vine. IOW, running south, against flow. Again, no cops directing traffic. I wanted to go to Fifth Street and across to Main to get into OTR. At the last moment, some kid in gym togs held the left lane coming up Vine and directed that against-flow traffic westward on Fourth. So I was forced to go west on Fourth  and eventually to get onto I-75 north, which was nowhere in my plans. Elm Street was closed at Fourth. Central Avenue was also closed. I-75 was the only exit.

Okay, so what’s wrong here? Well, first off, anybody with a clue about how downtown streets work would have been as befuddled as I. This is NOT how you do things. You don’t change the way a street grid works without notice on the day. You do not privilege construction when you know the streets will be full to and beyond capacity. You do not route parade traffic through the streets without marshalling special vehicles near the terminus of the parade for allowed exits from the area after the conjestion is over.

While this is hardly unique in the annals of CPD fuckups, it is certainly a peak moment in poor management of traffic. I hesitate to think what could happen if one of the skyscrapers on Third or Fourth were to catch fire during one of these clusterfucks. It would, I fear, echo the Cocoanut Grove fire for tragedy.

First Post on Driving

IMMA KEEP THIS SIMPLE; The first post is about speed. Everybody drives too fast. [Raises hand] Self included. That is, to say, I, upon occasion, exceed the posted speed limit. But I strive to use speed judiciously and appropriately in all cases. Let me tell you that story.

A long time ago. Back in my late teens and early twenties, I drove (and dispatched) for Yellow Cab in Cincinnati. (The official name of the company was Taxicabs of Cincinnati, Inc. It was composed of multiple fleets, Yellow Cab, Parkway Taxi,and later, Checker Cab and East Cab.) After my first speeding ticket, some mentor pulled me aside and gave me this lesson.

This was in the early ’70s. Gas was still cheap and the nationwide speed limit was a mere gleam in the eye of some power-mad senator. You could, in places, drive over 100 without hassle. But, still, Cincinnati Microwave was a startup then and we were still learning to live with police radar. This bit of lore was passed from hand-to-hand and still holds today because of one simple fact: it worked. The basic ground-level fact was how to exceed the speed limit and get away with it. Having been to traffic court a few times, I can tell you that there would be a large number of cases involving speed. The lore developed that there was a slush factor as to the accuracy of each individual vehicle’s speedometer as measured against the radar, which was, at the time, taken as the gold standard.

It was observed that citations for speeding were issued mostly for speeds in excess of around 7MPH over. Investigation showed that officers operating speed radar allowed a buffer of about 7MPH before they’d go to the trouble to pull you over. This was particularly observed in the case I’m describing in Ohio — mostly southwest Ohio, where we were operating. So it was assumed that you could safely go five over without getting ticketed. The only speeding ticket I ever got was for 50 in a 35 zone. The rest of the time, I kept it to 5 over. The only other moving violation I ever got was for going the wrong way on a one way street. Other than that, I’ve gone over 50 years operating on this principle — stay to 5 over — and have never even raised a nose on any cop I passed — including staties. And in other states on strange roads.

But I don’t sit in judgment, only observe that many, if not most, drivers exceed this rule.

Here’s my take on that: 5 over is OK. Ten over is understandable, but risky (in terms of getting ticketed). 15 over is excessive. And any more is rude and reckless.

A word about that word — reckless. It’s got nothing to do with wrecks. I suspect a lot of folk are confused on that. The root of the word is reckon or reckoning. As in: when you’re reckless, you are failing to reckon the risks and possible consequences. You do not reckon. You are reckless. Although, I suppose wrecks might come into it, now I think on it.

So. Where’s the sin in this? It’s not a malum in se — a sin in itself — but a malum prohibitum — a sin because it’s not allowed by some higher authority. But this is supposed to be a free country, with wide latitude of personal freedom of action. Including driving “too” fast. It’s not bad in and of itself and, if you get there safely, you’ve won. So what’s the problem?

Well, it’s this — it’s risky. Here in southwest Ohio, we got snow over the last couple of nights into the wee smalls this morning. (As I write (some time ago from here in March of ’25), it’s mostly melted, though there’s still some on the cars on the street (mine’s in the shop — broken into a week plus ago, hassles with the insurance company). The wife and I were driving to McAllister’s for a light dinner when, in the lane next to us some idiot driving a Corolla slammed into a Toyota minivan. Crumpled the front end of his car real good. Bent the hood and everything. Dunno if the airbags deployed. If they did, that car will be totaled by the insurance company.

But the point is, he was in too much of a hurry and not paying enough attention. I didn’t even need to observe him at the moment of impact to know that. He gave no indication of braking. (And the pavement’s being wet, his tires would deposit none on the road surface.) He couldn’t have been situationally aware and executed that maneuver intentionally (and all of your maneuvers must be intentional if you want to survive the experience). Speculatively, I would guess he was on his cell phone.

(Seriously: Invest ten bucks and buy a dashboard phone mount. Next time, insist any car you buy be equipped for Bluetooth. It could save your life. You should never drive with your phone in your hand. Again: if you want to survive the experience.)

Anyway, he had to have been driving too fast — not over the speed limit, which is 35 at that point — but what moron drives the limit approaching a busy intersection for a right turn?

One who is in too much of a hurry.

Inn’t that sorta judgmental?

Well, Dolly, it is. I should, perhaps, define “too much.”

Perhaps you should.

First, some background. When saying this, I am reminded of the description from Jerry Pournelle’s stories of Falkenberg’s Legion, wherein he describes the culture of the Regiment. He says that, in Falkenberg’s unit, it is not forbidden to drink — not even on duty. Nor is it being drunk — even on duty. The sin in consuming alcohol is in rendering ones self thereby unfit for duty.

That’s the way I take the sin of being in too much of a hurry. Braking late; following too close; weaving lane-to-lane seeking an apparent “advantage” of a few seconds. Approaching the problem of getting from Point A to Point B as though it were a race and you MUST be in front.

I’ve been working on this for months. Building up lines of argument in my mind as I drive around, watching all the idiots on the road (and they all are). But now, months on, I find I have no more — no input or concern, whichever — to continue. So, in the interests of moving on, I’m closing this off.

Had a Brief Scare.

GOT AN EMAIL The other day. Sent to the right account and notifying me that a password reset had been requuested for one of my domains. I had not made the request. Even though the email stated that, if this was not me, to ignore the email, but I believe that my host does not spontaneously generate these things. There must be a real request, for all it’s not authorized. It made me think that somebody was trying to take over my site. Kind of like a housejacking. So I had to check through things, but it prodded me to pay more attention to the blogs (some is more than none).

The Democrats Keep Talking

ABOUT SHUTTING DOWN popular and vital energy sources (e.g. coal-fired electricity-generation plants) like they have the right to do it.

A Red Wave?

While everybody and their cat seem to be anticipating a red wave at the polls tomorrow, it occurs to me to wonder — as I do with so-called climate change contentions — “How do they know?” Polls? The ones that didn’t predict Trump? The ones that we in the right never answer, (even when they count us in real numbers)? Wishful thinking?

And doesn’t all of this assume — probably mistakenly — that the count will be honest?

Rule Zero

I’ve seen this meme around.
“Don’t be an asshole to me. Then I’d have to be an asshole back to you. And I’m way better’n you at being an asshole.”

And in driving, as so many people do asshole stuff, I would emphasize.

DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE.

‘Cause people do asshole stuff and smart, strategic drivers know to pick their fights, so they don’t slap down the assholes like they deserve.

Note that I say “deserve” not like “they should be.” The latter implies an imperative to act. There isn’t one. Slapping down assholes just gets you into shit so don’t. And, from an external perspective (somebody who’s just driving along and not really involved in our little contretemps), it might seem that the asshole got away with it. And a certain percentage of the populace will accept that as permission to be an asshole, too.

(And, sooner or later, somebody gonna come whose better than you at asshole-ing and… guess what?)

And thus the situation develops on our nation’s highways, that everybody acts the asshole. So, before any of the other rules of the road come the Zero Rule: Don’t be an asshole.

Over time, I’ll be introducing more of these. Lemme know whatcha think.

As They Say, Elon Is Right: ESG Is a Scam

SAW THIS LITTLE DITTY on Insty and thought it worthy of a signal boost, FWIW …

News on Comments

SINCE WE’VE HAD some issues with people being able to register to comment, we’ve loosened requirements in one way and tightened them overall. You still need to provide a name and email. All comments will be moderated. All.

Sumfin-sumfin

TO AMUSE YOU in these dark times.

All of Them

I’VE LONG BELIEVED that all Democrat officeholders, at least at the Federal level, are, at the very minimum foresworn of their oaths of office. It appears the Constitution is mum on the subject of oath breakers, and I am unaware of any statute that addresses the subject, except if you get into the weeds of perjury.

Michael Walsh, however, has a fair Jeffersonian indictment of the party of Burr, Booth, and Biden. It could serve as the body of a 21st Century Declaration of Independence. A Declaration of Insurrection, if you will. (I should note that the Alien and Sedition Act is no longer in force and will not serve as a straw for the grasp of the grasping and destructive left.)