Whenever I travel I find myself focusing on how the cities I’m in function. I always enjoy myself the most when I’m walking the streets, riding a bike, or riding transit somewhere, which lets me experience the city at a more human pace. When you’re driving or Ubering everywhere you go, you never get a sense of where things are or how they connect with one another.
In the middle of March 2022, I traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio for the first time. A city that is rarely at the top of urban planner’s thoughts when it comes to progressive policies and projects, yet it has quietly built some truly pleasant human scale environments on the sturdy bones of its historic core. Downtown Cincy and the Over the Rhine (OTR) neighborhood offer walkable streets, plentiful dining and shopping experiences, as well as access to the city’s major league sporting venues. While these two neighborhoods only make up a very small part of the city as a whole, they offer up some ideas to other Rust Belt cities on how to embrace your history and make it a livable space moving forward.
DORAs and Plazas
A recurring theme in many of my articles is the need to provide safe, open spaces for people to enjoy. This is especially true during the past few years during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made eating and drinking outdoors a much more attractive and safer option for many. Cincinnati, including many of its suburbs, has taken this to heart, opening up at least 17 DORAs, which stands for Designated Outdoor Refreshment Areas. DORAs are pedestrianized streets lined with bars and restaurants that allow visitors to move freely between establishments with their drinks in hand, as long as the drink is in an official DORA cup. Each DORA is set up to meet the needs of the businesses and communities they sit within. During my trip to Cincinnati, I visited the most well known DORA in the region, the Banks, which sits between the stadiums for the Bengals and the Reds right on the Ohio River. The main street, Freedom Way, is blocked off to traffic year round, allowing for bars and restaurants to add seating and games. A few bars have walk-up windows allowing easy access for ordering. We happened to be there on St. Patrick’s Day when it was 75 degrees out, so the entire area was filled with people enjoying the sun. The one downside of the Banks is that you’re forced to cross two five-lane one-way streets and a bridge across I-71 in order to get there from the rest of Downtown Cincinnati. The whole area is also built on top of a massive parking garage that is clearly meant for game days and not much else.
Beyond the DORAs, many bars and restaurants in Cincinnati have benefited from small plazas created by closing off ends of streets. Not only does this provide additional seating space for businesses, but it also acts as a traffic calming device. Now cars are unable to speed through the neighborhood, while people walking or riding a bike can easily pass through. This sends a clear message that cars are guests within the neighborhood.
Syracuse can easily implement similar spaces throughout the City. Armory Square, which has enjoyed successful weekends of closed streets, is the perfect candidate for a DORA program. We don’t need to look too far for an example of how that might work. The City of Oswego is currently considering a plan to let people in their Downtown area walk freely between bars and restaurants as long as their drinks are in pre-approved, logo ladened containers. This “Social District” doesn’t go quite as far as closing down streets, but Syracuse already has that in place during the summer months. If anything, Syracuse needs to consider closing those central blocks of Armory Square on a more permanent basis to create a true destination.
Smaller blocked off plazas, similar to the image above, could be implemented across the City. Blocks around Westcott, or at the five-way intersection of Hawley/Catherine/Green in the Hawley Green neighborhood, or by the Byrne Building in Downtown. The City should put out a call to businesses and neighborhoods asking for input on where these traffic calming plazas would be desirable. All it takes is some paint, planters, and chairs to transform the end of a block into an enjoyable place to be.
Rooftop Access for All
Having lived in Syracuse for the vast majority of my life, it’s surprising that I really haven’t had many opportunities to see Downtown from an elevated vantage point. You of course have the beautiful views from a number of parks around the City (Schiller, Burnett, and Upper Onondaga come to mind), but its surprising that we haven’t looked for other opportunities to embrace an urban rooftop view. In Cincinnati I lucked out in finding a few rooftop bars and restaurants to take in the sights. One, Rhinegeist Brewery, repurposed a massive space in an old warehouse along with its rooftop, offering up some spectacular views of the industrialized neighborhood against the hills.
Syracuse, like Cincinnati, is filled with old warehouses and factories looking for new life. I’ve written about a new vision for the old warehouses around Washington Square Park, encouraging local breweries to move into the neighborhood. It would be a missed opportunity if we didn’t open up access to the rooftop of the old Moyer carriage factory and create a unique space around the house at its top. The views would offer a truly unique experience.
Some will argue that rooftop access doesn’t make much sense in the snowiest city in the country, but the poor weather conditions aren’t nearly as bad as people make them out to be. Providing some cover and heated spaces would be enough to make most days enjoyable. Even if a bar or restaurant decides to only keep the rooftop open in the warmer months, they’ll still reap the benefits of the expanded space and become true destinations.
Rethinking Free Transit Loops
The Cincinnati streetcar, the Bell Connector, has been controversial over the years. Its ridership levels have never met the lofty goals its supporters set. Its route only connects Downtown Cincinnati with the nearby OTR neighborhood. Ridership fell when a fee was added for rides. But once the streetcar was made free again in 2020, ridership has picked up and has continued to grow. It’s not a perfect system by any means, but it does a lot more good for riders than the Syracuse Syrculator ever could. The Bell Connector links some densely populated residential areas to employment and entertainment centers. The stops are built out with shelters and countdown clocks, making it comfortable to wait. The Connector also runs from 7:30am to 11:30pm, making it possible for workers to actually use it for commuting purposes.
Syracuse, with its much smaller physical footprint and denser development pattern, may not really need a transit loop. Instead, Syracuse should concentrate on implementing BRT. The proposed BRT routes would act in a similar manner as the Bell Connector, connecting densely populated residential neighborhoods to employment and entertainment centers. While BRT would not be free, the new $1 fare for Centro already makes the trip cheap and convenient for regular riders, visitors, and anyone who just decides to try out the system.
Syracuse can learn a lot from other Rust Belt cities. Next time you take a trip to one, think of what we can borrow and improve upon to help make Syracuse a more livable city.