February 2025
Excel, PowerPoint, Photoshop, Illustrator, ArcGIS Storymaps, Nearmap
Photoshop, Illustrator, Canva, ArcGIS
Hand Drawing, Photoshop, Miro
ArcGIS, Hand Drawing, Photoshop, Illustrator, Miro, Rhino 3D, Twinmotion, Streetmix
Hand Drawing, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Streetmix, Twinmotion
I’m a third year Urban Planning and French double major at the University of Cincinnati. I’m a native New Yorker, whose dream is to be a transportation planner. I grew up riding the subway, the bus, and my bike everywhere I went. Since then, I’ve lived in Kolkata, Cincinnati, Bordeaux, Boston, and Chicago, and in each of those cities I have continued walking, bicycling, and using public transit to reach all of my destinations.
My goal in my career is to increase people’s freedom by providing them with more convenient, more reliable, cheaper, and safer transportation and to play a role in reducing carbon emissions through my work in urban transportation planning. I’m an avid Streetsblog reader, and I love thinking and dreaming about transit at every scale: from a street’s particular design and bus stop spacing on my local bus line, to regional transit and the national rail network. My other interests include playing the piano, learning French, playing soccer, swing dancing, and cycling.
James McDermott
(929) 334 8574 / mcdermje@mail.uc.edu / LinkedIn / Full Portfolio
Education:
University of Cincinnati, Class of 2027, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, Cincinnati, OH Bachelor of Urban Planning (Primary Major), Bachelor of French (Secondary Major), Certificate in Business French Participating in the Professional Practice Program, alternating semesters of classroom study with work in the field of planning GPA: 3.9 Dean’s List Recipient, 2022 - Present Loyola School, Class of 2022, New York, NY, GPA: 4.0, New York City Council Speaker’s Achievement Award Recipient
Activities:
UC Cycling Club Vice President, 2022 - Present
Experience:
WSP: Transportation Planning Intern, Planning and Advisory Team, Chicago (Aug – Dec 2024)
• Worked on Step 1 of the Corridor Identification and Development Program (CIDP) for two corridors – Chicago to St. Louis for IDOT and Indianapolis to Chicago for INDOT
o Made drafts of the Gap Analysis for each corridor, considering information gathered from past documents, discerning what information could be used in the Service Development Plan (SDP) as Step 2 of the CIDP.
o Prepared drafts of the Statement of Work and Schedule for each corridor
o Created summaries for each task required for the SDP so that schedules and budgets could be prepared
• Researched the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail program and prepared a summary for IDOT.
• Collected and documented public feedback from two public meetings for the I-55 Access and I-57 Access Projects
• Completed a dozen crash reports for the Chicago DOT (CDOT) for streets that were being repaved and redesigned.
• Performed quality control for dozens of CDOT crash reports and wetland impact evaluation forms.
• Wrote language and compiled materials to create drainage report for IDOT for 606 Trail Extension project in Chicago.
• Aided in the creation of cultural exhibits and photo logs for the CDOT Arterial Resurfacing program’s 2026 corridors. City of Watertown, MA: Transportation Planning Intern, Department of Community Development and Planning (Jan – Apr 2024)
• Helped facilitate and consolidate public comment for the Watertown Square Area Plan, including a public meeting with 250 people attending in-person and another 150 online.
• Wrote Watertown’s updated bicycle parking guidelines, taking inspiration from bike parking guidelines written by Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals.
o Considered both short- and long-term bike parking, accommodating all bike types including cargo bikes
o Collaborated with residents from the City of Watertown’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee.
• Prepared site plans and co-led site feasibility for four new Bluebikes bike share stations, all subsequently installed
• Researched transportation-related grant programs from the USDOT and Massachusetts DOT, including Safe Streets for All, MassDOT Complete Streets Program, and USDOT Reconnecting Communities Grant Program.
• Aided in preparing Watertown’s Safe Streets for All USDOT grant application including grant research, project proposal, and design. Watertown applied for and won an $806,192 grant in the fall of 2024.
• Led an overhaul of the transportation-related webpages on the City’s website See link
o Created webpages with maps describing the bike, public transit, and pedestrian networks and an ArcGIS storymap describing future bicycling infrastructure
Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA): Research Assistant for Revisioning Transit, Bus Stop Analysis and Development, Cincinnati (Apr – Dec 2023)
• Surveyed 328 bus stops on the Cincinnati Metro Routes 17 and 33, reporting on bus stop amenities, daytime and nighttime safety, and maintenance quality (on a contract for SORTA through the University of Cincinnati)
• Surveyed pedestrian environment in 5-min walkshed of Route 17, creating ArcGIS maps of crosswalks & traffic lights
• Led three classmates in surveying five additional metro bus routes
• Compiled bus stop information into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for each route, created an InDesign document for Routes 17 and 33, and made a GIS map of all surveyed bus stops on all lines surveyed since April 2023.
Skills:
Adobe: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat Microsoft: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Project.
Applications: ArcGIS, Rhino 3D, Streetmix, Twinmotion, Nearmap, Google Earth Pro, Miro, MicroStation
Languages: English native speaker and French - DALF C1 Certification
Course:
Planning Design Studio: Neighborhood / District
Professor:
Shilpa Mehta
Goals:
Describe how our group arrived at our guiding principles and how the proposed changes would be phased in the industrial core.
Description:
The larger goal of this class was to show a possible scenario of how Cincinnati’s industrial core, currently a collection of unhealthy, poor, deindustrialized neighborhoods, could transform over the next 50 years. Our group proposed a scenario in which the area would return to its past as strong, diverse, and vital neighborhoods in Cincinnati’s urban core, before they were wrecked by expressways and urban renewal.
The slides on the right show how our group arrived at that idea and the phasing that we thought would be most appropriate for those changes. The first explains that the Cincinnati area, as is true in most of the United States, needs to build more mixed-use, dense, walkable urban neighborhoods because of challenges like climate change, the housing crisis, and urban sprawl. In Cincinnati, where the western part of its downtown basin used to be a collection of those types of neighborhoods until planners in the 1950’s destroyed much of the area with highways and urban renewal projects, we have the perfect place to start: in that western part of the downtown basin, right next to our most healthy urban neighborhoods, Downtown and Over-The-Rhine. Shown below is the contrast between the area in 2021 - with many vacant lots, large, unwalkable blocks, and a freeway - and 1950 - with very few to no vacant lots, small, walkable blocks, and no urban freeway.
Camp Washington
Camp Washington’s areas of highest potential are the residential street-neighborhoods centered along Colerain Avenue, north and south of Hopple St.
Lower Price Hill
Lower Price Hill’s strongest area is concentrated around Olyer School, south of W 8th St and west of State Ave.
West End
The West End is polycentric with multiple areas of strength. The Dayton St neighborhood is arguably the strongest part of the West End with its influence supporting a recently opened coffee shop. The townhomes surrounding Laurel Park and the neighborhood in the southeast corner of the West End are also areas with high potential to grow.
In the short term, the areas with the most potential for walkable development will be strengthened in the neighborhoods surrounding Queensgate.
Course:
Planning Design Studio: Neighborhood / District
Professor:
Shilpa Mehta
Goals:
Create a set of three to four guiding principles which will each house three to four strategies for physical change in the industrial core.
Description:
After finding our main goal of the project - to return the area to its walkable, dense, urban core past - we created four guiding principles meant to spur that development in a healthy manner. Along with those four principles, we came up with a vision statement shown below.
On the right are our short and medium term strategies in a toolbox format, showing how we plan to change the neighborhoods in the short and medium term. In the following slide, three regional, long term strategies are shown.
Guiding Principles
“To reach its potential again as the Queen City, Cincinnati needs to go back to its peak population, and to do that we need to double down on strengthening Cincinnati’s urban core. To accomplish this Cincinnati must: make its urban core a healthy place to live, remove physical barriers to the spread of walkability, build new, low-carbon systems of transportation, and make changes to the land use code that promote urban development”
Action Points
Adding noise barriers along freeways, such as I-75 and the 6th St Viaduct, help minimize noise pollution throughout the Lower Mill Creek Valley. Add
A strong, protected bike lane network will be started through quick-build improvements and continued through a rebuilding of streets.
The network will allow cycling to explode in popularity as a transportation mode in the flat industrial wedge.
Street improvements that are cost-effective and require minimal labor to install can go a long way to make streets safe for pedestrians and are viable for multiple modes of transportation.
Rethinking how the current streets look and feel is the first step in mitigating physical barriers to walkability in these neighborhoods.
In the short term, zoning will change to strengthen the walkable streetneighborhoods of the communities surrounding Queensgate by channeling dense, walkable development into those areas.
Similar to ReLeaf Cedar Rapids, a tree cover restoration program--that can be implemented in any neighborhood-- will be introduced to combat the urban heat island effect and minimize pollution.
Capping sections of I-75 near Union Terminal and in Lower Queensgate will encourage future mixed-use, walkable, downtowntied development as an effort to reconnect downtown and the West End to Queensgate.
Permanent features of roadways, like raised berms for bus and bike lanes, pedestrian islands and extended sidewalks at crossings, and new trees will be introduced as current roads are rebuilt, and new streets begin to be erected in the valley.
Restore Pre-Urban Renewal Street Grid
Superblocks of industry and public housing return to the small block form of the old West End. This will make these areas more walkable and peoplefriendly.
“Walking
Accelerators”
An expanded transit network, consisting of BRT, streetcar, and cable car lines, will extend the walkable influence of OTR, Downtown, East Price Hill, and Northside into the West End, Lower Price Hill, and Camp Washington, strengthening their business districts and housing stock.
Intercity passenger rail will arrive in the 2030’s with connections to Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland via the 3C&D line and to Chicago via Indianapolis. Minor reconstruction of Union Terminal and the railyards will be required.
As transit expands, zoning should change with it, allowing for a strong connection between land use and transportation with a focus on encouraging low-carbon living.
Course:
Planning Design Studio: Neighborhood / District
Professor:
Shilpa Mehta
Goals:
Show how Cincinnati’s Industrial Core could transform into a walkable, diverse, vital city district.
Description:
Larger, regional level changes will be required to galvanize the proposed long term redevelopment in the urban core. The proposed long term changes are a greenbelt which would push new development in the MSA towards the urban core, a removal of urban freeways thus making the urban core more livable and healthier, and the creation of a strong mass transit network making Cincinnati from a collection of walkable neighborhoods into a truly car-optional, walkable city.
Below is a graph of the City of Cincinnati’s population, projected to 2070 showing two scenarios, first, a base growth where most of the growth at the MSA level occurs in the suburbs and second, a scenario in which the greenbelt pushes much of the MSA’s growth into the city itself.
This graph predicts the City of Cincinnati’s population through the year 2070, assuming that the Greenbelt shown in the previous two slides is implemented starting in 2050, and that in the decades leading up to 2050, more and more of the new arrivals to the Cincinnati Metropolitan Region move to the City of Cincinnati itself.
The base growth projection assumes a uniform Cincinnati population growth rate of 4.2% percent. The greenbelt projection assumes a uniform MSA population growth rate of 5.9% - the rate that the MSA grew by between 2010 and 2020. The change seen in Cincinnati’s population reflects a rise in the percentage of new arrivals to the MSA, moving to the City of Cincinnati. Below is a graph showing those percentages per decade:
Planning Design Studio: Neighborhood / District
Professor:
Shilpa Mehta
Goals:
Show how the proposed short-, medium-, and long-term strategies would change the neighborhoods.
Description:
Shown on the right are two 3D images of two different neighborhoods in Cincinnati’s industrial core, the West End and Queensgate. The West End is shown from an aerial view while Queensgate is shown from a sidewalk-level perspective.
The images show that the West End would be recognizable though substantially different from what it is today with fewer vacant lots and abandoned buildings, a healthier economy, and a stronger transit network. Queensgate, on the other hand, would be completely transformed, resembling somewhat the old West End that was destroyed by urban renewal in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Both neighborhoods would become strong, walkable city districts that would be connected to and that would become vital pieces of Cincinnati’s urban core.
Bank St will be redesigned to have protected bike lanes making the
Eliminating
With
A Street Tree Program will lower the urban heat island effect, making the West End a better place to live.
Street Tree Program A
Rebuilding Streets
Rebuilding streets will allow previous quick-build interventions to become permanent.
Job:
Transportation Planning Intern in the Department of Community Development and Planning in the City of Watertown, MA.
Supervisor: Zeke Mermell
Goals:
Create new bike parking guidelines for the City of Watertown in cooperation with a working group composed of two members of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee at the City of Watertown, the senior transportation planner Zeke Mermell, and myself. Include feedback from the Bicycle-Pedestrian committee, the head of the office of planning, Gideon Schreiber, and the chief zoning enforcement officer, Antoni Mancini.
Description:
Starting in January, I read through the bike parking regulations of surrounding model-municipalities - Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville - and the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals (APBP)’s bike parking guidelines. I created an excel sheet to compare their policies that I then shared with the working group.
After deciding which policies of note the working group agreed upon and which they felt were best not included in Watertown’s guidelines, I prepared a rough draft of the proposed bike parking guidelines. Continuing to work with the working group as well as coordinate with staff in the Department of Community Development and Planning, I further refined the rough draft into a final draft with proposed minimum parking requirements shown on the right.
The document itself serves as a guideline for bike parking in Watertown. It will be coupled with an ordinance once the guidelines are finalized, given an official recommendation by the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee, and passed by the city council. The guidelines describe the common bike styles that Watertown aims to accommodate, the minimum bicycle parking requirements split up into shortand long-term parking, and sections describing what short- and long-term bike parking is and what requirements come with each.
The guidelines also include acceptable and unacceptable rack types and graphics, some of which I made, some of which were taken from APBP, and others of which were taken from Boston’s guidelines. The City of Watertown is planning either to get permission to use those graphics or to make its own versions in-house. Shown below are the two acceptable racks for the City of Watertown, made in-house.
Residential - 5 or fewer units
Residential - 6 or more units
Hotel/Motel
Commercial (Retail, Restaurants, Medical) except Office
Single Family home, Duplex, Triplex, Rowhouse with 5 units No minimum No minimum
Multi-family building with 20 units
1 per 10 units (2 spaces minimum) 1 per unit
1 per 20,000 Gross Square Feet (6 spaces minimum) 1 per 5,000 Gross Square Feet
Office
Fitness, Place of Amusement
Institutions
Licensed Daycare
Schools
Light Industrial
Except Warehouse (gas station treated as commercial)
Cafe, Clothing Store, Sandwich Shop, Funeral Parlor, Undertaker, Bowling Alley, Hospital, Bank, Bank Kiosk with no staff, Kennel, Auto Sales, Drive Ins, Grocery Store, Market, Movie Theater
Office space for financial services, Professional Services
Pilates, Rock Climbing Gym, CrossFit, Ballroom Dancing, Fencing
Museum, Trade School, Place of Worship, Library, Community Center, College, University
1 per 2,000 Gross Square Feet (2 spaces minimum) 1 per 5,000 Gross Square Feet
Manufacturing
Facility, Research Lab, Auto Repair Garage, Self-Storage Facility
Warehouse Distribution Center
1 per 20,000 Gross Square Feet (2 spaces minimum) 1 per 2,500 Gross Square Feet
1 per 1,000 Gross Square Feet (2 spaces minimum) 1 per 5,000 Gross Square Feet
1 per 2,500 Gross Square Feet (4 spaces minimum) 1 per 5,000 Gross Square Feet
1 per 10 children of licensed capacity (2 spaces minimum) 1 per 5 staff members
1 space for each 8 students of capacity (2 spaces minimum)
1 space for each 5 employees plus 1 space per 8 students of planned capacity*
1 per 40,000 Gross Square Feet (4 spaces minimum) 1 per 5,000 Gross Square Feet
1 per 80,000 Gross Square Feet (2 spaces minimum) 1 per 24,000 Gross Square Feet
Job:
Transportation Planning Intern in the Department of Community Development and Planning in the City of Watertown, MA.
Supervisor:
Zeke Mermell
Goals:
Identify general locations for future bike share stations and create site plans for the four stations planned to be installed in 2024.
Description:
Watertown is a part of the Bluebikes system which is the bike share system in the Boston area. As of April 2024, Watertown had six stations inside its borders and was looking to expand the number of stations in the city. As part of the Comprehensive Plan, the transportation planning office was tasked with that expansion.
To begin, Mr. Mermell and I mapped out how the bike share network in Watertown would expand. We used NACTO’s standard station spacing and their advice on how to successfully expand a bike share network to plan the expansion of the Bluebikes system in Watertown. The city attempts to get as many stations as possible built by developers, which has allowed the network to expand faster with less money coming from the city’s coffers. Below is a map of current and future bike share stations in Watertown. Four of the seven future stations displayed below have since been constructed.
After deciding on the general locations for the four stations designated for installation in 2024, site specific locations were chosen using maps like the ones displayed on the right.
Job:
Transportation Planning Intern in the Department of Community Development and Planning in the City of Watertown, MA.
Supervisor:
Zeke Mermell
Goals:
Identify general locations for future bike share stations and create site plans for the four stations planned to be installed during the summer of 2024.
Description:
After each exact station location was chosen, I made site plans for all four stations, two of which are shown on the right, and filled out Lyft’s station installation form. Lyft is the company that runs and manages Bluebikes as well as numerous other bike share systems across the country.
As part of Lyft’s station installation form, I took photos and provided photos with measurements for each station, one of which is shown below.
Job:
Transportation Planning Intern in the Department of Community Development and Planning in the City of Watertown, MA.
Supervisor:
Zeke Mermell
Goals:
Identify projects to include in Watertown’s Safe Streets for All (SS4A) application - a USDOT grant program - and aid in the design for the projects involved in the application.
Description:
Watertown applied for the SS4A grant program in the spring of 2024 as part of its larger effort to increase traffic safety, reduce traffic crashes, and improve bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in the city. The grant application involved a traffic speed study, a supplemental plan for the regional Vision Zero plan, and two protected-bike-lane demonstration projects.
As part of that application, I aided in project selection and project design. Below is a map of the proposed projects included in Watertown’s application displayed over Watertown’s bike map. The orange represents general bike infrastructure with a lean towards bike boulevards, the green represents proposed protected bike lanes, and the red represents improved pedestrian infrastructure. The bike boulevards and pedestrian infrastructure improvements were lated removed from the application.
The two street sections on the right show the existing and proposed plan for N. Beacon Street, and the photo on the bottom right shows the protected bike lane on Brattle Street in Cambridge, which was used as a piece of inspiration and precedent for the N. Beacon proposal. Watertown later won the SS4A grant for $806,192 in the early fall of 2024.
Job:
Transportation Planning Intern in the Department of Community Development and Planning in the City of Watertown, MA.
Supervisor: Zeke
Mermell
Goals:
Make a presentation outlining the benefits of and drawbacks of lowering the speed limit in Watertown for discussion and participate in said discussion about the speed limit proposal with staff from the Department of Community Development and Planning, the Department of Public Works, and the Police Department, as well as a city council member.
Description:
The two slides on the right are taken from the presentation which spoke to the benefits of lowering the speed limit, the potential enforcement drawbacks that might entail, and how to lower the speed limit through state law.
Below is a map showing the speed limit of municipalities in the Boston area. Watertown, shown in the center, has a higher speed limit than all of its neighboring municipalities.
• Gives flexibility / cities opt-in: lowers default speed limit from 30 to 25 mph
• Must notify MassDOT
• Municipalities may lower speed limits to 20 mph, if they install speed limit signs at the beginning of every street that has a 20-mph speed limit
o 50% ped fatality rate at 30 mph; 10% fatality rate at 20 mph
Job:
Transportation Planning Intern in the Department of Community Development and Planning in the City of Watertown, MA.
Supervisor:
Zeke Mermell
Goals:
Overhaul the transportation-related webpages on the City’s website by creating a transportation page focused on getting around in Watertown and a transportation planning page focused on the activities of the transportation planning office. Make walking, bicycling, and transit focused maps and include them in the transportation page. Finally, create an ArcGIS Storymap describing future bicycling infrastructure.
The transportation page, which is focused on how to get from one place to another in Watertown, is broken up into five sub-pages: bicycling, walking, public transit, transportation for seniors and people with disabilities, and car parking. There is also a link to get one to the Transportation Planning page on the City’s website.
I made the bicycling, walking, and public transit pages and created maps aiding users in using that particular mode, including Watertown’s first publicly visible bike map. Those maps are displayed below and to the right.
Job:
Research Assistant for Revisioning Transit: SORTA Bus Stop Analysis and Development
Supervisor:
Vikas Mehta
Goals:
Survey every bus stop along Routes 17 and 33, during both the day and the night, and report on bus stop amenities, daytime and nighttime safety, nighttime lighting conditions, maintenance quality, and exact location of bus stops.
Description:
Between April and June of 2023, I worked for the Cincinnati Metro through the School of Planning at the University of Cincinnati. I helped Cincinnati Metro gather information on the amenities at bus stops along the Route 17 and Route 33, two of the three most frequent routes on the Metro bus system. After collecting information through a Microsoft form, I consolidated the data into an Excel Spreadsheet and then displayed the information graphically using Adobe InDesign. Below is an example of a page of the InDesign document displaying all the information collected about bus stop 4601, serving the University of Cincinnati. Said stop is shown on the right along with the rest of the stops along the 17.
Finally, I also aided a colleague in collecting GIS Data for the bus route, by noting the exact coordinates of each bus stop. To the right is the GIS Map with the data I collected, before it was sent to my colleague.
Esri, NASA, NGA, USGS, FEMA, Esri, HERE, Garmin, SafeGraph, GeoTechnologies, Inc, METI/NASA, USGS, EPA, NPS, USDA
Job:
Research Assistant for Revisioning Transit: SORTA Bus Stop Analysis and Development
Supervisor:
Vikas Mehta
Goals:
Use ArcGIS and Microsoft Forms to coordinate and participate in surveying all bus stops along as many of the seven remaining high frequency lines in Cincinnati Metro’s Network as possible along with three other colleagues.
Description:
In the latter half of the fall semester of 2023, pleased with the School of Planning’s work on previous tasks including the surveying of routes 17 and 33, Cincinnati Metro asked the School of Planning to put together a team of surveyors to survey the rest of the bus network, starting with their seven most ridden lines, in order to inform an RFP for continual maintenance at all of their bus stops in the system.
Because of my previous experience surveying bus lines, Professor Mehta asked me to recruit a few classmates and work through November and December to survey as many of the high frequency lines in Cincinnati Metro’s bus network as we could. I convinced three of my classmates to work alongside me. I introduced them to the method we used for the previous lines and developed a system of assignments through GIS to make sure that everybody had enough work and no bus stop was surveyed more than once.
We then started working and surveyed five of the seven lines in five weeks while producing data and GIS maps that could be used by future surveyors to continue working, using the same method.
To the right is a GIS map of all bus stops surveyed during this period. This is a total of 1096 bus stops, which amounts to just over a quarter of the 4,052 bus stops that Metro wanted to survey as part of the larger project.
Course:
Site Planning and Design
Professor:
Leah Hollstein
Goals:
Use ArcGIS to create suitability maps for at least three types of proposed land uses for the future of English Woods including at least three variables for each land use.
Description:
After first studying the context surrounding English Woods and then the site itself, the class was then instructed to create suitability analyses using GIS for types of land uses that each person envisioned would be employed as part of their proposal. My vision was to create English Woods as a bastion of walkability given the climate crisis and the sore lack of walkable neighborhoods in Cincinnati.
As part of that vision, low/medium density residential, high density residential, and commercial were planned and given attributes to measure their suitability. They all shared slope as a measure because of the site’s hilly terrain; however, proximity to through-streets and transit was considered a plus for commercial while distance from noise from those types of streets was considered desirable for low/ medium density residential.
Course:
Site Planning and Design
Professor:
Leah Hollstein
Goals:
Create a land use plan and a land use regulations plan allowing said land use to come about using Cincinnati’s existing code.
Description:
As part of developing our final proposal, we were tasked with studying the land use code of Cincinnati and then deciding which zone should go where to produce our vision for the district. I chose to use Cincinnati’s form based code, currently used in four of its fifty-two neighborhoods, to be the largest component of my planned regulations. Studying the form based code extensively, I chose to use the transects shown on the bottom right, and because of the mix-used nature of form based code along with its less strict parking requirements, I was able to create a more walkable and mixed-use neighborhood than I otherwise could have created using Cincinnati’s conventional zoning regulations.
Below is a 3D render, taken from the city’s form based code document, showing an example of what the T5 Main Street transect would create.
T6 Core (T6C)
T5 Main Street (T5MS)
T5 Neighborhood
T5 Neighborhood
T4 Neighborhood
Residential Multi-Family Parks and Recreation Streets
Legend:
Commercial
Residential
Mixed Use
Institutional Streets
Park / Green Space
Legend: (T5MS)
Neighborhood Small Setback Open(T5N.SS.O)
Neighborhood Small Setback (T5N.SS)
Neighborhood Small Footprint (T4N.SF)
Multi-Family (RM2.0)
Recreation (PR)
Course:
Site Planning and Design
Professor:
Leah Hollstein
Goals:
Show sections of proposed streets and design changes to existing streets tying those proposed designs into the proposal’s overall vision.
Description:
As part of the proposal’s walkable vision, every street other than the two major streets shown below and on the right, Westwood Northern Boulevard and Sutter Avenue, would be made into car-light streets, modeled after the Dutch woonerf with wide sidewalks and streets with a wide bike lane in the middle of the ROW which local car traffic could use only as guests.
In an attempt to promote other modes besides driving as a means of transport between neighborhoods, all streets would have protected bike lanes, and bus lanes would be added along Westwood Northern Boulevard allowing a light bus rapid transit line to serve as the main, non-car connection to the rest of Cincinnati while providing English Woods with fast, frequent, and reliable transit service.
On the right are proposed street sections with their locations in the neighborhood shown below.
Course:
Site Planning and Design
Professor:
Leah Hollstein
Goals:
Use Rhino 3D and Twinmotion to create 3D renders of English Woods capturing what life would be like in your proposed neighborhood and the scale of buildings and streets as a pedestrian.
Description:
On the upper right is a 3D render of the northern gateway to English Woods where most bus riders would exit from the bus and start walking into the neighborhood. Here, closest to the BRT stop, the buildings are the tallest and the streets are the most active with shops along the ground floor and residences and offices above. To ensure light flows into the streets, even during the winter months, the buildings would be step-backed similar to the ziggurat style of buildings in New York City.
On the lower right is a 3D render of a quiet neighborhood street in the south-eastern section of English Woods. The northern side of the street would be lined with a continuous frontage of buildings, some mixed use and some only residential. The southern side of the street would border Alicia Reece Park, a beautiful shaded space providing an area for leisurely activities.
Course:
Site Planning
Professor:
Hyesun Jeong
Goals:
Come up with a mitigation measure for your site, Center City Philadelphia, PA, while incorporating principles of good urbanism and green infrastructure and looking to your case study (Cheongyecheon Restoration) for inspiration.
Description:
Our group, taking inspiration of the Cheongyecheon Restoration’s removal of an expressway, construction of public park space, and installation of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lines as an alternative to driving, decided to apply the same principles to the Vine Street Expressway in Philadelphia’s Center City.
Specifically, we proposed to remove the expressway between I-95 and I-76, install a cap over the rightof-way (ROW) of the expressway, creating a public park connecting Franklin Square and Logan Square, and construct a BRT line in the expressway ROW using trolley bus technology, meaning that the newly created tunnel wouldn’t have to be ventilated for diesel buses, while creating a strong rapid transit connection in the northern part of Center City.
On the top right is the map describing the locations of the project components. On the bottom right is a map of the proposed BRT line with connections to other forms of rapid transit shown.
Station:
Market-Frankford Line:
Broad Street Line: Trolley Lines:
Regional Rail Lines:
Frequent Bus Line:
Vine Street BRT Line: Transfer:
Course:
Site Planning
Professor:
Hyesun Jeong
Goals:
Come up with a mitigation measure for your site, Center City Philadelphia, PA, while incorporating principles of good urbanism and green infrastructure and looking to your case study (Cheongyecheon Restoration) for inspiration.
Description:
Below is a slide detailing the proposed BRT line’s specifics, and on the right are two slides describing inspiration and precedents for the proposed service.
CHNOLOGY:
E VINE STREET EXPRESSWAY WOULD BE TURNED INTO A BUSWAY WITH A T LINE USING THE BUSWAY IT WOULD BE GRADE SEPARATED, ALLOWING R HIGH FREQUENCIES AND SPEEDS. THE BRT LINE WOULD USE IMC (IN OTION CHARGING) TROLLEYBUSES RUNNING ON NEWLY IMPLEMENTED OLLEYWIRE INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE VINE STREET EXPRESSWAY TRENCH.
SERVICE OPERATIONS:
THE BRT LINE WOULD HAVE MULTIPLE BRANCHES ON EACH END OF THE BUSWAY, UTILIZING THEIR BATTERIES TO RUN ON ROADWAY INFRASTRUCTURE. EACH BRANCH WOULD HAVE AN ALL-DAY FREQUENCY OF 10 MINUTES, AND THE CENTRAL SECTION IN THE BUSWAY WOULD HAVE AN ALL DAY FREQUENCY OF 3 MINUTES.
TECHNOLOGY:
PHILADELPHIA CURRENTLY OPERATES THREE TROLLEYBUS LINES (OR TRACKLESS TROLLEYS, AS SEPTA CALLS THEM) IN NORTHERN AND NORTHEASTERN PHILADELPHIA THEY ALREADY HAVE PERIENCE OPERATING AND MAINTAINING THESE TYPES OF SES
RVICE OPERATIONS:
ILADELPHIA OPERATES THEIR REGIONAL RAIL SYSTEM IN A SIMILAR WAY TO E PROPOSED SERVICE PATTERN ON THE BRT SYSTEM, THEY HAVE A NTRAL CORRIDOR THROUGH THE CENTER CITY WITH HIG H FREQUENCY D MULTIPLE BRANCHES ON EACH END WITH LOWER FREQUENCY ON THOSE ANCHES
TECHNOLOGY:
IMC (IN MOTION CHARGING) TROLLEYBUSES ARE USED THROUGHOUT DAYTON, OH’S TROLLEYBUS SYSTEM. IT ALLOWS DAYTON TO RUN CLEAN ELECTRIC BUSES THROUGHOUT A LARGER AREA IN THE CITY WITHOUT HAVING TO EXPAND ITS TROLLEYBUS INFRASTRUCTURE
CE OPERATIONS:
OOK INSPIRATION FROM MEXICO CITY, WHICH RECENTLY BUILT AN RELY GRADE-SEPARATED TROLLEYBUS BRT LINE. THE LINE HAS HIGH ITY STATIONS WITH HIGH FREQUENCY THE TRANSMILENIO BRT SYSTEM GOTA ALSO INFLUENCED OUR DESIGN CHOICES WITH THEIR WIDE RIGHT AYS INSPIRING THE USE OF PASSING LANES IN THE BUSWAY
Course:
Site Planning
Professor:
Hyesun Jeong
Goals:
Come up with a mitigation measure for your site, Center City Philadelphia, PA, while incorporating principles of good urbanism and green infrastructure and looking to your case study (Cheongyecheon Restoration) for inspiration.
Description:
Below are two street sections showing the existing and proposed conditions on Broad Street for an earlier assignment in Site Planning. The earlier assignment called on us to create a design intervention for a street with bad urbanism. On the right are two street sections showing the existing and proposed conditions on Vine Street, along with a slide describing the park’s interaction with the BRT line containing a 3D rendering of Vine Street’s proposed design.
THERE ARE NUMEROUS ACCESS POINTS TO THE TROLLEY LINES BELOW THROUGHOUT THE PARK. THESE LINES ARE EASILY ACCESSIBLE FROM THE ROAD AND MORE
THE PARK WILL SHOWCASE A VARIETY OF STYLES AND PURPOSES, DEPENDING ON THE SURROUNDING AREA. SHOWCASED IS A WOODED AREA OF THE PARK TRANSITIONING TO A PLAZA BASED AREA
GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE WILL BE INCLUDED IN THE DESIGN OF THE CAP PARK BIOSWALES WILL RUN THE LENGTH OF VINE ST TO HELP MANAGE THE STORM WATER THAT IS A LARGE ISSUE IN THE AREA
Course:
Understanding the Urban Environment
Professor:
Hyesun Jeong
Goals:
Choose a neighborhood or geographic area of focus in Cincinnati, study the area, and come up with design proposals based on your findings.
Description:
The presentation, which is linked below, contains a study on and then design proposals for the area around the Cincinnati Union Terminal on the border between the neighborhoods of Queensgate and the West End. Our design proposals center around the principles of green transportation, mixed use development, traditional neighborhood structure, walkability, and increased density.
The site surrounding the Union Terminal complex was once a dense and mixed use, heavily African American neighborhood until it was destroyed in the 1960’s to make way for I-75 and a new light industrial development called Queensgate. That light industrial neighborhood has since not performed to expectations and has filled the lungs of thousands of the mostly black residents of neighboring West End with pollution.
We propose that the area around Union Terminal once again become a dense neighborhood where people live, work, play, and prosper. To do so, we also propose taking the space in front of Union Terminal, which was once a park and is now two large surface parking lots, and turning them back to parkland becoming the centerpiece of this new community. That particular plan is shown on the right.
Lastly, we propose connecting the site to the current streetcar line with an extension along Ezzard Charles Drive to allow the residents of this new mixed use development a way to get to downtown Cincinnati without a car. We also propose capping I-75 between Kenner Street and Hopkins Street to create a welcoming gateway area which would connect the West End to the east with the park, Union Terminal, and the new development which would be located north of Kenner Street and south of Hopkins Street.
Linked below is the presentation, made using Miro. Google Chrome is recommended when trying to open this link.
Cincinnati Union Terminal Revitalization
Course:
Understanding the Urban Environment
Professor:
Hyesun Jeong
Goals:
Write a blog post detailing a proposed street redesign that should increase walkability and bikeability while maintaining vehicular needs and include hand drawn elements to illustrate those changes.
Description:
The blog post, which is linked below, details a street redesign of Auburn Avenue, an avenue in the neighborhood of Mount Auburn in Cincinnati. Currently, the right-of-way is 60 feet wide with ten foot sidewalks on each side. The 40-foot roadway is dedicated to two lanes of vehicular traffic in either direction.
It serves as an important link between one of the region’s hospitals and the larger arterial road network. The proposal aims to transform the road from a dangerous speedway into a functional space for all modes by adding a bike lane in both directions, a left turn lane, and a number of crosswalks across the avenue.
The centerpiece of the blog post is a scale diagram of the proposed design of Auburn Avenue from McGregor Avenue to William Howard Taft Road made by a classmate and myself. It is shown in fragments on the right side of the page.
Blog Post: Auburn Avenue (McGregor Avenue to William Howard Taft Road) Proposal
Microsoft Edge is recommended when trying to open the link above.
My Classmate and I working on the diagram:
Course:
Understanding the Urban Environment
Professor:
Hyesun Jeong
Goals:
Develop a general plan for future public transportation in Cincinnati with the goal of shifting as much mode share away from cars and to public transportation as possible. Write the plan on tumblr in a blog post format using graphics and images.
Description:
The blog post, which is linked below, describes a proposed plan for Cincinnati’s transit future. It includes four Bus Rapid Transit lines which are currently in planning by Cincinnati Metro, two of which are going to be built by 2028, one automated Light Metro line, akin to the DLR in London or the Vancouver Skytrain, an extension of the current Cincinnati Streetcar line in both directions, and finally three cable car lines which would assist in traversing Cincinnati’s hilly geography.
Our group looked at population density, major job centers such as the Central Business District, the Cincinnati Airport, Kenwood Mall, the University of Cincinnati, and the numerous hospitals located in Uptown Cincinnati, previous transit plans made by both amateur and professional transit planners, current transit plans from Metro, and examples of transit plans from around the world.
Blog Post: Cincinnati Transit Proposal Official Document
Microsoft Edge is recommended when trying to open the link above.
Made by James McDermott using Brand New Subway
Key: Aquamarine - Streetcar Line
Black - Cable Car Lines
Sky Blue - Montgomery Road BRT Line
Light Green - Reading Road BRT Line
Red - Hamilton Avenue BRT Line
Yellow - Glenway Avenue BRT Line
Dark Blue - Light Metro Line
Draw a diagram of the streets near my home in New York City using a well-thought-out methodology to redesign them. While redesigning them, do not alter the sidewalks or roadway widths other than for curb extensions and pedestrian islands. Create a design which prioritizes pedestrians, cyclists, and bus riders. Finally, in doing so, use the methods that the New York City Department of Transportation has used in previous projects so there is continuity between projects that have been implemented in New York City with this project’s design.
The redesigned area is in the northern sector of the Upper West Side in Manhattan, which itself is called Manhattan Valley or Bloomingdale. The focus area is bordered in the north by Cathedral Parkway, otherwise known as 110th Street; the southern border is 108th Street; the western border is Broadway; and the eastern border is Columbus Avenue, which becomes Morningside Drive north of Cathedral Parkway.
I also chose to redesign the Manhattan Bus system, assuming a future where all subway stations are ADA accessible. The MTA has vowed to make 95% of subway stations ADA accessible by 2055. To the right is a map, made using the program Brand New Subway, of the new Manhattan Bus Network, which has influenced the design of the streets [see next page] in terms of the location of bus priority measures.
The diagram describes a busway on Cathedral Parkway between Broadway and Columbus Avenue, which continues to the east. A busway is a street that is open to local car traffic, bus traffic, and truck traffic; however, it is not open to through car traffic. Currently there are busways on 14th Street and 181st Street in Manhattan, and a number of other busways scattered throughout the rest of the city.
Today, Cathedral Parkway is home to the M4 bus in this area, but I envision, according to the new Manhattan Bus Network on the right, that it would be home to more bus lines, including the M116, the M10, the M60 SBS, and a new route, the M110. On Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues, bus lanes would be added south of Cathedral Parkway. North of Cathedral Parkway, Amsterdam Avenue would become a busway, which is expected to handle the M11 and the M60 SBS.
Broadway, Amsterdam Avenue, Columbus Avenue, and Cathedral Parkway would all be given protected bike lanes. Currently only Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues have protected bike lanes while Cathedral Parkway has non-protected bike lanes.
Curb extensions and pedestrian islands would be added wherever possible. I used standard lane widths as seen in NYC DOT projects, but did not use standard turning radii for curves at intersections.
To accomplish these improvements, I would reduce the number of lanes dedicated to vehicles on these streets, reduce the number of parking spots on the streets, and limit through traffic access to noncommercial vehicles.
Finally, I chose to display only the closest 100’ of each East-West street, so that I could show more intersections and ideas on the page. Each divide is symbolized by a straight black line.
The diagram of the redesign is located on pages 16 and 17.
Principles of Planning Design and Graphics II
Professor:
Shilpa Mehta
Goals:
Describe and analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that exist in the neighborhood of Walnut Hills. Choose five issues that exist in the neighborhood and give a brief summary of potential solutions for each. Finally, choose one of the five and create a design proposal to address the problem in the area.
The following six pages are dedicated to a number of projects, done in Professor Mehta’s Principles of Planning Design and Graphics course during the spring semester of 2023, which all focus on the neighborhood of Walnut Hills on the near east side of Cincinnati, Ohio.
The five issues we saw in the neighborhood are listed below. To the right is the in-depth solution to the problem of Walnut Hills’ dangerous and car-oriented streets. On the top right of the spread is a toolkit of improvements that could be implemented to improve the pedestrian, cycling, and bus riding experience. To the right of that is a map of corridors on which the proposed tools could be implemented. Finally, on the bottom are handdrawn and then photoshopped sketches of two busy intersections to give a detailed perspective of how the pedestrian, cycling, and bus riding experience can be vastly improved while continuing to allow for vehicular capacity at these two important nodes.
Car- Oriented Business
Dangerous Street Infrastructure Designed Primarily for Vehicular Traffic Lack of Essential Businesses with Poor Connectivity to Existing Businesses Lack of Public Spaces and the Ones That Currently Exist are Under-maintained Newer Development is Inconsistent With the Neighborhood's Identity and Needs
Promote Other Modes of Transportation such as Walking, Biking, and Public Transit
Incorporate a Variety of Street Infrastructure that Prioritizes Cyclist and Pedestrian Safety
Reassess Public Transportation Routes and Stops
Provide Storefronts With Smaller Frootprints to Encourage Small Businesses and Pop- Up Shops Create Attractive Areas for Businesses
Provide Accessible Pathways To and Throughout Business Districts
Provide Improved Public Spaces and Ensure They Are Well- Maintained
Incorporate Various Activities Within Parks to Accommodate Many Different People and Interests
Include Recurring Programming in These Public Spaces to Attract People
Align New Development With the Current Building Aesthetics
Expand Areas Which Have Already Been Developed Into Those That Haven't
Identify Neighborhood Needs and Provide Spaces Tailored to These (Good/Services)
Between the Four Residential Areas
Promote Connectivity and Walkability Throughout The Entire Neighborhood
Provide Equal Amenities to All Four Areas
Create More Public Spaces to Serve As Third Place Outside of The Four Areas
Intimately understand the urban form in Walnut Hills and detail three common typologies in the neighborhood, as well as create three maps which detail the transportation activities in the area.
The Linkages Map on the right describes the road classification in Walnut Hills and its surrounding areas, the intersection density in that same area, and finally three walk sheds from each sector of the neighborhood showing the differences in walkability between the northern sector compared to the center and southern sectors. The road classification map was sketched by hand; then the other components were added through Adobe Illustrator.
The map below describes the industrial typology in the southern third of Walnut Hills with a figure ground map, a photo elevation, two street sections, and a 3D model made using Cadmapper, Rhino 3D, and rendered using Twinmotion. The street sections were conceived through hand-drawn sketches and streetmix, and then put into Adobe Illustrator. The photo elevation was made in Adobe Photoshop.
Centered on Florence Ave and Gilbert Ave
The southern part of Gilbert Avenue in Walnut Hills is lined with warehouses and other industrial and manufacturing buildings. Away from Gilbert Avenue, the area quickly turns residential, especially towards the east of Gilbert West of Gilbert, warehouses continue to exist in smaller numbers alongside low to medium density residential buildings. This area is dominated by Gilbert Avenue and the large buildings which occupy the space between Florence and Gilbert Avenues, shown in the photographic elevation in the top right of the page
Photographic Elevation of Three Industrial Buildings Along Florence Avenue
Throughout this industrial typology, there exists lightly used land which has great potential for redevelopment and densification There are numerous surface parking lots which aren't used to their full capacity Additionally, there are a number of abandoned lots, especially west of Gilbert Avenue. Currently, the area is lightly populated and seems past its prime.
t it h a s it s m a j o r
e e w a lk s h e d s o n
d i n t h e n o r t h e r n
Walnut Hills is walkable, but it has its major pedestrian roadblocks. The three walk sheds on this map are at a playground in the northern area, Peebles Corner, and a viewing area of Eden Park. Each shed represents what is reachable in a ten minute walk. From these three places, almost the entire neighborhood is covered, but not all.
i n g a r e a o f Ed e n
t is r e a c h a b le i n
s e t h r e e p la c e s , d is c o v e r e d , b u t n o t a ll.
Major pedestrian impediments include a lack of crosswalks, the presence of I-71, and the hilly topography. MLK is hard to cross, as it’s a large and busy road with almost no crosswalks or other pedestrian infrastructure. Walnut Hills could do much better with pedestrian safety.
e a la c k o f
d t h e h i lly
t ' s a la r g e
k s o r o t h e r
s t r u c t u r e .
p e d e s t r ia n
s a f e t y .
h e m a j o r c e n t e rs o f h o u s e t h e i n d u s t r ia l a
Walnut Hills mainly follows a grid pattern. The major arterial roads cut through the centers of the neighborhood. These roads house the business district and some industrial areas.
Interstate 71 borders the neighborhood in the west, with highway ramps and collector roads directly connecting it to the arterials.
Interstate Highway
Major Arterial
Minor Arterial
Collector Road
Highway Ramps
Local Road
Alleyway
o m e d i u m d e
Local roads and alleyways mainly follow a grid. Low to medium density residential buildings line these streets which tend to have light traffic flow.
.
Goal:
Detail our first impression of Walnut Hills after our first site visit to the area through an imageability map.
Description:
The map to the far right is based on Kevin Lynch’s book, The Image of the City, and contains the five elements described in the book: paths, edges, nodes, districts, and landmarks. To complete this map, since I am not a resident of the neighborhood, I decided to interview a number of residents about their thoughts on Walnut Hills’ image asking them about what they see as the paths, edges, nodes, districts, and landmarks in their neighborhood.
Major Medium Minor Paths
Edges Nodes
Landmarks
By James McDermott Plan 1012 February 2023
With thanks to the residents of Walnut Hills who agreed to speak with me about their neighborhood.
Northern Area:
Central Section: McMillian Corridor
Southeastern Quarter:
Southwestern Quarter:
Course:
Principles of Planning Design and Graphics I
Professors:
Shilpa Mehta & Hyesun Jeong
Goals:
Study cycling in and around the University of Cincinnati, understand and describe the barriers to cycling in the area, and suggest a way in which to ameliorate the situation.
Description:
On the right is a diagram of the streets and roadways which cyclists can take in the area. The streets are differentiated by colors that describe how safe the road feels to cycle on. Dark green represents protected facilities, and orange represents unclear areas which cause danger and confusion. Red through light green are shared spaces with vehicles that go from very dangerous, represented by red, to quite safe, represented by light green.
On the following page, there are six sections, five of which describe the existing conditions and connect a street’s design to its perceived-safety level. The sixth, on the bottom left of the following page, shows what a potential redesign of MLK Jr. Drive, the northern border of campus, could look like. It includes an already planned multi-use path and BRT line which have yet to be built.
Below is a photo of myself bicycling south along the Clifton Avenue protected bike lane on the western border of the university’s campus.
Short Vine Street
Jefferson Avenue
Martin Luther King Jr. Drive: Redesigned
