Safer Streets by Design

 The World Health Organization has set a goal of decreasing pedestrian deaths and injuries by 50-percent in five years. At least in the U.S., there’s not a lot of progress. According to 2023 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics, every 72 minutes a pedestrian dies in a traffic crash. In 2023 the highest number of cyclists ever recorded were killed in crashes with motor vehicles in the U.S.: 1,155. Brick by Brick looks at the solutions of speed humps, redesigned roads and more. 

Interview guests: Cincinnati Senior City Planner Mel McVay; Dayton City Engineer David Escobar; Wayne Avenue Safety Coalition President Willie Morris IV; Western Hills HS Teacher Jeff Demaree; Madisonville Community Council Transportation Chair Kerry Devery; “Ohio’s Bike Lawyer” Steve Magas. 

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Transcript

Ann Thompson:

Everyone at one time or another has been a pedestrian. Oh boy. She's stopping for us. I don't know. Okay, well

Kerry Devree:

Give it a shot

Ann Thompson:

These people are going to stop.

Kerry Devree:

Mazda is stopping. Thank you.

Ann Thompson:

Crossing a street can be difficult and dangerous. In 2023, the National Highway Traffic Safety Association says a pedestrian was killed every 72 minutes. That totals 7,314, and this probably goes without saying, but the slower the vehicle, the better chance the pedestrian has of surviving.

Chuck Marohn:

How do we change street design so that drivers feel insecure when they're driving at speeds that are unsafe for that environment?

Ann Thompson:

The government is helping some cities redesign their streets. Dayton is one.

David Escobar:

We knew internally there was an issue. We had conversations with the state previously. They just came at the time and said, we're ready to move on This.

Ann Thompson:

Cincinnati has been making changes for nearly a decade. Have they been effective and what's the state of the evolving speed hump?

Mel McVay:

My goal is really to build something like the raised crosswalk that is effective but also still feels kind of smooth when you drive over it.

Ann Thompson:

It may take more than simply slowing people down. Once Cincinnati High School concluded that people's mindsets must change

Germiah Richardson:

The Billboard idea, it was meant to be something big, something anybody, everybody could see.

Ann Thompson:

Today a look at pedestrian safety. Are we doing the right things and are they working? Let's get into it. This is Brick by Brick: Solutions for a thriving community.

Ame Clase:

Brick by Brick is made possible thanks to leading support from Greater Cincinnati Foundation, AES Foundation and George and Margaret McLane Foundation, with additional major support from Laurie    Johnston, The Robert & Adelle Schiff Family Foundation, Murray and Agnes Seasongood Good Government Foundation and more. Thank you

Ann Thompson:

Hello and welcome to Brick by Brick, where we're highlighting solutions for a thriving community in southwest Ohio. I'm your host, Ann Thompson. The World Health Organization has an ambitious goal- reducing road traffic deaths and injuries by 50% by 2030. The pedestrian part of that isn't going very well in the US. From 2013 to 2022, pedestrian deaths increased by 50% while deaths in 27 other high income countries declined a median of 25% from January 1st, 2020 until August 1st of this year. Hamilton County was third in Ohio for pedestrian crashes at 2098. Montgomery County was fourth highest at 881. What has made crossing a street so dangerous? A number of things according to the WHO, including the growth of the SUV autonomous braking that relies on detection and pedestrian detection may be less effective. E-bikes and scooters, victim blaming and the road system is not designed to accommodate visibility challenges for pedestrians. Kerry Devree has seen all of these and more as he tries to make the Cincinnati neighborhood of Madisonville safer. And this is just one example. He's the community council's transportation chair and met Brick by Brick at the dangerous intersection of Madison and Anderson Place. Explain the neighborhood dynamic and who is crossing here.

Kerry Devree:

So this intersection here is really important for two core reasons. One, this parking lot that we're in is the front yard for St. Paul Village, which is owned by Episcopal Retirement Services. So it's a nonprofit and it is a senior living facility for folks who are income restricted, many of their residents, their only source of income is social security, and so car ownership is very burdensome for them. This bus stop across the street is a huge gateway for them to be able to access services, go to the grocery store or doctor's appointment, just go about their lives. This crosswalk though is being so dangerous as it is, makes it tough for them to do those activities. And then the second main reason is at the end of Anderson Place or halfway is entrance for John P. Parker schools. That is our local elementary public school.

Ann Thompson:

And you were saying because this intersection is so dangerous, they actually have their kids coming a different way.

Kerry Devree:

So we are fortunate that we do have a crossing guard for the school for this street, and so it used to be at this intersection and she moved a block down that way to the Stewart intersection, which is also a dangerous intersection, but it has a signal. It is controlled, it has pedestrian signals, so people, there is an actual traffic flow in management of that intersection that you don't have here.

Ann Thompson:

When did you come to realize that this was a problem?

Kerry Devree:

Oh man, it was a while ago. This is a problem that predates me a very long time. I feel like this has probably been an issue at this intersection for many, many decades. Back when 71 was built and Redbank Expressway was built and this facility was installed. So it is been a long time, and so a lot of people, I volunteer with the community council and a lot of people who predate me on the community council have been asking the city to do something about this intersection and so just keep going at it. Right? And you just keep asking. You got to be patient and persistent

Ann Thompson:

And what did you do?

Kerry Devree:

So when I was president of the community council, I took my shot just like everybody else does. And so I asked an engineer at the city about what could be done about this intersection and I mean, I just should have said if money and politics weren't an issue, just from an engineering perspective, what could be done. And so he wasn't sure what could be done. He was like, I got to take some time to look at it. And so suggested to me, Hey, ask for the city council to approve some expenditure out of the neighborhood's TIF district for a traffic study for this last mile Madison Road. And so we went through that process. City council approved it, and he actually went ahead and took the initiative and use that study that was conducted to apply for a grant from the state of Ohio, which was created in part because of all the success the city of Cincinnati has had with traffic calling. And so from that they did win. Part of that grant was to build a raised crosswalk. Here at this intersection,

Ann Thompson:

Raised crosswalks are one solution, but they're also expensive, $200,000 mostly because of the drainage. Cincinnati is drilling down on some slightly cheaper solutions around the city, including the speed hump. You may have driven over one

Mel McVay:

Speed cushions, which are basically speed tables or speed humps, but they have wheel cutouts so that emergency vehicles can drive through them without having to slow down as much.

Ann Thompson:

Mel McVay and her engineers have gotten so good at perfecting the speed hump that other cities are asking Cincinnati how to do it. There were failures along the way, beginning with blacktop in small sections. It flattens easily and the city was left with not a lot of hump. Then it installed concrete but didn't put a tiny lip on it and that didn't slow drivers down. Another version had the lip, but it was too bumpy. The latest iteration is in Oakley on Brotherton. It has a smoother edge.

Mel McVay:

The concrete speed cushions are very expensive. They're about $20,000 apiece and you need one in each lane. Most of our streets are four lanes wide, so it's about $88,000 to do them Curb to curb versus a speed table I can install for about $10,000.

Ann Thompson:

A speed table is like a raised crosswalk only in blacktop, which doesn't flatten. If it goes across the entire road. The city is preparing to pilot them on major streets. Also with state and federal dollars, Cincinnati will redesign more problem. Streets like Beekman Harrison, Victory Parkway and Gilbert forcing drivers to slow down. McVay says the speed cushions are by far the most effective tool in the city's traffic. Calming toolbox reducing speeds up to 21 miles an hour. In some cases in Oakley, in a 24 hour period before the speed cushions, 56% of drivers were speeding. After them, it dropped to less than 1% speeding. Many cities agree speed humps work. The US Department of Transportation says they slow cars down by about 10%. Detroit installed 2,000 of them every year between 2018 and 2023 and crashes decreased 14%. Dayton has an interesting challenge re-engineering its streets for half the population it had in 1960. This excess road capacity will soon be used for other things as brick by bricks. Emiko Moore reports

Emiko Moore:

Driving around Dayton, you may not realize that some beautification areas serve dual purposes. David Escobar, Dayton City engineer, serves in the Department of Public Works.

David Escobar:

This is a landscape zone or a furniture zone. You can add street benches, trash cans, different other items into the mix that create a barrier between the pedestrian and the traveling public so the pedestrian doesn't feel as hampered or as hamstrung in those situations when they're walking.

Emiko Moore:

The city is working to create accessible streets for all.

David Escobar:

So we're reviewing all kinds of installations, all kinds of safety improvements to help us, make us a more walkable, bikeable, drivable city rather than just being motor centric.

Emiko Moore:

The state did a two year traffic study on North Main Street in 2017. Statistics showed 36 crashes involved pedestrians five resulted in deaths.

David Escobar:

Yeah, so this was a high speed concern area. We had several pedestrian fatalities, which one is too many obviously.

Emiko Moore:

In 2024, the state began safety construction measures spanning around three miles. On North Main Street, the price tag $6.5 million.

David Escobar:

So we're here at the corner of North Main and Hudson Avenue. It's a major intersection for us. What was the installation was just where the curb line is now. So it was a longer crossing distance for pedestrians. It was not as easy to traverse. You had two four lanes of traffic to make it across. Now you only have one lane in each direction.

Emiko Moore:

Another installation A Mid-Block Island.

David Escobar:

We're in the middle of a refuge island, so it's a space where pedestrians can cross across the street but have a safe crossing if they can't make it all the way across.

Emiko Moore:

But not all drivers, were happy to see the changes.

David Escobar:

For a while, we were facing a barrage of phone calls.

Emiko Moore:

Another street in Dayton has had numerous crashes that prompted the community and businesses to form the Wayne Avenue Safety Coalition. Willie Morris IV is the president.

Willie Morris:

It's needed because as you kind of hear behind us here, vehicles speed by this very narrow street. There's not a lot of sidewalk space to stand on. We have plenty of businesses here on Wayne Avenue in our South Park and Twin Towers neighborhoods that we want to see succeed. And people feel nervous coming down here because there's nowhere to be other than inside the building.

Emiko Moore:

For pedestrian Misty Chastain crossing the street can be nerve wracking.

Misty Chastain:

They can come out of nowhere, they can be turning off of a street that you can't see. It's just very unknowing. 

Emiko Moore:

Morris took us to the corner of Wayne and Clover, where back in 20 22, 44-year-old pedestrian Jennifer Johnson was struck and killed by a speeding vehicle.

Willie Morris:

This corner over right here was where Jennifer Johnson was standing waiting for the bus that morning in December. And it was bad road conditions. It was icy, it was snowy that day. And again, it comes down to kind of just vehicular behavior when it comes down. Coming down Wayne Avenue, you get tunnel vision, you go straight ahead. You don't take into consideration how dangerous it is outside. Outside. Yeah, and this is again, with these historic buildings being so close to the sidewalk, there's not a lot of space to stands safely here. We are paying attention to this traffic and we still feel like we're in a dangerous spot.

Emiko Moore:

Absolutely worth showed us an intersection that is like an obstacle course for pedestrians.

Willie Morris:

So this is the intersection of Wayne and Kiwi, which I call the intersection of hell because it's just a weird spot to be. You have traffic coming in and they're turning right to go into the 35 East entrance traffic, passing it to go to the 35 west entrance and to continue downtown. There's no great way to cross this intersection across the street where if you really want to get over there, the safest way to do so is to go here. Then there, then there again, which is a whole lot of leapfrogging for one Street crossing.

Emiko Moore:

Earlier this year, a Wayne Avenue safety study proposed measures to target high speed risk areas, including Wayne and Clover.

Willie Morris:

What's part of the proposition from ODOT is what they call a speed table at this intersection where it's essentially one giant hump where you have to go up, you're on top of it throughout the entire intersection. You have to go back down again once you get through the intersection. So think of it like a giant speed bump.

Emiko Moore:

The coalition and the city had to be flexible in their positions to move forward.

Willie Morris:

So we made that dance in between the two sections of pedestrian safety, moving vehicles at a reasonable reasonable pace and the reasonable volume and landed somewhere in the middle.

David Escobar:

I can look at maps, I can look at data, but there's also a feel of living in the environment and knowing the daily activities that aren't always captured by all the data that we can go through.

Emiko Moore:

Construction of safety improvements on North Main Street will be completed this year and for Wayne Avenue, a grant to fund the needed safety updates is being submitted to the state this fall.

Ann Thompson:

Thanks Emiko.  Automated cameras can improve road safety. The Dayton Daily News reports, the police department has asked the city commission to approve at least 64 speed cameras and 17 red light cameras. This follows testing of them in 11 school zones earlier this year. Coming up on Brick by Brick some high school kids are taking pedestrian safety to heart.

Eva Robinson:

It's something that's short and easy to read and it shows you very quickly what you're supposed to be looking for and you're like, oh, maybe I should pay attention while I'm driving over here.

Ann Thompson:

Plus, what's a Stroad and why is it so dangerous? And the discouraging stats for cyclists that's ahead on Brick by Brick,

Ame Clase:

Brick by Brick is made possible thanks to the generous support of so many, including Diane and Dave Moccia, P & G, The Camden Foundation,  The Stephen H. Wilder Foundation, TJ and Susie Ackermann, Patti and Fred Heldman, a donation in memory of Frank and Margaret Linhardt, and more. Thank you. We couldn't do this work without you.

Mark Lammers:

Hey, we all have a different story even if we grew up in the same neighborhood or city, especially if we're talking about housing stories. Hi, my name is Mark Lammers, executive producer for Brick by Brick. Growing up, I lived on the west side of Cincinnati in a single family home, but I've also experienced apartment life in good and bad settings in a number of different cities. I learned a lot from those times in my life and from my journey as a whole. Now we want to hear about your housing story. That's the new audience question that's live on our show pages at thinktv.org and cetconnect.org. Log in and hit the green button to share your journey and what you learn from it. We hope to share some of your experiences and lessons as we move forward on Brick by Brick so we can all get smarter together. Thanks.

Ann Thompson:

Welcome back to Brick by Brick. AAA says one in 10 pedestrians die after colliding with a vehicle going 23 miles an hour. But if that vehicle is going 32 miles an hour, 25% are killed. Since 2018, Cincinnati's Western Hills High School students have struggled to cross nearby busy streets. Gabby Rodriguez was killed walking to her bus and in a separate incident, a 15-year-old was hit on the sidewalk and there were others teacher Jeff Demaree and his students were upset.

Jeff Demaree:

The main comment was, we did everything right. We were in the crosswalk. It said, we can cross. We had our earbuds out, and the driver just didn't stop.

Ann Thompson:

While Demaree and his students were grieving, they decided it really was more than curb bump outs and traffic calming. It was a mindset. Listen to Ava Robinson and Zabryia O'Neal.

Eva Robinson:

I've noticed a lot of people don't really think about the fact that you're in something that could potentially kill somebody, even though it's something that you're supposed to pay attention to when you get your license. They don't put enough thought into it.

Zabryia O'Neal:

We were in the middle of the street, but it wasn't that much traffic. And there was this girl who had on purple headphones and my mom honked at her twice because she wasn't just about to drive on her because she's not that type of person. And she was like, that's exactly how your sister is like, because my sister, she wears walks around wearing headphones all the time. She doesn't really pay attention to the road and stuff, and I just want to say that's very dangerous.

Ann Thompson:

Based on this, they designed a billboard with a teen and a cap and gown crossing the street. You can see a picture of it on our website, CT connect.org and think tv.org. It says, Focus on the road. Focus on our future student. Germiah Richardson sums it up.

Germiah Richardson:

So when you drive by, you look and you look at your surroundings to make sure everything's good, right? And then you'll look up and you'll see a big billboard right there just to raise awareness, and then it'll make you think twice really. Maybe I should be more aware of how I drive in my over one ton vehicle.

Ann Thompson:

And West High students didn't stop at the billboard. They testified in Columbus with teens from the Lakota School District advocating for Aspen's Law. If passed House Bill 203-now before a committee would increase penalties for hitting pedestrians in school zones. 

We shift now to safety for cyclists. In 2023, the highest number of bicyclists ever recorded were killed in crashes with motor vehicles in the US 1,155. Brick by Bricks, Hernz Lagerre Jr. aat down with a man known as Ohio's bike lawyer.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Steve Magas, thank you for joining us on Brick by Brick.

Steve Magas:

Oh, thank you for having me.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Yeah, appreciate your time, man. One thing I wanted to know, how did you become the bike lawyer?

Steve Magas:

I always rode. I mean, I rode as a kid. I kind of lost it for a while as a teen after I got the car. But then in law school I didn't have a car, so I had a bike and I rode to classes today. Now about 2009, I started my own solo practice. The bike lawyer thing has kind of developed over time, but it started early on doing advocacy and handling cases and then kind of more officially with the email and then the website came out like 15, 16 years ago.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

You wrote an article on your website, Ohio bike lawyer.com, where you describe the worst cities for walking and cycling. I want to focus on that cycling piece. Cincinnati was number one in the country, but it was number one in Ohio. Why is that?

Steve Magas:

Cincinnati's been kind of slow to react to some of the infrastructure changes. It's just been in the past seven or eight or nine years that we've seen some cycling infrastructure improvements. We've seen some bike lanes, we've seen protected bike lanes which have come into play. There's some learning curves when it comes to how do motorists. I've had at several intersection crashes where the motorist has run into cyclists and protected bike lanes. Cleveland and Columbus have tried some other things. They call 'em bike boxes where there's a bike lane to the right and then the bicyclist can come up to the front of the line and filter in and then get a headstart on the traffic. Those seem to be pretty effective. So there's a lot of little infrastructure changes. Sometimes it is just paint, sometimes it's paint plus some safety or barricades and things like that. And there's other types of infrastructure things that we try to do to increase safety or at least decrease the road violence.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

I know right outside this office in Anderson Township, there's Beach Mount Avenue. Are there a lot of cyclists that go through there, and if so, do you feel that it's safe for them to ride there?

Steve Magas:

Beechmont has its moments. I mean, it can have distracted drivers, it can have drivers going too fast. The bike lanes have certainly helped. They've put, starting at the a Beechmont levee down at the bottom of the hill, they put a bike lane on the right going up the hill, which has been, I'm sure for the traffic. The other cars has been very helpful because people that can't climb that hill at 20 miles an hour are pushed out of the way of the faster traffic, so I'm sure that helps.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Now I want to highlight some efforts being done by the city. I know in 2010 they had this bicycle transportation plan to have 445 miles of on and off street bike lanes in the city. Anderson Township is putting some more bike lanes. Cincinnati in general is just redesigning streets and adding more curb bumpouts and bike lanes. Do you think these efforts are helping?

Steve Magas:

I think they do help. I think we're lagging behind the curve a little bit when it comes to cities like Columbus and Cleveland, which have really increased their infrastructure and safety for cycling. And specifically I see a number of areas where in the city and in the surrounding smaller cities where traffic calming efforts, that's another buzzword that's come up a lot. Instead of having four lanes, maybe you have two lanes and a buffer zone and a parking lane or a bike lane. That's what they did on Riverside. Riverside Drive down in going in and out of the city. Used to be like driving in a Mario Kart game. I mean, people were just zipping back and forth to try to get downtown as fast as they can and make it one lane each way. And it has the impact of calming traffic and slowing people down. And those types of things are low cost infrastructural improvements that can really help improve safety.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Well, Steve Magus, bike lawyer, thank you for joining us on Brick by Brick.

Steve Magas:

Thank you for having me. What a great thing. I appreciate it.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Appreciate it.

Ann Thompson:

Thanks Hernz. Have you heard the term Stroad? It's a combination of two things, street and road. The goal of a road is to get people from one place to another at a high rate of speed. A street on the other hand, is an urban space designed for people to walk freely and safely. Unfortunately, many cities combine streets and roads and that can be a recipe for disaster according to engineer, land use planner and CEO of Strongtowns. Chuck Marohn. Brick by Brick interviewed him in season one, episode eight. He coined the term Stroad and told another news outlet Newsy. The reason a Stroad is bad is because it combines high speed with complexity.

Chuck Marohn:

Drivers feel very comfortable. They feel like you've got their back in the design standpoint, you've taken care of all the problems and conflicts and they drive faster. But in these environments where cars will randomly stop, randomly turn cut across traffic where you have people walking, people biking, kids running out in the street after a kickball, all that kind of complexity that we see in human environments, that type of speed becomes deadly.

Ann Thompson:

Since the pandemic, there are fewer cars on the road, but more deaths. Cars were free to speed because nothing was slowing them down. With work from home, there's not just a morning and evening. Rush hour, creating a more dangerous condition for a long period of time. Marohn recommends doing those things that we've been telling you about in this episode. Narrow lanes bring curves in to create edge friction, bring trees in to create some vulnerability in the driver so they are more aware of the complexity of the environment.

Chuck Marohn:

When we do those things, what we see is people naturally slow down and when they do have crashes and there are crashes in those environments, they tend to be lower stakes. Fender benders, a dent, not a fatality or a traumatic injury.

Ann Thompson:

He says other countries have done this well within their cities, but we haven't.

Chuck Marohn:

We need a different body of practice within the engineering profession, within the city building profession that recognizes the value of a street is not in moving cars, but is in being successful habitat for people.

Ann Thompson:

So what's stopping more cities from being proactive? A World Health Organization policy brief says there's a lack of political buy-in for road safety. Funding is inadequate for the size of the problem, and resources are wasted on ineffective actions like school-based education on road safety and driving training in place of sound, evidence-based opportunities increased pedestrian safety might come down to neighborhood residents thinking outside the box. Like Madison's Kerry DeVere, he convinced Cincinnati Council to allow the use of TIF funds for traffic calming on 10 Madisonville streets. Those speed humps should be finished by next summer. If you want to learn more about these road and pedestrian safety solutions, be sure to head to our show webpage on cetconnect.org and thinktv.org. That's where you'll also see related articles, a link to the podcast and Hearns and Emiko’s video stories as well as online extras. There are also a few big green buttons there for you to provide feedback and your own housing story. We'd love to hear from you. It's time for takeaways, and we welcome Hernz Laguerre Jr. back to the microphone.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Hello.

Ann Thompson:

And say hi to Emiko Moore. Hi, Ann, Hearns and those who are listening. 

Ann Thompson

Well, it would appear that successful pedestrian safety really comes down to getting everyone on board.

Emiko Moore:

Yes, that's true. Engaging those who live in the area and use the roads and sidewalks regularly is really important. Experts may get data and maps, but it's the residents who know the daily activity and behaviors that happen

Ann Thompson:

In those areas. Well, here's an example of how a simple traffic calming demonstration on August the ninth swayed a community to enact permanent measures. It's in city of Artesia, California, which had a speeding problem. Drivers were wrecking into houses and totaling parked cars. Picture this in two locations. It put burlap stuffed with straw in the shape of a circle and then put plants and traffic cones in the middle of that to create a temporary roundabout. And during this demonstration, the average speeds dropped to safe levels. Even emergency response vehicles could navigate it. Something interesting happened. More than half of the people surveyed got on board and became more interested in traffic calming. And the city is adding enhanced crosswalks to dangerous streets.

Emiko Moore:

Way to be productive. This speaks volumes that they went into action. A lot of stuff must have been happening

Ann Thompson:

There. Yeah. Proving it doesn't take a lot of resources necessarily, and hundreds of thousands of dollars to begin making changes.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Yeah, hearing about that change in Artesia makes me think about the infrastructure in our country as a whole. According to the Borough of Economic analysis, the average age of us streets and highways are about 30 years old. And if you think about it, there's a lot of things that have changed in the past 30 years. Technology has changed, our cars have changed, and I think it just makes us have to look at our infrastructure differently. Amy, I'm thinking about your story, and there was one intersection where there was a historic building that felt like it was just steps away from the street

Emiko Moore:

Ghost like Coffee Shop.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Yes, it was at that location, and I've crossed many streets and rarely do I ever feel nervous crossing a street, but it was that intersection that I felt a bit nervous or fearful even because I felt like the cars didn't see me. I felt like the building was way too close to the road. The sidewalk didn't feel like it was enough area to be safe. So to increase pedestrian safety, there might need to be an overall on how we construct our roads and how we reconstruct some of our older roads.

Ann Thompson:

And that's exactly what Chuck Marohn from Strong Towns is advocating for. He says that Strode is the wrong way to go about it. We have a lot of roads that are combined, roads and streets. Streets are supposed to be safe for pedestrians. Roads are going quickly from point A to point B. They shouldn't be the same thing. So you can go online and see a video of an interview that he did about the Stroad. At cetconnect.org and thinktv.org. Thanks guys.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

No problem.

Emiko Moore:

Thank You.

Ann Thompson:

Coming up on the Next Brick by Brick an Over-the-Rhine based urban planning firm brings communities around the country to life.

Joe Nickol:

Our client competed for and won the rights to develop a former chemical plant site, which is a dubious award when it comes to how much cleanup you got to do to get that site development ready. But this is a developer that really embraced community as part of the solution, not community, as an obstacle to the Solution

Ann Thompson:

Yard and Company and its partners next time on Brick by Brick. 

That's our show. If you like what you hear, please rate and review our podcast. It helps making Finding the pod little easier. We hope you learned something, and if you did, please share it with your friends and family For Hernz Laguerre Jr. and Emiko Moore, I'm Ann Thompson. We'll be back soon with more solutions. Take care. 

Our show is produced, hosted an edited by me, Ann Thompson with reporting and story editing from Hernz Laguerre Jr. and Emiko Moore. Our Executive producer of Mark Lammers. Audio sweetening provided by Mike Schwartz. Zach Kramer runs the lights and cameras. Derrick Smith is our production specialist and Jason Garrison is our production manager. Kellie May heads up our marketing and promotions, along with Mike Shea and Bridgett Dillenburger. Elyssa Stefenson handles the website and Josh Lusby and Steve Wright are our designers. Bill Dean and Andres Kruza are the engineers for the show and our Chief Content Officer is Colin Scianamblo. Our music is from Universal Production Music. Brick by Brick: Solutions for a Thriving Community is a production of CET and ThinkTV, Southwest Ohio PBS member stations.