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Richard @rgw3d.com · 03/11/2025

I am so excited for this! I really enjoy old Cincinnati maps, like this 1965 one I'm getting framed. And my wife is going to love the easy Christmas gift

"Master Plan" zoning map of Cincinnati, circa 1965

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Richard @rgw3d.com · 16/09/2025

Here's a better version of the graph @mrkerrymd.bsky.social

Pothole Couns: On Metro Routes vs Total.

In the city of Cincinnati, potholes that intersect metro bus routes vs the total number of potholes.

These are counts of "filled" potholes from the OPDA. Approx 71K total, 42K on metro routes, between Jan 2023 and September 2025.

The majority are filled during Jan/February/March (the cold months)

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Richard @rgw3d.com · 14/09/2025

Most of Cincinnati's potholes are along Metro routes. My latest-and-greatest idea is to utilize SORTA Metro buses as a means of daily detection of potholes, and a google-streetview sort of system for DOTE.

Bar chart displaying the following data:
Intersecting with metro routes
sum(pothole_reports) = 9,956
sum(pothole_count) = 43,946

Total across all potholes
sum(pothole_reports) = 17,876
sum(pothole_count) = 72,183

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Richard @rgw3d.com · 12/09/2025

More speed relates to more pothole reports

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Richard @rgw3d.com · 12/09/2025

The outlier here is S-HAM26450, Madison Rd between Ridge & Kennedy. It was paved in June of last year.

100

Richard @rgw3d.com · 12/09/2025

More 3d plots of Speed Vs. PotholeCount Vs. Width at different snowplow priorities

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Richard @rgw3d.com · 12/09/2025

Finally got the good SQL query running against the best datasets that I have: 1) CAGIS Hamilton County Polygons 2) Snowplow priority routes -- multistring with road speedlimits! 3) Pothole report data since 2023 4) Cincinnati City Outline

3d chart of speed limit vs. pothole counts vs. the pavement width.
Wider roads = higher speed = higher pothole counts

With ham_current_with_snowplow as (
with ham_current_in_cincinnati as (
select hc.* from ham_current hc
JOIN cincinnati_boundary cb
ON ST_Intersects(hc.geom, cb.geom)
),
candidate_matches AS (
SELECT
hc.id AS ham_id,
sp.*,
-- clip the route inside the polygon
ST_Length(ST_Intersection(hc.geom, sp.geom)::geography) AS overlap_length
FROM ham_current_in_cincinnati hc
JOIN snowplow_priority_final sp
ON ST_Intersects(hc.geom, sp.geom)
WHERE sp.segtype = 'ROAD'
),
ranked_matches AS (
SELECT
cm.*,
-- ham_id,
-- id, -- snowplow_id
-- geom, -- snowplow_geom
-- overlap_length,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY ham_id ORDER BY overlap_length DESC) AS rn
FROM candidate_matches cm
)
SELECT
hc.*,
rm.priority,
rm.speedlimit
FROM ham_current_in_cincinnati hc
LEFT JOIN ranked_matches rm
ON hc.id = rm.ham_id AND rm.rn = 1
),
pothole_nearest AS (
SELECT
p."SR_NUMBER" AS pothole_id,
p.*,
hc.id AS ham_id
FROM potholes_export p
JOIN LATERAL (
SELECT hc.id, ST_Distance(p.geom, hc.geom) AS dist_m
FROM ham_current_with_snowplow hc
WHERE ST_DWithin(p.geom, hc.geom, 0.005) -- 50 meters
ORDER BY ST_Distance(p.geom, hc.geom)
LIMIT 1
) hc ON TRUE
),
pothole_summary AS (
SELECT
pn.ham_id,
COUNT(*) AS pothole_reports,
sum(pn."NUM_POTHOLES") as pothole_count,
jsonb_agg(to_jsonb(pn)) AS potholes -- all columns from potholes_export as JSON objects
FROM pothole_nearest pn
GROUP BY pn.ham_id
)
SELECT
hc.*,
ps.pothole_reports,
ps.pothole_count,
hc.speedlimit
FROM pothole_summary ps join ham_current_with_snowplow hc ON hc.id = ps.ham_id

100

Richard @rgw3d.com · 12/09/2025

What I want to pitch is that higher road speeds are a direct contributor of potholes. The solution is that while you are repaving a road, installing road features that limit speed will extend the life of the pavement. See these basic graphs of road speed vs pothole reports per acre.

speed_bucket | total_area_acres
--------------+------------------
25 or less | 2133.64
26-30 | 349.19
31-35 | 858.00
36-40 | 70.88
41-45 | 110.95
46-50 | 27.77
51-55 |
56+ | 35.20

100

Richard @rgw3d.com · 08/09/2025

For example, this specific pavement polygon at the intersection of Race & Liberty: S-HAM21672 * Paved around 2021-04-12 and had a PCI of 100 * Later in 2021 had a PCI of 95 * 2023-05-21 had a PCI of 88 * Currently (9/4/24) has a PCI of 78

CAGIS Hamilton County Pavement Polygon S-HAM21672 showing a PCI of 78

100

Richard @rgw3d.com · 06/09/2025

Three years of data points probably isn't enough for a great model, but we have to start somewhere. Ideally I can use this curve as a reference

Road segment Deterioration Curve over 35 years for asphalt roads, from https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/sites/dote/assets/Street%20Rehab%20Program/Cincinnati_Pavement_Condition_Report_09.21.2022_Web.pdf
Starts at 100 PCI score, drops off to 75, holds steady until year 15, and then linearly falls off to near 0 at year 35.

100

Richard @rgw3d.com · 06/09/2025

CAGIS Hamilton County Pavement Polygons is the best resource. I'm unsure if I can access historical revisions of this data. That'd be great if possible. Ideally there is data older than 2021 Fortunately the polygon names `S-HAM19416` are consistent throughout the documents.

https://data-cagisportal.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/41615967d423440f835320e274d062f3_3/explore detail on Polygon S-HAM19416, a portion of Beechmont Ave. With PCI score of 56.00, from 9/10/24

100

Richard @rgw3d.com · 18/02/2025

Old Streetcar rail & cobblestones poking through on Walnut & 12th.

Shallow pothole where cobblestones and a piece of rail are visible under the asphalt.

010

Richard @rgw3d.com · 24/01/2025

Clare yard's bridge over the Little Miami

Old railroad bridge. Clare yard, Cincinnati OH. Looking south. One set of tracks over the river

Concrete support on the north bank. "1949" with some graffiti.

040

Richard @rgw3d.com · 17/01/2025

Good morning, Chuck!

Charlie (Chuck) the cat sitting in the sun

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Richard @rgw3d.com · 13/01/2025

It works! Here it is up against the Transit app (which hits the same API) There is a little wonkyness around the Streetcar depot, but I can probably fix that

021

Richard @rgw3d.com · 11/01/2025

Basic I2C comms are working! The only hiccup was configuring the correct pins. Debugging I2C or SPI is one of my least favorite things to do. Awesome work as usual by Adafruit for providing an excellent library that just worked. (And the team behind the ESP32 Arduino codebase)

080

Richard @rgw3d.com · 09/01/2025

All soldered! And I'm able to connect and program the ESP32. Now I have to do my least favorite but most important part - write the rest of the damn software. At least the Arduino ecosystem is good

Front side of the real-time Cincinnati Streetcar tracking PCB. All parts have been soldered on. Ready for testing

Back side of the PCB. USBC and some buttons are on the back.

290

Richard @rgw3d.com · 09/01/2025

The PCB for the real-time Cincinnati Streetcar arrived! Hopefully it works!

A PCB that I just had fabricated with the outline of the Cincinnati Streetcar, where all stops are LEDs. The board has room for an ESP32 which will connect to the Internet and pull GTFS information to live-track the Streetcar.

The board is 2x3 inches. 5 copies are shown

050

Richard @rgw3d.com · 08/01/2025

Looks like the SouthBank shuttle really took a hit. The other routes I mentioned don't seem that different

Spreadsheet showing ridership numbers for all of TANKs (Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky) routes.
From October to November, the Southbank Shuttle went from 16745 riders, down to 8464

000

Richard @rgw3d.com · 05/01/2025

On their website 🥹

Support Transit!
Like all transit systems in Ohio, CTC cannot provide all the service citizens request. Click the below link to go to the Ohio Public Transit Association's website to tell your representatives you support public transit. Most states provide around 23% of the funding for public transit. Ohio only provides 3%

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Richard @rgw3d.com · 04/01/2025

SORTA completed my request sorta-oh.nextrequest.com/requests/24-... , but unfortunately I don't think the request results are public(?) Anyway, the data is in the form of a glossy report showing various metrics. @mrkerrymd.bsky.social will probably tell me that this was already publicly available.

Screenshot of a snippet of https://sorta-oh.nextrequest.com/requests/24-349 , showing 6 PDFS (June->Nov) of monthly ridership report numbers.

November's Ridership report. It is a 25 page PDF detailing various metrics of ridership numbers

110

Richard @rgw3d.com · 04/01/2025

Charlie laying in the Sun

Charlie the cat laying in the sun with a toy

000

Richard @rgw3d.com · 03/01/2025

Everything has been ordered! Just waiting on shipping.

screenshot from JLCPCB showing the production status of my PCB of the Cincinnati Streetcar track. Just waiting on shipping now.

It cost $18.34 to manufacture 5 copies of the 3inX2in board (there were some discounts applied to the order).

020

Richard @rgw3d.com · 02/01/2025

Almost ready for fab

3D Render of a PCB with the Cincinnati Streetcar track. All 18 stop names have been added. The design is much closer to being finished as compared to the design in the quote skeet.

210

Richard @rgw3d.com · 01/01/2025

Got my wife the ember mug for Christmas and she loves it! But of course they had to go and use some bullshit barrel plug. You're telling me you couldn't make use of a common 20V USBC PD voltage, and instead need 19V ?? The EU was right.

The ember mug charging puck with barrel plug connected.

The AC adapter + barrel plug for the ember mug. Outputs 19V @ 2.1A, a power level and voltage that USBC can easily deliver.

101

Richard @rgw3d.com · 31/12/2024

Don't let the Nanny State tell you how you can eat your brownie batter.

000

Richard @rgw3d.com · 29/12/2024

Schematic is done, layout is in progress. It is identifiably the Cincinnati Streetcar track now!

3D view of a work-in-progress PCB layout in KiCAD. Has a silkscreen outline of the Cincinnati Streetcar route with all stops identified as LEDs

240

Richard @rgw3d.com · 27/12/2024

Alright, I should have TANK bus ridership info soon! Nothing from SORTA yet - folks are probably on holiday. Which bus routes should I look at for the impact of the Daniel Carter bridge closure? Just the ones that cross the Ohio river? 🚌🌆 🌉

Email response from Gina Douthat, General manager at (TANK) Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky. The response reads: "Thank you for your request. My planner is out on vacation but will return to the office next week. I'll provide the data to you then. Thank you -"

000

Richard @rgw3d.com · 24/12/2024

I really appreciate how TrainTrakr www.traintrackr.io/product/mbta9 uses copper pours for geography. Since the Cincinnati Streetcar is a much smaller loop, I'll have the opportunity to map out more of the street grid. Silkscreen + traces. Maybe a pour for the Ohio river.

TrainTrakr's Boston MBTA board. I'm using it to indicate how the copper pours show the geography/waterways of the Boston region. The Copper pours might be a functional ground plane, but are likely just another way to show contrast (the copper planes are the lighter green)

010

Richard @rgw3d.com · 23/12/2024

French toasted pizza is always worth the effort

Several slices of French toasted pizza for dinner

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Richard @rgw3d.com · 21/12/2024

Charlie is having a great day

040

Richard @rgw3d.com · 18/12/2024

What a lovely story! Wishing you the best of luck. Here's my prized map - a 1993 wall map of Cincinnati, OH. If you have any Fred F. Johnson ("Metro Sales" or "Metro Graphic Arts" company) maps, let me know! They were mostly of Michigan and the Midwest.

Fred F. Johnson, "Metro Sales Company" wall map of 1993 Cincinnati OH.

Incredible detail and color, a true work of art. Each street name is laid out with care, unlike a Rand McNally spiral-bound guide that does not show this level of effort

130

Richard @rgw3d.com · 17/12/2024

Might as well go direct to the source @markymarksamaan.bsky.social if you are active on here

From my view of https://sorta-oh.nextrequest.com/requests/24-349 , I can see that it is assigned to Mark Samaan

000

Richard @rgw3d.com · 06/12/2024

Order Without Design is a fascinating deep dive into urban planning. Here's a bit from chapter 5 about road capacity. I did not realize how important bus headway design is! Bus lane capacity is bound by headway, not the speed of the bus, unlike cars. #buslanes

Cover of Order without Design by Alain Bertaud

Graph describing passengers per hour per lane, comparing buses and cars.

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Richard @rgw3d.com · 06/12/2024

Open house for the Wasson Way/ Armleder connector was tonight - big turnout! One ODOT rep was there. ODOT is paying for the public input and initial design engineering. There is no timeline. It is up to the City to come up with the rest of the money to actually make it happen.