Evan Wallis

Cincinnati roads safer for cyclists

As the first phase of a 2009 plan to make the city more bike-friendly is coming to an end of its first phase this year, innovative and much-needed changes to city roads and intersections are heading in the right direction. City cyclists know the pain of sitting at a lengthy light with  no way to trigger the sensors. Some resort to pressing the pedestrian crossing buttons. Five intersections, MLK Jr. Avenue and Woodside, Pullan at Hamilton, Madison at Woodburn, Millsbrae and Woodland at Madison, now have markings painted on the roads to notify bikers where to put their bikes to trip sensors that change lights. A sixth, Knowlton at Hamilton, is being installed after construction at the intersection finishes. Melissa McVay, a planner at the city’s department of transportation and engineering, worked with Queen City Bikes and Mobo Bicycle Co-op to choose sensor locations. The sensors were reworked to detect the weight of most bikes, though bikes made out of carbon or aluminum may not be heavy enough. Mcvay will continue to research to accommodate all cyclists and decide other intersections at which to add the markings. “Queen City Bikes and the Mobo were critical in our plan to implement these markings,” McVay says. Other safety measures include signs that notify drivers that they must pass bikers by changing lanes, which will be located mostly in lengthy corridors of “shared lanes,” which include Spring Grove Avenue and Central Parkway. These signs also help police officers enforce laws that protect cyclists, by giving drivers fair warning of the rules of driving on shared roads. Louisville is the only other city in the region McVay knows of that is installing these kinds of signs “We’ve seen some other cities doing this, but there isn’t much like this being done in the Midwest,” McVay says. Beechmont Avenue along the Mt. Washington Business District will boast the first buffered bike lane, or a wider bike line for protection on the busy street. Also, new “Sharrows,” which are pavement markings to notify drivers of bikers, are being painted on Jefferson and Ludlow avenues in Clifton, since there is not room to create separate bike lanes. New phases of the plan continue through 2025 By Evan Wallis Follow Evan Wallis on Twitter

New pizza truck slated for new year

An OTR couple is branching out from their day jobs to start a new food truck in Cincinnati. Bill Stone, an English teacher at Roger Bacon High School, and Terri Wilson, owner of her own accounting business, ThinkQuick, have been researching food trucks for months. The couple almost entered into a partnership with a food truck out of Milwaukee, but a after the owner wanted too much of the pie, Stone and Wilson decided to make their own pizza pie truck, Pizza Bomba. “I want to make my own mistakes,” Stone says. “There is a lot of push when you work for someone else. This will give me some more control. We’re going to have fun.” The couple will run the truck and eventually hire employees if business goes well. When it starts, Pizza Bomba will operate in the evenings and weekends. With only some experience in restaurants, Stone and Wilson are using their business and accounting backgrounds to have a sound business plan and turn a profit on the truck. They are searching OTR for a commissary, and the couple has even thought about talking to other food trucks about sharing a space. Several food trucks have had problems with legislation that prohibits trucks from serving in certain places and at certain times. Once up and running, Wilson and Stone plan on approaching city council about changing the legislation and making the city friendlier for food trucks. With an estimated launch of the first of the year, Stone and Wilson plan to use the cold, slower months to work out kinks and have everything running smoothly by Reds’ Opening Day. They have been trying out pizza recipes and types in their own home. Using neighbors and themselves as taste-testers, they have been working hard to create their own style of pizza. The result will likely be a little thicker than New York style, with all homemade dough and sauce. Ingredients will be locally sourced whenever possible. Menu items’ names may well reference local politicians and places. The large slices will cost $3.75, no matter the toppings, and full 18”-19” pies will also be available. The truck, white with a graffiti motif logo, is being built in Texas and should be ready soon. By Evan Wallis Follow Evan on Twitter

International OFFF turns Cincinnati on to the future of art

An international arts festival that calls Barcelona home makes its first tour stop in Cincinnati this week. OFFF Cincinnati takes place at the Contemporary Arts Center this weekend. It brings together some of the most innovative and groundbreaking artists from around the world to illustrate the bond between art, creative thought and digital technology. Artists who work in film, motion design, illustration and other media will engage the local audience as they explore ideas about future of art and the creative process. It took a year of planning, but even before OFFF was officially announced, local design firms jumped at the chance to offer support. HyperQuake created the website, branding and a mobile app for the event. The app is the first presentation at OFFF. In the weeks leading up to the event, app users were given tasks, including taking photographs representative of Blue, Look Up, Horizontal Lines and Your Shoes. Combined, the images will form larger art installations created by HyperQuake and Lightborne. Any user who completes all the tasks before the event will receive a screen-printed poster. The app also connects its users via Twitter and encourages the sharing of pictures and conversation leading up to the event. The goal is ambitious: to not only bring together the best and most innovative artists in the world, but also to bring together all those who love art and wish to be inspired by it. While the event is sold out at around 300 attendees, Soapbox’s Evan Wallis will be attending and bringing readers a feature on the festival, including why Cincinnati was chosen and a look in to the founder, Hector Ayuso’s vision. By Evan Wallis

Erin N. Haynes: UC professor, environmental health researcher

Frances Kroner: Food event designer, chef

Libby Hunter: Realtor, EcoBroker

Soapbox special: MORE women to watch

Last week you met five remarkable women changing the city's intellectual and creative landscapes. This week, we're serving up another batch of smart thinking, creative planning and big dreaming by five more. They talked with Soapbox's Evan Wallis and Scott Beseler so you can read, enjoy and be inspired.

Carla D. Walker: President/CEO, think BIG strategies llc

Next wave in the digital marketplace has been growing in OTR

Two OTR Brandery startups made the final cut in a continental quest to find the most innovative new ventures in the digital marketplace. The iMedia Breakthrough Summit, the most respected gather of brand leaders and agency executives in North America, named Receept and Keepio two of nine finalists in the Next Wave competition, a voter-driven contest in Las Vegas running through October 19. Receept and Keepio are two start-ups by Dave Pfefferfle of Columbus and Dave Durand of Louisville, respectively. Both are ideas that give consumers a useful product or service and merchants a chance to gain more targeted consumer research. Receept serves as an aggregation of receipts that doesn’t just email you receipts, which you then digitally throw away. Receept keeps them in an organized, separate place, which you can then print off if needed, keep for records and even use for consumer research. Keepio is a “Facebook for products” that allows collectors of all sorts of items to share, discuss and sell their favorite products with a safe, interested community. Once interests and purchases are archived, Keepio will also target users with customized deals and incentives. The next step for both start-ups is to align with brands to form partnerships to get their products off the ground. The iMedia summit, with representatives from American Express, Microsoft and Wal-Mart on hand, may be just the place to do that. Before the event begins, Pfefferfle already has meetings set up with representative from Coca-Cola and American Express among others. While the grand prize of the Next Wave competition isn’t listed on the website, and Pfefferfle himself doesn’t know, being able to claim the title and attend the conference of more than 300 digital marketplace experts and brand representatives is a grand prize in and of itself. By Evan Wallis

Receept conserves paper, gains data

In a world were banks charge you to receive paper statements and stores ask for your email to send you a receipt, a programmer from Columbus decided to change the way receipts are used. After a few months of sitting at the Brandery with two monitors and bottle of single malt scotch at his desk, Kevin Pfefferfle created Receept, a website geared toward both customers and merchants. The idea is to give customers a place to store receipts easily with simple export tools so that you can print them you need for expense reports or taxes. While other similar services exist, many of them charge fees. Pfefferfle wouldn’t pay for that service as a consumer, so Receept will be free for consumers. Merchants that have partnerships with Receept will be able to send a receipt directly to a user-created Receept account. If a customer doesn’t have an account created, an email will be sent with information to sign up. For merchants that don’t have a partnership with Receept, customers will be able to snap a photo of a receipt or forward an email receipt to their account, which will then be stored and organized. You will also be able to share receipts with specific people. You can categorize and share all personal purchases with a spouse, or all business purchases with your boss with a simple click. To keep the service free for cutomers, Pfefferfle is working with merchants to give them consumer data. While specific data on what and how much a customer buys will not be shared, visiting habits and numbers will be. It will give merchants true data. In other words, when a customer fills out a survey or answers questions, vendors get an idea of spending habits, but Receept will be able to give merchants exact habits. “We could tell Kroger, ‘People who shop at your store once a month also tend to shop at these other types of places,’ ” Pfefferfle says. “We can say that in a general sense and not violate anyone’s privacy.” Receept is also working with the computer science department at Ohio State University to eventually be able to scan receipts for character recognition and create pie charts and graphs to see how and where you spend your money. The next step for Pfefferfle is to partner with merchants, which he may be able to do at the iMedia Breakthrough Summit in Las Vegas this week. Receept is one of nine finalists at the summit that is recognized as a innovative conference for what’s next in the digital marketplace. Pfefferfle has confirmed meetings with representatives from Coca-Cola and American Express, among others. By Evan Wallis