Grumpy

I think it'll take a change of power at the state level to get better funding, combined with more visionary leadership at RTA, and an increase in the price of diesel/gasoline that increases ridership while simultaneously increasing the cost of operating busses. The labor savings while significant are balanced by the labor costs of maintaining the tracks. While transit operating funding is as tight as it currently is at the state level, I imagine it would be a big challenge politically to pull off another major transit project. While most of us know that operating and capital expenses are very different things, the public doesn't and would throw a fit if service isn't improved/increased before a major expansion gets underway. As long as using diesel in busses is less expensive than using electricity AND paying for the maintenance of the tracks RTA is going to be hesitant to switch to trams. Sure we know that the maintenance of the roads isn't free, but it doesn't come directly from RTA's budget, so they have no incentive to consider that expense when determining the more cost effective mode of transportation. Finally I think it would take better leadership at RTA. I think that Calabrezze is doing fine at running RTA, but I think he's done a poor job of lobbying the state legislature, and looking into ways to make it better. Probably if he spent more time lobbying and looking at future improvements we'd have a worse current system, but sometimes you have to break a few eggs and I think it looks like Calabrezze has been playing it safe.

I was like that till my late 20s and then started getting more and more sensitive to caffeine. Yesterday I had a can of diet coke at lunch and the caffeine kept me up half the night. So now I'm feeling groggy from lack of sleep and am tempted to go across the street and buy a regular coffee to wake up. The problem with that is that it would keep up tonight, so that tomorrow I'd be even worse. Aging sucks.

Hey, I'm feeling important in my own little fantasy world over here, don't burst my bubble. :-)

Are you getting consumer models or commercial models? Why did I open this, now I want coffee! UGH!! This is just a few of us in one section of the office, so probably consumer model. Does it do a good job quality wise or is it "glorified instant"? It's about as good as drip coffee (or maybe slightly better), but faster. If you buy cheap pods, you'll get crappy coffee, if you buy nice pods, you'll get decent coffee. My mother bought a couple dozen of them off craigslist last January from old people that had gotten them for Christmas and had no idea what they were for 10 or 20 bucks each and then has been selling them throughout the year at a nice profit. I turned one down because I like my french press too much to switch over, plus I hate the waste of the pods. They really are a lot more convenient though.

It looks like a few of us writing to Plain Dealer may have helped light a fire under someone and get something done. I'm claiming this as an accomplishment for UO, regardless of how significant/insignificant our efforts actually were. :-)

Euclid was basically shut down at the time so that may represent riders that would have taken the 6 in '06 and the Healthline in '08.

Yeah, he's popular on here amoung UO'ers. :-)

Yes. It does have a few redeeming qualities; the mountains aren't that far, the winters are reasonable, a few of the older neighborhoods are well laid out, it's easy to leave with the busiest airport around, but I'd say the sprawling nature of the place, the traffic and the summers are more than enough to call you crazy for liking it. :-)

Beaches are nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

I'm noticing we all have a different definition of what this means. Based on MTS's list it looks like he lives in fear of snow, personnally I'm fairly opposed to living somewhere that requires AC for half the year.

On the west coast I like Portland. (They like bikes and transit) On the east coast I like DC and Boston. (DC for job prospects and public transit, Boston for climate and urban layout) In the south Austin seems to be one of the few places that peeks my interest. (Weird and fairly green) In the midwest, other than Ohio I like Minneapolis. (They get regionalism and bikes) If we throw in Canada, I think I'm leaning toward Toronto. If we include Europe, I'd like Vienna, or Bologna.

The 30 is packed when it leaves Windermere between 7 and 9pm and generally close to full when it leaves Windermere up to about 10 or 11 at night (I rarely ride it later than that) but empties out along the way. I'll agree the ridership looks pretty low in the other direction (Though I haven't riden in that direction in the evening). I honestly never noticed it runs till after midnight till now.

Not going to happen. Shaker Heights would never allow it to even be discussed. Shaker Heights is laid out specifically so that all its roads flow toward those stations making it into a low density transit oriented development. Sure it's not the high density urban environment that a lot of people on this site might like, but it's a perfect illustration to surburbanites of how transit can be something other than crappy busses through scary neighborhoods. Why would anyone agree to mess with that? Now if you want wanted to suggest having an express route that skips most of the stations, that's a bit more realisitic. I think a lot of people that have ridden those lines would be willing to consider that, but in order to make it work you'd either have to build a third set of tracks on each line, or convince RTA to allow trains to switch over to pass (which seems highly unlikely.)

How long might those requirements be? I'm asking because even if we started planning a streetcar route that takes advantage of the Healthline platforms today, we're probably not going to see an alternatives analysis before 2014, we're probably not going to see an environmental impact statement before 2016, we're probably not going to see any grant money from the feds before 2018, we're probably not going to see construction start before 2020, and we're probably not going to see it finished before 2022. That's 8 years from now that it would start. The Healthline vehicles, the pavement, and the platforms would be about 12 years old. At that point the pavement will already be patched, and probably need replaced in many sections. The vehicles should still be running, but they'll be in need of an overhaul. The stations are going to be showing a lot of wear and probably need an overhaul too. It sounds like great timing to me.

Some genius already suggested that in the comment of his article. :P I've been trying not to read comments after articles. Cleveland.com got me started and I don't miss reading them most of the time.

A gold star to the designers if that is indeed correct. I doubt it's more than a happy accident. The Healthline busses are of similar length/height to a streetcar, so a platform that is designed specifically for a Healthline bus is automatically of similar dimensions to a platform for a streetcar. If we're going to continue discussing this we probably ought to move to the either the Healthline thread or Cleveland Transit ideas for the future thread.

^Glad you enjoyed your trip here, but next time try to hit University Circle.

Besides, cable cars have higher personnel costs because you need a driver and someone to collect fares, plus the maintenance is higher than just about any other form of transportation.

' $10 per hour is only slightly higher than minimum wage. These are union jobs. Is there anyway to get around this though to have them non-union, hourly, no benefits jobs? Even if they were non-union, hourly, no benefits jobs, RTA would have to pay payroll taxes and pay for uniforms. Plus if any of the positions were full time, you'd have to pay for health insurance under Obamacare starting in 2014. Plus you'd have to pay for someone to supervise these folks unless you're expecting a significantly higher degree of professionalism from non-union, hourly, no benefits workers than you do from traditional full time union workers. Plus in some stations you'd have to provide heat in whatever booth they're sitting in.

I'll admit I could have phrased that nicer, but if I see police officers patrolling an area constantly while appearing to ignore other areas I most certainly have the right (and one could argue the responsibility) to point that out. If Cleveland decided to put significantly more of their officers on traffic duty to make sure no one runs a red light or breaks the speed limit while appearing to ignore the more serious crime problems we've got, would it be wrong to point out that perhaps someone ought to be patroling the neighborhoods instead? You'd better believe I feel qualified to question what looks like a misappropriation of resources, so should you. Prior to the Red line being converted to POP, there was rarely more than 1 or 2 officers in Tower City in front of the turnstyles. Now there's regularly 4 to 6 officers there. I was under the impression that the increase in funding to the transit police was to enforce POP throughout the line, not just at Tower City. If there's been a significant increase in crime on the platforms or at RTA's customer service desk, then of course it's totally appropriate for transit police to have an increased presence there, but if they're just there to enforce the POP, than it seems like they could be more effective and give a better impression if they actually rode the trains like transit enforcement does in most other cities that have a POP system. I'm certainly not suggesting that they ever ignore Tower City or leave it empty, but it appears to me that they're poorly using their resources by not spreading them out more or being less predictable.

I voted 4-5, I just don't see them pulling off more than 6 games this year. If a few games fall their way I could be wrong, but I'm not going to get my hopes up this early again.

Maybe it would make sense to have the transit police randomly skip enforcement at Tower City and instead put the same cops at one of the other stations. Like 4 days this week have them at Tower City but on Thursday have them sit at W25th. Next week 4 days at Tower City and the other day sit at Windermere. If it was random it would keep people getting off at Tower City paying their fare, and would allow them to enforce at other stations. Or they could just ride the trains and check people there like they're supposed to, but that might be asking too much.

:clap: Instead of putting staff at the stations they should be on the trains.

IIRC Erieview was under construction during the filming of this movie. I don't recall the movie, but the Celebrezze building was built at the same time as Erieview. If they were both under construction I doubt you'd be able to spot the Celebrezze bldg from the area around CSU unless it was close to topping out, but Erieview is a little closer and might be visable.

Mendo, this weeks traffic pattern is worse than it would be if Ontario was closed because Superior is closed as well. On top of that, public square is currently an attraction that a large number of people are coming downtown to see. Plus the casino is still new, and therefore still attracting larger crowds than it will in a few months/years. In short, it shouldn't be a surprise if there's a bit more traffic than usual this week. I would expect that if Ontario gets closed permanently, it'll take a few weeks for everyone to get used to that too. The thing is, if it takes someone driving into downtown an extra 5 minutes to get to their destination for the first few weeks after Ontario closes, that's not really that bad. If Ontario does get closed, I'd recommend that you take the bus if coming to that side of downtown for a couple weeks. Beyond a couple weeks, everyone's GPS will be updated to tell them to get off on 9th and traffic should be moving along just fine.