Foraker

Not to disagree, but here's why I am eager for a downtown loop. Right now the rail system brings people into downtown and dumps them off in one corner at Tower City. As a result, it's not at all convenient to multiple downtown destinations, including for Playhouse Square visitors, Cleveland State students/workers, or Tri-C students/workers. Having such a loop would greatly expand the destinations accessible by rail. Having all or part of that loop underground would be even better, but probably 100x more expensive. I would certainly like to see many of your proposals come to fruition as well.

The tip of the iceberg.

Absolutely agree. Bus lines can be improved with (a) dedicated lanes, (b) 15-min frequency, and (c) dedicated bus stops under cover, a la the Healthline or Cleveland State Line. But rails are better. I would add that there were quite a few of us that hoped that success of the Healthline would be used to justify conversion to streetcar (using the existing platforms for level boarding). Someday....

I cannot stress enough how much of a disaster this will be for downtown Cleveland. Just check out Severance Center in Cleveland Heights and talk to their tenants. Namdar will spend $0 on maintenance on a premier office building in our city center and hold onto it for decades. Let's hope the City of Cleveland is a LOT more aggressive in their inspections of the building. The tenants should be prepared to do their own maintenance and get the city's ear now.

Sorry -- I thought we were talking about this other parking lot sea by the Greyhound station.

They're too far from the Wolstein for that to matter very much.

That looks amazing! Thanks. (And thank you, Case!) Now imagine daylighting Doan Brook through this area.... (I looked for a link to the old plans for doing so, it has to be further upthread but I didn't find it)

The concept drawings seemed to show that both of the new buildings would top out at 4 stories. Good progress on the Meadowbrook-Lee building. Seems like a roof is next, and then windows and cladding.

I think the general hope/expectation is that the current Greyhound building won't be used in its current configuration -- at least the facade will be saved, and at least the back side will be demolished, and then something taller will be built and the overall building will take up more of the available acreage. Perhaps a parking garage in back with apartments above? It's all speculation and wishful thinking for now.

We're all missing some piece of information that PSF has not yet released. I don't think they could include either of the Lumen or the Hanna because both of those are complete. Certainly the Bulkley Building (72,384 SF) factors in, but that leaves a big number still to come. And I thought you couldn't get TMUD credits without a plan -- I thought TMUD was supposed to help at the end of the financing stack to make sure projects moved forward (and yet we've still seen plenty of TMUD-awarded projects NOT happen (yet?) even with a plan). Added floors above 1305/1317 would be great (160,000 or 240,000 SF) and seems like an obvious move. Maybe floors could be added to the Middough Building on 13th -- but that was sold to CSU. Looks like we're short about 230,000 SF to get to 463,000 SF, right? So what are the remaining options -- purchase and renovation of the Keith Building at Euclid/E17th and/or the Signet building on Euclid/E13th? Secret construction plans for Chester -- corner of 13th & Chester, PS's parking garage, or on lots north of Chester?? (Please!) That's all that I can think of. Hopefully Playhouse Square will be making an announcement soon.

College-age population declines are going to lead to more competition, more consolidation, and small schools closing in the coming decades. A lot of small small-town colleges will probably disappear.

Too bad they can't direct some ARPA funding to this project.

That is the "conventional wisdom." But with the rise in car prices, if you want to get to work every day and you can't afford a car, there is no other option. I'd really rather see transit be free -- a public service. (Which is pretty much what our roadways are, free to use. The gas tax doesn't come close to supporting maintenance costs. The roads are maintained with general tax revenues far more so than the gas tax.) And I really see that increasing fares is going to be a huge burden on the people currently using transit, and increasing fares won't draw in new customers. But price alone isn't what causes people to spend their money. We haven't stopped eating steaks, even though they're some of the most expensive cuts of meat. What we need is a higher quality network -- good coverage, good frequency -- and then figure out what it costs to maintain that system and charge that cost. People will pay for the quality. As the rare person who has lived overseas with good transit, I would love to ditch my car but I'm not going to do so when it triples my commute time. To be clear -- I don't think we should raise fares just to hope it can improve the quality. I would only want to do so if doing so could be leveraged in some way to get us to the funding that would allow the system quality to be increased. If the quality of the system is better, more people will pay for the service. Currently, the service is only high quality for a few locations and destinations, and if you're not in that zone you're not going to use the system AT ALL no matter the price, unless you have no other choice.

A skyscraper near Tornado Alley does not sound appealing.

"Great" transit service typically means that you can go most places in a city, usually with only one and occasionally two transfers, and you only have to wait at most 15 minutes at a transit stop. Yes, RTA has a long way to go. And not a lot of money to make it happen. Well, maybe it is time to raise the rates. And I know -- cost increases will fall heaviest on the poor. But with both new and used car prices at all-time highs, what's the alternative? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/average-american-spends-much-car-120017501.html If you buy a car for $20,000 and only have $1,000 down, your payment is going to be over $400/month. Plus gas and maintenance. A monthly RTA pass is $95 -- that would be a bargain if RTA can get you where you need to go in a timely, predictable manner. While I'd like to see RTA subsidized much more heavily than it already is by the state and county, that doesn't seem likely. But if the cost of the pass doubled, to $190/month, it's still cheaper than most cars. Fare revenue is a small fraction of RTA's revenue, and so even doubling it (and not everyone buys a monthly pass) probably wouldn't make a difference. Is there a way to leverage that revenue somehow to exponentially increase its impact? A TOD investment fund would be nice, but wouldn't pay off for years. Any thoughts?

Carnegie is a car sewer and simply repaving it is not going to make it a place for people to want to be. Part of the reason why the sidewalks and curbs are in such a bad state is because the curb is right up on the sidewalk and cars constantly splash water, road debris, and salt up onto the sidewalk -- which also makes walking on the sidewalk unpleasant any time it rains or snows. Repaving and pouring new curbs isn't going to solve that problem in the long term. If Carnegie is simply going to be a highway to the Clinic, then by all means build sound walls, close intersections, and raise the speed limit. But if it's going to be a place where people live and hang out, we need to widen the sidewalks, bring back the tree lawns and plant some trees, add a parking lane and curb bump-outs at the intersections, and add a protected bike lane between the car parking and the sidewalk. I bet that the latter will bring more investment to Carnegie and the surrounding streets than the former.

I think this is the key quote: I wonder who has the ear of the ODRC. Highway lobby, which doesn't want trains to become any more convenient, and/or the freight railroads that don't want to have more passenger trains on their direct route along the lake, are two possibilities that come to mind. I'm all for either a lakefront station or terminal tower station (leaning lakefront with RTA connection to TT and CVRR connection to Akron-Canton), and I'm all for connecting the 3C airports by rail, but putting Cleveland's Amtrak station out at the airport only seems like a really bad idea. Thankfully RTA will have some new rail cars long before we get a new Amtrak station, and maybe even new RTA track (downtown loop! -- I know, I'm a broken record).

Thanks for that information. This is the first time I've even heard about "mandatory diversity statements" and a google search on the subject seems to find a lot of complaints about them from both the left and the right. To me that suggests that this is a problem that is going to go away without the government's help; this isn't the kind of situation where we need the government to step in to force change to happen. Probably harmless, as long as Trump doesn't become President and demand loyalty pledges... 😱

I think the waiting area at ST might need some improvement -- are there restrooms? Is there a place for some staff for bus tickets/questions? A newstand or deli? If it already has restrooms, just a little more building might be needed to make it great.

I hadn't noticed that and didn't know either -- but thank you to the Power of The Google(!): Affordable Housing Affordable housing is housing where the monthly mortgage or rent costs less than 30% of the gross household income -- households with very low incomes, the focus of government-subsidized housing. Attainable Housing Attainable housing is nonsubsidized, for-sale housing that is affordable to households with incomes between 80 and 120 percent of the area median income -- aimed at providing housing options for middle-income households who may not qualify for subsidized housing but still face challenges in affording market-rate housing. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/community-discussions-around-housing-explaining-common-key-terms

http://www.clevelandheights.gov/NobleCorridorPlan

Also -- The City of Cleveland Heights is collaborating with the North Coventry neighborhood to analyze community data to support a comprehensive neighborhood revitalization strategy that will address access to attainable housing and economic opportunity in a safe and clean living environment. NORTH COVENTRY NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING WORKSHOP Date: Tuesday, January 23, 2024 Time: 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Place: Cleveland Heights Community Center 1 Monticello Boulevard Cleveland Heights, OH 44118 https://tinyurl.com/northcoventry

All good reasons for RTA to jump on some property for TOD.

If the study says good things about making the connection to Tower City, I'm not particular about who sponsors getting the connection built, or who operates the trains. I would like to think that CVSRR and RTA would talk about how to work together. That might mean that CVSRR only operates trains from Akron to Independence, with RTA operating a train from there into Tower City (and beyond).

Abstaining when there is even a potential conflict of interest is the ethical thing to do. RTA could benefit from increased ridership from the Independence station, so a vote in favor might be viewed as seeking a benefit for RTA. And a vote against also could be seen as seeking a benefit for RTA -- seeking to retain RTA passengers to and from Independence Road. Abstaining was the correct decision. But hooray that NOACA is studying the potential for commuter use between downtown and Independence Road!