Foraker

A local company makes an ADA-complaint pedestrian walkway that can be installed around work zones.... https://pss-innovations.com/safety-products/ramps-platforms

Exactly -- we don't need to remove every car from every road to make our cities better. But we do need to make it possible for most people to get most places without having no other choice than to use a car.

I'm with ya. There is something to be said for making sure you're doing it right, and I really appreciate that WXZ is willing to take the time to do it right. I'm still impatient for the results! 😄

Thank you very much. I was really impressed with WXZ's project, and the scope of it, including how they got the across-the-street strip-mall owner involved. I may have to make an extra effort to go to this meeting. (It's already taking too long for my patience -- why haven't they started working on the Tudor buildings?!?) Moving forward on the Taylor Road Corridor Project is great, but will have an impact far beyond the Cain Park Village area. Here is the final report of the Taylor Road Corridor Study, which is what this recent grant application would fund implementation of. Recommendations start on page 73. https://www.flipsnack.com/conesky/taylor-report_final_2021.html

And -- locally we need to be able to get to more places faster without a car -- build the downtown loop already, and create more RTA routes with 15-minute headways!

Wind and solar prove to be resilient energy sources. https://www.juancole.com/2023/10/devastating-earthquake-commitments.html

That's ridiculous. If you show up to vote in Ohio with a Georgia driver's license you're out of luck. If someone is voting in state or municipal elections in Georgia, but validly registered in Ohio, why should Ohio care about what their legally registered voters do in other states? And if that person is legally registered in Georgia (let's say Georgia says that anyone who owns property in the state has the right to vote), that person still has to meet the requirements to vote in Ohio in order to vote in Ohio. But when it comes to federal elections, no one wants votes to be counted for federal elections in multiple states. If only the states run the elections, why couldn't someone be legally registered in multiple states (such as owning property in multiple states that permit voting for that reason)? The federal government needs to set some standards for federal elections, and that should include a national ID. I thought the RealID was just a set of guidelines for a more secure state ID. How does RealID solve the problem? Is it a national ID now? Even without the federal government, a bunch of states were able to come together and create a compact whereby each state could check whether their voters were voting in other states. But Ohio withdrew. If we are really concerned about vote integrity, how does knowing less about whether our voters are registered elsewhere improve voting? And yet we already have instances every year of overwhelmed voting precincts, so the current system is not so efficient and is not preventing that problem. If you could just go to another precinct to cast your ballot there would be ways to relieve that logistical bottleneck.

Watched and wept for the comparison to the US. The US is so far behind other places in the world on many fronts, not just train infrastructure, but this is another reminder of ways that the US is behind "world-class" infrastructure in other countries. Agreed.

I didn't make that argument. You're thinking of someone else. Wouldn't the least restrictive means be to allow registration at the time and place where you vote, and wouldn't that make voter records most accurate and up to date? Particularly in today's digital age, that would seem to feasible.

By arguing that voting should require some affirmative actions on an individual's part to maintain the ability to vote, aren't you arguing that voting is not a RIGHT but a PRIVILEGE ? We might disagree. I do not understand why having nonvoters on the rolls is problematic for election integrity or how removing nonvoters makes voting/elections "flourish." (Just as I do not understand how withdrawing the state from the interstate compact that checked for voters voting in multiple states improved election integrity.)

A large percentage of Americans do not understand that CO2 pumps are a problem at all. Climate change is politics, we don't like it and don't understand it and don't want to change. I have a high school classmate who found his way to driving a bus in Seattle. I'll have to check in with him next year and see how it's going with the new buses.

Ohio Republicans: Tax cuts. More jails -- we don't want to see it either.

That would be awesome to have 5-7 minute headways but probably unrealistic to expect. Do any RTA routes have less than 15-minute headways? If we could get 15-minute headways that would be great. My guess is that the city will approach RTA about this, and RTA will estimate low ridership and then argue that that justifies longer headways (half hour at best), which will lead to the confirmation of low ridership.... I am hopeful that once Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook and University Square are built we will have sufficient population densities at spaced nodes to push for RTA to study Bus-Rapid-Transit from the Cedar Hill Rapid station to Beachwood. Once they "study" it and then go seek funding, we're probably looking at 2030 for operation?!? (Best case?)

"Insular development" "separated from the main roads" -- suburban sprawl. It may be denser, but it's still a car-centric design. I don't see taking a walk through the parking lots to get to one of the outbuilding establishments as being particularly pleasant for residents. C'mon Richmond Heights -- you invested in those roads, why allow developments that turn their backs to those roads and include an unproductive sea of surface parking?!

I would, if the timing works.

Interesting discussion on UK high speed rail projects with commentary on Brightline and other thoughts on US high-speed rail. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/26/2194834/-Why-the-case-for-the-UK-s-second-true-high-speed-rail-line-undermines-US-cases-for-HSR

This trolley idea is new to me too, but I agree that this is a good idea. I think it would be like the "trolley" buses running in downtown Cleveland by RTA, not rail. Bringing rail back to Cleveland Heights would be awesome, but for many reasons, including cost and population density, it's not likely to happen in the foreseeable future. (I'm more hopeful for a Bus Rapid Transit line (like the Healthline) down Cedar to Beachwood. Nodes of density are forming at about the right distances for that to be a possibility within a decade, but all the cities along that route will need to cooperate and push RTA to start such a service.) I'm glad to see the city is thinking about transit though, and more frequent transit between our business districts would be wonderful. If the trolley stops were coordinated with RTA buses, that would provide the connection to the Rapid stations. What's missing here is both a stronger business district in the Noble area (what is the city's plan for revitalizing NN?) and an extension of this trolley route or another trolley route to the north of the city. Severance seems to be the main connection point between northern CH and southern CH, and it's continued blight hinders that transport connection as well.

That is not the approved plan. (Unlike KJP to be behind!) See -- https://www.clevelandheights.gov/1154/Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook and "Design Presentation by Applicant Approved by ABR on March 1, 2022 (with conditions satisfied at the April 5, 2022 ABR meeting) (PDF)" Looks like there is a retail space (pink color) on the corner of the building on Cedar and the behind-the-theater roadway. And on the Lee Rd.-facing portion of the Meadowbrook building.

I’m not sure. I thought all the commercial/retail space was on the Lee-Meadowbrook site, and maybe immediately adjacent the parking garage, I don’t think any was planned for facing Cedar. But it has been a long time since I looked at the plans. Was there a recent update? Project seems to be moving along.

While we're looking forward to the Music Hop Saturday, some good news for the Heights music scene -- Nighttown is back in early November! The music will come later, but this is a step in the right direction. https://clevelandmagazine.com/food-drink/articles/nighttown-to-reopen-in-early-november

What we have here -- is a failure to communicate. The general idea to build moderate-income housing wasn't that bad, and they had good partners, but really bad execution in the design and communication -- they needed better support from the community and they didn't go out and get it. They did a half-ass job and thought they could maybe do more later (maybe "because that's the way it worked with Top of the Hill"). Only, no one was happy about how Top of the Hill went down, so that's a poor basis for comparison. I hope that TWG and Start Right start over -- refile the application, continue to meet with ABR and Planning and hold public meetings. Maybe adopt some of Paul Volpe's suggestions. And try again. And maybe the city could really pay attention to the issues raised by the residents. There were calls for coming up with a development for the neighborhood -- the city should listen. (Even the ugly building that TWG proposed wouldn't have been as objectionable if it was just a small piece of a larger plan.)

Has anyone started the pool for core topping out?

Or get a majority on council to push for systematically streamlining every department's processes and procedures. I wish the state legislature would work on that as well -- reducing the number of laws and improving the readability of the state code, PLUS pushing for better processes in each department.

So, young people are graduating from college with record levels of debt. To get to their jobs in our car-oriented cities they have to take on more debt to buy and maintain a car. House prices and interest rates are going up. That all adds up to a really big uphill climb to starting a family -- debt is a generational handicap. No wonder people are waiting to have kids and fewer kids. The cities and neighborhoods that make car-free living possible are going to be winners.

Have you had any experienced with calls that are to or from Teams and a phone (the person on the phone not using Teams)? In my experience Teams is really awesome if everyone is using Teams, but that transition between Teams and the phone system is not good enough yet. That was a couple of years ago, however -- has it gotten better?