Foraker

How much of that "60 percent" of office workers who have "returned" downtown are coming to the office five days a week? I've heard about a lot of places that are letting workers work from home two or three days a week. That could account for some of the discrepancy in traffic/transit.

Cold storage and distribution warehouses -- large buildings turning a blank wall to the neighborhood, with few jobs per square foot. Be grateful for the "opportunity," eh?

Fingers crossed that Pulisic is ok to go and we can at least make a game of it.

True, although most hockey gear lasts years. So the equipment isn't as expensive as people think (outside of goalie pads) -- it's not the gear that kills you, it's the travel.

There were a ton of commercials promoting that slogan as well. I don't think we have to call it "football" like the rest of the world, but it's not exactly a promotion of US freedoms to go around telling the rest of the world that it should be called "soccer" because the US (and only the US) says so.

This seems like a huge overreaction to a horrible loss. All these comparisons to John Cooper are premature, by far. Cooper only had three one-loss seasons and in each of those seasons the Buckeyes won their bowl games. Zero national championships. Cooper also had quite a few 3-and-4-loss seasons (and one 6-loss season!) Ryan Day has already had three one-loss seasons. 2-1 in bowl games, made it to the national championship once. His "worst" year was 11-2 and a Rose Bowl win. Yes, we cannot abide a losing record to Michigan. But it is still very early in Day's career and too soon to be calling for a replacement. Day's 1-2 record against Michigan pales against Cooper's 2-10-1 (remember Cooper started 0-5-1 against Michigan before getting his first win).

Having a well-respected county executive should make getting things done a lot easier -- whether that includes any consolidation of municipalities or not. Looking forward to seeing whether the optimism is warranted.

The "Hyperloop" (scam?) continues to attract investment (and gullible investors) https://www.topgear.com/car-news/future-tech/looks-theyre-still-persisting-hyperloop-thing

Well, that didn't work out so well....

I'm pleased to report that on Saturday the school board backed down and endorsed the TIF agreement without the side conditions. https://www.cleveland.com/community/2022/11/cleveland-heights-university-heights-school-board-oks-revised-tax-deal-for-cedar-lee-meadowbrook.html City council approved it/re-approved it on Monday (11/21). All the local financing is in place for Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook to break ground. Hopefully that means construction permits, already approved but not yet issued, now will be and we'll see activity soon.

As to "nor should it" -- I agree, as long as the facility is still in regular use. If not, we might be seeing a trend leading toward further decay and eventual destruction. In which case I think modernizing while keeping as many historic features as possible should be done ASAP. See Playhouse Square.

I don't know. I could see two alternative paths. First, groups of neighboring cities could increasingly pool resources and collaborating more and more over time until they "might as well" merge -- just as an example, let's say Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, University Heights, South Euclid all sharing road salt purchasing and police/fire dispatch; coordinating traffic signal timing; sharing ladder trucks and SWAT; sharing a jail/criminal intake facility; sharing emergency mental health task force; closely watching statutes in each city and aligning them over time -- in 30-40 years the only difference might be elected officials and they might finally decide to cut costs and form a regional government. Second, the county government could take on more and more -- maybe the county buys salt in bulk for all the cities in the county, maybe all criminals are processed into the county jail, maybe the county takes on more road maintenance on behalf of cities (sort of a contract manager -- and because they have a dedicated staff "doing it all the time" they could be more efficient and less expensive than individual cities doing it), and maybe the County pushes neighboring city collaboration -- until some point where the county is more efficient than the city, and individual cities start "merging" with the county and letting the county handle their affairs. I think we're a long, long way off from either scenario, but I see those as just as likcly as the all-in, all-at-once scenario. (Ironically, I lived in suburban Cincinnati for a time -- almost everyone said that they were from "Cincinnati" and used "Cincinnati, OH" as their address even when they were miles from the actual city of Cincinnati, which is a much smaller land area in the Cincinnati region than the city of Cleveland is in the Cleveland area.)

Electric vehicles make up for the up-front cost in reduced maintenance -- and for a Uber driver, "maintenance" means downtime with no income. Recommending that an Uber driver should buy a cheaper car and drive less --- 😆😆😆🤦‍♂️

What is your definition of a good city? I know of no place on earth beside a highway that is a great place for people, pedestrians, to hang out. What place in what city am I missing that we should all visit ASAP? Of course, that also would be subjective. Objectively, making it easier for people to drive into the heart of cities means that cities require more roadway space and more parking spaces for those cars. Unless you tax parking spaces heavily, the cars are taking space away from more productive uses -- offices and businesses and residences -- and places that are quieter and more pleasant -- parks and playgrounds. Objectively quieter and more pleasant (they don't generate pollutants from brakes and tires). And making it easier for workers to live in spaced apart houses farther away means more infrastructure to build and maintain. That's fine to a point -- the point where the population isn't generating enough money to maintain the infrastructure. Given the number of complaints about potholes, I'd say we're already there. It is objectively fiscally irresponsible to facilitate spreading out a static population beyond the ability to build and maintain the infrastructure -- sprawl.

Capacitors may be lighter, fewer batteries needed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_electric_vehicle

I don't know what point you're trying to make about gas taxes because gas taxes haven't covered the cost of road maintenance for DECADES. Your income taxes have been backfilling for the gas tax deficiencies long before any electric car was in mass production. We might as well ditch gas taxes altogether and charge more for vehicle registration to pay for roadway maintenance -- vehicle-miles-traveled and/or vehicle weight are more relevant to wear and tear on the roads and would be a better basis for allocating those costs anyway. We've built out the country in such a way that many people NEED a car, and we have enjoyed the privilege of being able to just hop in our car and drive wherever and whenever and however far we want at any time. We "like our cars" and we expect to keep living the same way we always have. "No planning ahead required" could be an American motto! We've built for the personal car and allowed alternative (competitive) mass transit options to whither. You're also absolutely correct that a 100% conversion to electric vehicles is not currently practical for most people. It's not just the inconvenience of charging. While on a road trip you have to take rest stops, so charging really isn't that much different and we could adapt quickly. But look at the number of cars at any rest stop and compare that to the number of available chargers at a charging station. We're not there yet. And as most of Cuyahoga County makes less than $40k per year they can't afford to or lack the authority to add car charging to their homes/apartments, much less buy a $40k+ car! At the same time, if we don't phase out gas cars and go all-in on electric (and probably greatly improve our mass transit networks), there is no way for the US to meet the 1.5C target for preventing worse effects from climate change. "The market" won't solve that problem. "I like my gas car" is partly the result of the "market" not caring about climate change (and in many cases actively marketing against even acknowledging climate change). Given the choice between fewer extreme weather events (hurricanes, droughts, heatwaves, floods, higher tides, freak storms, etc.) and the personal gas car, the US has chosen the gas car and more frequent extreme weather events. I'm sure the rest of the world will be as grateful as Ron DeSantis was in accepting federal disaster assistance.

That's great information. I would think that the only other major and regular use of Wolstein is graduation - what do attendance figures for graduation look like? CSU is still going to want to have an arena that big.

Cute, but does it reinforce stereotypes about overcrowding and unpleasantness of buses?

If they would work together and with RTA it could be transformative.

Agreed -- please no elevated walkways and can we just stop with the "shared lane with bicycles" -- Chester does not need two lanes of traffic through campus. Build a true separated bike lane before someone adds a white bike. (http://ghostbikes.org/)

This bears repeating, over and over until we get signal prioritization on all "rapid" lines, bus AND train.

Not sure whether this is "action" on Severance or just another step in a long line of "projects" that amounted to nothing more than wishful thinking, but Severance is in the news again. https://www.cleveland.com/community/2022/11/severance-action-group-presents-vision-to-transform-decaying-town-center-in-cleveland-heights.html https://www.cleveland19.com/2022/11/15/council-hears-bold-vision-reimagine-severance-cleveland-heights/ https://www.cleveland19.com/video/2022/11/15/council-hears-bold-vision-reimagine-severance-cleveland-heights-2/

We already have the highway by the lake as shown on the right. We just need the highrises south of I-90 to the east of downtown -- how is that an argument for or against Burke?

Aside from the pesky downtown lots, which seem resistant to development anyway, this would also seem to apply to suburban office parks and shopping malls as well. That might discourage developers from over-building parking lots everywhere. Also a good thing for the environment.

France is going to require parking lot owners to cover the area with solar panels. https://jalopnik.com/france-requiring-solar-panels-to-cover-parking-lots-by-1849762488 Maybe not the best way to generate energy, but it would provide some public benefit with increased electricity generation; and it would increase the carrying cost to parking lot owners who don't feel any urge to develop.