Foraker

Maybe. But I doubt it. The costs to teach are fixed -- you need professors to teach (unless you only sell canned pre-recorded Kahn Academy lectures and electronic testing and grading, in which case you will struggle to differentiate yourself from other schools). (If we had universal health insurance, that would help reduce the overhead burden on schools.) We have a glut of colleges and universities right now, but prices are not falling. Why? Maybe competition is pushing schools to over-improve their facilities and to provide additional services and amenities than in the past. Also, the reputation of a school still matters; Harvard will never need to lower its price. I do think that some of the smaller private schools are struggling and if enrollment drops suddenly (2023?) we could see a wave of college closings. Even then I don't see how reducing supply is going to lead to tuition reductions of 60%. I agree that no one is going to be dismissing college debt by fiat. But no one is suggesting it. There are ways to reduce student loan debt, however, such as by offsetting taxes or through direct government payments. The Fed could print money to buy out some amount of student loan debt, say for public employees like teachers and firefighters. I would argue that that would spur the economy enough to counter the inflationary effect if we limited it to people earning less than a median income. Congress will have the final say, however, so who knows what plans they will all agree to. I've heard that out-of-state and foreign students (both undergrads and grad students) are what are keeping many schools afloat. While there may be universities using undergrads to subsidize grad programs, I don't think that is the case for our state schools. I've seen advertisements for foreign students from Case's and Cleveland-Marshall's law schools, so I would expect those students to be of particular value to those schools.

My teenagers struggled with the idea of getting a job. No one wants to hire any kids who aren't yet 16 (unless they want to babysit). And once they're 16 they're really busy with schoolwork and extracurricular activities that are increasingly year-round (fall baseball anyone?). They do want the spending money, however, even if it isn't enough to save for college.

Definitely. Need a taller Hofbrau Haus or Greyhound station -- or maybe build on one or both of the parking lots at Chester/E13th.

Interesting. According to the Cleveland Fed., in 2003 the state budget included about 10.5% ($5.1B) for higher education out of $49.1B. https://www.clevelandfed.org/~/media/content/newsroom and events/publications/economic trends/2003/et 20030301 the ohio budget pdf.pdf Fast-forward to the 2018-2019 budget, and Ohio now spends less than 4.5% ($2.9B-$3.4B depending on which chart you look at) on higher education out of $72.1B. https://interactivebudget.ohio.gov/Budgets/default.aspx So the overall budget increased nearly 50% but we have cut what we spend on higher education by more than 30%. And inflation has cut into that even more (about 30% from 2003-2018) The reduction in spending is not because of a reduction in enrollment. The number of students in higher education has slightly increased about 7% from about 457,000 in 2003 http://regents.ohio.gov/hei/reports/prelimhc2003final.pdf to about 490,000 in 2018. https://www.ohiohighered.org/sites/ohiohighered.org/files/uploads/hei/data-updates/PH_2018.PDF The budget proposed for 2020-2021 includes a further decrease to around $2.8B. So expect more adjuncts and more grad students teaching and fewer and fewer tenured faculty. And more students choosing to go out of state (and taking their talents to jobs out of state too, no doubt)

And yet, with a pharmacy seemingly on every corner in some suburban areas, there are none at CSU. Really surprised about that.

Movement. Change may be good, but I'm not sure this is the right approach. https://www.cleveland.com/realestate-news/2018/10/osborne_brothers_emerge_as_pot.html Dropping the top two floors of the garage is probably for the best and will reduce maintenance expenses. Target will lose its second floor entrance and will likely need to reconfigure its registers. Otherwise, this is still a suburban-style, car-dependent shopping center concept. Not the best approach for long-term sustainability but clearly not everyone agrees. Tearing down the building between Target and Macy's and replacing it with suburban-style "outbuildings" will accomplish their goal of reducing retail capacity. This is very early in the redevelopment process, so this plan will likely change.

I recently traveled outside the US and returned home via Hopkins and the rapid, and it was embarrassing in comparison to my European travels (as is RTA's 500 character online suggestion form). The operator of the trains I rode was particularly abrupt in stopping the train at each station, making for a very rough ride. Particularly compared to my experiences in the cities I had just visited. There was a guy on the red line visiting Cleveland for the first time and trying to find his way to his hotel. RTA's wayfinding signage and promotions at the airport and Tower City suck. First I had to help him with the ticket machines, which still aren't very intuitive. I had an easier time in Europe, even when I didn't speak the language. Then once on the train, the station announcements were unintelligible and the electronic gates at Tower City wouldn't read his ticket. Then I had to explain to him where to go from there, as the signs were not very helpful to someone who didn't know Cleveland. After transferring to the green line (and struggling with my luggage and that stupid handrail in the middle of the stairs), I completely missed my stop. As an infrequent and very tired rider I forgot that you have to ring the bell in advance if you want them to stop, and the station announcements continued to be unintelligible or nonexistent. Now, as a frequent reader on this forum I am well aware that RTA is not well funded. I don't know whether the mumbled station announcements are an operator or an equipment problem, and I realize that not stopping at every station might speed up service, but these things do not help out of town visitors or infrequent riders use and enjoy using your services. This is particularly difficult at night, when the well-lit train makes it hard to see outside the windows and know where you are in the city. I'd like to see better signage, better station announcements (couldn't this be automated?) and better explanations of how to use the system at the ticket machines and at the major stations. This would be hugely beneficial to out of town guests and new users. I certainly don't feel like encouraging guests to use the rapid to visit from the airport given this recent experience. I really want to support our local mass transit system, but you have to do better if you want people to use RTA over Uber.

California to Las Vegas train project continues to advance. 2020 construction date estimate. https://abcnews.go.com/US/high-speed-california-las-vegas-train-plan/story?id=65264856

THAT is awesome! Safety standards have obviously changed a bit. The lower floors of the Keith building look blackened -- is that just from the facade not yet having been applied or was there a fire early on?

I don't have the answer to your questions. Others have pointed out that Burke provides valuable relief for Hopkins for smaller planes. Sports teams bring their jets to Hopkins, whenever the President comes to town we don't have to completely shutter Hopkins, etc. There may be some redundancy between Burke and the county airport, I don't know. Hopkins does seem to be hemmed in by development and Burke does seem to be under-utilized. But I also don't get the obsession with closing Burke. Just looking at those red circles in your image above it seems like there are better places for cleaning up the lakefront for a park.

At lunch I saw a flatbed delivering new tower crane segments. Looks like they'll be jumping the crane again soon.

Echoing others above, while it's great that there was a big increase $70m for transit is peanuts. This is from 2015. https://www.dispatch.com/article/20150222/NEWS/302229856 I recognize that there are a lot of federal dollars in the Dispatch numbers, and transit buses use roads and bridges, too. But if we were serious about spending money wisely, we would do more to encourage and fund both intracity and intercity public transit. If we can get more people out of their personal cars we'll all be better off -- including those who still need or prefer to drive a personal vehicle. Safety, wear-and-tear on the roadways, the ability to be on your phone 24/7 (somewhat joking but I cannot remember the last time I was on an elevator with a millennial who wasn't on their phone, and everyone talks about seeing other drivers on their phones and/or knows someone who was in an accident while they or the other driver was on their phone -- it's the new normal.)

What if the bridge to the Browns stadium were simply updated and instead of turning to the left to go to the stadium, the end of the bridge ramped to the right to the intermodal station? Would that be the lowest-cost bridge over the tracks?

Does anyone here have a contact at the PD? This story and the pictures should be widely distributed (with a comparison photo of the Cleveland station) with KJP's proposed intermodal. I don't the average person in Ohio has any clue about what they're missing. And until they do, there will be no pressure on our representatives to change that.

Not all of the vendors are that dishonest. I've had that same experience with Costco recently. And I generally give Costco high marks for quality.

Pie-in-the-sky, but I would like the Shoreway to not be a moat between the city and the lake. Which means that I would like pedestrians to be able to cross without feeling like they are risking their lives to do so. Granted, there are areas along the lake right now that pedestrians may have little interest in accessing (ore docks, wastewater treatment, port docks, airport), but that's my general vision for the ideal. I also realize that that is probably not a realistic goal in the near term. I still think it has value as an ideal to work toward, even thought it is not very high on my priority list. I completely agree that speed is dependent on roadway design more than whatever arbitrary sign we put up. I do think we should introduce more intersections where it makes sense, introduce more curves, on-street parking, trees, narrow the lanes, add bike lanes, and introduce other traffic-calming measures where it makes sense (not on the bridge over the valley, for example, but maybe between the malls (hopefully extended over the tracks someday) and the museums). I referred to the walkability score of Brookpark road because you cited it as an example of an appropriate place for 45mph speed limits. That may be appropriate on Brookpark Road, but my point is simply that a 45mph road is not a great place to be a pedestrian, and I think we do want pedestrians moving to and from the lake across the Shoreway -- at least in the places where it makes sense -- Edgewater, Browns Stadium, the museums, and hopefully more places in the future.

Lots of reasons. But let's start with if you want pedestrian activity, slower speeds are safer and make for a more pleasant pedestrian experience. I would think that we want pedestrians walking to the lake. If you want a neighborhood along the Shoreway, you want people to want to be outside, engaged in their community not sheltering from the noise of a highway. And really, if there are more intersections, you'll have to stop more often. Does changing the speed limit between stop lights from 35 to 45mph really save that much time? I would say that a 35mph speed limit with stop lights timed to minimize stops for traffic at that speed would not be a significant impediment to a commute into downtown. But a 45mph speed limit means cars traveling at 50-55mph -- that's a highway. I can't imagine that standing beside a roadway with cars traveling at that speed while I wait to cross, or hanging out in my front yard with cars traveling at that speed is in any way a pleasant experience. https://www.cameatechnology.com/articles/noisy-speeding-impact-vehicle-speed-noise-level/ Also -- "Brookpark Road has a Walk Score of 25 out of 100. This location is a Car-Dependent neighborhood so most errands require a car." -- although I do understand that that is what some people want, that seems like a suburban rather than an urban model.

I love ya, KJP, but I don't think you can have it both ways -- higher speeds and more intersections. In its previous incarnation, the Shoreway was like a highway designed to get people (cars) as quickly as possible from Lakewood to downtown or further east (and in reverse), and in that configuration rightly had few intersections or exits and higher speeds. It still acts like a highway coming east into downtown. The current transition moves it closer to a city street with cross connections to the lake being a particularly welcome improvement. Further improvements to convert the highway to a city street would have similar positive effects through downtown, and I think you've even proposed such a scenario. In that situation, with intersections and more bus stops, a 35mph speed limit would seem to be more appropriate. As is appropriate WITHIN a city, the land next to a city street can be developed with buildings fronting the street, whereas in a highway configuration the land immediately adjacent the roadway is not accessible from the roadway and must have a connection to another street, making it more difficult to develop the land immediately adjacent the road in some places. (And making "park" space next to a highway is not very pleasant.)

If you remove Burke, there will be no airshow, dude.

Jane Campbell was a more conservative, business-oriented mayor. Wish she had stayed longer.

Labor Day would be quieter. What do you suppose the fines would be for X-ing the runways like Chicago did? Cleveland better put that money aside before they roll the 'dozers. Just shift some of our surplus, no problem.

Agreed. True, but we are still in early-stage development of these alternative energy sources. Utility-scale wind and solar seems to be about where personal computers were in the late '80s-early '90s. Germany is a much larger and more industrial nation than Scotland, if you prefer a better example of how far behind the US is. They don't quite have the transmission issues that we do, but Germany could be comparable to some regions of the US. Germany is up to 30% renewable power generation and is aiming for 65% by 2030. We are at least as technically competent as Germany and should be aiming higher. We just agreed to finance the retention of old nuclear plants, so those should be around to provide peak power when needed. Why not aim for producing the rest of our power locally and from renewable sources? While storage (and transmission) will likely be where we need the biggest breakthroughs right now, we're not that far off. Large battery storage systems are already in use in some places, providing real world experience that will make the next generation of storage even better. NOACA says there are about 1.8 million registered cars in Northeast Ohio. On average nationally, 2% of new cars are electric, and that number is on an upward trend. The Greater Cleveland Automobile Dealers Association typically reports sales of around 200,000 vehicles in Northeast Ohio every year. A Nissan Leaf has a 40 kWh battery pack. The Chevy Volt has about half that. A Tesla Model 3 can be anywhere from 50kWh to 75kWh. So if we assume at least 2% of new cars will be electric, that puts 40,000+ electric vehicles into Northeast Ohio each year for the next ten years, assuming an average battery capacity of 30 kWh (low estimate, particularly since battery capacity is likely to increase over this time), that's 1.2 million kWh of storage capacity being added every year. What if we could use that stored electricity during times of high demand, buy it back from the owners? With the right incentives to increase electric car sales, renewable energy generation, fixed permanent storage (Tesla Powerwall type), and some small technological improvements, this is doable. Cleaner air and lower variation in generation costs would benefit all of us. Fusion definitely seems to be a bit further off.

This is interesting. The Keith Building has 21 floors. The Lumen is currently at the same height as the roof of the Keith (The Keith's "22nd floor"?) but has 25 floors? Is that correct?

Let's hope they get the trains running in Florida before the state goes underwater!