Foraker

KJP -- yet another reason to extend the malls over the tracks to connect the new MedMart to a rail station, moving Amtrak east and closer to more businesses.

How long will it take to complete the alternative analysis/environmental study?

Sounds good. Could someone draw up (maybe KJP already has one) a map for such a red line extension?

Does anyone know of any specific projects, such as bridge upgrades, on the 3C rail corridor that have been started with stimulus funds?

Did anyone notice that the old gas station at E105 and Chester has been torn down?

See the link for the rest of the opinion piece: http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/carless-in-america/

Well, just to play devil's advocate for a second, (forgive me it's a Monday) if you think that a lack of growth is a reason for not expanding the highway system, why do you think a lack of growth is not a reason for not expanding the rail system? A few things to add. Paraphrasing, KJP said that there is no logical argument for expanding highway capacity in a no-growth state like Ohio. And the original rejoinder essentially asked how growth or lack of growth in the state is relevant to highway vs. rail capacity. I think there are a few things to add. First, growth in vehicle miles traveled on the highways has stalled or declined and is expected to decline further. Second, growth in passenger miles traveled has been increasing, despite low growth in rail capacity and continued growth in highway lanes. And third, rail freight tonnage has been growing such that the rails were recently near capacity. So, despite some of the reliance on "expectations" for the future, expansion of rail capacity seems to be very much justifiable due to growth in rail traffic. (KJP could probably be more specific and more eloquent on these matters.) I would add that a lack of growth might indicate a need for more competition between the two modes of travel, more alternatives. My company would much rather have competitive options to ship products by road or rail. Hopefully both modes can deliver the products, and we can simply pick the one that can provide the best price and delivery date.

Problems seem to arise any time an entire building/neighborhood is mostly Section 8 housing. Maybe every multi-tenant building ought to include one Section 8 or equivalent unit. Spread the wealth a bit. If we care.

I wish we had a bike co-op on the east side.

First time I read that I thought it said "urban pathologist." LOL

Interesting chart comparing the costs, distances, speeds, and population served by various international high speed rail projects, including California's. http://www.infrastructurist.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/high-speed-rail-boom-1024x665.jpg

From an article in Planetizen: http://www.planetizen.com/node/37530 ========================================================= Why Is Fare-Free Transit The Exception Rather Than The Rule? 23 February 2009 - 5:00am Transit agencies spend a lot of money to make money. In many cases, the amount spent equals or even surpasses the amount they bring in from fares. So why charge them at all? Dave Olsen takes a look at Fare- Free transit, what's holding it back, and how to make it a reality. (The rest of the article is at the above URL) So, how much does it cost RTA to collect fares? And how much that compare to the money collected?

[along with what jpop said...] The Mayor of University Heights also favored collaboration over merger. She also said that they would be more likely to merge with South Euclid, and that they would merge with Cleveland Heights when hell froze over. I talked to a University Heights resident the other day and she expressed her concern that the merger would harm her property values. I think we should be careful not to underestimate fears of lost identity from a merger. I think we're seeing it in the church closings as well. More and more collaboration probably is a good place to start while we figure out the best way to maintain peoples' sense of community identity.

Someone forwarded to me some interesting comments about California's high speed rail, particularly regarding the San Francisco station being designed. Also includes links to other blogs following the situation. http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/4/7/717663/-An-HSR-Station-Grows-at-Transbay-(SF),-Grand-Finale(pt-3)

Since this is a port project rather than a city or county project, can someone provide a map of what land area they're going to be working with? Am I correct to assume that the project will be limited to port-controlled properties? With the port not going anywhere for twenty years or so, it would seem that this plan will remain a concept for later changes after the port moves. If so, I would expect this design process to lead to little actual change in the near term, unless the port owns a lot of property that it isn't currently using. Although we'd all like to see improvements along a significant part of the lakefront, current realities (port's ongoing operations and the economy) seem to suggest that we won't be seeing any concrete changes for some time to come.

And that, I believe, is the fault of our overly litigious society. It's no longer as simple as "arrest a criminal, then they go to jail" with all the lawyers we have who make a living off of getting people out of trouble. Can you back this up with a source? Or is this just a perception? Defense lawyers generally make less than most other types lawyers, not much more than some social workers. You don't go into criminal law to become wealthy, you become a corporate lawyer. Even most ambulance-chasing personal injury lawyers struggle -- there are only a few who have gotten lucky with the big case and big windfall. Here's a link to what the average lawyer makes, and while lawyers generally do well, they're not paid as well as I initially would have thought. http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Attorney_%2F_Lawyer/Salary Additionally, the Columbus Dispatch and other papers recently reported that 1 in 25 Ohioans is in jail, on probation or on parole. A record percentage, and an expensive one. http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/03/02/aprison.html?sid=101 This seems to suggest that we are not failing to incarcerate, but says nothing about the permanency of the incarceration. If you have some statistics to support your conclusions, I'd like to see them. The thing that concerns me is the cost of our current prison system and whether we are effectively rehabbing the people incarcerated and freed. http://www.drc.state.oh.us/WEB/planning.htm I suspect that to a degree denser development can mean knowing who your neighbors are and can help people avoid bad decisions and provide more help during hard times. Sprawling, car-dependent suburban lifestyles seem to mean that are more isolated. You might know your immediate neighbors, but that's all. Most suburbs that I have lived in did not provide a sense of community, I had to drive to find a community to be part of -- in a church or through a school. And as a result my acquaintances mostly were not neighbors and not very close. If I failed to show up at some functions for a month they might wonder where I was but no one would stop by the house to check up on me. Yet now I live in a more urban area and although admittedly most of my friends are still from the same places -- church and school, they all live close by and I also know more neighbors. It may just be perception, but I think we all look out for each other more.

Here's another thought-provoking work, J.H. Crawford's Carfree Cities. It has an international flavor to it, and yet gives a good history of how some American cities were designed before moving to a discussion of a proposal for cities designed without cars. Easy reading, I highly recommend it even if you never have any intention of living without a car. Much of the book also can be found on his website, and the photographs are outstanding. http://www.carfree.com/

I've often gone to pick someone up at the airport and found that the plane is late. I can circle once or twice, then I have to park and go in and check the board. By that time, fifteen minutes of my half hour are gone and I pretty much have to go back to my car and move it. That half hour goes by quickly, particularly with the number of delays we can have in the winter. There is no reason anyone would "take advantage" of the system and park in the garage for only three hours, there's only a Starbucks that you can access without a ticket. All of the other stores are on the other side of security. And the shortest work shift is unlikely to be less than 4 hours. So changing the free half hour to a free three hours would solve the problem entirely, and probably would cost less and be easier to implement than a new lot with arrival displays.

While I would agree that the Governor, legislature and/or ODOT made some strategic blunders in how this project was presented, I disagree that we need another ten years of study. There have already been years and years of study, ask KJP, it's just that too few of us have been paying attention. I forget where we are in the process for the 3-C corridor but it has been slowed by the trickle of rail funding in this state -- we're somewhere between the economic impact study and the environmental impact study and as soon as we have money to complete that process we'll be ready to go. Unlike the highway system, the basic layout of the route is already in place it just needs a few connections and upgrades to make it happen. Moreover, we now have an opportunity to get basic service started with 100% federal funding to upgrade the infrastructure! That may never happen again and the longer we grumble about "more study needed" the more likely Indiana gets that federal money to build out a rail network and then high speed rail. I believe seanmcl made this point earlier. How do we get this message to the legislators blocking this project? Maybe they need to see copies of the studies that have been done and we need to highlight the economic advantages. Improving the route for passengers will also improve the route for freight. Then we'd have some competition for the trucking industry (competition is always good, right?) Seems to me that could be quite an advantage for say Indianapolis -- relatively low midwest-cost-of-living with convenient (and future high speed) rail access to Chicago (which also clears bottlenecks and improves freight rail traffic). How would a company looking to relocate then compare the 3-C's to a city on the Indiana rail network? I would think that this economic view would motivate our Republican reps, but so far it hasn't seemed to. I don't know the details of how the TRAC process works, and maybe TRAC would have been a proper vehicle for this project, but the time to move forward is now. If we don't, our neighbor states will. I hope that the whatever needs to be fixed in the legislation gets fixed (probably need to take future funding issues away from the Controlling Board and give it back to a future legislature) and we move forward rather than letting this opportunity pass to our competitor-neighbor states. How can we get this message to the people who stand in the way of making this happen?

OK -- so are our taxes per capita that much lower in Ohio (which should be attracting many more jobs to Ohio vs. our neighbors, right?), or where is Ohio spending money that our neighbors are not?? Rather than lose the thread, I've reposted my question because I think the answer is important. I also did some digging myself, and came up with the following from the US Census Bureau's yearly state survey. (for Ohio, see http://www.census.gov/govs/www/estimate06.html) The most recent state revenue and expense data is from 2006. I compared the revenues and expenses of Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. I also calculated the percentage of each revenue/expense source with respect to each state's total revenue/expense, and the per capita value (using the July 1, 2006 census bureau estimates (http://www.census.gov/popest/states/NST-ann-est.html) to "equalize" the comparisons. I did not notice a significant difference in comparing percentages vs. comparing per capita values. (I'm not a statistician or an accountant, so if anyone else has a better way, please jump in.) The census data doesn't break out the public transit figures, but our per capita tax revenue appears to be fairly close to, if toward the low end, of the range for our neighbors. Overall, the numbers for these states are quite similar in most respects. On the revenue side, I was surprised that they all received a greater percentage of their revenue from corporate taxes given the way the Ohio Republican party is constantly complaining about Ohio's taxes. Our tax rates might be higher but the state is not as heavily reliant on corporate taxes as our neighbors are. Indiana also stood out when it came to the fees charged for education and highways -- but the highway portion may include the sale/lease of a certain toll road if I'm remembering correctly --12% of their 2006 revenue ain't bad. The other numbers that jump out is that Ohio gets a bit more "Insurance trust revenue" from "Employee retirement" -- significantly more than PA and many times more than IN. On the expense side we are again very similar in most cases. We spend a good bit more, again percentage-wise, for "Insurance benefits and repayments," and less on "Education" than IN (OH is similar to what PA spends on education). We also spend more on "Health" (2.2% vs. 1.9% for IN) and we spend less on "Highways" than either IN or PA (3.7% vs. 5.9% (IN) and 8.2% (PA)). How's that for a surprise. Public transportation expenditures are not itemized (boo!) Included in "Intergovernmental transactions" as payments to local governments? (KJP or JMasek -- do you know where those numbers quoted in the article came from?) Also notable is that we spend about the same percentage on salaries and wages, so the number of employees in OH state government doesn't appear to be out of the ordinary. And then there's a big difference in our "Insurance trust expenditure," specifically we are spending a lot more for "Employee retirement" and "Workers' Compensation," although somewhat less for "Unemployment compensation." These charts also include line items for both "Debt outstanding" and "Cash and Security Holdings." Our debt is between that of IN and PA and generally appears to be unremarkable. We have a lot more Cash and securities, however, and in that case the numbers that really jump out are the "Insurance Trust fund" holdings for "Employee Retirement" and "Workers' compensation." In conclusion, I don't know how to interpret some of these numbers regarding the trust funds, but we seem to be doing something different in that regard than either IN or PA. Otherwise we seem to be collecting and spending our money in about the same way as our neighbors (I went back and added Illinois to the mix and the numbers seem to fall in the same range of percentages/per capita values.) Can someone explain Ohio state insurance trust manipulations in the budget? I still don't understand how our neighbors can afford to spend so much more for public transit than Ohio. We're spending LESS per capita on our highways. I also tried to find a simple table for tax rate comparisons, but I don't think there is such a thing. And what does a tax rate mean if one state allows more exemptions or deductions than another state? The best answer I can think of at the moment is that we ought to make our taxes simpler, with fewer deductions/exemptions, so that you can just look at gross income and figure out what the tax is. The chart at this link, or rather the footnotes to the chart, seem to indicate that Ohio's corporate taxes are pretty confusing. http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/corp_inc.html Okay, that's enough for today. :drunk:

OK -- so are our taxes per capita that much lower in Ohio (which should be attracting many more jobs to Ohio vs. our neighbors, right?), or where is Ohio spending money that our neighbors are not??

I don't know EC at all. But if there is this division, would it make sense for Cleveland to take over one half and Cleveland Heights the other half? Lost in all this discussion about taking over responsibility for East Cleveland is whether the people of East Cleveland would want to give up on their city.

The stimulus bill has been in process since October. If no one read it then they or their staff is pretty lazy. Sure they didn't get what they wanted, they lost the election. The Republicans were given far more chances to participate in the process (and even got tax cuts from the start) than the Democrats ever got during Bush's terms. At least they got something. Until we figure out how to get rid of the entire lot, there's going to be pork in every appropriations bill. It isn't just a Republican or Democratic problem. After all, where were those fiscal concerns before -- the deficit doubled during the six years that the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House. To me that was my fiscally conservative representatives way of stabbing us taxpayers in the back. Thanks guys.

Has anyone considered creating a "how-to handbook" for carfree living in your Ohio city? Here are a few that I recently discovered: San Diego http://sdcarfree.com/ Santa Barbara http://www.santabarbaracarfree.org/

You should bring up what these guys are doing in Chicago. http://www.growingpower.org/