DaninDC

Oh, I agree with your wholeheartedly, noozer. Issues like this speak to the kind and quality of places we want to create for ourselves. The PD wants to isolate this one thing in a bubble and pretend it's a foregone conclusion, much like the "need" for a new convention center.

Fantastic. I love how the Plain Dealer editorial board blindly accepts everything you can spoon feed it. I don't think the editors of the PD have ever questioned a single damn idea that was ever floated out there.

Leave it to RTA to hire a highway guy as their head engineer.

Route 7 Makeover Part of Dulles Rail Plan By Leef Smith Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 8, 2005; Page B08 Leesburg Pike in Tysons Corner is a mishmash of fast-food restaurants, car dealerships and chain stores. Access roads bump up against the main highway, traffic lights are jammed together, and this time of year, cars slow to a crawl. Now picture an eight-lane, pedestrian-friendly urban boulevard with a Metrorail line overhead. Planners say they would use the arrival of Metrorail to turn Route 7 in Tysons Corner into a pedestrian-friendly thoroughfare. The proposed Silver Line would occupy the median of Route 7 from Route 123 to the Dulles Toll Road. Full story at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/07/AR2005120702430.html

In this case, I think a "do nothing" option is better than installing a high-speed boulevard through the East Side. The entire premise of economic development was drummed-up to justify what is essentially a highway project. Does anyone realistically think that factories are going to make a sudden comeback if this road is built? Why would development occur along this boulevard, when it isn't occurring along Euclid, or Chester, or on any of the other empty lots on any of the other major roads in Cleveland? I'm not trying to argue that the entire economy of the city should be predicated on coffee shops. There are, however, many underutilized roadways and parcels of land in the city as it is. What makes this project absolutely necessary? To me, it seems that this entire project was concocted and foisted on the public rather quickly and abruptly. Failure to follow-through with this project will not bring about impending doom for Cleveland. I honestly think this is a case of misplace priorities. TOD is needed to re-grow urban density and produce thriving neighborhoods, as this is the one competitive advantage Cleveland has over its suburbs. By promoting the development of an automobile-oriented city, Cleveland will soon resemble its suburban counterparts and lose that advantage. As it stands, public transit in Cleveland is relatively weak. The money would be better spent improving access to the Rapid from University Circle, as that mode could move potentially more people than the boulevard could ever hope to do, but without taking up any additional real estate. It all depends on what kind of a city Cleveland wants to be. Should it be an urbane place for people to work, live, and recreate? Or should the urban fabric be sacrificed for an ever-expanding network of freeways that encourages long-distance commuting via automobile, with little interaction with one's surroundings? If you had to pick a model for developing a city, why not choose a successful model instead of the same approach that has failed this city for 60 years? It is ideas like this boulevard that convince me Cleveland has plainly forgotten how to be a city, and hence it is no wonder the jobs and the residents and the money are fleeing.

BS. There is plenty of developable land in Cleveland. The city chooses to use much of it for parking lots. Transit options for this corridor have been proposed and ignored, even though TOD is a far more efficient means of development. Furthermore, this roadway will do nothing to improve traffic circulation in University Circle. It will simply add several thousand cars a day to the existing mess. Wimwar, I resent your implication that I have provided a knee-jerk response. I can assure you I am well-studied in transportation issues. As it is, Cleveland is sending jobs to both Strongsville AND Mississippi.

X, what you propose is the same fallacious argument that has been made for over 60 years. Paving more roadway only serves to undermine what little of a transit system there is, and also removes valuable land that could otherwise be used for development. You have created a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one will use the transit system (except for the poor, disabled, and elderly) if driving is by far the easiest way to get anywhere. This boulevard is little more than the status quo all over again, and is an ugly and expensive precedent for future development in the city.

Well, Cleveland's been giving honey to suburbanites for decades.

I might be mistaken, but isn't there already a freeway (the Shoreway) that allows West Siders to get to University Circle??? They bill this POS as a boulevard just so urbanites will greenlight it. I envision this will end up as a roadway with a 50 mph speed limit which, quite frankly, is another freeway. Cleveland is in the shape it's in because people keep subsidizing sprawl. Why does anyone think that embracing the status quo is going to change anything?

Thanks for your comments, noozer. I thought the editorial was interesting for its reliance on largely uninformed and undocumented assertions. I noted a distinct lack of analysis on cause-and-effect. Instead, the authors seemed to take systematic and structural flaws of Amtrak, and put the blame on David Gunn.

I think that the way to start developing passenger-only trackage is by means of incremental extensions, very similar to the upgrades currently underway between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. I disagree with running rail in highway medians. It's a bad idea on so many levels, but primarily because it discourages access and development. If one rides a train in New England or on the LIRR, it's pretty clear that rail stations need to be integrated into business districts, rather than isolated on highways. If you run passenger rail in highway medians, you end up relegating the rail as a second-class mode to the highway (um, well, even more so), and defeat the economic case for passenger rail in the first place. Other concerns are engineering, including grades and curvature. I doubt that geometry for a roadway engineered for cars at 70 mph is able to accommodate trains in the median running twice as fast (or faster).

It's foolhardy to attempt to dismantle Amtrak without a feasible replacement already in place. How timely we discuss this, just after Amtrak's busiest week of the year. I took vacation last week to spend Thanksgiving with a friend in Boston. Since I left on Monday, I was able to redeem Amtrak Guest Rewards points for a free coach ticket from Washington Union Station to Boston South Station. Granted, it was a decent-length ride, but the 7:30 travel time was definitely shorter than what you could do in a car for 440 miles in the Northeast Corridor, and I didn't have to deal with airport security, children, etc. Half the time, I slept. For the return trip, I bought an Acela Express business class ticket (God, I love the Acela trains.) Nothing quite like cruising across the landscape at 150 mph. The only problem was that there were some delays in New Jersey. We got hung up at Newark for a few minutes, I think primarily because of the volume. (Amtrak added 60 extra trains in the Northeast for the holiday week.) When we reached BWI, I saw the Arrivals monitor, which showed every train southbound train as 5-20 minutes late. My train was sold out from Providence southward. In fact, a guy sat down next to me at Baltimore, and told me he had been sitting in the cafe car since Philadelphia. I kinda have a problem with overselling the train, especially the premium Acela, but I digress. Anyway, back on track, so to speak. A few observations: 1. The tracks in Connecticut suck, restricting speeds. East of New Haven, speeds are slowed because of the aging bridges, which Amtrak has in its capital plan (developed by Mr. Gunn) and is starting to replace. The bridge over the Thames River, for example, is 95 years old. West of New Haven, the tracks are owned by the State of Connecticut, in partnership with the New York MTA (Metro North Railroad). This 130-mile or so stretch is the worst section of track in the Northeast. Naturally, this makes me skeptical that turning over passenger rail to the states will give us better results. 2. I already noted that my return train was sold out south of Providence. Many of the stops in the Northeast are in relatively small cities, yet they have pretty good rail patronage since the service is so frequent and reliable. Cities like Wilmington, Providence, New Haven and Stamford are all smaller than Akron, and about as big as Dayton. This is to say nothing of small towns like Kingston, RI or Mystic, CT. There is no reason why Ohio cities can't support frequent passenger rail service. 3. Northbound, my Regional train was right on schedule. Southbound, we got to New Haven 9 minutes early, and New York 1 minute early. I got to thinking that the only way you can truly have reliable passenger rail is to have dedicated passenger trackage, with electrically-powered locomotives. I know KJP has outlined how impossible this could be, but I firmly believe it's the only way to go. The freights will always give passenger rail second-class status, especially as their loads increase. We really need something akin to the Interstate Highway Act, but to build passenger rail networks along designated corridors. Thoughts from the peanut gallery?

University of Michigan, BSE '01 Civil & Environmental Engineering. Employed as a structural engineer with Robert Silman Associates in Washington, DC.

Let me get this straight. In Central Ohio, it took 200 years to develop 800 square miles. Now MORPC has a "plan" that develops 714 sq mi in the next 25 years? You don't need a plan to squander resources at that rate--just hired blind monkeys.

Oh, absolutely! I work a block from the Whitehurst. From what I have gleaned, the District wants to get rid of the Whitehurst because simply, it is an eyesore. I think the unspoken motive is that the District wants a more people-oriented city, as opposed to having cars fly through it at 100 mph. The suburban car commuters seem to be the only ones really cheesed off at the idea. Their ire really galls me, because they live in different states, and don't pay DC taxes. It becomes a question of "To what extent are DC residents willing to subsidize car commuters from out-of-state?" We deserve a beautiful place to live and work, and I'd rather have my tax dollars used to support DC residents instead of those in BMWs and Mercedes who choose to live in Maryland and Virginia.

Thanks for sharing. While I'm not familiar with this area, it is certainly heart-warming to see that Ohio's cities are pretty damn tired of ODOT's one-size-fits-all transportation policy. If the cities continue to emphasize the importance of the surrounding neighborhoods when evaluating transportation improvements, I have to think that eventually it might sink in with the policy makers. Great pics, by the way! I have two words for the ODOT hacks: Embarcadero Freeway.

KJP, if Sokolowski's gets taken out, I will hold you personally accountable and hunt you down. :-)

Hey Norm! http://www.amtrak.com/timetable/oct05/W02.pdf Man, that took all of 30 seconds to find that information.

Mineta's full of shit. Gunn WAS the turnaround CEO. He just didn't share the pipe dreams, i.e. absolve the federal government of its responsibility. How dare a lifelong railroad man tell a group of non-Amtrak riders how to run the railroad. Why does David Gunn hate America? LOL Four to five hours at either end??? That blows my mind. They want to fix Amtrak, but don't even know how long it takes to get to New York. Read the damn schedule, genius! The regional trains take, at most, 3-1/2 hours between New York and DC. Acela comes in around 2-3/4 hours. I wonder how much work Mineta got accomplished on the cab ride to and from the airport. Fuzzy Math Administration strikes again.

Here's an economic case for stronger pro-transit policy in Ohio. I get a kick out of some of the stats. The link here is a bit dated (1997), but would be even more true now, as ridership on systems in St. Louis, Washington, and even Amtrak has increased tremendously in the past 8 years. http://www.walkablestreets.com/transit.htm

I thought I would share this timely article from the weekly Detroit Metro Times. Author Keith Schneider works for the Michigan Land Use Institute in northwest Michigan, and is often published in the Detroit newspapers as well as the New York Times. The content, debate, demographics...pretty much everything, are similar to the situation facing Ohio's large cities. For those not knowledgable about Southeast Michigan geography, Oakland County is a suburban county just across Eight Mile Road, the northern city limit of Detroit (which is in Wayne County). Roads Not Working http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=8487

Mr. Sparkle, I want to apologize for the tone of my posts yesterday. I was a bit cranky, but that's no excuse. I think it's appropriate that this thread is in the "Ohio Politics" forum, because this is really a policy issue. Over the years, the Ohio state government has made enormous highway expansions, especially in lightly-developed areas, its top transportation priority. To compound the problem, localities have adopted zoning codes to adapt to the automobile-dominant transportation policies, making transit an ineffective afterthought in the vast majority of the state. Rail can work anywhere, but zoning needs to be coordinated, though, to support the rail system. You can't have highway-oriented zoning along a rail corridor, because the two modes are almost diametrically-opposed animals. Where rail has failed is precisely because the adjacent zoning was never updated to take advantage of the rail line, and continued assuming automobile-dominated travel; a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will. Where cities have retained or changed zoning regulations to take advantage of a rail system, the transit system remains heavily used. Even suburban areas can adapt to fit a rail network. Arlington County, Virginia is the prime example of this. Arlington is a classic postwar suburb, which grew when the Defense Department relocated across the Potomac. A former two-mile strip of pawn shops and used car dealerships as few as 10 years ago is now a high-rent district of condos, office buildings, restaurants, bars, and shopping. This area changed its zoning to cluster development around the 5 subway stations in the corridor, and now 90% of all new development in the county is on 10% of the land. This ensures that those who DO want a more suburban lifestyle in the county can still have it, but it also provides other housing options for those who may not want the supposed American Dream. Arlington calculated that the county receives a 19% ANNUAL ROI by investing in the construction of the Metro system. If that's nostalgia, then we need a lot more of it. I would be hard-pressed to name any town that has ever achieved that kind of return on investment by building Wal Marts alongside a highway. I just don't understand why some people want to stick with the status quo, when it obviously does not work. Traffic keeps getting worse, despite virtually zero population growth, and the state has less and less money to deal with the problem. Why NOT try something new? If a concerted effort is made to do something properly instead of half-assed, it could be successful beyond anyone's imagination.

Sorry, MayDay. I'm just a bit agitated. I don't mean to insult anyone personally, because I certainly don't know anyone on this forum personally. We've been doing the same thing in this country for sixty years, intentionally destroying our cities, at exponentially higher costs with exponentially worse results. Then we try to patch things together just enough to pacify those of us who are working hard to save these valuable places. Meanwhile, those already receiving the most subsidy demand more and more, but get pissed when those who are routinely ignored ask to be put on an equal playing field. This is an issue very near and dear to me, and it frustrates me when people don't see how our simple, single-minded number-crunching approach has bankrupted our finances and our culture. When are we going to learn anything?

I just watched a documentary about Boston tearing down hundreds of buildings to run an elevated innerloop around the city. The fella who came up with the big dig project had watched this happen in the 50's and didn't want to expand the destruction when the 40 year old steel structure needed replacement. Not taking down any building was a big positive for his plan. Anyways, Boston did at one time. Boston built one freeway, the Central Artery. It also retained the Green Line trolleys, three heavy rail lines, and an extensive commuter rail system so that even when people moved to the "suburbs", the jobs didn't have to follow them, and empty the city like has happened in too many places in this nation.

Do you carry 2.2 people in your car to and from work everyday? I don't force my lifestyle on anyone. Where I live, I at least have the choice of driving, bicycling, or taking transit to work. I have the choice of living in an urban neighborhood or suburban subdivision. In most places in this nation, the only real option is living in the suburbs and driving everywhere. Now THAT's forcing someone into a lifestyle. We already subsidize driving at tremendous levels in this nation. Why should we give people tax incentives for behavior that could be changed simply by eliminating subsidies? As a non-driver, I frankly do not like the idea of my tax dollars going to support further reckless and unsustainable reassignment of population patterns. Most metropolitan areas already have park-and-ride lots for carpoolers. You would know that, though, since you lead by example.