clvlndr

I sure hope those of you are alleging all this complicity of the PD with FCE (and frankly, that FCE greased palms of anybody who favors the TC site) push the Mall Site planners to include such things as hotels (or at least one 600+ room true convention hotel we currently lack and so desperately need), the interconnected Amtrak/regional train station plus a plaza bridge connecting the lakefront. But planners are promising none of this while Mall-ers seem content with the current wysiwyg proposal which provides minimal improvement to what's already there. Even staunch mall advocate Steve Litt, who despite PD/TC conflict accusations to the contrary, has been a major, influential editorial voice who the PD could have easily silenced or, at least, pushed way to the side if it wanted to. Please note that even Litt uses the key would "could" when describing the possibilities of such development which I see is crucial to even begin to make the Mall site successful. And as anyone who knows this city well, knows that in Cleveland such terms as: "could" "Phase II" "future development" "down the road" usually mean the same thing: never. I'd also like to know just how these independent convention experts who strongly reject the mall site are, too, somehow on the Ratner/Miller $$ take.

What are you gonna do when, even on the local level, the major newspaper of city with Ohio's only rail transit system (the Plain Dealer in Cleveland), advocates on it's infrastructure "wish list" all roadway projects, including the much desired (and stupid) Opportunity Corridor freeway?

Not sure, but on MSNBC, they're reporting the Senate compromise bill has, now, up to 42% tax cuts; cuts which academics and even some honest conservatives will admit, historically, do little to stimulate the economy. No doubt, the additional cuts will be at the expense of transit. As much as I support (and voted for) Obama and Dems, if this bastardized bill goes thru, it'll prove that, despite the strong Dem majority on the Hill, the Repubs will still be LARGE AND IN CHARGE... but that sure won't stop me from giving the staffs of George, and Sherrod, an earfull.

It'd be nice if there was some kind of transit (Rapid, commuter rail, new North Coast train station) infrastructure goal, rather than all roadway goals (save the very necessary Inner Belt bridge replacement), esp the stupid-azz, so-called Opportunity Corridor. But, oh yeah, we're talking about the PD, silly me.

Cuyahoga County commissioners to hold hearing on medical mart Posted by Jim Nichols/Plain Dealer Reporter February 04, 2009 21:55PM Next Thursday, taxpayers finally will get the answers they've been waiting for about why Cuyahoga County commissioners want to build a convention center and medical mart on the downtown Cleveland mall. The Cleveland City Council will hold a hearing Thursday in which Medical Mart Properties Inc., the county's partner in the project, will explain why it prefers the mall site over any other. The decision has raised a lot of questions, some of which have answers and some of which don't. Here's a breakdown on where we stand:... http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/02/cuyahoga_county_commissioners_3.html

Agreed.

Yep, I was thinking the same thing -- good old Lawson's... I've seen a few retrofitted Lawson's signs in front of the new owner-operated food stores they mark -- some of these stores still have the old Lawson's buff-brick and turquoise trim as well.

I think this has historically been the case and a main reason why the only major extensions of the entire Rapid, since the Red Line was built, have been on the West Side... it's true, running 3-car trains thru to Stokes-Windermere doesn't make much sense; ridership is much lower on the East Side Branch... Of course, the TOD work at/around Univ. Circle as well as the gigantic Juvenile Justice Center going up at E.105, could change the balance of power rider-wise. Maybe it would make sense to turn 3-car rush hour trains back west at the U. Circle or the future Mayfield/Little Italy station. RTA, and Shaker Heights before them, used to turn back (to Tower City) rush hour trains at Shaker Square.

Really? Like what? retail? connected hotels? Direct airport rail?... Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the 'hallelujah!' moment so many people are having for, essentially, rebuilding what we already have: the existing site with little more convention space, a somewhat modest MMPI HQ building (I plus, I'll admit), no new promised hotels (and we're still very hotel-poor compared to our competitors, and we've always been told we need a major conv center upgrade to get the really big hotel we need; we simply cannot blow this), retail blocks away and I site hemmed in by the Justice Center, rail tracks/the Shoreway -- oh yeah, and as of now, no tangible plan for an interconnected rail station, despite the progress toward, at least, the 3-C Amtrak corridor. I just don't see the 'great breakthrough' with the Mall site. And frankly, given KJP's adjacent concept post, the Wolstein/lakefront plan may offer more -- at least Wolstein's planning hotel, office and retail infrastructure tied in. Nevertheless, there must be transparency with this choice. I'm not buying the fact that, after Hagan & Co. and MMPI have taken this long, there's suddenly an urgency to hurry this thing through to the point of hiding key selection data from the public -- trumping up the fear of falling behind NYC's Med Mart plans is an elaborate ruse... If the Mall is truly significantly cheaper and the City can really come for with something truly imaginative for the Mall rather than simply rebuilding what we have -- with a very small net game in sq. footage exhibition space -- then maybe I can get a little excited about MMPI at the Mall.

I want to get the damn project done," Hagan said. "I want it to be in the ground and I want it to be done in the next 36 months because I think we have this window of opportunity." As the saying goes, haste makes waste... I can live with the Mall site (at least it's downtown and not at U.Circle which would have been disastrous) so long as it was not motivated solely by cost, speed and/or some anti-Miller/Ratner backlash as opposed to what's best for downtown/the City. I too was tired of the foot-dragging on of the site selection. But it does seem awfully strange Hagan suddenly got on the fast track a mere day after MMPI wanted to at least study the Wolstein proposal... Fred Nance is correct about one thing: paranoia and backbiting always seem attendant to major Cleveland projects and that's sad.

That may be true, but if a large (600+ room), new convention hotel isn't connected with the Mall site rebuild, this will be a bust. Simply rebuilding the old center alone, isn't good enough.

Shaker has received a (federal, I think) grant of around $4M to move forward with prelim work on redesigning the Northfield/Warrensville/Chagrin/Van Aken intersection and extending the Rapid about 1/3 mile to the UH buildings-- of course the reconfig would move the area towards a high-density TOD walking district.. First, I was surprised completion of this important project was not on the recently released transportation "wish list" for Greater Cleveland. Why was that? Second, given that it appears this stubby Blue Line extension seems in the cards, how much are behind-the-scenes powers really looking at the relatively cheap, extremely worthwhile extension of the Rapid to Harvard Park shopping center in Chagrin Highlands? I know UOers have speculated about it, but is it really on the radar of our local leaders (and RTA) and can it be? ... There's already lots of projects built and going up in this corridor, plus the Blue Line could have a stop at the front door of the popular Tri-C East campus. Is RTA and/or the County really being pushed given Obama's greater focus on local infrastructure programs (although his current transit $$ is being usurped by seemingly foolish tax cuts ... but that's for the political board...)? It certainly seems this Blue Line extension could stimulate greater TOD development at the Highlands, as well as at such corners as Northfield/Harvard and Harvard/Green.

Jerry, were you ever able to find out when RTA plans to modify/finish the Red Line station at E. 105/Quincy to accommodate more than the current one car; esp given the impending completion of the gigantic Juvenile Justice Center a few blocks away? As to 3-car trains-- they would be great on the Red Line. But I've only been on one on the Blue/Green Line, and that was when a 2-car train was disabled at Shaker Sq. and had to be pushed by a single car that came and had to be coupled at SS... 3-car trains on those lines would be a headache at Shaker Square b/c the archaic button-push switch at the Shaker-Van Aken junction would cause a car to block northbound North Moreland while the driver stops, opens his/her window, sticks his/her head out (often in the cold) and pushes the button and waits for the traffic light... I'd gladly settle for the 2-car trains we used to have during rush hours, thank you very much.

Agreed... the fact that so many powerful people are pushing this road and, yet, don't really know what form this "boulevard" will take -- it's becoming more and more patently clear, it is envisioned as a freeway or freeway-type road -- is all the more disturbing.

Amen!

^Now you're mixing apples 'n oranges, MTS. I was only reacting to your statement that our Big 3 department stores would still be around if we had the downtown population of today. I doubt that; maybe 1 but certainly not all 3. You're talking about Philly's other specialty stores which Cleveland has in Tower City and can have more along Euclid. Again, I just think the day of the big downtown palace department store is over. Even Philly's surviving 1 -- Macy's, has been downsized to a main floor and a mezzanine; down from 10 floors at one time, the upper 9 of which have been converted to offices. We're talking about 2 different things.

Not so sure about that, MTS. Despite the growth of urban living, the shopping mall, and now lifestyle center, is still sapping all big cities. Philadelphia, with a very robust Center City resditential base (100K and growing), is down to only 1 major department store: Wanamaker/Lord & Taylor/Macys (there is a K-Mart and a Burlington Coat, but...)... 2 years ago Chicago, with probably the #2 downtown in America, lost famed old downtown palace, Carson Pirie Scott, to the burbs; and from what I hear, sales have really been off at the Loop's grand old Macy's since they came in and dumped the famous homegrown Marshall-Field name. So both Philly and Chicago despite having huge downtown residential pops, are having issues holding grand, high-end dept stores, too.

I hear KJP's point. Even here in Philly, at a much busier airport than Hopkins, the percentage of riders to airport isn't huge. But I think noozer hits on something larger: while airports are sexy destinations, the wide areas often served in addition to the airport itself is what makes these extensions viable. I thought Cleveland's airport extension was really successful, at least initially, because the Brookpark and Puritas stations drew from a wide area of SW burbs, particularly with the stations being adjacent to I-71 and I-480, which operate as long-distant Rapid feeders ... As to Pittsburgh, I agree with the Allegheny Institute guy: paying the huge expense to tunnel under the river makes no sense for such a stubby extension without a plan to extend to Pittsburgh International. At least with the Waterfront Line, which absolutely should be extended along the shoreline east to Collinwood and Euclid, it’s 50 –odd million$ cost is chump change compared to $435M the Steel City is spending to tunnel its lines for an even shorter distance than the WL (1.2 miles compared to W.L.’s 2.2). ... As to conservatives and transit, Paul Weyrich one of the fathers of the current conservative movement, is (unusually) an avid transit buff who strongly, and correctly, believes conservatives should get off the: "transit only benefit the poor/minorities" B.S. to realize good transit benefits our free market system by encouraging more efficient cities with, among other things, more relaxed, on-time managers and workers.

Uh, I don't get it. The blacked out windows... Ah never mind, bad joke to begin with; move on.

Wait a minute, is Sigma to be the hip-hop tram?

IIRC, upthread Jerry and/or JetDog discussed the issue of maps. Obviously, the advent of the Health Line is going to cause a major re-mapping of the current system... But I still wish the Red Line train maps could be tightened up.

As I mentioned, some are nice, some are not. But as I noted, the bigger problem is map placement on trains and often the unbalanced style of some of the maps.

^Nice newsletter. I will be fowarding it (and future issues) to selected elected officials although I don't doubt you guys will have beaten me to the punch.

Amen, cle. I was in a Red Line car a few months ago where I was shocked to see up front on the wall next to the motorman's cab, there was one little map (in one style) of the entire system then, on top, a big blown up map of... the Shaker Rapid (Blue & Green lines)... Huh!? But this isn't rare. Red Line cars have different style maps posted haphazardly all over trains and it looks ridiculous; like a transit system that doesn't care: just stick any old map anywhere. I was even, w/in the last year, on a Red Line train that had, posted over the door, a map so old it didn't even have the Waterfront Line on it even though the WL opened over 12 years ago!!!! RTA really needs to hire a serious graphics designer and standardize quality rail maps which now, of course, should include the Health Line; and RTA needs to stick with this designer. RTA needs to realize that, although our rail system isn't huge, it is detailed enough that novice riders could get confused. Moreover, there's something to be said for simply having a map look good (much like those nice back-lit ones at the beginning of platforms in Tower City. Not that mangled, twisted-around, unbalanced 'Rapid map' currently in many Red Line cars and featured on the RTA website. Problem is, RTA seems to issue a different style of map every few years, even though the rail system hasn’t changed; and hence we get the current mess… RTA needs to study the Boston “T”, the DC Metro or even the Toronto Subway to realize how quality graphics for its rail line enhances the image of the system as opposed to the confused/haphazard joke we have now.

Posted on Mon, Nov. 17, 2008 Winging It: Amtrak will be key part of Obama's plans By Tom Belden Last week's column focused on how policies of the Obama administration are likely to affect airlines and the travel business. I didn't have room to say all I wanted to about what may be the most striking change in store in the transport arena: how Amtrak and other passenger-rail service will be treated by the White House. Barack Obama's campaign outlined an ambitious effort to support not just the service Amtrak already provides but development of new high-speed intercity rail corridors and public transportation in urban areas. Full column at: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/homepage/20081117_Winging_It__Amtrak_will_be_key_part_of_Obama_s_plans.html