clvlndr

Wouldn't City Council have to approve TIF's even in a limited application?

And, yes, passenger trains could physically return to CUT, but at a price. It would require rerouting the Red Line north on or under West 25th to Detroit Avenue, then on the subway deck of the Detroit-Superior high-level bridge, and then enter CUT with a short crossover. Also, the Waterfront Line's inbound ramp to Tower City would have to be kept at a lower level for a little longer distance (250 feet?) so passenger train tracks could travel above it. It's ashame planners lacked the vision to possibly restore commuter/Amtrak trains back to their natural terminal at Tower City by RTA's (on the Cuyahoga viaduct) and the Stokes Fed Court building's blocking such (what!? Cleveland lack courage and vision toward public transit??? no!!)... Unfortunately, the above scenario which would screw around with the Rapid is unacceptable. Such re-routing the Red Line would result in surface running along W. 25 for the airport line, and that would simply be stupid ... Better to focus on developing the North Coast station near where Dan Burnham originally projected it... ... btw gildone, do you have any insight on the Lakefront freight bypass you alluded to which could free up tracks for commuter even Rapid rail?

I'll keep my fingers X'd...

CTownsFinest2

^Have you ever, like, walked around Ohio City, Tremont and Detroit Shoreway, to name a few? These are some of the most black/white/brown/yellow, etc, etc, nabes in the city. Maybe your premise would fly for most WS burbs, but it's foolish to generalize that way about the city.

-- is it too much to ask for a friggin' 24-hour drug store (like the old Leader Drug Store on E. 9th & St Clair)? I can't believe, w/ all the E. 4th Street activity, esp the boom created by Corner Alley, Lola's and HOB, that CVS at 9th & Euclid still closes at 6p every night. I mean, is this Podunk or what? And yes, Wolstein is planning a bookstore. But why does that have to be the only one downtown? And even when Wolstein's opens -- several years into the future -- it'll still be off the beaten path of the core of downtown which, still, centers around Public Square, Gateway and WHD. I for one think at least a small grocery store -- even a 7-11/Convenient Food Mart-type deli would be excellent for one of those empty slots in 515 Euclid. That said, I do kinda like Jake's on Public Sq. Though small, it has a New York feel about it and does stay open pretty late. ^^ And yes, Mov2Oiho, I'm getting a bit antsy about the Stark talk and no plans/action, yet, and we're into 2007... Neither City Council nor the Planning Commision still has yet to be approached by Stark's people re his specifics -- am I wrong? And yet, as of last Oct, the man was still talking as if he's planning to open portions of his development by 2008. How?... It's all well and good to talk big about plans to stretch development to the Lake, but right now, I'd high-5 the man if he could get going with something, anything, within the horrible hole btw Public Sq and the WHD... You can't build Rome in a day, and as developers go, Stark is still a little guy, relatively speaking. And right now, he's deeply involved with presenting a massive (admirable) TOD proposal for the end of the Blue Line in Shaker Hts.

^All excellent points, esp MyTwoSense's. When I saw "limo" and "Crocker Park" tour/lure setup, immediately I, once again, saw that as a City WE JUST DON'T GET IT. As I've long said, our biggest barrier to becoming a true urban city here in Cleveland is our own distorted/limited mindset. We need a massive paradigm shift here. It's like a realtor at a party told us a year ago: "... we [here in Cleveland] just don't get the urban thing -- when people here see more than one or 2 black or Hispanic men walking together, they think it's a gang and are ready to run back to their lilly-white, homogeneous suburbs." BTW, the speaker was a young white, not black/Hispanic man... Is it not surprising, therefore, that the young Hudson NYC expatriate woman/professional was influenced/turned on by E.4th, the Corner Alley, Stonebridge and Bridgeview in the WHD? ... Someday, SOMEDAY, maybe before the close the pine box on me, Cleveland will finally learn what being a city is again (like our grandparents knew), and stop this air-head, bullshit mentality that utopia isn't cookie cuter, homogeneous cul-de-sacs in freeway/big box suburbia.

Agree totally. The death date of the Erie/CR commuter overlapped the creation of RTA by 2 years -- and what a golden opportunity for the new agency to acquire and run this service around the era of the dreaded Energy Crisis and mega gas lines. But, I know, a) RTA was/is a county system and, b) totally focused, initially, on lowering fares to lure back customers, and not expansion, esp rail extension. But as we came to realize, RTA then, as it has been throughout most of its existence, incompetently run (remember the infamous Shaker Rapid crash + the Runaway Rapid along w/ UMTA's assessment that the Rapid was the most incompetently and dangoursly run rail system in the nation?) with very little vision toward the future. I remember as a kid riding those old yellow Shaker cars into Terminal Tower during the evening rush to meet my dad and, from time to time, noticing the those old dogeared commuter trains chugging along toward Youngstown ... Damn shame such an opportunity was wasted. And w/ JoeC running things, don't look for commuter rail to come back soon -- never mind commuter rail is sprouting in other smaller metro areas than ours -- unless we can keep the momentum for the Lorain line going and JoeC is overwhelmed by the grass roots support for it...

I love this one: ... Obviously, the signature building for the city. It's called "Oakland Towne Center" but what is it's function? History? Do you know?

Detroit People Mover grows up (Proposed Expansion) December 23, 2006 Andy Henion / The Detroit News Boasting two years of full service and steady ridership, leaders of Detroit's oft-derided People Mover will explore an ambitious plan to expand the downtown loop. A proposal by former People Mover manager Marsden Burger would extend the driverless tram three miles north to West Grand Boulevard, tying in to the Amtrak station and the campuses of Wayne State University, Detroit Medical Center and Henry Ford Hospital -- its final stop. http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...ETRO/612230387

This is a great adaptive reuse. Our downtown is certainly impressive architecturally.

The mega-condo/apt/retail Davenport Bluffs to be built at/over WFL's muny lot terminal sure would have generated a lot of transit patronage. Instead, we've got the ugly fortresses for Channel 3 and the FBI. Yet another blown Cleveland opportunity.

^^Yes, StrapHanger, Portland's MAX, w/ downtown surface rail, has been wildly successful -- one of the heaviest LRT ridership nationwide, accd'ing to Wikipedia-- and continues to expand, route-wise. That said, I still don't like downtown surface running for rapid transit systems. This seems to be an American el-cheapo convention/consession shared by a few of Canada's smaller metro areas -- actually, off the top of my head, only Calgary (metro pop just over 1M vs. nearly 2.2-2.5M for Greater Cleveland -- even little Edmonton has a subway and, if memory serves, Calgary is studying burying its highly successful LRT downtown). Having high speed transit cars slow down and trundle among st autos and pedestrians as they enter downtown areas just isn't efficient people moving and partly why some interurbans failed in yesteryear... As noted above, RTA's WFL should have presented Cleveland with an opportunity not only to develop the Flats but to extend along the lakeshore. After all, despite some minor flaws in intersecting w/ Red Line traffic entering Tower City, it does present a direct entry into our central transit hub. Consider, Straphanger, that Cleveland hasn't made one extension to an outer portion of its rail network since the 4-mile Airport extension ... 39 years ago!!!! That's metropolitan lethargy if I've ever seen it.

I agree with most of this, esp the part about extending along the East Lakeshore where development growth + ridership could really expand.

Cleveland and Philly are pretty much on par musically and culturally (as well as medically). I'm not an expert in the field, but my guess (having lived both places) is that CIM is pretty much on par with Philly's Curtis school of Music as well as Balto's Peabody Conservatory, which for several years has been purchased/is the music school for Johns Hopkins Univ. The Cleveland and Philly orchestras are also both top-5, although I think we nudge Philly out as we're neck 'n neck w/ NYC as numero uno in the eyes of most critics, including smug New Yawkas.

really cool stuff, mrnyc.

^ you're right, MTS, Pitt's airport has been hurting since USAirways' financial struggles.

Yep, I know he got his start as a hippie-leftie under Stokes and I'm almost certain he served under Dennis. I know Hunter was George & Mike's guy, but Norm could have been going to Mike's City Hall for some consulting or something -- I know he claimed 'trying to use' the WFL to get there... It's ironic; I probably agree w/ 95% of Norm's views, politically. But in the issue of rail, I'm dead set against him... Hey, Paul Weyrich is a right-wing creepazoid, often credited as the father of neo-conservatism. But he's as staunch a transit advocate as you'll ever see... That's got to make him, perhaps, the weirdest man in America.

It just seems we here are always so 'logical' about why rail won't work; and we almost always don't build. Meanwhile, in smaller cities: Denver, Pittsburgh and St. Louis, their building and expanding rail while we twiddle our thumbs. Why should only a surface light rail along our most dense corridor -- Euclid -- only been OK? Pittsburgh, having already bested us with a subway, is tunneling under its river poised to extend rail 20 miles to its thriving airport.... St. Louis (400,000>St. Louis) has a downtown subway as well and, now, a much bigger network than Cleveland after having opened rail only 14 years ago. We're such a 'can't' city while others are 'can' places that constantly move past us...

awesome post, mrnyc. The Slope is truly the 'civilized' side of NYC. It's as if the brownstone was invented there.

I hear you, jamie. I don't like abatements either, at least as a permanent sort of thing developers seem to forever hold Cleveland hostage with. But I sadly understand in a struggling city trying to beef up its core, as Cleveland is, they appear to be a necessary evil. Consider, even much stronger downtowns, like Philly, offer them, too.

The ends of most of the Washington Metro lines serve some pretty low-density areas. These stations tend to have enormous parking lots/garages (some garages exceed 5000 cars). This is changing, though, albeit slowly thanks to all the suburban NIMBYs. Cleveland's Rapid outer parking lots (the old CTS and Shaker lines) were studied and incorporated into the DC Metro. But DC, unlike Greater Cleveland, fully embraced the Metro and not only reconfigured many of its lots to garages, they built extensive TOD at outer Metro stops -- to the point, I'd have to say DC is THE TOD city in America. A city we could (and should) all learn from.

I totally disagree, StapHanger, there's no way the Loop (or a pair of feet) beats the WFL to North Point/Erieview/City Hall if you're riding in on a Shaker train straight thru to the WFL. You've got to factor in the transfer time of getting of the rapid, riding an escalator to the Sq and waiting on the Loop. In the time it takes you just to get to the surface/Square, the WFL train is halfway to E. 9th. I also strongly disagree the WFL was a waste of money. It is a failure, now, because Cleveland, unlike other cities that would kill for such a line, failed to follow through and develop all that empty land adjacent to station/stops into TOD. Finally, a mere 10 years later, Wolstein is trying to correct that with his substantial E. Bank development adjacent to the WFL. Once completed (if he can ever defeat those do-nothing leeches in court), there will be a substantial upsurge in WFL patronage and, no, even Norm Krumholz won't even be able to out-bitch that... StrapHanger you, like other WFL critics make the cardinal mistake of attacking the WFL and not the city for following thru. Study your history, the WFL was not 'rushed through' but, rather, the end result of over a decade of discussion and planning geared toward improving public trans to the Flats -- the idea was 1st broached publicly (if I recall) by Jeff Jacobs around the time he opened his Nautica development on the West Bank... Your mentality (as is Krumholz's) is very Cleveland -- that is, let's save money and do nothing. That's why it's so hard to move beyond the status quo here; and why people who hate the city and true urban living/lifestyle keep winning.

... and the BCats beat the Pistons in the Palace, no less. Go figure. The Bulls also went down to the Wiz last night, so a win over Phoenix would be HUUUGE, tonight-- we could put some distance btw our foes. But I won't be pissed if we lose. With Amare Stoudamire back and playing as he did pre-2005 injury, along w/ Nash, Barbosa, Marion, Bell, Diaw and the boys, the Suns are an NBA elite on the short list to win the whole damn thing. We can beat them but I just want us to show our recent poise and ball distribution. I also want to see Drew continue to develop consistency. I'd really like to see Brown play Gibson more at point although, despite his O shortcomings, I still like the hustle and D E.Snow gives us. I'd really like to see Brown get Sasha in there more -- this kid is SO gifted, but I think he's losing his confidence riding the pines under Brown... And people love to ride Z, but Z has really been coming up consistent lately, esp now we've decided to pass him the ball sometimes... ... all in all, I can't wait for tonight!

^ oh, the BH deli's still open. Super. I know the Uptown Grille across Euclid in the nicely rehabbed Univ East Plaza (?) began sucking BH patrons away, although the Grille -- which is nice -- doesn't have the character BH did in its heyday. There was nothing like going to hear Chink Stevenson and his jazz band jam in a crowded BH on a Saturday night with, I believe, Lamar Gaines and his band on Fridays.