clvlndr

^To me, it behooves Gilbert to come out and state his intention to keep the TC Cinemas. I love CIFF and am a regular, but even beyond CIFF, I'm still of the old-fashioned belief that a movie theater in a shopping malls, especially a downtown mall, is a huge positive. In it's current iteration, CIFF is as close to perfect as you can get for a film festival, in terms of its setup and, particularly, it's location at Cleveland's center for commerce, retail and (especially) public transportation. It's a win-win for everybody... The beauty of its indoor connected-ness allows CIFF to thrive in both bad weather and good, and its patronage in recent years have been off the charts. CIFF has been a huge asset for Cleveland but would likely falter considerably if it's moved; particularly if it's scattered among multiple non-theater locations, which could happen if the new TC gives them the boot. Therefore given CIFF's importance to the City, Gilbert should voice his position asap in protecting this 40-year-old Cleveland institution.

Tower City sale creates uncertainty for Cleveland International Film Festival By Joanna Connors, The Plain Dealer Email the author on March 23, 2016 at 8:45 AM, updated March 23, 2016 at 11:07 AM CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The sale of the Avenue at Tower City to companies associated with Dan Gilbert, announced Wednesday, brings with it the question of what happens to Tower City Cinemas and, more crucially, to the Cleveland International Film Festival. The CIFF, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, has made Tower City Cinemas its home every spring since 1991. The central location has been a boon for both the city of Cleveland and the CIFF, which has grown more than 600 percent since it moved to Tower City. http://www.cleveland.com/moviebuff/index.ssf/2016/03/tower_city_sale_brings_uncerta.html#incart_article_small

OK, points understood... I'm not sure Uptown happened, per se, because of the Red or Health Lines either, since development on that site had been studied and studied literally for decades. But it is true that MRN likes to develop properties walkable to the Red Line.

I have no idea what your point is. For one thing, you overlook Uptown (including MOCA), which includes a mixed-use project of 200 apartments (from smaller, dorm-types to $1,900/month units) over a seriously upgraded and expanded retail area -- all on top of what was 2 block-long surface parking lots north and south of Euclid Ave. Uptown is the definition of TOD; not surprising, as KJP notes, that it merited the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy's "Silver" standard. But then I ask: what is your definition of Transit Oriented Development? Little Italy is a tight, dense neighborhood -- perhaps Cleveland's densest per capita -- which began developing in the 1890s and was probably originally oriented to nearby streetcar routes. Now the neighborhood has the UC/LI Red Line station sitting at its front door retail district, with the southern part of the area near the Cedar-University station. Is LI not transit oriented? (and btw, what is transit-proximate? I've never heard this as a term of art). Fact is, while Cleveland is far from perfect in terms of it's transit system's developing TOD, it's not as bad as you paint it especially when considered viz-a-viz similar-sized older cities in the Northeast and Rust Belt. Compare Pittsburgh or Baltimore or St. Louis. And yes, I do look at areas like Shaker Square, Tower City and the entire City of Shaker Heights as highly successful TODs generated by the Rapid system -- they just happen to be old, as are the Blue and Green Lines. I'm not saying Cleveland couldn't be doing better -- and it should; not just an RTA initiative, but should be planned jointly between RTA and the City -- RTA can and should take a leading role, though. OK, I'd just as soon not get into a semantics pissing contest, but this was more than just a "vision." It was a concrete proposal with a (below) detailed artist's rendering. IIRC there were, at the time, both financing and retailer approval challenges, but it was given prominent play in the PD with considerable positive feedback. http://www.dimitarchitects.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=154&Itemid=60

^I wish there was TOD activity at those stations, and I'd throw in Cudell and W. 117th as well. I was hoping the W. 25/Rapid station/Market Square project would move forward, but it's apparently stalled. I am also hopeful of the large Duck Island development near the Red Line north of Lorain Av. I have heard anything about it lately either. Anybody know the status of these 2 developments?

^But what about someone living in Beachwood, Shaker, University or Warrensville Hts or in Shaker Square/Larchmere working at E&Y or North Point? And as I noted, why couldn't have Mayor Jane Campbell rode the train from Drexmore to her City Hall office (similar to how Rahm Emanuel rides the Chicago L into his job)? You always point to the worst case scenarios, not the good one. I'm focusing on the WFL because you brought it up as not being responsible at all for FEB, to which I disagree. You also said that University Circle is not developing because of transit and "certainly not the Red Line." That's just simply false. As I've noted elsewhere, Ari Maron, whose family's company developed E. 4th Street, Uptown and the United Bank building in Ohio City, stated in a Cleveland Jewish News article a few years ago, that their company specifically sought to develop property within walking distance of a Red Line station. The 3 Maron developments I mentioned all fit that criteria. So you're wrong.

^The Watefront Line wasn't just a novelty. When the Flats was exploding, esp on weekend nights in the late 1990s, the WFL (opened June 1996) was moving a lot of people especially from the East Bank station. As the Flats died out on the East Bank, going pretty much totally belly-up in the mid-2000s, WFL ridership almost completely disappeared, which isn't surprising. The old Flats was great, but as we saw, it didn't last as the area failed to evolve from cheap, fly-by-night businesses in (often) old rundown warehouses which is NOT true TOD... Also, unfortunately, neither RTA nor the City properly marketed the WFL as it should have; never pointed out, for example, the one-seat-to-office-door possibilities for employees at the North Point, Erieview or City Hall complexes who lived accessibly to the Blue & Green lines, or even the quick, indoor transfer possibilities from the Red Line. It was pitched as mainly a tourist attraction line mainly serving the R&RHOF (and how many times can you go there, really?). The Flats East Bank is slowly being reborn again; Phase II hasn't even been open a year and has yet to experience summer traffic, which I'm convinced will come, esp with more restaurants opening and excitement, esp the new River Taxi coming online. And once Phase III wipes out all that surface parking in the middle of FEB I'm sure a number of FEB patrons will opt for the Rapid. I just don't get people like you and Mark Naymik who are so negative toward rail that you're ready to pronounce rail (and TOD) a failure without even having TOD developed at all. It proves Albert Porterism still haunts this City.

That's not true. FEB was first announced near the end of the Campbell administration in 2005. At that time, the WFL was running full service. It wasn't reduced to part time service (weekends and special events; see link, below) until 2010, but was restored to 7-day/week service on May 30, 2013, around the time the E&Y/Aloft Hotel portion of FEB opened. http://www.riderta.com/news/may-30-waterfront-line-opens-seven-days-week

^ Most of the land use in the cities of Cleveland, Lakewood, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Hts were designed as TODs to maximize transit use. Shaker Square is used in urban planning textbooks nationwide as one of America's preeminent examples of TOD. And if you want something more recent, Uptown won the top Silver score from Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in competing against projects worldwide. https://www.itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/transit-oriented-development-are-you-on-the-map/best-practices/ What I'm getting from his comments is that the TOD of last century isn't really cutting it as employment patterns have changed, and RTA is still clinging to the old patterns. I would disagree with this assessment to a point as we are seeing University Circle-Cleveland Clinic (the second biggest employment concentration in this area) becoming a mini-hub of sorts for the 32/9 et al. However, RTA still overstates the importance of downtown in the overall picture, and I would suspect that is due to bureaucratic inertia and a lack of competition than any set policy. There's still quite a bit of redundancy on some of the routes between natural hub points and downtown. The Shaker Rapid leads the pack in this regard, both lines don't really need to go downtown and a direct rail connection between Shaker Square and UC/CC has more potential than anything else in town with the possible exception of the Lakeview Terrace site. University Circle isn't developing because of transit, certainly not the Red Line. The HealthLine is a nice complement but the growth in UC is not because of transit. I don't see or read any promos for transit with Uptown or UC in general. Same thing with Flats East Bank. Transit is there, for now, but wasn't even running full time when the project was announced and opened several years later. Now the WFL is on the ropes again. The WFL, like most of the Red Line, is routed poorly. Cleveland continues to sprawl so much that Akron has become a separate metro. The real problem is the thinning population with the sprawl and the declining population in particular. Jobs and new people are the answer to all these transit dreams. Does it matter so much as to whether Flats East Bank was built because of the WFL or that it is easily served by it? ... or that if the answer is the former, this necessarily makes the WFL a failure and not worth continuing? And can you even prove that FEB wasn't at all influenced by the existence of the WFL? Is it not irrelevant that if, at the time FEB was announced, the WFL wasn't even running full time as you note -- and if, btw, you're right, don't you think that the absence of a development like an FEB (for your purposes, I won't even call it TOD) helped contribute to the WFL's struggling, part-time operation/condition at the time? .. Btw I totally disagree with your premise that University Circle's current thriving situation is not at least, in part, influenced by its accessibility to high-quality, high-capacity mass transit.

Except that Mike Trivisonno lives Lyndhurst. That's got to bring down the housing values there.

Wow. You really don't let a lack information get in the way of sharing an opinion, do you? Most of the land use in the cities of Cleveland, Lakewood, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Hts were designed as TODs to maximize transit use. Shaker Square is used in urban planning textbooks nationwide as one of America's preeminent examples of TOD. And if you want something more recent, Uptown won the top Silver score from Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in competing against projects worldwide. https://www.itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/transit-oriented-development-are-you-on-the-map/best-practices/ What I'm getting from his comments is that the TOD of last century isn't really cutting it as employment patterns have changed, and RTA is still clinging to the old patterns. I would disagree with this assessment to a point as we are seeing University Circle-Cleveland Clinic (the second biggest employment concentration in this area) becoming a mini-hub of sorts for the 32/9 et al. However, RTA still overstates the importance of downtown in the overall picture, and I would suspect that is due to bureaucratic inertia and a lack of competition than any set policy. There's still quite a bit of redundancy on some of the routes between natural hub points and downtown. The Shaker Rapid leads the pack in this regard, both lines don't really need to go downtown and a direct rail connection between Shaker Square and UC/CC has more potential than anything else in town with the possible exception of the Lakeview Terrace site. Technically, RTA does run 2 Shaker Lines into Tower City downtown. But in actuality, it runs 2, 1/2 lines into downtown, with each running on 30 minute base intervals, and the combined service (on the Shaker Sq.-to-TC segment) every 15 minutes, or the equivalent to the base service on the Red and Waterfront Lines.

No, you're right, the bus-to-rail shift has undoubtedly has been a major factor, too. In the Euclid Ave corridor, alone, the number of bus lines (and bus runs) has declined sharply in that era -- I believe there's only the HL and the #8 bus on Carnegie, the latter of which (IIRC) may be reduced to only weekday, daytime-only service, if the cuts for this line go through. The busy 32s and 9 buses from Cleveland Heights and beyond to the eastern suburbs now terminate in Univ. Circle or at the Clinic and no longer go downtown, thus forcing commuters to either transfer to the Rapid or the HL to complete their downtown trips. And radial bus lines have disappeared totally from streets like Woodland Ave, on the East Side, and Bridge Ave, on the West Side ... among others. No doubt many of the riders left in the wake started walking to Rapid stops.

^Even if the overall rail numbers were the same from 1996 to 2014, there was likely a shift away from home-to-downtown commuting, if anything, because the number of jobs downtown have fallen since then. Also the growth in restaurants and entertainment venues had grown sharply in 3 rail-accessible districts since then: downtown, Ohio City and University Circle by 2014 (and even more in the 2 years since). None of these 3 districts had anywhere close to the venues they had in 2014, and certainly not what they are, today, even if you factor in the loss of the go-go era Flats venues, esp along the Old River Road East Bank corridor vs. today (where a comeback of sorts is occurring). This would likely mean that this non-commuting uptick not confined to just sports (where in 1996: the Browns had left/were at zero rail trips; the Indians were selling out every game and the Cavs were mediocre with attendance likely way below today in the championship chase/LeBron II era).

Denver's RTD will Double rail miles in 2016 http://www.9news.com/money/business/rtd-will-double-rail-miles-in-2016/84354843

^RTA is probably the only big city transit agency without APTA weekday figures. There's got to be ways to get accurate passenger estimates despite POP, which several transit systems use and, yet, still report weekday numbers. I don't get PHS14's negative prognostication for TOD at all. TOD is the way to go for RTA, and it must be working even in it's limited existence here to date. Overall rail numbers have been climbing after the collapse of the late 80s through early 2000s. I have only eyeball evidence, but even while downtown employment is still depressed, it appears that non-commuting rail patronage is up, such as "entertainment" and sports venue trips.

I really like the concept of a lakeshore extension of the WFL. It makes sense; the WFL terminates at the base of the lakeshore and extending it along the railroad or Shoreway corridor would seem comparatively easy. Unfortunately, without a comprehensive plan to develop the Lakeshore, the WFL is going to be stuck with the problems it's had in its present state, which is slowly changing, development-wise. Right now the Lakeshore close to a potential WFL extension is a combination of empty parkland, with crumbling, often abandoned industrial properties hugging NS' freight rail line. An lakeshore WFL extension just wouldn't draw enough passengers at present... At least the proposed Red Line extension does pass through some populated, and active industrial, areas. It would provide an extensive park 'n ride opportunity at it's terminal and it would feed the existing Red Line which does directly serve growing, congested University Circle, especially around UH and CWRU with their high numbers of employees and students.

I liked that pretty buff-brick building. It is one of the few viable mixed-use structures still standing/in use in East Cleveland. Why tear IT down??

^Something's got to give with the HL, someday. The last time I was on it (Tues evening was packed to the gills -- and I traveled after rush hour). One time on a trip out to CSU, they practically couldn't get another body on the thing. That's great for transit, but HL is seriously having issues moving all those people. Plus Heinen's is drawing even more passengers. I see folks with those blue Heinen's bags getting off the bus and on the Blue and Green Lines heading to Shaker. I predict that someday the HL will indeed be converted to a rail line, I just doubt I'll be around to see it.

^Oh you're bad... very, very bad!!

^That dollar store may have a lot of things (not the thing I was looking for that day, unfortunately), but it's just too junky looking; it immediately turned me off. I think TC could and should do better... As for the WFL, I'm surprised that nobody has moved on that Dock 20 land. The WFL was elevated and bowed out (with a platform area) with an eventual station in mind for that location... There was once a proposal to build a dense townhouse development there a decade or so ago, but just disappeared. Davenport Bluffs would have been a great development, but in true Cleveland fashion it not only failed but this valuable land became the home of Channel 3 and that ugly FBI facility -- 2 of the most people unfriendly uses you could find for what should have been prime hillside-waterfront residential development. C'est la vie... As for the WFL loop itself, I've long believed it would be much more useful if, at Prospect Av., the line turned northwest for a half block, then west along Huron, dropping into a subway utilizing the still existing connection to the Red, Blue, and Green Lines at TC. I just think running surface routes south/crosstown over to empty/out-of-the way St. Vincent's Quad with Tri-C and the Post office get's you nothing. The most popular transit route in Cleveland is, and likely will always be, out the Euclid corridor from Public Sq. to E. 9th to PHS and CSU; the Prospect-Huron routing I'm suggesting accomplishes ... The jam-packed HL buses along this route is strong supporting evidence. Btw, I'd go the extra mile and extend the Huron subway west under the crowded 5-points intersection then rising along Prospect ... at Euclid, there could be junction/turnout eastbound along the HL BRT ROW, and utilizing several existing HL stations all the way out to Stokes/Windermere.

I get your point, it would be much more convenient to riders if the WFL was north of the Shoreway -- that damn roadway is such a barrier to so many things. However, when there are major events north of the Shoreway, ie the Air Show, the Tall Ships festival and special concerts/events at Rock Hall, there have been crowds of people who use the WFL ... But it's like everything else in Cleveland planning, we never will know unless we build it. People have deemed the WFL a failure because we have stubbornly refused to build TOD to accommodate it -- Hunter Morrison, one of the esteemed city planners nationally, noted this about the WFL. I'm hoping the built-out FEB will generate some semblance of steady traffic, as did the old Flats party clubs on weekends.

^If the WFL as it is, is so useless as you note, why did Joe Calabrese, of all people, recently email the Fairmount people (developers of Flats East Bank) about potentially a public/private agreement to finance the WFL? Obviously the rail line means something to them... Also you have a skewed vision of what the WFL is supposed to be. It wasn't designed as much to move people, once downtown, around downtown, but to get them in an out of the entertainment and touristy areas. Much of these touristy areas were never fully developed (like North Coast Harbor where, for 2 decades, the Rock Hall and the Science Center have sat there by their lonesomes ... until now, with the new development taking off there). The problem with the WFL ridership now is a combination of its early-ending and unpredictable hours (which will get even worse if the cuts go through), and the availability of cheap downtown parking -- a problem which hurts transit in general here. But once FEB begins to catch on more, esp during the summer, and once Phase III begins building on that sea of cheap surface parking in the middle of FEB, more people will be forced to seek alternatives to driving and, hopefully, the WFL will be one of them.

^... of special note from the Scene article: He (Calabrese) did mention, off the cuff, that he'd sent an email to developers Adam Fishman and Dick Pace about the peril of the Waterfront Line — perhaps another Public-Private partnership or sponsored route's in the offing. Good move by Joe C. Let's see what comes of it.

RTA Contemplates Service Cuts to Waterfront Line, Green Line and More Posted By Sam Allard on Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 11:45 am At a Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority board meeting Tuesday morning, CEO Joe Calabrese once again reminded the committee of the whole of the agency’s stark financial realities. In December, 2015, the board voted on a 2016 budget that included a fare hike and service cuts. But the implementation of both has been stalled while the RTA gathers public input and plumbs its woebegone existential condition. In February, Calabrese called the decision to briefly postpone the fare hike a “very, very heartfelt decision.” Tuesday, he said that this month of deliberation and soul-searching has been a month the agency could afford. But looking ahead, he admitted that there was “no easy answer.” He presented a graph illustrating the decline in state public transit funding: Since 2000, state support for all transit agencies in Ohio has dipped from $43 million per year to about $7 million per year. http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2016/03/01/rta-contemplates-serious-service-cuts-waterfront-line-green-line-on-the-chopping-block

Jane Campbell was probably the worst example. She grew up in Shaker, where it was planned that every resident resides within a half mile (usually much less) of a Rapid station. As mayor, Jane (and Hunter Morrison) moved to just inside Cleveland at the Shaker-Cleveland border. It would have been a snap for her to have walked 1 block to the Drexmore station and ride the straight shot through the Waterfront Line to the E. 9th station which sits behind Jane's City Hall office. Not only would it have been convenient for Jane, but it could have been a huge lead-by-example moment for local transit, in general, and the (still struggling) Waterfront Line, in particular. ... but noooo. A friend, then living in the Shaker Towers, used to comment regularly of Jane sightings in the back seat of her chauffeur-driven City car zipping through Shaker Square. Such is the cavalier way public officials treat mass transit here in Cleveland. Valarie McCall received deserved recognition for her prestigious appointment as Vice Chair to APTA's executive committee... But as for her actually using RTA transit? ... well, ya know...