ClevelandOhio

^ Id say the same thing about the medical mart, convention center, and convention center hotel but we paid for all of those. If we are going to do it we should at least do it right. Id rather have all that money be spent on something else but it wasn't. Parking needs to be figured out before building a hotel with public funds.

I agree. While I most likely wont be taking rail to/from Cleveland regularly, if I were on the East Coast I would always take rail. The travel between New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC is actually worth taking. If I were to take the train from Cleveland it would be more of a one time experience thing, not as a regular form of transportation. Too slow, too expensive, and terrible departure/arrival times!

I can imagine great things, but that doesn't make it realistic or likely to happen. There is a reason why we have seen such a lack of of development around our rail. And those plans look great, but like you said it requires massive land acquisition. Additionally the development would a higher density new build development in an isolated area with massive abandonment, poverty, and crime issues. It's not likely to happen and that's why it hasn't happened yet. Do you really think it is likely that someone is going to build a large mixed use building in the forgotten triangle? We can't even get that in our stronger neighborhoods. Even with the OC the best we can hope for is industrial uses. I'm all for TOD, but I realize the major faults of our system. I'm not going to blame developers when we have the system we do.

A few years back, I stopped calling it "car culture" and started calling it "automobile addiction." There's a difference between owning a car, loving a car, and being addicted to a car. There are people who honestly believe that they would not be able to live without a car, and they are willing to sacrifice so much to retain ownership of their personal vehicle. They are willing to harm themselves physically and financially to keep this ideal. These are classic signs of addiction, but its not popularly recognized because the sheer volume of people who are addicted. I'm not sure this is directly related to the streetcar in any way, but my point is that we need leaders who are willing to move beyond populism and help us see the alternatives to life in a car. It's not an addiction. It's just a cultural paradigm...the way people see the world. Cars are part of people's world. When you put people in a new environment where cars are not so mandatory and often a liability, people quickly adapt. I got rid of my car in 5 months in Chicago. In the UK we had a car for 3 days and couldn't wait to get rid of it. I truly believe people just make rational decisions based on their environment. It's the environment that is the problem, not the people or the cars. The real addiction is the retailer who wants 400 spaces out front, or the DOT that's just an asphalt lobby. Exactly, except that the retailer also wants 400 spaces due to the environment. Thats why you'll see an urban Home Depot in Manhattan with no parking spaces and then another one elsewhere with 400 spaces.

The hardest part of creating TOD in Cleveland is the position of our routes and location of our stations. That has to be the number one reason we have seen so little. TOD occurs most successfully near stations that are already integrated into a neighborhood and into an existing commercial main street. For the Red Line, other than Ohio City, West 117th(not much of an urban street), and future Little Italy station, there arent any good locations for TOD. Brookpark, Puritas, West Park, and Triskett, some of the highest ridership stations(endless parking!) are isolated, not near any worthy commercial street, and any development there would 1) kill short-term RTA ridership which they would avoid, and 2) be a crocker park like development(with rail) but even worse as it is even more disconnected from the neighborhood. The east side stations are either too isolated or too close to industrial wastelands. The rest are located in high poverty areas with crime issues and no existing business districts to build off of. The Green/Blue lines stations are better located but are already mostly built out. The green line is mostly low density residential and that will not change. Same goes for the Blue line, except it has a higher density but there is not much room to develop. The only area to develop is at the end of the line where TOD is already in the planning stages. We complain about developers not developing TOD in this city, but as a city/county, we aren't providing them with transit routes worthy of TOD!

Just look at the parking costs for the warehouse district. Those lots cost more than lots and even garages on the eastern edge of downtown. I still think a redo of public square should place a parking garage under the whole square. This would lower demand for those warehouse district lots greatly.

This is crazy. If Cincinnati doesn't get this streetcar that is a major blow that Im not sure the city will ever be able to overcome. This would be a huge benefit to OTR. Without it I personally believe the neighborhood will progress slower and the neighborhood also losses several possible residents.

Does anyone know at what point the busses get replaced? I tried looking and thought I saw the bus was at over 1 million miles. Additionally I looked at the drivers inspection of the vehicle and the handicap ramps are broken and the horn doesn't work.

Just can't seem to break away for the automotive continuum, can we? Parking garages are TOD if you ask the healthline!

Where would this building go? The RTA loop?

I can imagine Coventry or Cedar Fairmount if its not Uptown. Those would be the only two locations that would make sense other than Little Italy maybe. He lives in Cleveland Heights and loves it over there.

You'd have to remove the part about the Brookpark station!

Holy crap! Wow, demolitions suck!

^ does cvs downstairs have any of that?

Yeah not a big deal, even though Ohio State is overrated.

I decided to finally take a look at the census blocks to get a better idea of this project. From Kinsman to Quincy: (This is assuming EVERYTHING between the railroad tracks gets demolished) Total Population - 296 Total Housing Units - 178 Occupied Housing Units - 134 Vacant Housing Units - 44 Owner Occupied Units - 50 Renter Occupied Units - 74 Population Density Between Railroad Tracks - 568 people per square mile West of Kinsman: (14 houses not counted due to data gathering issues. Not sure the status of these properties) *These could nearly all be avoided if they removed the loop at the start of the route Total Population - 52 Total Housing Units - 34 Occupied Housing Units - 23 Vacant Housing Units - 11 Owner Occupied Units - 19 Renter Occupied Units - 14

Very true. Although a lot of people buy clothes online now (I have to sometimes to get the right fit) I believe most people shop in person for three reasons. The experience, the social aspect (girls like to shop with friends), and to try things on. I think the number one thing downtown needs is clothing stores. Clothing stores aimed at women even more importantly. Teenage and college aged girls, probably even into their 30's, will go anywhere to go to a unique (chain but not american eagle type chain) clothing store they love. They take their friends, parents, boyfriends, etc. I think this would be the best way to get a large number shoppers downtown that would totally change opinions and attract other retailers. Females also seem to shop more, and like shopping more even if they aren't buying anything.

They consider that to be in the Gordon Square Historic District?!

Significant improvement yes. But you still have to question the decision-makers. And these are two "no-brainers" that leave you scratching your head. I give the cloth seats a year at best before they're completely destroyed and no one wants to sit on them. Cloth seats exist on the Healthline and Green/Blue line. They haven't been destroyed.

I know of a story where a guy would visit Cleveland elementary schools. He would ask the students what they wanted to do when they grew up. The top responses were Professional athletes, rappers, police/firefighters. The other top answers basically meant being in jail. It's sad that at a such a young age these kids are already thinking this way. I believe it was second graders. Something needs to be done.

When waiting in the cold for an eastbound healthline I had 4 westbound busses pass by. When I got on, I saw two more west bound in a row. That's basically 6 westbound in the time one east bound comes. Completely unreliable, and those next bus signs at the stations are completely useless. Any extension of BRT would be a disaster IMO. But rail is also not worth in this corridor IMO. If rather they do nothing or just create(if it doesn't already exist) a normal bus route that runs the route and connects to Windermere.

I hate these sort of photos that show a mountain range behind a city when said mountain range is at least 10 miles away. I lived in Knoxville, TN for four years, which is about 25 miles from the Smokey Mountains. They would go out of their way to have that mountain range show up in every promotional photograph. However, the average local visited the mountains no more often than people from Ohio. People like saying they live near mountains or near a beach. They like "having" them. It kind of hard to avoid the mountains (14,000+ feet) in Denver views unless your photo is looking eastward only. South views pick up Pikes Peak and Devils Head and northern photos usually get Long's Peak and Rocky Mountain National Park. The Denver metro core does go into the the 'foothills', canyons and valley areas of the Rocky Mountains (Evergreen, Golden, Castle Rock, Morrison, etc.). You don't have to go out of your way to get city and mountain views together in Denver. Plus whats wrong with showing the mountains. They are part of the city's backdrop since you can see them when downtown. You don't have to physically be at the mountain to enjoy it. Think of skyline pictures. Why do they exist? The skyline is far away, but it is still attractive to the pedestrian from far away. Cleveland likes showing our lake even though most hardly/never use it.

Where ever they wanted within the USA. It's their choice. They can choose to use X amount of money to get training for a particular field or they can relocate for an available job. It's not racism. It's classism. And the classism is to not give the poor a choice on their future. The classism is to keep the poor locked up in neighborhoods where they have no future and no way to change that fact. Nothing else has worked. Its not my opinion, but the opinion of many. Right now if John Kasich said he wanted to implement that exact plan, you know liberals and the african american community would be going crazy. It would be the Media's dream. Personally I don't find anything wrong with the idea, besides that is probably wouldnt work due to the lack of jobs everywhere in the country.

^^ paying to move the poor people away to places with jobs would not be popular and would probably be portrayed negatively, even racist. The media would go crazy with it.

Interesting that they went with what appears to be a much brighter blue then the shaker lines, and definitely brighter than the healthline. Also they used blue seat back/bar instead of the grey on the other lines. Edit: I don't see them in the pictures, but did RTA add trashcans to the trains?