Zimzolla

Not quite sure where this is. I'll have to consult a map later. It basically includes Abington Arms, the Triangle Apartments, the homes on E115th, and just a few homes on the land just near the Cemetery in East Cleveland.

In undergrad I used the Census and the American Community Survey 5 year estimate to study race and ethnicity in Little Italy for Urban Geography. Little Italy is about 100% within Census Tract 1188 which captures additional population a little west of the rail bridges but east of Euclid Ave. In 2010 Race - Top 3 White - 61.5% Asian - 24.7% Black - 11.2% Ethnic Origins - Top 5 Italian - 24.5% German - 19.7% Irish - 16.9% English - 5.4% Polish - 4.1% 30.9% of the residents were foreign born, of that 30.9%, 66.2% were foreign born from Asia, 17.2% Africa, 13.2% Europe.

Fencing up.

KJP, Although the wording is poor, I believe that the budget means to say that the 3% service cuts from 2016 are annualized in 2017, meaning the savings are being applied to the whole year. They have used this term in the past, such as saying the managed medicaid tax loss won't be annualized until 2018 because the cut goes into effect mid-17. See at the top where it mentions the 2017 budget has an annualized increase in base fare from $2.25 to $2.50, meaning the increase happened in 2016, is annualized in 17. Discussions about service cuts won't occur until after the fate of the sales tax is certain.

They'd probably have to single track the northbound chute. I doubt it'd be that bad with the frequency.

I just want to say that the notion that RTA saves money when the rail is shutdown is ludicrous. By contract all rail operators receive their full pay despite there being no rail operations, and the bus bridges are usually done exclusively with overtime, often from the more senior drivers. Its more expensive to shutdown, you're still paying to staff the railroad, plus extra buses. Explain to me where the cost savings are? The rail is shutdown only when it is required to for maintenance or due to operational issues.

Fairmount Properties emerges as likely developer for Top of the Hill in Cleveland Heights CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio – A local real estate developer has been tapped to build on a prominent hilltop at the western gateway to Cleveland Heights. Fairmount Properties of Cleveland emerged Monday as the company chosen to take on Top of the Hill, a roughly 4-acre site that various developers have coveted for decades. Flanked by Euclid Heights Boulevard and Cedar Road, the publicly owned land could be the site of a $75 million project that would add 300-plus residences, offices, retail, structured parking and a hotel to the Cedar Fairmount business district. http://realestate.cleveland.com/realestate-news/2016/10/fairmount_properties_tapped_as.html

Thats fair, as you say, all service was affected yesterday. However the decisions made yesterday was to relive passenger congestion at its worst points. Even at your highest estimate for all of the Clifton line, it is still only equal to maybe one of the 9 west side rapid stations, of which at least 6 were heavily affected. Resources had to be allocated, they chose to allocate them where that had the largest impact.

While I can't speak to the Clifton Line, there was a lot of unscheduled overtime via special shuttles to alleviate the overflowing Rapid Stations on the west side. There may have been 10-40 people on Clifton, but there were hundreds if not thousands of people still waiting at the rapid stations at 9:30 AM (lines started at 4 AM), forming lines so long they wrapped into the neighborhoods. A lot of men and women worked long hours though unpleasant conditions to do their best attempt to alleviate the demand of 1 million + people all trying to cram into Downtown in the middle of a parade. Its not that there was nothing RTA can do, RTA did everything they could do, but there would never have been enough rolling stock, operators, or fare sale personnel to satiate the crowds we saw today. Unfortunately, you cant maintain the capital assets and labor assets to serve this once in 52 years crowd. Not at current ridership levels, and not at current land use patterns.

I'm reporting your tip to Transit Police internally. I'm not sure if you have already, but I haven't heard anything about it before. Thanks for the heads up.

BZA approved it monday but I thought it had another round in City Planning.

Oh, well City Beautiful is currently working with the Slavic Village development corporation, Councilman Brancatelli, and planners from the City of Cleveland to develop an urban plan focusing on housing, historic preservation, economic development, and green space for the neighborhood. We are trying to figure out a way to strengthen the neighborhood brand as a polish enclave, attract new residents who are interested in active lifestyles (really being pushed by the CDC, think morgana run and the velodrome), bring investment to fleet avenue and attempt to concentrate the dispersed polish community groups there, figure out tough preservation problems like AB Hart school and the myriad of dilapidated housing in the neighborhood (saving the historic ones and demoing the least historic and most dilapidated), and getting investment into the historic Broadway avenue area. That's a pretty broad overview of our goals. And believe me, if it were up to me, there would be no demolitions, but in the reality that we face, the city has demo money burning a hole in its pocket, so the best we can do is divert the demolitions away from the best housing and the most intact neighborhoods.

^ You noticed our new City Beautiful space I see. We just got done painting it last week. City Beautiful is the organization that will be evolving out of Save Lower Prospect Avenue from the Columbia building fiasco. Dick Pace is lending space to non-profits to bring interest to the arcades until he can find real leases for the spaces, and we were able to secure a space, and will be holding our meetings and doing planning work in there. Our organization worked on the Wolfe Music building after the Columbia (where although we lost the building, we did get some concessions thanks to councilman Johnson) and now we are working on a Slavic village project.

Is that the redevelopment plan for the Viking Hall site? That is CSU's best case scenario, but that hinges on their ability to obtain that property.

Peabody's behind rascal house would also be a property needed to build on the entire block, and the rascal house is owned by the brother of USA Parking Frango. I don't know why its holding up progress, I think purposely leaving a building vacant for two decades because of on again, off again plans to demolish as holding back progress. Kinkos had a good business there, but CSU after buying the building offered them a year rent free to break the lease and have them out after that year. Back in the 90's, this was going to be the site of a new bookstore. CSU left it vacant then when those plans fell through, and allowed it to decay to the state it is in now. Besides, the Health Professions building could easily fit on the footprint of Viking Hall with full buildout to the street. It could be a nice corner building that wraps down 22nd and onto Prospect. Instead the building they will build will sit on the middle of the property like the business building and have a nice useless grass strip in front and to the sides, and take out two healthy businesses. What a loss Peabody's would be to an area attempting to be a college town.