biker16

I think it'll take a change of power at the state level to get better funding, combined with more visionary leadership at RTA, and an increase in the price of diesel/gasoline that increases ridership while simultaneously increasing the cost of operating busses. The labor savings while significant are balanced by the labor costs of maintaining the tracks. While transit operating funding is as tight as it currently is at the state level, I imagine it would be a big challenge politically to pull off another major transit project. While most of us know that operating and capital expenses are very different things, the public doesn't and would throw a fit if service isn't improved/increased before a major expansion gets underway. As long as using diesel in busses is less expensive than using electricity AND paying for the maintenance of the tracks RTA is going to be hesitant to switch to trams. Sure we know that the maintenance of the roads isn't free, but it doesn't come directly from RTA's budget, so they have no incentive to consider that expense when determining the more cost effective mode of transportation. Finally I think it would take better leadership at RTA. I think that Calabrezze is doing fine at running RTA, but I think he's done a poor job of lobbying the state legislature, and looking into ways to make it better. Probably if he spent more time lobbying and looking at future improvements we'd have a worse current system, but sometimes you have to break a few eggs and I think it looks like Calabrezze has been playing it safe. but the operating costs of electric trams is lower than that of buses. that includes maintenance or rail and ROW. which for a streetcar are very difference from a traditional ties and rail system. the issues RTA is having with their rail system is IMO related to the age of the system and the need to make investments in replacing the old stuff to reduce the maintenance cost. the rail and the trains are system, lack of investment in one directly affects the other. bad rails wear out trains faster, bad train wear out the rails faster, etc, etc. Electrification has benefits beyond operating costs. the issue is that we cannot expect RTA or any other transit agency to petition Columbus on their own, you need the mayors of Cuyahoga county and county governments them selves to advocate on behalf of transit, and again until a secure source of funding is found for transit in Ohio like a gas tax or another form of taxation other than locally based taxes, Transit will contiue to ride the back of the bus. now is the time to plan big, and capture the imagination of community. then we can petition Columbus for funds.

Amazing and awesome. could say the state of ohio or the county of Cuyahoga do the same thing? Actually, Cuyahoga County/GCRTA could do it -- if there was a ready-to-go capital improvement plan for the region that was ready to go as in California. Perhaps GCRTA's collection of unfunded capital improvement projects (see: http://www.riderta.com/majorprojects/) could form the basis of that program, as well as other recent projects that started or are about start a federally compliant planning process, including: EXISTING PROJECTS (NOT YET UNDERWAY): > Airport Tunnel > Brookpark Rapid Station > Mayfield Rapid Station > Lee-Van Aken Rapid Station > Red Line S-Curve > University Circle Rapid Station > Transit Waiting Environments > Transit Oriented Development FUTURE PROJECTS STILL IN PLANNING > Blue Line Corridor Extension > West Shore Corridor Improvement Project > Red Line/HealthLine Extension > Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad Extension to Tower City Center How's that for a projects list? GCRTA freed up $14 million just by refinancing its existing debt because of its improved credit rating. I assumed they issued debt for that work, but for what term? If it's only for 5-10 years, imagine what they could do by issuing a 30-year, low-interest bond! This is what the national infrastructure bank was supposed to be, leveraging a smalll amount of government funds to offer reduced rate loans for infrastructure. this IMO would be a boon for public transit, if we can find ways to leverage the value added by TOD.

I think the idea of maintaining and improving existing service levels while reducing labor costs is a reason why trams will become more common.

Amazing and awesome. could say the state of ohio or the county of Cuyahoga do the same thing?

this lovely phrase called "route miles" Equals 12 route miles for the health line. there is are also cost benefits by using only on corridor you can share poles for both eastbound and westbound and not duplicate utilities for two corridors Example: Portland's streetcar vs this LR 55 could reduce track laying costs by over 50%. HL route Public Square UC loop. for costs I would put it at 5-10 million per route mile or 60-120 million dollars 16 vehicles replacing 23 HL vehicles @ 5 million per vehicle maybe 4.5 million if the the blue and green line vehicles are replaced also, bringing the order up to 40 vehicles. $80 million a light maintenance facility to store the trams $20 million, heavy maintenance can be done at east 55th st, and parts transported by truck and trains by rail to the heavy facility. my estimate $160-220 million for the conversion. benefits... reduced operating costs higher quality of service reduction in long term expenses. trams can last up to 45 years the rail and infrastructure can last 50+ years, while the current EC vehicles have a life of 12 years of 500,000 miles ever come first, and the road itself has a life of 30 years max. I wanted to correct the Quoted price per vehicle from 5 million to $4.1 million reducing the estimated costs from $80 million to $65.6 million. reducing system costs from $160-220 million to 145.6- 205.6 million. these vehicle would be identical to the Metrolinx Bombardier LRT in toronto. 2.65m (8'8') wide 600VDC power 31m (101feet) long 190 passengers.

Go to this site and sign the petition to take the redistricting process out of the hands of the politicians. http://votersfirstohio.com/who-we-are/ There has got to be other examples of this in the US. He is clearly acting against the interests of the city as evidenced by 2 direct votes. There has got to be legal ways to counter 1 elected official from derailing projects the people have approved with their votes.

I am with you 100%, but...understanding the federal and state funding situation you cannot expect any action soon. plus to move to Light rail after years of selling BRT is a tough pill for RTA brass.

that makes sense, I just did not want to make the plan any more complex than it has to be since the road does not exist yet.

Exactly! The number of stations is woven into the city's design. As for East 79th station, if I was head of CMHA and charged with choosing a site for a mixed-income TOD, this is probably the first place I'd want to put it. Where else is there a nearly blank slate with infrastructure already in place for a neighborhood? There may be some environmental issues with lead paint left in the soil, but this was a residential area -- not a polluted factory site needing millions for cleanup like many other vacant lands along RTA rail lines. exactly! My internal debate is how much infrastructure to supply to the forgotten triangle and other abandoned areas of town.

points taken I will never mention this again, ;) steps like better signalization, low floor vehicles (faster loading), proof of payment system (faster boarding). would be better investments.

it should be a an option on the blue/green line east 79th because it is 1 mile from east 55th and 3/4 mile from buckeye station and is a 5 minute walk from the housing projects on kinsman, although the area around it is a wasteland it is in a transit friendly area.

if they can get the cost per mile below 10 million for streetcar in road ROW you can see alot of opportunities for rail expansion.

Humm, eliminate stations in my 'hood! I don't think so. Based on what you posted, there seems to be a new stop on the Green line, Drexmore. Can you show you indicate the location of this station on a map? If you're going to eliminate station, make sure you know where they are located! Why those stops? Do you know the ridership at each of those stops? If not why were these stops selected? What financial costs could be achieved by eliminating these stops? What "speed differntial" could be achieved by eliminating these stops? Drexmore won't go anywhere, because it was the last station to be created. It was created because Cleveland wanted to make a turn around loop in the middle of the square. the compromise was to create Drexmore and to give those visiting the Eastern end of the extended shaker square shops, easy access as it was mid point between Coventry and SS. When the line was rebuilt, that station was going to be eliminated, since the "turn around/lay over track" was moved to it's current location between Van Aken and Coventry. But riders and SS fought to keep it. RTA could reintroduce express trains on the Blue Line. wow, such passion. oyou know I have zero power over the GCRTA to answer your question of why these stops , because they are between major higher volume roads. like Lee and Coventry. For a light Rail system to have stops spaced every 1/4 mile is inefficient, Although I understand why they are spaced this way it does not help the people at the end of any expansion of the line. as you mentioned express service could be added to route, and detailed ridership studies need to be conducted to determine what should happen. the issue of adding newer rolling stock and the needed improvements to each station to accommodate any new rolling stock and meet ADA compliance. If you say there is enough ridership to keep the stops fine, but a similar situation is taking place in Pittsburgh where stops are being removed to increase service quality. If the goal is a better system for everyone removing some stops has to be examined to keep it competitive with driving, and to attract more riders to the system.

How much thought has been given to reducing the number of green and blue line stops? After shaker Square stops are placed 1/4 mile apart and could provide and opportunity to improve speed though the dedicated ROW. I propose removing these green line stops: Dexmore Attleboro Courtland And these Blue line stops: Southington Ashby Avalon Lynnfield The idea is if any extension become possible it is important to maximize the speed through the dedicated ROW.

this lovely phrase called "route miles" Equals 12 route miles for the health line. there is are also cost benefits by using only on corridor you can share poles for both eastbound and westbound and not duplicate utilities for two corridors Example: Portland's streetcar vs this LR 55 could reduce track laying costs by over 50%. HL route Public Square UC loop. for costs I would put it at 5-10 million per route mile or 60-120 million dollars 16 vehicles replacing 23 HL vehicles @ 5 million per vehicle maybe 4.5 million if the the blue and green line vehicles are replaced also, bringing the order up to 40 vehicles. $80 million a light maintenance facility to store the trams $20 million, heavy maintenance can be done at east 55th st, and parts transported by truck and trains by rail to the heavy facility. my estimate $160-220 million for the conversion. benefits... reduced operating costs higher quality of service reduction in long term expenses. trams can last up to 45 years the rail and infrastructure can last 50+ years, while the current EC vehicles have a life of 12 years of 500,000 miles ever come first, and the road itself has a life of 30 years max.

A gold star to the designers if that is indeed correct. I doubt it's more than a happy accident. The Healthline busses are of similar length/height to a streetcar, so a platform that is designed specifically for a Healthline bus is automatically of similar dimensions to a platform for a streetcar. If we're going to continue discussing this we probably ought to move to the either the Healthline thread or Cleveland Transit ideas for the future thread. the EC station platforms are in fact at 14" high for level boarding for buses and a low floor light rail or streetcar. IMO the stations are not an issue with a Street car upgrade for the Healthline I would not advocate for a 20 meter streetcar ( which BTW are better utilized as urban circulators for short trips. thus tons of room for standees) the officla number for the HL buses are 52 seats+ 48 standees max. the 29 seats plus a max of ~80 standees for 115 passengers max. the reason you want longer vehicle is because streetcars like buses can be prone to bunching, or buses being caught behind other buses. in a paper written about bunching on Toronto streetcar system it was found that adding frequency to the service does not improve service, example moving from a 4 min interval to a 3 min interval would not reduce congestion. but by using higher capacity streetcar/trams you can space than out more and reduce bunching and congestion toronto decided on longer 30 meter trams to replace their older trams. A flexity freedom which would be 2.6m meters wide and 31 meters long or 8'8" wide 101 feet long maximum of 72 seat plus ~118 standees. for total of 190 person per a train, or 190% of the current HL capacity cost about 5 million each 500% the cost of a HL vehicle lasts about 30 years vs 12 year for a bus. because the trams can hold so many people they can reduce the labor cost to operate the system. From an operational POV trams have advantages for a line like the HL.

Perfection does not exist. It works fine for me.

It works. I just save the Eastbound and westbound trains from my normal origins to my favorites in my smart phone and it is as easy as pie.

I have been a few times. traffic is a nightmare, never seen so much traffic congestion on Saturday afternoon. never rode the LRT though

Sacramento light rail now extends to River District Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/16/4566149/sacramento-light-rail-now-extends.html#storylink=cpy

Because all buses from the east have to cross the square. there are 3 east west arteries through downtown prospect, superior and St Clair, superior is the most direct route, and the highest capacity route. although you could in theory eliminate all stops on buses going through the square, the square tower city was designed to pass people from the square into the transit station. using prospect as has been done before has many issues mainly the roof of tower city.

I kind of thought that was the purpose but now I'm confused. What the hell is the purpose if it? place for buses to rest and turn around. as opposed to dispersing the buses through out downtown to layover they layover in one locating like the west side buses layover At STJ Transit Center.

That is awesome news. Where did you find this number? My nuber were a bit off it is 19.1% source http://www.demographia.com/db-cbd2000.pdf

Maybe he means the added traffic from people being diverted from Ontario onto the outer roads would require serious changes to the bus paths around PS? I don't know. More than likely, Calabrese sees this as an opportunity to shoehorn some pork into the PS project for RTA improvements, even if they aren't necessary. Would that surprise anyone? If you make superior into a bus only corridor buses that once deboarded on Ontario would be moved to superior, drastically increasing the number of passengers in that small area. so take all the people waiting for a bus on the square and place them in a smaller area.

You act as if the buildings in the Warehouse district were torn down because there was a lack of parking. The buildings were empty and underutilized because people were leaving the city in droves as suburban sprawl got worse and worse. You've got bigger problems than a lack of pedestrian walkways if a surface lot is more profitable than a semi-empty building. And why don't you ask the restaurant and business owners in the Warehouse district how they feel about the surface lots. I think you'll be surprised by the answer. That area has been fairly successful over the last decade. I was pretty disappointed when the Stark Enterprises plan (or some variation of it) went tits up. you are obviously new here so let me explain it to you. the lot owners sit on property that is dirt cheap to mange and very profitable to run, when an investor wants to purchase the property the lot owner uses a formula that take into account the lost revenue over 10-15 tears and usually come up with a price 10 time higher than the appraised value of the property, for bank or investor to buy a property that is appraised so low, yet is very costly to purchase, is very risky bet. Stark had to convenience the lot owners that development would be more profitable than the surface lot. to do that he had to go big and I like the idea of what he was doing, but building 8-9 story residential blocks on west 6th would have strongly clashed with the neighborhood. It was the size of the project along with the economy that killed it. In the end the Surface lot owner is not a developer, developers buy land develop it to add value to the property. Than they either sell it, or lease it to earn revenue. the lot owners goal is to do as little as possible while bringing in as much revenue as possible. they revenue is akin to buying a stock for dividends as opposed to buying a stock for growth in value. If the lot owners were forced to sell their property at the appraised value you would see alot more development on those parcels. See this is where the urban fantasy dies. If I need my car once a week, then I still need a parking spot downtown. And until more people live and work downtown, you will need somewhere to put the 25,000 people coming into the city for Indians games, or 6000 people coming to the casino or 60,000 for Browns games. And let me fill all the daydreamers in on a little secret -- the city is competing with 60 years of some of the worst suburban sprawl I've seen anywhere in the country. The key to getting people back into the city is to make it easy and convenient to get here. It's how they hooked me. Fell in love with the area and moved in this Spring. You would think I would be the first person begging for a nice park area... I am not saying get rid of your car, I am saying take the Grossly underused road system that 98% of the time is vacant and make it more accessible to pedestrians. we have street in downtown that rarely reach capacity, why not make that underused asset into a bikeway or another amenity. You are correct about the area's sprawl and the effect is has had on the City is horrible, but you don't try to out suburb the suburbs our assets are our transit and pedestrian access, not our road access because We will never be a place with excessive amount os free parking or be as easy to access by car as the suburbs are. the goal is to reduce the usage of vehicle by downtown residents that happens when you have all the amenities they need with in walking distance of where they live. when this happens people will go from 2 car households to 1 or 0 cars households, but this cannot happen if they do not feel comfortable crossing the street or the grocery store is a 1/2 mile away on the other side of surface lot. Crossing a busy street is no more difficult than crossing an empty one. Wait for the little white "walk" sign, then go. As a side note, rush hour is rush hour because people don't live downtown. Tearing up infrastructure is not going to convince anybody to live downtown. It'll only convince them to find a job that is closer to home in the burbs. so making downtown into North Olmsted will get more people to Move downtown? once again the numbers do not back up your statement, downtown is growing FASTER than the suburban areas. http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2012/04/clevelands_inner_city_is_gorn.html Cleveland's inner city is growing faster than its suburbs as young adults flock downtown The new urbanites include Joe Baur, a freelance writer and the creator and host of an online satirical news show, "Mildly Relevant News." It airs thrice weekly on YouTube, the broadcast medium of his generation. Baur, 25, grew up in Mentor. When he resolved to move back to the region from Chicago last summer, he toured a neighborhood he had seldom experienced. He said he was surprised to discover a tribe of people like himself moving through the Gateway and Warehouse districts. He saw young professionals picking up ready-made meals at Constantino's Market, working out at the 24-hour Titan's Gym, and hopping onto the Healthline for rides to work. "Cleveland was very, very foreign to me," Baur said. "I had only come downtown for baseball games." Now he seldom leaves the city center and when he does it's by bus or cab. He sold his car. "I know I'm never going to leave Cleveland," he said. The data suggests he'll change his mind. Downtown's population nearly doubled from 1990 to 2010, to reach 9,098 people, Piiparinen found, and young adults drove the growth. Between 2000 and 2010, he said, more than 2,000 people younger than age 25 moved into the neighborhood. So people are moving downtwon becuase of parking or is parking an impediment to investment. That is a beautiful fantasy. How about getting the 90% of the people commuting into the city to live downtown first? Then we can start talking about this drive-less society. last count 25% of downtown workers use public transit and Growing. Redline Ridership was up %11.6 in May. this is not fantasy these are real numbers.