biker16

great article. the automotive lobby has been very active for decades, aided by the deep pockets of the Auto Industry.

nope, Enrique Penalosa former Mayor of Bogota, Columbia. http://www.pps.org/reference/epenalosa-2/ Mr. Mumford and Mr. Penalosa share similar Views. Other quotes. “Public space is for living, doing business, kissing, and playing. Its value can’t be measured with economics or mathematics; it must be felt with the soul.” “In my country, we are just learning that sidewalks are relatives of parks – not passing lanes for cars.” “Urban transport is a political and not a technical issue. The technical aspects are very simple. The difficult decisions relate to who is going to benefit from the models adopted.” “The importance of pedestrian public spaces cannot be measured, but most other important things in life cannot be measured either: Friendship, beauty, love and loyalty are examples. Parks and other pedestrian places are essential to a city’s happiness.” “The world’s environmental sustainability and quality of life depends to a large extent on what is done during the next few years in the Third World’s 22 mega-cities. There is still time to think different… there could be cities with as much public space for children as for cars, with a backbone of pedestrian streets, sidewalks and parks, supported by public transport.” “Higher income groups always have access to nature at beach houses, lake cabins, mountain chalets, on vacations – or in urban settings at golf courses or large gardens. Parks allow the rest of society that contact as well.” “For the poor, the only alternative to television for their leisure time is the public space. For this reason, high- quality public pedestrian space, and parks in particular, are evidence of a true democracy at work.” “Why is all the power of the State applied in opening the way for a road, while it is not done for a park such as the Long Island Sound greenway? Despite the fact that more people may benefit from the greenway than the highway?” “Do we dare create a transport system giving priority to the needs of the poor? Or are we really trying to solve the traffic jams of the upper income people? That is really the true issue that exist?” “God made us walking animals – pedestrians. As a fish needs to swim, a bird to fly, a deer to run, we need to walk, not in order to survive, but to be happy.” “A premise of the new city is that we want a society to be as egalitarian as possible. For this purpose, quality-of-life distribution is more important than income distribution. [And quality of life includes] a living environment as free of motor vehicles as possible.” “I do not think exactly as the new urbanists, that the answer is simply to go back to the 1900 city center. I believe that a radically more pedestrian city, with both more pedestrian streets and parks, can be created in a dense urban environment.” “I dream of a tropical city, crisscrossed by large pedestrian avenues, shaded by enormous tropical trees, as the axes of life of those cities.” “We had to build a city not for businesses or automobiles, but for children and thus for people. Instead of building highways, we restricted car use. … We invested in high-quality sidewalks, pedestrian streets, parks, bicycle paths, libraries; we got rid of thousands of cluttering commercial signs and planted trees. … All our everyday efforts have one objective: Happiness.” “We built symbols of respect, equality and human dignity, not just sidewalks and bike paths. Motor vehicles on sidewalks were a symbol of inequality — people with cars taking over public space.” “Over the past 40 years, environmentalism has created a culture of respect for the environment, but there’s much less clarity about the kind of environment that creates a happy child.” “Over the past 80 years we have been building cities for cars much more than for people. If only children had as much public space as cars, most cities in the world would become marvelous.” “What we most want to see is people. You know, in the United States they invented a word that is called ‘shopping’ you know, and it is a very interesting word, because first when one is learning English one thinks shopping means to go buy things. But not it is not to buy things; it is just to go look at things where they sell them, so that you might eventually become interested in buying one. But of course later on you realize that what it really means is people go to shopping malls to see people so that they do not commit suicide in desperation.”

Nice Article about the history of Jaywalking. The Invention of Jaywalking

Interview with Enrique Peñalosa on Vimeo By catering to the Automobile downtown cleveland tore down 60% of the warehouse district, what Was once a connection of occupied industrial building across from Jacobs field is now surface parking, Let me be clear you did not move downtown for the Surface lots. by Accommodating the automobile we have made it more profitable to tear down buildings and tun them into parking. by accommodating I mean wider roads, faster traffic, and the subordination of pedestrian utilities for congestion mitigation. For example. What is wrong with this picture? They removed the crosswalk They prioritized Vehicle traffic over pedestrians. this took a long 145ft crossing and turned it into 427ft crossing plus you have to wait 3 more light cycles to make simple crossing. Now we want to prioritize Public Square for Pedestrians and people have a problem With it. This is what happened to the Warehouse district after the justice center was built before after Do you want this to happen to the East 4th district because of the Casino? This is what you call Catering to the Auto. not car free car less, fewer people driving reduces the need for parking, that means fewer parking lots and less congestion. try doing that at rush hour. or Crossing superior Ontario or east 9th street during rush hour. better yet try to cross Ontratio at Carnegie during the day, Tell us how crossing that Street made you feel. A couple quotes “God made us walking animals – pedestrians. As a fish needs to swim, a bird to fly, a deer to run, we need to walk, not in order to survive, but to be happy.” "You can have a city that’s friendly to cars, or friendly to people; you cannot have both."

the euclid corrridor buyses in cleveland are already hybrids. I think the restriction may apply to buses with 6 wheels or less. the articulated buses have 10 wheels.

just a question why wasn't Akron listed in the Ohio hub system.

Indians game Marine week and rush hour traffic on friday, the The "chaos" lasted for about and hour drvien by people from Pittsburgh and other visitor's unfamiliar with the area. The problem is we need to better educate people on the utter absence of congestion in our region and simply because an event or two causes congestion for a short period of time does not mean we need to build more lanes, more parking lots and convert a parking into and roadway. Downtown Cleveland needs to Become more welcoming to pedestrians, cyclist and public transportation and less accommodating to people in cars. You cannot have a walkable vibrant downtown, and 7 lanes of endless car traffic, with the required acres and acres of parking. It is time to make the right choice, and choose people over the automobile. cleveland will never be Strongsville, or Westlake.

To me, that defeats the purpose of having a rail station! than you should move not only the station but the entire rail network. the redline is more comparable to the LIRR or Paris's RER, than a true urban metro, the stop are on average 1 mile apart, not the .5 miles for a subway system. because the ROW is so far from the axis of development (I.E. the road.) you must have a way to get people from the station to where they want to go. You can't lose the sight of our primary goal, to increase ridership and the utilization of the Rail network. Using downtown as an example, having a free circulator downtown, has helped increase ridership, because pedestrians are transit riders, and the average pedestrian is only willing to walk for 1/4 of a mile between the Stop and their destination. 1/4 mile equals a 5 min walk. East 6th street is not within 5 min (1/4mile) of tower city. so by having a circulation system in downtown, you effectively increased the range of every rail rider by over a mile. placing all of downtown cleveland within reach. the genius of the 5 min walk was not loss on early transit planners thus they placed most subway stations within 1/2 mile of each other providing ever person on the route a maximum 5 min walk to the station. the redline has the worst aspects of commuter rail and urban rail. stops too far apart, but too close together for prolonged running at high speeds, yet the system doesn't reach far enough to be a real commuter railroad. combined with a ROW that misses the hearts of neighborhoods where redevelopment would naturally take place. We are lucky to have a rial system at all, I just want people to understand it's flaws. We're going to disagree on some of this. Because of the ROW, we need to have better bus connections from stations without paralleling the stations. Not always an options and folks in cleveland are spoiled by One Seat trips. Yes, we want to increase ridership, and TOD will greatly help, but running all these specialty shuttles (not including handicapped/senio), IMHO, is a waste. The Red Line when built was sustained by because it went thru neighborhoods close to factories, which today on the eastside isn't the same. I would agree with some of the worst traits. I see what you are saying about the shuttles, I think UCI is doing a study to increase collaboration between and parties involved to create a more efficient system. the great failing of the current system is Cleveland Clinic's shuttles not connecting with a Redline station. simply publicizing the shuttles would do wonders for ridership. Since all these institution are already spending money on circulation service I would like to see them take the lead not RTA.

I think I agree with the Mayor. He's accepting a middle ground, where if traffic must continue on Superior, that the street should at least match the rest of the big square aesthetically. I'm thinking some quality brick or even cobblestone will work. I always thought the worst part of PS wasn't that traffic moved through it, but rather the speed of traffic and the overall anti-pedestrian feel were the real problems. there is a significant opportunity to reduce the lanes on superior from 6 lanes and a 10 foot median to 2 lanes in each direction that have been traffic calmed and narrowed from 12 ft lane to 2 11 foot bus only lane and 2 10 foot lane for vehicle traffic. whit a 30 foot Usable median in between without curbs and using decorative bollards to separate traffic from people on the median. This could be a great opportunity for Cleveland's 1st pedestrian first street, with 20 mph speed limit and policed by traffic cameras to ensure compliance. to summarize: Original 75 ft ROW corridor with 4 12 ft traffic lanes Reduced to 2 11 ft bus lanes and 2 10 ft vehicluar lanes. now with a 33 ft median plaza. all curbs would be removed except at bus stops. with pedestrian areas protected by theses OR this

To me, that defeats the purpose of having a rail station! than you should move not only the station but the entire rail network. the redline is more comparable to the LIRR or Paris's RER, than a true urban metro, the stop are on average 1 mile apart, not the .5 miles for a subway system. because the ROW is so far from the axis of development (I.E. the road.) you must have a way to get people from the station to where they want to go. You can't lose the sight of our primary goal, to increase ridership and the utilization of the Rail network. Using downtown as an example, having a free circulator downtown, has helped increase ridership, because pedestrians are transit riders, and the average pedestrian is only willing to walk for 1/4 of a mile between the Stop and their destination. 1/4 mile equals a 5 min walk. East 6th street is not within 5 min (1/4mile) of tower city. so by having a circulation system in downtown, you effectively increased the range of every rail rider by over a mile. placing all of downtown cleveland within reach. the genius of the 5 min walk was not loss on early transit planners thus they placed most subway stations within 1/2 mile of each other providing ever person on the route a maximum 5 min walk to the station. the redline has the worst aspects of commuter rail and urban rail. stops too far apart, but too close together for prolonged running at high speeds, yet the system doesn't reach far enough to be a real commuter railroad. combined with a ROW that misses the hearts of neighborhoods where redevelopment would naturally take place. We are lucky to have a rial system at all, I just want people to understand it's flaws.

the congestion of Mayfield through little Italy would keep any sane shuttle service from using it. you could place a stop west of the mayfiled station.

In hindsight it wasn't great idea to place the Redline in a rail ROW, how can it be part of a neighborhood when it is placed in man made barrier to that neighborhood.is to place a Cap over the Rail ROW never Forget that both UH and CC have the resources to become more supportive of transit, by simply stop building so many garages and to subsidize passes for their workers. from an Urban design POV both institutions have been lack luster in their design of campuses that encourage walkability at some point we have to stop cursing RTA and blaming them for our transit Woes and look to our business community and politicians for why they continue to build in a dysfunctional way. the ROW is still too far from the art museum and severance hall to capture much of that traffic, you must ask the question where are the riders coming from? and how likely is it that they would be willing to walk .4 miles from an Adelbert station or .55 miles from a Cedar glen station to go to the see the orchestra or visit the art museum. I think the current system begs for better circulation infrastructure CWRU Evening shuttle Commuter Shuttle Circle link uCRC bus route the cleveland clinic operates four different Shuttle routes and Even operates a hospitality shuttle that takes people from the museums to the hospital. but they do not offer a shuttle from a redline station to the campus. that is a total of 9 differnt shuttles in UC maybe more for the VA and UH, in the Same area. what has happened is that people don't know about these services, so they don't use them. a unified circulation system in UC would do alot to improve transit use in the area. We should work on this first before we complain about moving a redline station

Makes me wonder, so far the city is doing fine with Superior and Ontario being closed off in Public Square for marine week. Hopefully someone is paying attention, as it is the perfect study to prove we dont need those damn streets running through public square and we can finally just make one large square! :D Absolutely And I have to imagine it would be even better if most of the buses could be diverted to the West Side Transit Center. I think that really have the ability to close those streets for good. there will always be buses passing through the square, the volume of east side buses combined with the limited number of east west routes through downtown ( prospect, superior and st Clair) with superior being the highest capacity route, means that it is difficult to close the square to buses. what you cold see is a narrow bus only route through the Square of two 11 foot lanes.

I'd settle for a more reliable connection between the existing redline stations and the CC. the only link between the HL and the Redline is windermere and the PEE step of East 120th Something needs to happen. Also wouldn't a station on Adelbert be more convenient for Case and UH than the current station location at Cedar? Mayfield road should be a huge stop though and I'm looking forward to that station being built! I think a station at adelbert would be good idea but... it puts it very close to may field and tkes it off the normal route of buses on cedar hill. I would like to see more pedestrian bridges and paths in cleveland , If you were to place a pedestrian bridge from the university circle station to the CWRU Quad, it would reduce the walk from 1730 ft to 400 ft. imagine how successful a pedestrian bridge from the east bank of the flats directly to the west bank of the flats.

according to Google earth public square is at 664ft the river is at 575 ft since Huron and Prospect are not "land" but are bridges, the difference between public square and prospect is +10-12 feet. 674-676ft for Huron and Prospect over tower city but only 665ft at Huron. the difference between the river and hurons is between 101 ft and 90 ft.

Makes me wonder, so far the city is doing fine with Superior and Ontario being closed off in Public Square for marine week. Hopefully someone is paying attention, as it is the perfect study to prove we dont need those damn streets running through public square and we can finally just make one large square! :D Absolutely

Posted by: jmecklenborg « on: March 11, 2009, 10:26:27 PM Read more: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?action=post;quote=376517;topic=18657.0#ixzz1xYJIjkQ8 These are photos from the downtown fareless section of Portland's famous streetcar. This is the original section which began operation in 2001. Although this section of the line has attracted significant new residential growth, it was fairly packed to begin with, so there were not as many sites for potential development as the South Waterfront or Pearl District. Map: Ticket machine: The cars have two articulated joints. The motors sit under the high floor sections at either end of each streetcar. These areas have seats: The center section of each streetcar, between the articulated joints, is low-boarding and has few seats to allow for wheelchairs and a forest of standing passengers: There is a cab at each end -- the driver switches from one end to other other to change directions, although this is only necessary when backing into the shop facilities. In Seattle, the line has stub ends instead of operating as a loop. There is also another set of doors at each end, but they're only usable for curb stations, not island stations: Pulling up to a station: A packed streetcar: The overhead wire is at times borderline elegant: Original 2001 turnaround -- South Waterfront extension starts here: Island station heading toward South Waterfront: Paying customers: ADA ramp: Streetcar driver manually shoving the ramp back after it jammed: Streetcar in traffic: Streetcar in traffic: Center low-floor section: In traffic: Here we can see another streetcar running in the opposite direction a block away: Streetcar crosses new under-construction light rail:

excellent post.

I'd settle for a more reliable connection between the existing redline stations and the CC. the only link between the HL and the Redline is windermere and the PEE step of East 120th

When I was a kid in the 1970s, my dad used the family car to race the PCC-equipped rapids down Shaker and we clocked them at 55 mph. So it's not technology that's slowing things down. the Breda's have a max speed of 55mph, any thoughts on why they would be restricting the speed? Is there a system wide maintenance issue with RTA's rail network? when is it due for major repair work, i.e. replacing/upgrade the cantenary and rails. I have been riding the Redline alot recently and have been noticing how aged everything looks. The fare machines need to be on the platforms to speed up loading. Putting RTA fare machines (especially the EXISTING machines!) on the trains would cause horrific delays! Even user-friendly machines would cause delays. To put fare machines on the platforms requires a change in RTA's fare policy on the Blue/Green lines, from the "pay leave" westbound/"pay enter" eastbound, left over from the day when the City of Shaker Heights owned the Shaker Rapid Transit System. when i was in Amsterdam riders would be able to buy his ticket on board and not interrupt the driver nor hold up the tram while buying that ticket. understand the ticket machine was not located at the front of the Train but in the center of the train. there are some trams in Amsterdam with a live conductor onboard to sell and validate tickets. the alternative would be to locate 2 set of machines at each of the 32 Shaker rapid stations. one for each platform, west and east bound, for 64 total, or to place one machine on each train for a total of 34 ticket machines. like this system in Portland.

I am curious why the blue and green line are so slow when moving thru their own dedecated ROWs. Using my handy Speedo app, I clocked the LRT at a maximum speed of 40 mph through the ROW between East 55th and Shaker Square, while I have clocked a LRT with maximum speed of 53 mph between east 55th and East 34th street. does anyone know what is keeping the speeds down? Is it posible to fit a Fare machine unto every LRT train to implement a form a POP to speed loading and unloading? how much a benefit would a low floor LRT be for speeding loading and unloading times? I notice alot of elderly people having issues entering and exiting the train. Is any form of traffic signalization priority used on either the blue or green lines? would it be possible or safe to use signalization priority to increase the speeds when crossing at-grade intersections?

$400 million plan to cap Interstate 5, connect Rose Quarter and Lloyd District moves forward

:wtf:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/02/parking-minimums-promote-driving-even-transit-friendly-new-york/1331/ so the proposed changes are bad not good.

Subways are about 250-500 million a mile Streetcars 10-25 million a mile Light rail 25-50 million a mile Elevated rail (estimated) 40-120 million a mile. for $100 million you get .2 -.4miles of subway 4-10miles of streetcar 2-4 miles of light rail .8-2.5 miles of elevated rail. Even though Elevated rail cost more than light rail or streetcars I still think it is an investment that is worth it because of the points I mentioned earlier of being able to see and easily access Cleveland booming neighborhoods. Also you can use the rail cars that you have now on the elevated routes instead of spending Millions per car on streetcars and light rail. I feel an elevated route would be a much more exciting experience than streetcars (I wouldn't mind having either one) but elevated rail gives a different experience while riding. Honolulu is buildng the nation's 2nd elevated Rapid line http://www.honolulutransit.org/ 20 miles, 20 sations 40 minutes end to end.