biker16

I think this is some interesting info. $1 dollar in 1990 equals $1.76 notice how the cost of running trains has fallen over time. the cost of maintaining the Trains and the ROw have grown at much faster rate on the redline than on the LRT system. this may be due to the fact that the LRT system was rebuilt in the 1980s while the HRT system wasn't, Maybe? the history of these things isn't my strong suit an more knowledgeable on this please chime in.

Streetcars can be much longer nowadays.

I think a big factor which wont be a popular one is that most riders are heading to Tower City/Public Square. For those who are heading from east of University Circle, taking the train seems like the logical choice. But the ridership is lower than the Healthline. Why? I think it may be because for the Red Line, to get off at Tower City you NEED to have a ticket. For the Healthline you don't. That may also be why the Red Line is a much calmer crowd than the Healthline. The irony is the fare box recovery Ratio for the redline is 23% and buses are closer to ~25% it would cost more for RTA to eliminate proof of payment than to tolerate the level of Fare evasion we have today.

Ever hear of the philosopher George Santayana, biker16? He once said,"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." If you're incapable of recognizing that the same themes that led to the demise of transit expansion in the past, keep repeating themselves in this town over and over and over again, I really can't help you. Some of these themes include: petty within-region "us against them" squabbles, race/class divisions, a pro-auto agenda, a cheap penny ante approach towards transit (which was often fueled by the aforementioned race/class, city/suburb divisions), poor planning and the inability, as one local scribe put it, "To see past yesterday," etc., etc. A phrase i think is more apt is " is that generals always prepare to fight the last war rather than the next one." I guess that depends on whose brain you're using. Or how far in the past you are living. What really defines "light rail" biker? Both St. Louis and LA use what's purported to be light rail, but fully operate from high platforms ... like the Red Line. Are they really heavy rail? Are they really light rail but their high platforms make their systems less desirable because of it? those system were built before Low platform technology was developed, new systems in Seattle, Houston, Dallas, Toronto all use low platform for their light rail systems. Shucks, Biker, there goes that history thing again... Fact is, the Vans planned the Shaker system as what some, mainly Europeans, call a "pre metro", meaning eventually, the Shaker lines were designed to have raised platforms to correspond to a planned county-wide high platform system: one the Van Sweringens started (with the East Cleveland portion of today's Red Line) but never got to complete because the Depression wrecked their empire and led to their premature deaths in the mid-30s. You might want to check out "Invisiible Giants: The Empires of Cleveland's Van Sweringen Brothers," by Herbert H. Harwood, Jr, a historian whose dad worked with the Vans. Again the technology has changed, allowing for a low Floor vehicles something they simply did not have back then. Change for change sake isn't growth, biker... And btw, please explain how these moves will result in "growth?" How, in this town when it has been reported elsewhere in this website that RTA's proposal to extend the Red Line to the NE is really just a stalking horse (or Trojan Horse) just to expand RTA's beloved BRT... How, biker, when it's even been reported on UO that RTA is quietly doubting the LRT/Blue Line expansion across Warrensville & Chagrin, ... a whopping .3 miles! ... If collectively, we're incapable of expanding light rail .3 miles, what makes you think your downgrading the Red Line just to make it "uniform" so you can see your pretty little trams all over the place, will lead to ... "growth?" Biker, just a few miles from the Blue Line terminus in the late 1970s, the newly minted RTA was incapable of extending the Green line a measly 1.5 miles over a pre-made path the Vans built -- equipped with ROW, road overpasses and even some trolley support poles for .5 miles into Beachwood... A former Cleveland planning director, Norm Krumholz, shouted the expansion down saying it was extravagant and would serve rich "fat cats" at the expense of the poor, so RTA quietly punked out -- NOTE: Krumholz, who thankfully is still living and even still teaching at CSU, is not a bad guy; a political lefty who I'm generally politically in simpatico with; he just got it dead wrong on the Green Line thing; he's a rare anti-rail lefty -- oh well ... Oops, sorry biker, there I go with that history stuff again. I forgot, in your world, history is totally irrelevant.... forget I even mentioned it... You are fighting a battle that doesn't need to be fought. You have yet to demonstrate that your passion for high platforms is little more than vanity.

Biker, this is a blanket statement that simply is not true. University Circle is a large place, in and many high density employment/student areas, like the Case (or Sothern) campus of CWRU and UH, many people commute on the Red Line from downtown and (esp) the West Side. Yes, currently a lot of people do ride the HL to places on/near CWRU's north (and the old College for Women) campus ... as well as Uptown, since the current Euclid-E. 120 station is somewhat distant (to Uptown), crappy and forces passengers to walk under/through that long, dirty, dungeon-like Red Line/NS RR bridge over Euclid. But you should stroll around University Circle station (once it is finished/reopens soon) during evening rush hour. You would see a steady stream of commuters heading down the alley/pathway from just east of the Adelbert Rd. bridge into the Red Line station and onto the UC platform. And as even you have acknowledged, once the UC-Little Italy station is built, Red Line passengers will be considerably closer to Uptown and those core north-side UC institutions, such as the Art Museum, the Botanical Gardens and north-side CWRU facilities. I Never said all UC riders are transferring from the redline to the Healthline, but there are alot more people doing so than you think and since there isn't any data to support either of our arguments other than I personally witness alot of people transferring to the HL and a Number of them inhale talked to are going to UC. Your logic that speed of the redline makes up for it being in a less than perfect location is not true for some riders. The ridership of the HL vs the redline on the east side supports the argument that access can be more attractive than speed. Interesting, It really is .05 mile difference. Another factor is that even if you Eliminator stops will not eliminate signals. There are limits to signal preemption, it cannot change a light just keep it green for a longer period of time. The volume of cross traffic mandates longer cycle times and makes it difficult to create windows of time free of red lights. This makes it more important to better manage the frequency of buses on the route. Stops are opposite of the lights to prevent the vehicle from stopping twice at every intersection, once for passengers and again for the light. Preemption is supposed to hold the light to allow the bus to pass through and stop at the station on the other side. You really can't have effective preemption if the bus stops before the light, If you were going to add signal permeation to the blue/green lines you would want to flip the stations similar to the Healthline. In the end you can go to a rail vehicle, reduce travel time and even reduce operational expenses. LRT vehicle

you can argue about what we think it should be but going from Downtown to UC in the morning is a Reverse Commute i.e. less crowded that west bound peak HL. It seems people are Willing to sacrifice Time savigns for a more less of a walk. this should not be a surprise people do the same thing when they look for Parking spaces, prioritize convince (look for a closer space) over Time, (look for the First open space). In the winter the choice is A) wait in the Cold for the healthline B) medium length walk through Unshoveled Sidewalks from the Red line station to a location in UC. If your were right you would see more people using the redline to get the UC. consider the fact that the HL easily exceeds Red line ridership between downtown and Windermere, it is slower but far more convenient to use. It isn't irrelevant if the only open doors are in the front of the building, in that case it is very relevant. In many case visitors Are not allowed to enter the back doors of buildings. from an economic development POV people entering though back door does nothing to help uptown, or other retailers that have taken root on Euclid. the best example of horrible Economic development resulting from building away from the street is Playhouse Square, where they built a gerbil tube with parking that takes people away from Euclid not to Euclid. This is reason why they have such a horrible business failure rate in that area they made people walk though the back door. think about DC or NYC where those subway portal are businesses follow, it not to say you cannot develop retail along access to Red line stations, but They are developing major destinations on Euclid right now. and this is the natural location for people to want to go. people prefer one seat rides, people also prefer short walks. Transferring is not bad if you have high frequency that can ensure that you will not have a long wait during that transfer. refer to this link. "transferring" can be good for you, and good for your city The common Logic that people will not transfer is wrong, they may not like it but they will do it under certain circumstances. People are transferring downtown from the Redline to the healthline to access UC, this may change as the redline stations are renewed, but remember that only Every other Red line train goes to UC, and 15 min headway are greater than the headway on the HL. what does it matter, if you are going from the west side to the Cleveland clinic you will transfer Downtown, why? because the walk from Redline platforms in tower city to the HL platform in public square is much easier than the walk from Little Italy to Euclid and then back tracking through the slowest potion of the Euclid corridor to the Cleveland clinic. the advantage of speed on the redline is defeated by the distance to Euclid and the slowness of the HL though UC. The stops are not the problem IMO its the lack of capacity due to the Type of vehicle chosen. The Stop spacing on the HL is roughly the same as the stop spacing on the Green and Blue lines. Like you said, the reality is the Healthline is no more a Rapid than the blue/green line is east of Shaker Square. Actually, no, stop spacing on the HL is significantly tighter than on the blue/green line east of SS, by a tenth of mile or even more. More importantly, most Blue/Green line riders also ride on the segment west of Shaker Square, which has incredibly far-spaced stops and a completely separate ROW, leading to a relative quick total journey. The average stop spacing for a typical Blue/Green Line journey is much wider than a typical HL journey. That's what makes it viable rapid transit over such a long distance for suburban commuters. It's true that frequent stops on the HL mean reduced walking time and the potential for attracting riders, but at a certain point, it's at the cost of service quality and route capacity for such a long route. The slow average speed means fewer route completions per driver/vehicle hour so higher operating costs per service mile. Removing intersections and stations should (hopefully) allow slightly reduced headways so the savings in driver/vehicle hours can be plowed back into more frequency. Since we're unlikely to see longer vehicles or rail conversions anytime soon, I think we need to look for some shorter term, incremental improvements to boost capacity and service quality. For riders going hub to hub, it's a pretty grueling ride currently. First: Measure them, I did On average between CSU and East 105th st there are on average 1/4 mile between stops, the Van Swerigens laid out the Blue green line to be ~1/4 between stops. Second, Federal funds were used to build those stops and removing them may require repaying the feds for that investment. Third: making it faster will only add to the issues by attracting more riders to a system that is already at or near capacity. what would be the point of that? even during conversion to light rail I wouldn't remove stations, it sounds counter intuitive but more stops make it more attractive for riders than a faster travel time would. I think the issue is if you are heading east of East 105th st from downtown the red line make more sense, but west of E105th the healthline makes more sense.

Is this really true? I see from the schedule that the buses run about every 7 minutes most of the day. We have large swatches of Euclid throughout midtown that are either vacant or underdeveloped. Where does the Healthline go from where it is (if it's currently nearing its peak capacity) if midtown ever gets on its feet? You move to a light rail, but more specifically a Streetcar, within a dedicated Transit Way. There are limits to frequency due to the ROW and limits to capacity due to the vehicles being used. Limts to Frequency: due to having cross streets you limit how frequently service can be run. example: If you run a peak 7 min frequency, in a perfect system you would have one vehicle hitting each intersection every 3.5 minutes, (one eastbound and one west bound) It may take at least 90 seconds for the light to Cycle through and come back to a Green for Euclid and some light like East 14th street can take even longer. The lesson learned from LA BRT system and to an extent their Light rail system is that your limit for frequency on non-grade separated transit is ~5 mins. the problem with the Healthline is that they are running buses at shorter head ways because they have Capacity issues. which brings me to limits to capacity The Healthline is a bus with 50 seats, but more importantly It isn't designed in a way that Facilitates Standees. it is listed as having space for 50 standees At 6 persons per Sq Meter of Floor space. this when translated to a more ccurate 4 Persons per Square meter means 33 Standees per bus. total capacity of only 83 persons. To make it worse crowded buses take longer at each stop, as they wait for riders to fight to get on and to get off of the vehicles. The optimum design for a high capacity vehicle is as much subway style seating as possible to provide wider Aisles and more room for standees and wider doors to speed boarding. the way to overcome capacity issues is A) use more vehicles B) use higher capacity vehicles. RTA has to run more buses than than the busway can efficiently handle at peak times to overcome the capacity issues of the vehicle they selected to provide service. The solution is A) move to longer buses (90ft vs 60ft) B) upgrade the system to light Rail (Streetcar in dedicated Lanes) A) would work if the government would allow for longer articulated buses, and it can be proven to be safe to use in a mixed traffic environment. B) would work better because it solves the capacity issues and can share Replacement vehicles with the light rail Fleet, and provides opportunity for Value capture to fund the conversion to rail. The stops are not the problem IMO its the lack of capacity due to the Type of vehicle chosen. The Stop spacing on the HL is roughly the same as the stop spacing on the Green and Blue lines. Like you said, the reality is the Healthline is no more a Rapid than the blue/green line is east of Shaker Square. For the Clinic, I would agree since the HL puts you right at the door of CC, as opposed to a several blocks walk from the Quincy-E. 105 stop and the intervening neighborhood is somewhat sketchy. However, I seriously question your statement regarding Case (the old CIT campus) as well as UH, where the current/rebuilding U.Circle station is only 3 blocks from the door... and the new, relocating Little Italy/UC/Mayfield station is only 2 blocks away from UH's core... The Little Italy station will also be closer to the old WRU/College of Women campus which includes, Weatherhead and Law School. The thing to remember is that every building is UC is oriented towards Euclid ave, hat is where the Front doors are, If you are going to an institution in UC can take the Redline, but may still have to walk to Euclid to access your final destination. the Healthline is more convenient for riders to use, and it involves less walking, and for most people trading 10 minute walk and 15 minute ride for a 5 minute walk and 25 minute ride is a no brainier. Healthline access to UC .5 mile radius from Line. Reline access to UC ( after Little Italy station is moved.) .5 mile radius from stop. The advantage of surface transit is the access to the front doors of businesses and jobs, closer stop spacing helps develop corridors, while greater stop spacing helps develop nodes, the catch is the further from the stop the development is the smaller the impact Transit will have on that development. In a back to the future moment I think a light Rail Subway from East 101st to East 118th street (1 mile) would do wonders for the speed of the health line in UC, unfortunately the cost would be 170-290 million dollars.

You are right on the money, and yes it is being considered by a few folks at GCRTA and their regular engineering consulting partners. They are all standard gauge, as is the mainline railroad system in the USA -- 4 feet, 8.5 inches. I'm racking my brain but its inherent advantages don't apply to Cleveland, such as being able to operate in multiple-car (four or more) configurations and thus carry much larger passenger counts. Its speed has more to do with the extent and design of right of way which. If a mostly grade-separated right of way with many straightaways and gentle curves were provided for a light-rail car, the light-rail vehicle can operate just as fast as a heavy-rail train can. This is picture from below the platform at the west 117th St station. In this case the platform is also a bridge. I would not rebuild the platform i'd use the retained fill technique to move the tracks up to the proper platform height. For platforms like trinkets I think platform reconstruction could be more cost effective that raising the tracks. It is less labor intensive to knock down the old platform and pour a platform 14in above the top of the rail. Either way the costs of maintaining a low and high fleet is higher than the costs of a low floor fleet. A good guide to the potential of modern LRT system http://www.thecrosstown.ca/the-project

How is Al porter relevant to this discussion? "I’ve never had allusions of serious Red Line expansion beyond its current route." Since you have given up, why don't you stand aside and allow us to make our rail system better. This isn't an issue: Light rail can go to airports and the many cities do just that. Little known fact that the majority of riders to airports are not travelers but workers There is no disadvantage to using low floor light rail tech with level boarding vs high level platforms/trains Most of these new stations have platforms like above. platforms are not the same as stations, you can replace one without replacing the other. You can cost effectively replace the platforms at potentially less cost than premium of a bilevel fleet. Name another heavy rail system that uses overhead line, and shares track with a light rail line? These factors make the conversion to light rail a no brainer. In reality the redline is more like a sup'd up light rail system that a true heavy rail system. Our system is unique because it began as a light rail system and was adapted to handle heavy rail, not the other way around. I wish you weren't so fearful of change. It is time to move on and grow this system.

Green Line 1/2 mile inflow/Outflow Job Counts (All Jobs) 2011 Count Share Employed in the Selection Area 85,318 100.0% Employed in the Selection Area but Living Outside 82,976 97.3% Employed and Living in the Selection Area 2,342 2.7% Living in the Selection Area 12,379 100.0% Living in the Selection Area but Employed Outside 10,037 81.1% Living and Employed in the Selection Area 2,342 18.9% Greenline 1 mile Inflow/Outflow Job Counts (All Jobs) 2011 Count Share Employed in the Selection Area 123,767 100.0% Employed in the Selection Area but Living Outside 115,519 93.3% Employed and Living in the Selection Area 8,248 6.7% Living in the Selection Area 30,986 100.0% Living in the Selection Area but Employed Outside 22,738 73.4% Living and Employed in the Selection Area 8,248 26.6%

Blue line 1/2 mile Inflow/Outflow Job Counts (All Jobs) 2011 Count Share Employed in the Selection Area 88,720 100.0% Employed in the Selection Area but Living Outside 85,357 96.2% Employed and Living in the Selection Area 3,363 3.8% Living in the Selection Area 16,535 100.0% Living in the Selection Area but Employed Outside 13,172 79.7% Living and Employed in the Selection Area 3,363 20.3% Blue Line one mile Inflow/Outflow Job Counts (All Jobs) 2011 Count Share Employed in the Selection Area 122,061 100.0% Employed in the Selection Area but Living Outside 113,325 92.8% Employed and Living in the Selection Area 8,736 7.2% Living in the Selection Area 32,308 100.0% Living in the Selection Area but Employed Outside 23,572 73.0% Living and Employed in the Selection Area 8,736 27.0%

these next couple of posts will be interesting. First I am using a workforce demographic and tracking software called on the map. http://onthemap.ces.census.gov/ combining it with KML files in Google earth allows for pretty decent information on travel dynamics. First: my guidance is Jobs within 1/2 mile of transit line and workers within 1 mile of transit line. second: the composition of workers who live and work within 1/2 mile of a Transit line. More appropriate in the contex of Surface Rail than heavy rail because of stop spacing. let start with the current system. 1/2 mile from stations. Inflow/Outflow Job Counts (All Jobs) 2011 Count Share Employed in the Selection Area 97,908 100.0% Employed in the Selection Area but Living Outside 93,735 95.7% Employed and Living in the Selection Area 4,173 4.3% Living in the Selection Area 23,566 100.0% Living in the Selection Area but Employed Outside 19,393 82.3% Living and Employed in the Selection Area 4,173 17.7% 1 mile from stations. nflow/Outflow Job Counts (All Jobs) 2011 Count Share Employed in the Selection Area 204,342 100.0% Employed in the Selection Area but Living Outside 179,594 87.9% Employed and Living in the Selection Area 24,748 12.1% Living in the Selection Area 69,439 100.0% Living in the Selection Area but Employed Outside 44,691 64.4% Living and Employed in the Selection Area 24,748 35.6%

Why are we comparing Cleveland RTA to CTA? This is a small, low-capacity rail system which, despite its short trains still has lots of excess capacity. It is vastly overbuilt for the third-tier city and the transit system which exists today. Having a heavy-rail system doesn't give us big-city cred or compensate for other urban shortcomings. What it does is create a high-cost rail system which is too expensive to extend. Sometimes we look for ways to extend the rail system for the sake of having a bigger rail system so that we have cool stuff to enjoy. The FTA will never fund that vision and I don't see the region's stakeholders ever getting behind that. However, if we approach it from the other direction, then you can get buy-in. We should decide how we want our city to be physically designed and populated in terms of businesses and educated citizenry, establish political jurisdictions to oversee and facilitate them, and then plan the infrastructure and circulation systems to ensure efficient commerce. What type of rail systems (class 1 and short-line freight, intercity, regional passenger, urban transit [heavy, light, steercar], etc) should be part of this picture and where? All of this is actually the intent of the North East Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium. The only reason why the type of rail equipment should even enter this broad conversation is that an interoperable rail car could travel on existing RTA rail and existing under-utilized freight corridors to cost-effectively expand the reach of the rail system to link multi-use employment/residential/retail nodes clustered around rail stops. And within those nodes you choose between bus or streetcar in terms of the density of land use and ridership sought and anticipated. That's all I got. I will admit I may be a Zealot on this issue, but the goal is system expansion to GROW transit Usage. I want to get these trains out of their trenches and off of their embankments into those neighborhoods that would benefit from Premium Transit service. I consider the upgrades required to allow this legacy system to survive Equivalent to Full blow new Starts project but a fraction of the cost. and would have benefits for the entire region.

Then what is your Way forward? Develop a single bi-level LRT vehicle? Continued use of Mixed heavy and light rail fleet? Use Low frequency Diesel locomotives to expand the system? would you use the money to convert 31 Low platform stations to high platform, instead of converting 15 high platform stations to to low platform? If the federal government gives Cleveland $500 million to upgrade the entire system to modern light rail, would you oppose it because its light rail? would you oppose a federal grant that allows GCRTA to operate the rail system at lower cost and provides opportunities for High Frequency Rail expansion, simply because it's light Rail? I don't get it, When will you realize that the system that was envisioned 60 years ago no longer meets the need of the community today, and in order to get more people on the Rail system you have to change the Rail system.

FYI FTA allows exsuiting systems to apply for new Starts grants. http://nextcity.org/theworks/entry/chicago-first-city-apply-fta-capacity-boosting-transit-grants The Question is how can GCRTA use this to Convert upgrade the Redline and the entire system to Light Rail? one nugget that may be relevent to us is Reliabilty. As this network ages it has become less reliable, making a case for the need to improve not only to replace and upgrade the Overhead line, replace the fleet and allow for future more cost effective rail expansion. with political pressure it ought not be too difficult to secure funding if the proper improvements are requested.

Light Rail use overhead line, while most heavy rail uses Third rail electrified at 700VDC. then there are different platform heights, and vehicle widths. a heavy Rail vehicle can be up to 16in narrower than a conventional light rial Vehicle. Cleveland is an exception to all of these rules, we could benifit from moving to a 100% light rial system.

Technology has made locomotive hauled passenger rail obsolete for all but a few long distance >500mile and low frequency routes. The reason that locomotive hauled train have remained in use for so long in the US is FRA regulations and to large extent cultural bias against them. IF PB had have speced DMUS for NEOrail in the late 90s you would have seen a reduction in operating costs. look at LIRR, and metro north, they have been using EMU/DMUS for a while now. Caltrain updates their fleet to increase speeds and frequency they are ditching push/pulls for EMUs. gotransit is doing the same as they try to upgrade their commuter rail system to a higher frequency "rapid" system. There isn't any city pair in Ohio in the Ohio hub system that would require even medium length trains. Most would benefit more from greater frequency of service than longer trains. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_unit

There is no segment in the state of Ohio where Modern EMU/DMUs will not be more cost effective to operate.

It needs to be 100% electrified light rail. The need for high frequency all day service mandates low cost to operate electrified light rail. We need to be more aware of the issue of trading low cost capital costs, for high cost operating costs. The difference between the red line extension to lake county and an extension to Westlake and my proposed terminus at Croker park is a ROW that is better located to attract riders, and that would flourish with high frequency high quality transit. Don't sell ourselves short the west shore is a good market for high Quality transit

Thank you. Most likely bureaucratic inertia. Much like Division of Water and NEORSD wanting separate checks and envelopes for so long. The rationale has been that it would cost too much in terms of electrical power to provide ticket vending machines at the many Blue/Green stops (which contain the most rail stops in RTA's rail network). However, I think that's a weak excuse. Not only does the current system make the Blue and Green lines unnecessarily slow and confusing (to new/casual WFL and Red Line transfer users), it's a capital cost that could (I'm sure) be 50% funded by FTA... an application that would likely be approved noting the above as well as the potential to attract more riders to the system. the solution is to put the fare machines on the Train, and move to a smart card payment system. Each train would have a fare machine. and validation machines would be placed at each door, so you could tap and go as you enter the train.

Good thing that wasn't the plan, though Kasich's lie stuck. Besides most new services started at slower speeds and some got even slower. But adding more departures is what drove mostly huge ridership increases since the first year... http://freepdfhosting.com/4808eafeb0.pdf I'm sure CLE will not do as well without a hub, but it's not airline armageddon. Losing hubs don't destroy economies anymore. See Pittsburgh. Well the PD originally reported that the trip would take around 6 hours. In 2010, the travel time was revised to around 5 hours, 11 minutes. That's hardly a powerful incentive to take the "high speed" train over driving. time saving are only part of the benefit driving sucks, and you cant watch Netflix, work or Knit while you are driving. so while you may reach your destination faster you didn't get any work done while you were traveling.

it explains why people may not use the redline for anything more than commuting. I don't see how your comment is relevant to the quote or supported by fact. The quoted comment deals with large subway palace-like stations, citing Seattle's metro bus/LRT tunnel built 24 years ago. Cleveland has no subway (other than the short airport tunnel). Also, I don't get your Red Line commuting comment. It's undeniable that the Red Line has seen tremendous growth in recent years -- carrying the most passengers in 22 years according to recent reports.. Plus rail commuter growth to/from downtown Cleveland, which has lost tons of jobs in the last 3 decades, and which only grown slightly job-wise in the last few years, does not appear to be where the growth is. Rather growth has occurred in off peak travel, to downtown and Ohio City, in particular, have expanded as significant restaurant & entertainment districts. You are Taking it too literally. the advantages of grade separated open cut, subway or elevated rail is speed, but the effort used to traverse the stairs or other obstacles must be counted as a disadvantage, over surface transport, if a person isn't going very far, it would make it more likely to take a slower surface route than a faster grade separated route. the importance of the distance the person travels and the speed that Service travels matters most in choosing grade separated vs Surface transit. also think about how new subways are being built Really deep nowadays. the east side access tunnel is 180ft below grade, the 2nd ave subway is 80 feet below grade. "MTA is constructing deep-bore subways so as not to risk the ire of a cut-and-cover NIMBYism. Much as how an elevated line will not see the light of day despite advances in engineering reducing the noise and blight, cut and cover and the disruptions it brings will never return to New York." http://secondavenuesagas.com/2013/10/01/guys-the-second-ave-subway-is-really-far-underground-and-the-times-is-on-it/

an interesting take on grade separation it explains why people may not use the redline for anything more than commuting.

keep in mind the breda cars are 9'4" wide, Toykus are 10' 4" wide.

I hate median platforms. They preclude using regular busses in non-peak hours on the same corridor. They require riders to cross an extra street: there are few things in the world that frustrate me more than seeing a HL bus pull up to the station but not being able to catch it because there are cars driving by. And they make the traffic pattern more confusing for drivers resulting in cars regularly turning into the bus lane on accident which increases risk to pedestrians crossing to the median platform. Drivers are accustomed to busses holding up the right lane of traffic already, riders are accustomed to the bus stopping on the curb, and if the dedicated bus lanes on a main road are actually faster, than why not use multiple bus routes that feed to those lanes? Sorry, rant off. What were we talking about? I have herd your concerns from many people, especially the visually and hearing impaired. but there is a balance between speed and community impact.