urbanlife

it looks like numb3rs on frankfurt downtown is now tinkerers (or something similar). it's a nice high quality vinyl banner. hadn't seen anything on planning or design review about new signs for this place.

Does anyone have the plans for what this $600,000 will actually do? I understand that it is limited to west 6th. The improvements on west 6th south of st. clair were only $60,000, and the northern stretch already has some great street trees. It was my original impression that the grant was going to district wide improvements, including Johnson Court and West 9th. $600,000 seems like a lot for a short stretch of pavement. Does anyone have more details or a link to the proposed changes?

Multiple transit authorities use GPS tracking and make it available online. This shouldn't be a hard thing to do and should be a priority for RTA, IMO. hold your breath. i've been told that this is in fact coming to RTA in the near future, perhaps as early as the spring, but more likely summer 2011. basically, RTA needs to purchase a module for their existing transit management system that allows for a web interface. They are exploring (have decided?) on using a technology that their current vendor supports and is being used by PACE in chicago: http://gis.pacebus.com/webwatch/default.aspx this will provide mobile access and maps with real time vehicle locations. More pressure needs to be put on the city that the existing timing is not adequate. As it stands, it seems that the city is satisfied with how it is working and things are "good enough."

Is there anything in there now? The garages look like they would be perfect spots for storefronts. And above could be apartments. Unless there is currently something in the building of course building is empty now, except for some storage on the first level - if you find a crack you can see hundreds of old work desks stacked on top of each other. the building is structurally sound - the owner has been keeping up on maintenance to roof and brick work - but it would require significant investment to convert into anything other than a warehouse type building. It also isn't 1 building - each section has slightly different column placements internally.

there is a lot of dead space where the ramps to the shoreway come up/down between w3 and w9. i think some of this paved area, with some new lighting and some gravel/grass/fencing could be a productive use of this space as a dog run. there could be access from both w6 and w9.

I don't doubt that closing Ontario and Superior through the square will give Joe C big headaches and slow down RTAs performance, but of course there are ways to re-route the buses. Once the east side transit center is open, it might even be easier, not sure. the biggest problem for any bus rerouting is a viable north-south route. the east west buses could fairly easily be moved onto prospect or st clair, but there is a fair amount of service north of public square where a bus will loop around near major buildings before returning through the square. also, i think that RTA might be on board if there was a way to show some operational cost savings. as it is now, everyone is basicallys saying "just add 5 minutes to the route and go this way instead." that might work well for 1 bus or 1 car, but for hundreds of buses a day, this would add up quickly - again assuming that the existing system needs to be kept. The now open east side transit center, a planned west side transit center, and the 3C project, a public square redesign would provide additional justification for reviewing the entire RTA downtown network.

i don't think there is a restaurant going there, but there is a significant amount of fill that has been leaving the area. there is a gate set up on the east side of aviation high school and a number of trucks leaving each day. on busy days, the city was spraying down north marginal with water in the evening to clean up the dust/dirt. my thought was that the city was moving some of this fill to their developing industrial park along I77, but that is just a guess. i haven't followed any of the trucks.

it looks like the WHD master plan for streetscape and other improvements has made it through NOACA's prioritization process for fund allocation. It is on the agenda as a proposed award for Friday morning, with spending that must occur starting in 2012, but it could be sooner. http://www.noaca.org/tacoctober2010.pdf (last page) Does anyone have a link to the WHD master plan? I didn't see anything on google.

On another note, there is an RTA clean up day on the Blue/Green lines schedule for Oct. 23: RTA Clean Up Day Saturday, October 23rd RTA's Citizen's Advisory Board, along with Park Works and assistance from RTA communications staff, is organizing a Clean Up Day along the Blue and Green Lines on Saturday, Oct. 23, from 9:00 a.m. to noon. Volunteers will meet at a designated location and work to clean up some of the areas where trash accumulates along the tracks. Park Works provides a service through the Rapid Recovery program for 31 weeks during the year, over the entirety of the RTA system, using Court Community Service work crews, but cannot reach all of the dozens of miles of track each week and during inclement weather. If anyone is interested in helping in this volunteer effort to make the scenery for train riders a bit more pleasant, please contact Mary McCahon at [email protected].

Christie's runs their shuttle pretty regularly during weekends and during happy hours (well more than 6.5 hours per week). The Flat Iron provides shuttles for all Indians and Cavs home games. Are you suggesting it's costing them and whoever else runs shuttles $30,000 each time they offer up their free service for transportation from downtown to their venue? You can rent a party bus for 6 hours for like $800. This is the difference between RTA and their payscale and private sector and private vehicles. It costs RTA more than $100 per hour of service now, per vehicle operator, not including the purchase of the vehicle itself. Could you find a private operator that would do this for $50/hour? In theory, you negotiate and rent 2 yellowcab vans for 4 hours/day and negotiate a rate and have the cabbies run the route. You could put a large magnet sign on the side that had the name of the free shuttle. Would each cab be willing to do this for $25 or $30/hour or work out a per passnger rate?

At a minimum, it would be good to get a trolley service going on the Market days (M,W,F) from 10am until 7pm or something to better connect the downtown office crowd with the market and surrounding restaurants. If OCNW / WSM / OC businesses could work out some sponsorship dollars, something like this might be doable - and it actually might be much cheaper if it wasn't an offical RTA service.

Damn! I was planning on having dinner at Crop during my visit to Cleveland in two weeks ("next month"). Where are they relocating to? Actually, you'll be able to go to the current location. They are keeping the WHD location open through October then moving at the start of November. The new location is at West 25th & Lorain though, right across from the West Side Market. when i was in this week, it sounded like they will be open in the WHD until the end of the year. they haven't started real construction in the new space yet.

this is probably the most comprehensive list (and it hasn't been updated for a few years): http://mobikefed.org/2006/05/bicycle-paths-on-interstate-freeway.php the cuyahoga river is a designated federal shipping channel, so has minimum clearance requirements - something like 92 feet, iirc. the point to note here is that the other pedestrian and bicycle crossings on lorain and detroit are at least this high as well.

it currently goes to a Waste Management material recovery facility (MRF) in Oakwood (on I-271). this is where all of WM's waste collection from NEO arrives before transferred onto trucks for the landfill. This is also where all of the recycling that WM collects/handles or is contracted from drop offs (many cities in NEO) arrives and is sorted. More info here: http://www.zerowasteneo.org/profiles/blogs/waste-management-recycle here are a few more photos of what appears to be the MRF in Oakwood: http://www.gcbl.org/image-galleries/economy/recycling-trash also, many waste trucks have multiple compartments to allow for co-collection, so it is very possible that the same truck can pick up both recylables and regular household trash. here is an example: http://www.gov.chilliwack.bc.ca/main/page.cfm?id=1830 nb, Cleveland has announced that they signed a new contract with a different company to handle recycling in the future - not sure when this starts, but the process should be similar.

RTA has presented something before along the lines that even with 1% or 2% sales tax increases, it will take until 2014 to get back to 2007 funding levels (and then be faced with 2014 costs). so, it is a good thing for sure as to no immediate cuts, but it won't allow for any restoration of service.

can you post a couple of the pics?

i'm disappointed by the initial median drawings here and overall street design. There would seem to be a good opportunity to address storm water runoff (this area is in a combined sewer area, with a number of overflows within a mile of the project) with some of the plantings and street design, but it appears to be a solid concrete curb with much of the islands hard surfaced around the edges. this looks very 1960 (but it's new construction, so it must be good!). i'd like to see some 2010 thinking built into the project, and perhaps some better connection/attention to the lake nearby. were there any discussions about stormwater/water quality aspects of this project that aren't represented by the presentations? are there any goals for the project to try and control runoff in this area? a couple of examples: DC - http://images.greatergreaterwashington.org/images/201003/bioretention.jpg Michigan - www.semcog.org/LowImpactDevelopment.aspx Buffalo - http://www.buffalorising.com/2009/02/pushing-green-at-canal-side.html#SlideFrame_0 Nashville - http://hpigreen.com/tag/green-streets/

It's pretty clear what other agencies are doing. From the article: Nationally, other transit systems with proof-of-payment systems cite all fare evaders, regardless of age. So yeah, I'd love to know the history of the non-enforcement policy for minors. Because it was moronic. And if it came from RTA brass, it's another highly visible lapse of judgment. Would love to see some accountability in the wake of some of these horrible decisions. i'm pretty sure the article is missing some information. rta planned to cite everyone after a warning or whatever, but after passing the legislation 2 years ago, it was found out somewhere along the way that the legislation didn't allow for citing minors (either a city or state ordinance problem). now, they are trying to close that hole that at some point became a problem. after they found out that they couldn't cite minors, they modified their minor policy and took non-paying minors off the train, back to school, or home or whatever. but, in the end this isn't very efficient use of the fare enforcement officer's time, so now they are trying to re-introduce legislation that allows for citations so that the officers can remain in the system checking other fares. at least this is my understanding. also, it is a bit dangerous and erroneous imo to assume that most of the people riding haven't paid - regardless of age or destination. by rta's own estimates only 2-4% of riders don't pay - so just because someone doesn't check your train it doesn't always mean they don't have an activated farecard in their pocket. i wouldn't assume that any less than 90%+ of the riders on the train/healthline have an activated pass on them, even if no fare officer checks it or other riders don't physically see it. In July 2010, here is the breakdown on fare source systemwide: Monthly pass - 1,144,481 (out of 3,423,551 rides = 33% of trips) All day pass - 779,860 (23% of trips) Cash fare - 513,176 (15% of trips) RTA employees/transfers - 370,496 (11% of trips) Healthline - 323,700 (9% of trips) Other farecards - 220,730 (6%) University passes - 22,450 (<1 %) so, systemwide, 67% of the riders use a monthly, all day, weekly/5 trip pass or are an rta employee.

you can use an outdoor heater, but in Cleveland, it has to be electric. dvine on st clair has electric heaters installed on their patio. you can also get electric heaters that are the same look of the propane ones.

it would have been nice if the city could have required standard parking to extend the landscaping buffers on at least one side of the lot - for instance continuing down w6 to frankfurt. as bad as these surface lots are, they are a lot better when there is a landscape buffer - as exists along the north side of much of frankfurt for instance.

Does edgewater have an actual beach cleaner/screener machine? something like this: http://www.cherrington.net/products_Detail.php?ID=4 If so, how often is it used on the beach itself? EDIT: Also, why aren't there any swings on the lower level of the park? I would think some nice swings facing the lake or downtown would be a nice inexpensive addition.

my understanding is that the preliminary polling numbers showed weak support in rural counties, but strong support in the urban counties. i think they are modeling the effort after the most recent casino vote, where the issue failed in many rural counties, but gained enough votes in the urban areas and counties (except columbus) where casinos were to be located, that it passed statewide.

I just feel that if they want to enact something like that, then there needs to be a one seat policy on every single train/bus at all times. That would mean NOBODY is allowed to take more than one seat with their body or any of their stuff, which would be totally impossible to enforce. I would prefer better luggage storage. The existing cutout areas are small, and accommodate at best 2 medium sized suitcases - total. It has been proposed before that RTA remove 2 seats near the middle doors and install a "real" luggage rack that you see on rental car vans, hotel shuttles, and trains in many cities. example: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/10/12/nyregion/luggagerack-480.jpg This is a train that services the airport, afterall.

imo, the problem is that there are too many departments and external factors that overlap (not unique to rta), that no 1 person has the ultimate responsibility and accountability over the performance or appearance of the service(s), except the CEO, who then has to react, and is concerned with 100 other bigger picture things, like union contracts, budget deficits, etc. additionally, each of the depts has their own priorities, fires to put out, and possibly internal disfunctions or morale issues, that seemingly small things like litter, dead trees, etc. aren't considered important (or are number 45 on a list of important things) or are outside of rta's control. at the end of the day, rta runs hundreds of buses and trains each day, generally on time, without accidents, etc., and they are doing a decent job of this. however, as many have suggested here, there is a strong desire that rta expand the vision of its responsibilities to more explicitly include the impact on the community, whether it be the talking buses, litter, or customer experiences. in some cases, rta is being asked to do what the city of cleveland should already be doing on its own. a strong brand manager role, or reprogramming and the existing role, to empower this type of oversight would go a long way to address a number of the types of complaints and observations that are frequently identified here.

What RTA needs to consider is empowering strong brand managers across key routes/services. I know that they introduced the concept of a "brand manager" for the HealthLine, but I'm not sure how much power that position has, and i think it is more internally focused. A brand manager for the HealthLine (and others such as the Red Line, Blue Line, Green Line, (maybe some combined?), park and ride services) would have the ultimate responsibility for the entire line, including things outside of RTA's control. Customer complaints, running times, street condition, bus/rail condition, landscaping, ticket machines, litter, etc. - basically everything. They would tell the city to fix broken traffic lights, as it is impacting the service b/c they are monitoring the running times; they would instruct RTA police, operations, maintenance to respond to specific requests to make sure that the brand is kept strong. Maybe going as far as having their picture and contact information on vehicles and stations, suggesting that riders contact them to resolve any issues. This would be a key externally customer facing position, which interfaces with everything on the line, and would be empowered to make/demand improvements, as well as be held to high standards. talking buses? automated voices/announcements? rail corridor litter? traffic light timing on euclid? ticket vending machine problems? dirty station? graffiti? basically everything would fall under their supervision.