eurokie

You think that's awesome, this is the Kamppi, which is the central mall that the transit hub lies beneath: Hubba hubba.. sorry for the divergence. Back to Public Square.

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. Did RTA take the steering wheels out of their buses or something? I don't understand why these large vehicles could not go around Public Square to the south. Really, considering that this area is pretty cramped and offers little room to work with and maintaining RTA access and the goal of a landmark green space seem incongruent, the bus hub needs to go underground it seems. Most European bus terminals were underground in my experience. Helsinki had an excellent model where it was the underground level of their main downtown shopping mall, and also had a metro station, and people could walk across the square to the rail terminal (most visitors usually got horribly lost doing this, so clearly the connection between separate facilities needed re-thinking). Something like this terminal connected to these underground parking bays, which could be positioned east/west if RTA is obsessed with maintaining route horizontality. I like the idea but it would probably be horribly expensive and thus unrealistic. I would love it if we had this though Can't be any more horrifically conceived (financially speaking at least) than BRT, in terms of expensive fixed bus system infrastructure. My point is just that goals for RTA and a better Public Square do not seem congruent. At some point, these goals have to diverge and follow their own paths.

I was going to say that it doesn't look like EIFS. I like the project, and I especially love the way it has transformed a space (the bend along Euclid) just by defining it better.

Sure, I love taxes.

Is that EIFS?

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. Did RTA take the steering wheels out of their buses or something? I don't understand why these large vehicles could not go around Public Square to the south. Really, considering that this area is pretty cramped and offers little room to work with and maintaining RTA access and the goal of a landmark green space seem incongruent, the bus hub needs to go underground it seems. Most European bus terminals were underground in my experience. Helsinki had an excellent model where it was the underground level of their main downtown shopping mall, and also had a metro station, and people could walk across the square to the rail terminal (most visitors usually got horribly lost doing this, so clearly the connection between separate facilities needed re-thinking). Something like this terminal connected to these underground parking bays, which could be positioned east/west if RTA is obsessed with maintaining route horizontality.

Why can't these be synthesized into an intermodal transit hub facility connected to Tower City? The intermodal hub could be a primary target for TOD (as it should). I know there has been discussion about a new transit hub, or at least I've seen a few references to it but not actually seen the project, but why can't such a project help be a game-changer for Public Square? I also don't understand why if the BRT, which has heightened bus access requirements than the normal city buses, can operate in a slimmed-down and beautified corridor, why do these seriously over-capacity downtown arteries have to remain in a position that dices Public Square like a tomato and prevents a contiguous sense of place? (Sorry, long run on question, but many implied points) It seems like RTA's needs for Public Square are very different from the city's, which seems a lot more enthusiastic about generating new ideas for this space.

This is actually untrue. I was born and raised in the south, and for years old-school deep south (aka backwards) states like Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma, etc. have been trying to figure out how to have the economic growth that exists in other states like North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, etc. Obviously there's a different recipe for each success story, but low costs was only a marginal factor in TN and virtually negligible in NC and especially TX. Cost of living is actually very high in Dallas, for example, whereas Dallas (Houston being "Oil Capital of the World") is clearly the business capital of Texas, in a diversified sense. I know many of you yankee urbanists like to snicker at the big projects in Dallas, but the reality is that you could be dropped in Dallas and honestly swear you were in Chicago and be confused why so many TX license plates everywhere. Dallas has grown up, and it's become an completely enclosed, gentrified (or ghettofied) city. The secret has and always will be young people - education, and then retaining those graduates produced by the education system. TX reinvested a lot of its oil profits in the 70s into making UT and A&M world-class research institutions. NC just did it without a massive cash influx to begin with, by prioritizing UNC and NCST over anything else. TN's main growth driver is the Nashville area, which is a mecca for research, with Vandy, medical schools, national research center in one of the southern suburbs, etc. Outside of Nashville, TN has benefited from low costs and especially a lack of union workers, as companies like Nissan and Toyota have demonstrated a strong preference to avoid union regions in establishing new manufacturing centers. Unfortunately. Education is always the most important factor, and having a highly-qualified (and public health is also a factor, being healthy) workforce. It's all about human capital that sets states apart, very little has anything to do with costs. Having low costs will attract non-union manufacturing (which is still good), call centers, Indian casinos, and low-skill service jobs - this is absolutely not a basis for economic growth. No Fortune 500 companies, R&D companies, innovative tech startups, or anything that can add skilled labor opportunities to your economy, are looking for cheap. They are looking for quality places to locate over cheap places. States trumpeting their low costs over their education and quality of life are actively repelling good jobs, as a matter of fact. That's all my home state does and they will never figure out why it doesn't work and why the economy is still 100% tied to oil despite other states like Texas successfully diversifying. Then it comes down to an absolute truism when it comes to economic development. Conservatives craft nothing but dangerous, regressive, backward policies and trumpet them as business-friendly. There is a reason that the most economically prosperous places are usually the most progressive (different from "liberal") in their region - NC and VA are a perfect example of how a state that turned progressive left its Dixie neighbors behind in the dust. If you compare the economic benefits of MS to MN, you'll see a very high-cost yet progressive state up against a very low-cost yet regressive state. If you are an R&D company that employs 200 people, but has a major ripple effect in the economy due to your innovations (in other words YOU are the ED cash cow every state is dreaming about), which state are you going to locate in - MS or MN?

What is this consumer consuming, besides gas? Things people can consume from a car: Petroleum, fast food, highway tolls, some dry cleaning maybe, and that's about it - hopefully you share the civic vision that others in your community have that downtown Cleveland develop more business base than gas stations, fast food, and dry cleaners. The fact is that people don't become consumers until they leave their cars. Also, downtowns aren't going to compete with suburbs in the purest Darwinian economic sense. If one places a premium on parking and chain retail there is no way I can convince them to patronize downtown businesses. What downtowns are successfully selling, instead is lifestyle. That is what the "downtown consumer" (if you're only capable of looking at it in business terms) is "consuming." I would argue that then you are looking to not only cater to pedestrians above all, but try and get cars and other urban clutter out of the picture as much as possible. Here is an excellent study on economic benefits of walkability: http://www.vtpi.org/walkability.pdf I'd rather live in a fishbowl aquarium than in the middle of a highway interchange. So let me get this straight. Instead of having a well-designed Public Square that meets the objectives of a landmark green space, and keys in on uniformity in a way that is easy for the pedestrian and visitor to understand his/her surroundings - Cleveland should spend that money on fixing pot holes so that you can drive faster? That said, it's definitely a good thing that you seem to be a staunch minority, and that many others have this "obsession" over good planning.

Most schools haven't even touched it at all since 2008, especially because academic endowments aren't required to distribute anything like charitable ones are. Endowments have been under fire across the country (especially their tax-exempt status), regardless of their specific stipulations at a particular college. It was a pretty off-hand comment anyway.

Yeah, CSU's endowment is pretty negligible, not that most university's use their endowment for anything anyway.

Creo que me gusto! Just kidding, kids drugs are bad, mmk.

I'd argue you get what you pay for. Tuition should be more a function of state support for students, less a function of market rate what students are receiving. SMDH

There you go, posting tons of really good ideas. Now do you really think this is the appropriate time and place for that? That just won't cut it if we're wanting to be Venezuela. I would love me some pot and gay marriage. That might get me to move to Venezuela. :mrgreen:

True, there is a "CSU rate" at downtown hotels but for example my alumni association card gets a better discount, and it just seems a little bush league, but the improving downtown location probably makes up for that. I'm probably drawing at straws, deep down, I guess I just wish the shiny rendering had come to fruition - the real solution to this problem is probably to indulge in other shiny new renderings instead lol. Maybe I'm also a little too used to the argument of, "Well, we have to build it (whatever it is), or they'll think our endowment is tiny." :roll:

Ah shucks. Well I might have had an agenda to push a charter proposal back then anyway... lol

A better idea would be to just subsidize whatever you're smoking. Then Ohio can really be more like Venezuela. :drunk: This thread will be fun.

^ Speaking of 3CDC, this thread is interesting to me because 2 years ago I wrote a post on my downtown OKC blog (at the time I didn't expect to be moving to Ohio 2 years later) about the school project in OTR, and also included a blurb about 3CDC, and the synergy between those entities. I'll let you guys have a look and see if I got it right (obviously Cincy isn't my area of expertise) and maybe there's some curiosity about perceptions of other urbanists, in a thread about changing perceptions. http://downtownontherange.blogspot.com/2010/05/impact-school-can-have.html

Because the university is not able to subsidize it or use it as a teaching facility or even for work-study jobs or whatever opportunities the university might want. Those are still privately-owned hotels and they all have the same rate, not including parking, or at least for the nights I called for. Being downtown and surrounded by hotels and other services that have cropped up around campus, they get the benefit of having a place for visitors to stay so beds nearby isn't a problem, but being able to manage them in the way they want is (I obviously can't yet speak to CSU's hospitality goals, but probably in line with other large universities). The university will be able to put a visiting professor or speaker in a hotel and give them a per diem, obviously, but that similar courtesy is often extended to other academic visitors if a university has a hotel it runs itself. It gives the university an advantage in attracting visitors and events to come their way, similarly to how municipalities these days are moving heaven and earth to build subsidized attached convention center hotels. Here is an example of the hotel at Oklahoma State, which is attached to the Student Union and overlooks the quad. Working in our study abroad office, I was able to familiarize myself with differences in short-term accommodation on campuses. I know a lot of the other big campuses I've visited for sporting events have something similar, like Auburn for example.

For shame. This seems to be a trend I am noticing of TOD not really taking hold anywhere along the RTA? (aside from the eco-village plans, which are just plans)...not that BRT lends itself very well to TOD, definitely not as well as the rail-based Red Line in the case of the eco-village plan. It's also a shame because CSU could really use a campus hotel, and I can testify to that - the only summer quarters they do are Euclid dorms rented by the week, which is an odd arrangement. I'm not sure what they do when Euclid is booked. Campuses need university-ran hotels, which can be teaching opportunities for an HRAD-type program.

I'm very glad you guys are calling out the criminal officiating so that I don't have to lol - I hate it when fans kvetch about officials, it's such a lame cop-out because the bottom line is that we stunk to high heaven in the 1st Q. When the score got to 18-2 I knew it was over, even though I also knew we'd make a fierce comeback. I did not think we'd be within 2 to tie with seconds left and the ball in Durantula's hands, which usually means a good thing is about to happen. But I don't think it changes the momentum of the entire series. The Heat were dangerous because they played with fire, desperate to avoid a 2-0 start they didn't think they could overcome. I am not worried, especially because I don't think much of Miami's "home court" and if the Thunder can steal a game in SA, sweep the defending champs and our budding franchise rivals in Dallas, eliminate the Lakeshow in 5, they can easily get at least one in Miami.

Excellent pics! Pardon my ignorance if this is already underway or was shelved/postponed/etc, but I was snooping around and came across this RTA/CSU Layover Center - anyone know what happened to it?

They do when others on your team aren't getting blocks but are getting points. Why does OKC need another scorer in addition to the Big 3 in Durant, Westbrook, and Harden? Also consider that Sefolosha, Ibaka, Collison, Fisher, Perkins, and even Cook have proven capable of going off any moment with a rash of scoring. Somebody is going to be hot. Ibaka, one player, does not have to carry the team defensively - he can and should focus on defense, clearly.

I think Cleveland may get even more out of a streetscape and street-slimming program than just a Public Square redesign.

Why does Ibaka need to (or want to) go 24 for 10? He's a role player. He leads the league in blocks, the next guy has 1/3rd as many blocks as Ibaka - Miami doesn't have defensive players in the same echelon as Ibaka and Sefolosha, and Collison is good too. I would take getting almost 4 epic blocks a game, and that's just on average, over whatever scoring contributions Bosh makes. Be the best in the league at something. When Ibaka posts up and blocks a shot the crowd goes wild and the team feeds off that energy.