audidave

Interesting tidbit from Gizmodo on a potential maglev project.. http://gizmodo.com/5014227/transportation-bill-gives-45-million-to-maglev-project-sets-it-up-for-fail A new transportation bill signed by Bush on Friday would free up $45 million to build the U.S.'s first maglev train. The train will travel between Disneyland and Las Vegas at up to 300 mph and is meant to help ease traffic on the 250+ mile ride on Interstate 15. While I'm all for high-speed trains and efficient public transportation, isn't the Bush administration forgetting something? Maglev trains are hella expensive. Sure, the $45 million is only supposed to pay for “environmental studies” in the first phase of the project, but the government can probably expect to spend a hundred times that amount before this thing is over. Japan's Linimo maglev train, located near Nagoya, cost a cool $380 million to build and it's only 5.5 miles long. China's Shanghai Maglev Train, finished in 2004 in a country where labor's cheap and private land ownership is a pretty new concept, cost $1.3 billion for 19 miles of track—roughly $68.4 million per mile. What will $45 million buy in the States? 10 feet? I love the concept of mass transit and one of my biggest gripes with the U.S. is how they let their train infrastructure shrivel and rot, but the paltry amount dedicated to such a pricey technology makes me wonder if this isn't just another attempt for Bush to greenwash his last few months in office. [slashdot]

It sounds like an impressive breakthrough to me. Its a pretty confusing article but basically if I'm reading it correctly and if it was written correctly, the lab has a breakthrough on turning amonia into hydrogen regardless where that amonia has come from. She's just taking the additional step in working out that she can create amonia from urea. Things that change the world are when there's a breakthrough no one thought of that makes things significantly cheaper. $600k seems like a hell of a deal to license it.

When I have lived in other cities, I try to base my location upon easy access and available amenities. Cleveland+(sure I'll use the marketing campaign name) is a pretty diverse spread-out place with special nooks and lots of unique specialties. I'm sure I'd be relatively happy living in any of the areas you are looking at, although I've lived in none of them, therefore I'm pretty objective.. Mainly you should walk or drive around the neighborhoods you're considering. I wouldn't focus on the closeness of parks unless you have a particular sport you enjoy. Parks are everywhere and pretty accessible. Look through rent.net and apartments.com to figure out what you can afford and what you want to spend. Consider the mass transit options available from each area. With all the calculations you'll need to make, lucky for you, you're an engineer... 3-4 beer bars will keep you on the west side if you step into any one of them: Melt, Buckeye Beer Engine, Great Lakes, Tremont Tap House(I haven't been here yet..) Thats just a very quick list. Many more wonderful bars and restaurants that can be discovered sprinkled throughout the Westside. In the East, the only thing that would be comparable is la Cave du Vin in Cleveland Heights. Bars and restaurants are usually packed together in districts in the Eastside Personally, the complexity of making cbd your base when you have no understanding of the outlying area or suburbs would make things really confusing. There's so many lights, attractions, and distractions going on downtown all the time that you might not realize what you're missing in Lakewood, OC, Tremont, Little Italy, Shaker, Cleveland Heights, or Collinwood. I think there would be a tendency to just stay downtown. To me downtown is for the heartiest of Clevelanders or the heartiest of partiers. You're not the first, and I don't think you fit the latter.

No one has suggested Tremont or Ohio City yet. I think you should consider them since they are pretty central to what you're looking for. They have some of the best dining in Cleveland. Either are funky neighborhoods. I always enjoy visiting Ohio City. Its easy to get to live venue clubs in Lakewood or downtown from there. I suppose you have a decent chance of taking a rapid to work from this area as well. If you're into high-end beer at all, say Great Lakes and above, then you owe it to yourself to be in the western part of Cuyahoga County with most of the breweries in the county. If you live in Ohio City, its cool to be able to walk over to GLBC and drink the beers they don't sell in bottles. I think its one of the better walking neighborhoods in Cleveland with Bier Market, Daves, and West Side Market. For a Columbus reference, this area has a Brewery District feel to it, in particular around Schmidts.

There have been articles in the Beacon about this. It was never explained so romantically as the Buchtellite writer has conjured up. I think she did a good job writing that story. The Beacon's version was basically in the business section describing relatively dryly that they want to refurbish those buildings and add some restaurants. No real details, no real time-frame. That was a year to a year and a half ago with a brief update on it when they took down the parking garage. Its quite clear seeing the updates in the particular buildings that things are happening. When they will have occupancy is obviously another matter. I'm hearing there could be 1 or 2 restaurants open by the end of the year, perhaps as early as summer. With a bit of searching I found the old thread: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,11402.0.html

Its hard to get an idea how big of a factor unstable soil is. They will be digging straight towards the lake and could potentially just slant the base that direction. Its not like they are just digging a big hole in the ground. They are digging an exit point as well.. Basically, in my mind they have to figure on building additional drainage ditches the length of the new mall.. I'm sure there's additional shoring up of the walls but really this doesn't look like a show stopper.

There is now pseudo commuter rail between Akron and Canton starting in June for 5 days a week! :clap: Its actually just expanded Scenic rail but its seriously encroaching on commuter.. 2 trains a day leave Canton with one leaving at 9am from Canton and a return to Canton at 5:15 from Akron. Many downsides: $15 a trip although they say you get the return trip included as well as free transfers. I'm guessing its a day pass. Only Wednesday thru Sunday are when the trips take place. Three months only. They are studying to see how popular this is and its set to end in August. Its supposed to cost CVSR $80,000 to do this. I don't know if multiple day passes can be purchased. If this were to leave anywhere from 7:15-8:15am, I think this would get heavy usage. Thats when rush hour is and I-77 is packed. It would be really awesome to get a month pass for $150-200 and free transfers on Sarta or Metro.

Interesting article by the PD.. There's a link to the audio in that story. Reading the article then listening to Dimora talk seem almost totally separate. The reporter is definitely caught up in trying to "catch" Dimora. The audio starts really slow but then Dimora picks up the pace. Interesting how Dimora screams he's not running for Commissioner again but it doesn't appear in the story. http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/05/dimora_against_county_reform_s.html Dimora against county reform; says GOP and Plain Dealer in league against Democrats Posted by Joe Guillen May 20, 2008 20:02PM Categories: News Impact Previous story • Dimora criticizes Plain Dealer reporters for asking about court(sic) employee. Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora on Tuesday blasted a plan to reform local government, even saying the idea -- proposed by a fellow commissioner -- exposes a plot to dismantle the local Democratic Party that he chairs. CHOPPED

This is just delaying development. What kind of timeframe is it going to take to adequately figure out the expense of acquiring the needed properties as well as the utilities that would need to be upgraded and altered to make an E.55 site ready to go? Now how long will it realistically take to be able to acquire the properties given not everyone is willing to deal? How long does Cuyahoga County have to "play" around until they stick shovels in the ground? Whats the qualification for being a commissioner?

I've heard whispers about this idea to use the parking lot that Quaker Square owned as a hotel. Perhaps this also adds some revamping to the Knight center. I think its hard to get too much use out of this relatively new facility when there's so many options throughout Northeast Ohio for convention/exhibition space as well as many good options throughout Akron alone. Its probably a good thing for a convention center and for a major downtown hotel to have a direct connection to a convention center. It sounds to me that there will be a skywalk going between the convention center and art museum to connect to the Hyatt from the parking deck with branches coming off this to connect to the museum and CC. This isn't a bad idea to have a skywalk going over 2 busy 1 way roads. I wonder if this is the $150 million development that is being talked about by University Park Alliance... They might want to have the Art museum architect Coop Himmelb(l)au design the skywalks to match his wings over museum and perhaps the Hyatt itself..

The most likely spot for this arena is the intersection of E. Buchtel and Maiden Lane essentially obliterating whats left of both roads. I would expect nothing short of a 10,000 seat arena. The JAR's capacity is around 5,000. But enough with knocking down buildings in downtown Akron. This would fit nicely on all the parking lots there except for maybe that closed down old diner. Why would that developer of the new luxury student housing be so eager to build on Main and Exchange if there wasn't going to be a nice arena practically across the street. But then who's going to take ownership of this arena? UA doesn't want to own a brand new arena while building a new stadium. Akron doesn't want to be on the hook to own/build an arena while dealing with Goodyear and Firestone/Bridgestone developments. Perhaps First Merit and LeBron will bankroll a new arena together. He could let St. V play their home games there and use it as a staging place for all his downtown Akron events. Another thing that could happen is a hotel/arena package since downtown could be hotel-less pretty soon.

The county commissioners are pretty mystifying. How is sticking a convention center next to the stadium a good idea? Perhaps he thinks its totally unusable land so might as well stick a big building or 2 on it? I imagine he gets these thoughts while tailgating. Personally I don't think it matters where the MM goes as long as its within a half mile or so of the convention center. Put it on public square great, tower city fine, Warehouse district sure whatever. There are limits to where a CC can be placed given the various stages of development of all the other projects going on in downtown Cleveland and the contiguous acreage needed with good access. Why does it seem like the Commissioners are trying so hard to avoid making a really easy decision? Certainly the port could cut the county a sweetheart deal on the land next to the stadium. There still would have to be an insane amount of infrastructure changes to get that site ready though. The amount of time and money to acquire what they need in the warehouse district would make this choice far fetched. Sticking the CC behind the TC will be expensive because of its engineering challenge and future limitations. I'm sure this would take away a lot of parking for TC and so they would have to create even more new parking for a new CC. All they have to do is go to Pittsburgh or Columbus and see what a white elephant in a downtown does for a city. Then they can realize how genius it is that the convention center is underground. I'm guessing because of time constraints(mainly property acquisition and engineering) of the other options, the commissioners will have to choose the Mall plan since its the only plan that could likely be completed in 3 years, if I recall the agreed timeframe correctly..

Checking out the map there looks to be an impressive unused bar jutting out from western Sandusky with rail road tracks on it. That to me looks like a nice ready made container port. .

:-D I like Mayday's picture better.. It has more feeling... :drunk:

Looking over the websites of this superport it looks pretty impressive. The best thing is that this is a 2 way street of container shipping. Companies could use this superport as a stockpile for what needs to be shipped in the winter to get through the winter months. I'm sure local companies would pay far cheaper taxes for maintaining those inventories in Canada. The rustbelt being the manufacturer that it is should readily be able to take advantage of dropping shipping charges from not paying multiple truck drivers in tandem with the devaluation of the dollar. This region also has historically grown fastest when there was shipping on the great lakes to the coast from the opening of the Ohio and Erie canal to the St. Lawrence Seaway. By decreasing the cost of shipping to Europe, it opens up the options for more companies in the area that never would've considered sending product to Europe-say Ohio wineries, breweries, and many more manufacturers.

No idea about how to go about that. Feel free to submit the idea to the policy makers. :mrgreen:

I don't have a problem with having a short term gas tax cut over the summer. However, just let people know that it will slowly be raised thereafter. Which is a sillier thing: reducing gas tax for a short period of time or giving every person $600? Its not like people are expecting gas prices to go down in a year or 2. Its just that gas went up so fast that no one was ready for it. Back to Rail! So since gas tax revenue is tough to get moved over to any kind of rail usage, I propose a vehicle weight tax. A person buying a new vehicle that weighs over a certain weight would pay a small percentage tax on the original sale of the vehicle. over 5000lbs pay a 3% tax over 4000lbs pay a 2% tax over 3000lbs pay a 1% tax People would plan to try to get under a certain weight penalty. The purpose is its senseless for cars to continuously to get bigger in the US. This should limit the American "bigger is better" attitude. The money should be focused on improving commuter rail transportation in Ohio.

I was feeling the same way towards the comments of Obama. It just sounded like he knew that would appease people that are interested in more passenger rail. I keep reading very dodgy comments from him of late. He's mimicked Hillary's platform to campaign as the anti-Hillary. I'm not a huge fan of Hillary but I respect her. I have nothing to go on with Obama. Oh he may support some wise energy proposals and perhaps has an interest in starting up some commuter rail. But he also wants to bomb Pakistan. Hmmm.... Overall, I missed the part where I'm supposed to be impressed by Obama..

Finally, an Ohio potato chip taste test... This article is a running conversation between 2 reporters.. Because UrbanOHio dropped the italics originally in the article, I've replaced the italics with ### since I couldn't bold.. http://www.ohio.com/lifestyle/18034494.html?page=all&c=y When taste-testing Ohio's finest, you can't have just one, two . . .10 Our testers can agree on favorites, little else Published on Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008 It's been several months since Beacon Journal beer writer Rick Armon and I decided to join forces to take a look at Ohio's booming potato chip industry. As a beer fan, Rick's interest in chips is understand-able. My interest was fueled by Northeast Ohio's unique place in the history of potato chips, a truly homegrown delight. CHOPPED

http://www.ohio.com/news/top_stories/18034484.html?page=all&c=y We dig our potatoes: A whole lot of slicing and frying going on Big companies gobble up homegrown brands By Lisa Abraham Beacon Journal food writer Published on Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008 The next time you open a bag of potato chips, before you start crunching and munching, consider that you are holding a piece of Ohio's culinary and economic history in the palm of your hand. We didn't invent the potato chip here, but we embraced it with gusto, and today Ohio ranks as the second-largest chip-producing state in the country. The Snack Food Association in Alexandria, Va., the trade group for the U.S. snack food industry, traces its roots to a group of potato chip makers from Ohio. CHOPPED

Some nice articles from the Beacon Journal this week regarding Ohio's importance to the snack food industry... http://www.ohio.com/news/18034124.html?page=all&c=y Ohio chipper about chips Ohio is loaded with plants big and small frying up potato chips of many styles, flavors By Rick Armon Beacon Journal staff writer Published on Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008 They're salty. Crunchy. Fried and kettle-cooked. They come in various flavors and shapes. And Americans love them. Since invented in 1853 by accident, potato chips have become a snack food staple — one with deep and growing roots in Ohio. When family-owned Shearer's Foods announced a major expansion a few weeks ago in Stark County, it further cemented Ohio's — and the region's — already powerful reputation as one of the largest potato chip producers in the nation. CHOPPED

Good catch! That looks pretty sweet. I wasn't aware this had started either. Quite the diverse range of student living options now and coming on-line.

Just purchased the new Select Honey Whole Grain and their Select Whole Wheat breads from Schwebel's and they are quite amazing. I was oddly eating one of the slices of bread with a frozen Indian dinner and the bread over-powered the Indian food in flavor! They aren't using any additives in the bread so no high fructose corn syrup. I will definitely be buying more of this product. I found it in a stand all by itself at Giant Eagle near the deli section. I was just saying a month ago at how impressed I was with Orlando Baking of Cleveland with it not using additives. This impresses me as well.

It seems the state government expenditure rules and legislature favored suburbs and rural areas for the last 40+ years. I believe that is what this commission is trying to reverse. Money should go where it will deliver the biggest bang for the buck. The nice thing is ODOT realizes that they haven't really been doing that. They are hamstrung by the legislative rules that control how they spend money. To me the primary focus of the task force will be freight railroads expansion and potentially building for commuter rail, multimodal centers, and the potential of short sea shipping. You make it sound like this "other Ohio" wants to keep things status quo. Whats wrong with being better connected with Cleveland and Chicago? The new(expensive) bridge over I 75 has helped connecting to Detroit hasn't it? I've driven on I-75 around Dayton and yes its busy. But I never saw it as punishingly busy. More surprisingly busy. Plus the state is building the Fort to Port highway. I think the state is also looking at upgrading 23. If you need to live an easier drive to Columbus, then don't live so far away.. Don't put it on the state gov to build you a straighter new highway.

I'm ok with this. There is no "representation" for Akron or Canton at all. The point of this task force is to get a representation of industries across Ohio and figure out where the needs are. That Platt guy is definitely a squeaky wheel. I hope he's not being listened to. No way anyone can justify another highway going between Columbus and Pittsburgh.