DM4

Im glad they are expanding but hate to see another storefront taken up by office space, especially in a neighborhood that already has a lot of it. Although its better than vacant, it hurts vitality in the long run. Id hate to see these offices hogging these retail spaces once Playhouse Square gets hot.

Easy to say that. But rail is is step backward as you have to run on their schedule, making it the exact mass control the supporters object to. If you do not want to be government controlled, why in the world would you advocate this? Oh, lets see because you are doing something as an urban advocate that is environmentally great. Great for your advocacy, but don't expect everyone else to agree. That is not really the case in cities with good transit. While in Toronto, there is no reason to ever drive a car. The subways come every couple minutes so there always seems to be one there right when you need one. They are fast, convenient, clean, and get you there faster than driving and you avoid the stress that comes with congestion. The streetcars were also extremely efficient and combined with the subways took me everywhere I needed to go. Transfers were very easy making the whole experience very pleasant. The city is also walkable which helps a ton. Owning a car is not necessary there. When gas prices rise, cities that have not adopted this kind of transit system will struggle, while the Toronto's and New York's of the world will thrive even more. Although the Cincinatti streetcar is just a small step, it's a great start that hopefully will grow into a much more comprehensive transit system.

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Im not sure if this rendering has been posted yet, but I saw in the Cleveland Heights Observer that Cleveland Heights High School plans on removing the science wing and restoring the view of the original historic building.

Dalad Group buys former Fisher Brothers warehouse in downtown Cleveland An affiliate of the Dalad Group commercial real estate firm is the new owner of the former Fisher Brothers Co. warehouse and bakery after buying the big building complex for a small price. The purchase includes a six-story, 420,000-square-foot brick and stone warehouse at 2323 Lakeside Ave., which dates from 1916, and a 12,000-square-foot building at 2400 Lakeside. Through 2323 Warehousing Ltd., Dalad acquired the complex Nov. 27 for $500,000, according to Cuyahoga County land records. The seller was NCL Development Co., which offered the property through a CBRE Group auction last summer with a minimum bid of $600,000. However, the property did not sell at the auction. Dalad acquired the property later for the lower price. Joseph Balog, Dalad senior vice president and general counsel, said in an email that the company sees its new purchase as a chance to offer inexpensive warehousing space. http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20131205/FREE/131209878

Dont want to get anyone too excited, but I noticed this in a recent article. Micro apartments start to hit it big in Cleveland and other midsize markets The nation's expensive housing markets have embraced so-called “micro apartments” in recent years as a way to expand the supply of affordable housing for young renters. Now, some midsize and lower-cost cities, including Cleveland, are joining the trend, according to this story from The Wall Street Journal. The bet is that the tiny apartments — usually about 300 square feet — “will attract young professionals and recent college graduates, helping to revitalize city centers,” according to the newspaper, which notes that Census figures show that single-person households made up almost 27.8% of all U.S. households in 2012, up from 25.8% in 2000. In Cleveland's University Circle, developer Coral Co. plans to start construction next year on 50 micro apartments as part of a large, mixed-use project, according to the story. http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20131223/BLOGS03/131229945

Their master plan has some interesting proposals. Id love to see MLK Drive and Doan Brook project happen. That would be one of the most transformational projects for University Circle. Removing MLK south of Euclid makes that area less confusing, but more importantly connects Case to Rockefeller Park and restores Doan Brook which is "currently flowing through a culvert" beneath MLK. A few new buildings and the removal of the parking lots along MLK would make the space one of the best on campus. I bet benches along the brook would be popular. I also really like the North Residential Village project which reconnects Magnolia Drive and enhances the flow of the neighborhood. http://case.edu/administration/cpfm/pdc/mp/projects.pdf

^ Great news! Any idea if they still plan on replacing the old residential halls on the north side? That would probably make the attractiveness of the college even that much higher.

If you look at the streets in East Cleveland, the houses are typical of what you would see in a lot of Cleveland neighborhoods. The wealthier portions of Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights are completely different. I cant even imagine Fairmount or Shaker Blvd and surrounding streets as a "ghetto". Like Hts121 said, that would definilty be something new for the nation and a true sign that something is very wrong with society! These places are far to beautiful and grand to abandoned. You cant duplicate them elsewhere. You cant even duplicate the trees!

Is there any current route POV videos? I couldn't find any with a quick search on Youtube.

to KJP, Thanks! I did not know those routes were proposed BRT routes. Id hope that RTA leadership realizes the potential in this corridor is greater and should at least look at a rail option. Maybe if the cities involved pushed for rail it could influence RTA. I feel like this rail line would help improve property values along Cedar and help these cities push for more commercial development as well. If I were them Id be interested. 1) Thanks! 2) Honestly, I was just having fun with that. Making the track was a bit challenging. Also that layout allows for bike lanes, which are probably not worth it on Cedar. Here is a better layout IMO where the tracks run along the curbs. This allows for a center turning lane which is more crucial for Cedar than bike lanes in my opinion. Edit: Just decided to swap the older streetcar out for a modern streetcar. Added a new, more detailed track and paved the rest of the street with asphalt. Added yellow safety line on station platform. 3) Its about 7 miles I believe. All of those reasons you listed are the reason I believe there should be rail! :lol: 4) Although it does serve a major employment center in University Circle, and connects to the Red Line to Downtown, I think that traffic is not necessarily the largest traffic generator for this route. Unlike most routes where getting to work is the primary purpose, this route offers so much more. Connecting to many destinations rather than 1 or 2 provides ridership for this rail at all times of the day, for many different purposes. Right now someone living in Cedar Fairmount will most likely drive if they want to go to Whole Foods or Target, or if they want to go shopping at the Beachwood Mall. With a line like this, I believe you would be able to get a lot of people to take rail instead, lowering car traffic on Cedar. Serving Case students is also huge IMO, especially since they have such a large international population, because I think they would love being able to take a train to all the destinations along the route. A lot of retail options. I feel like this route would do great with TOD as well. To your last point, I think the route would have decent times since between the major destinations there are few lights. Perhaps a priority lighting could be given for smaller intersections. For larger intersections the streetcar could trigger the light to turn Red when a few block away. That way when the streetcar arrives at the intersection's station, it can let passengers get on and off and trigger the green light. Im not a traffic engineer though so a more official study would have to be done but I think it could be possible.

I noticed that the Warehouse District gave every business along West 6th three christmas trees to decorate and display on their patios. I really like the idea. I wish more places did something like this!

It will probably be built almost entirely on stilts like the other building. Seems very expensive to do, but it is a good sign that they find it worth it.

Discussions in another thread reminded me of a project I started a few months ago. I was originally looking at doing a study for a streetcar along Cedar Road, connecting the Cleveland Clinic to the Beachwood Mall. I ended up going with another project, looking at TOD in University Circle instead, but did make a few things I thought id share. At the end of route, the train would enter into the Beachwood Mall as part of the expansion. Cedar Road is also a Priority Transit Corridor for RTA so maybe something like this would actually be possible.

Congratulations! Good job Cincinnati!

^^ Cool! I think Little Italy will see a lot of townhouse developments in the next decade. The ones there seem to have done very well and have extremely high selling prices. And they are even gaining value in this market.

Wrapz Pita Bar looks like it is very close to opening. I bet they will do well over there. Here are a couple pictures of their menu from their Facebook page.

I bet college plays a huge roll in it. More teens than ever are going straight to college after highschool. Most kids dont bother(or cant) own a car in college since they walk everywhere and owning a car would be useless and expensive. I wonder if there is any easy to find data on what the percentage of people after college get a car for the first time.

Thanks everyone!

^ Thanks Although it a little hard to tell by looking back and forth between the image and googlemaps, it look like they are removing a lot of crazy connections and overkill of lanes.

^ Thanks! Do you have any idea what ridership is like today at these stations? Edit: Do you have a rending of the street plan they are building over there? I cant really figure it out from googlemaps.

^ Are you speaking of the NextConnect website or the signs at the stations? The signs at the stations are even more useless than NextConnect in my opinion. Those signs give information that is meaningless. The time stays the same, or goes down one minute every 2 minutes. It will say departing when there is no bus in sight. The time will reset back to 15 minutes randomly even if a second ago it said 4 minutes. They seem to be all over the place. When waiting I have seen people get very upset over it when they are waiting and the sign jumps back up to 15 or 20 minutes. Or when it says departing when the bus is not even in sight. I saw a family downtown for winterfest who planned on using it and after waiting 40 minutes for the bus, and the sign constantly spitting out random numbers, they decided to walk to their car which they parked further down by Cleveland State I believe (they had several little kids). To this day I still look at those signs as if they actually mean something. They are about as useful as pushing the button to cross the street in NYC I suppose!

So that plan was to move the Cedar Station to Adelbert? Adelbert would make much more sense for pedestrian traffic and commuter traffic. From what I understand, Cedar is the better location for bus connections. Any idea why RTA didnt go with the suggested relocated and instead currently working on a new station for Cedar?

The NextConnect System is due to the back-end tracking system that RTA uses. It is provided by a company called Trapeze Software. They are limited by that system to what can be used. While NextBus would be an improvement, they may not be able to provide a real time stream of their system data. Also, while the NextConnect system may be extremely unfriendly to the user, the data may be correct. It is tough to say though because there is no differentiation between when a displayed time is based on Real-Time Data or just the Route Schedule. I can almost say with 100% certainty based my own experiences that for the Healthline and Red Line, nextconnect is always displaying the schedule only. Every time I use it I double check with the schedule and the three times line up exactly. I tried the same thing on the 32 the other day and got the same results. So although I cannot speak for the entire system, my experience alone, on some of the biggest routes, in addition to complaints I have seen online, point to the conclusion that for the most part, NextConnect does not actually display real time data.

Im not sure if RTA read this or not but I think i'm on there kill list! :-P I was just driving on Euclid Avenue in University Circle and the Healthline started merging into me to avoid a parked car on the right lane. They would have hit me but I quickly got into the turning lane to avoid the accident.