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Fun fact: land value tax is outlawed by the Ohio constitution.

KJP[/member] the credit unions sign was replaced with the carpenter union's sign. I bank there and was concerned that they moved last time I went to that branch.

I just want to point out since the C line only runs in one direction to get to the flats from Public Square on the trolley you'll have to ride it down Euclid turn on E 9th turn on Prospect turn onto E 17 then again on to Euclid right onto E 12 then all the way down lakeside before getting to the flats

While Somali and Sudanese immigrants are more noticeable because of the way they dress, Congolese immigrants outnumber them immensely. You just don't notice them because they look like native African American

Huge Congolese Church on the corner of 45th and bridge right there. Lots of African immigrants mostly are from DRC (Congo) and are housed on near west side. Source: I work for migration services and live on w 47

http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2017/04/05/cota-going-free-for-a-week-as-it-debuts-redesigned.html First week of service for Columbus' new high frequency grid is free!

I print people bus maps all day every day to get to Metro. It's going to be so much easier to explain to folks, "just take the metro health bus"

Comparison to ridership from year before. Not broken down by mode but interesting nonetheless.

Greater Cleveland RTA ridership dips to record low; annual ridership, 1976-2016 CLEVELAND, Ohio - Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority ridership dipped to a record low of 43.8 million in 2016. The decline of 6.9 percent represented the second straight year of losses after increasing ridership for the transit agency in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, the RTA reported. The previous record low of 44.7 million riders was in 2010. Below is a chart showing year-by-year ridership since the the first year of the regional transit agency in 1976, formed with the merger of several municipal public transit services. The record high of 125.9 million riders was set in 1979, the fourth year of operation. Transit ridership is the result of numerous factors, including the service offered, the concentration of jobs downtown at the core of the system, traffic delays (or lack of them), gasoline prices, parking rates, employment and public funding. In a budget decision, RTA reduced routes and increased fares in August 2016. The Greater Cleveland RTA is Ohio's largest transit agency, carrying more than double the number of riders than the Central Ohio Transit Authority in the Columbus area. COTA reported ridership of 18,827,846 in 2016. http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2017/03/greater_cleveland_rta_ridershi_2.html

Buses were running smoothly today, and RTA riders, the thousands of them who go to Public Square every day, were happy. Westbound during the PM rush was a party downtown. The lack of congestion, omnipresent for the past two years, was a sight for sore eyes. RTA riders remain the most consistent user of Public Square. That's what the last seven months taught. However, I guarantee that St Pattys Day the square will be closed, which will be neat. Per the plan all along. Weekends, get a special event permit and close it. On work days, however, buses will be given the right of way: they should. Workers need to get to jobs. People down the lines need to make connections that categorically depend on timing. Seniors got to get to the doctor's. Public Square is the transit hub. That's how the city is laid out, and it's not a bad thing. Re-routing buses around the square was a safety hazard. One million more left turns is no joke. Unilaterally making that decision was not a shining moment for Cleveland democracy. Indeed, in contrast to its original design and avoiding any public comment or public planning process, that's how the decision to shut down Superior was made. Today the RTA isn't out the $12 million the FTA wanted. Considering that amounts to 5% of RTA's annual budget, that's a big deal.

Seven days... http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/02/rta_riders_rally_for_reopening.html RTA riders rally for reopening of Public Square to buses By: Ginger Christ CLEVELAND, Ohio - Only eight days remain before the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority will be forced to pay the federal government $12 million for not running buses through Public Square. Local transit advocates want to see city government take action to reopen Superior Avenue through Public Square to buses before it's too late. In a rally at City Hall before tonight's Cleveland City Council meeting, Clevelanders for Public Transit, a local riders' organization, called for members of council to force Mayor Frank Jackson to reopen Public Square to buses. Roughly 25 people attended. "We're trying to make sure they still know we're here," Akshai Singh, a member of Clevelanders for Public Transit, said during the rally. "If they don't decide to move on the Mayor, they're really abdicating their power."

Backhoes showed up yesterday on W. 47th between Bridge and Franklin to dig a foundation for a new house.

Feds grant RTA a 30-day extension on $12 million repayment http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/01/feds_grant_rta_a_30-day_extens.html New deadline is Feb. 21 From the FTA's letter to GCRTA & City:

Feds grant RTA a 30-day extension on $12 million repayment http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/01/feds_grant_rta_a_30-day_extens.html New deadline is Feb. 21 From the FTA's letter to GCRTA & City:

Because who cares about the 1st amendment? Chuck Hoven will become a criminal evidently: https://plainpress.wordpress.com/2017/01/11/brothers-produce-at-the-west-side-market/ " Saturday, December 17, 2016, West Side Market, W. 25th and Lorain Avenue: David Gentille and Sam Shaw sell fresh produce at Brothers Produce. Gentille says business is down 70% due to West Side Market parking spots being taken by other area businesses. “I have never seen it this bad,” said Gentille."

January 9th came and went: that's the date RTA asked the Mayor in a recent letter to the city to open Superior Avenue to buses in response to the FTA's $12 million fine. The mayor promised during the summer Public Square would reopen to buses Aug. 1 after the RNC. Now almost six months later, The mayor says before he allows buses to cross Superior as planned, he needs evidence of substantial financial harm and operational harm to RTA in order to open the Square. He says he's been consistent in saying that. Traffic study is ongoing. City and RTA are asking for a 30-day extension after Jan. 19, the day the $12 million fine goes into collections. http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-news/oh-cuyahoga/12-million-federal-deadline-looms-for-rta-cleveland

If adding life to public square is people's concern, the thousands of boardings and connections would add life to public square. 40,000 connections are made in public square's vicinity, The bulk during working, business hours. This is facilitated by one bus every minute or so, like a steady drum beat moving people in and out of the city's weighted center. Or it could be. Right now it's down really inefficiently particular during rush hour with the congested roundabout traffic pattern. From where we're at now, where the space is pretty all-and-alll but under-utilized, I imagine that should be viewed favorably? That's daily traffic , thousands of workers and students getting where they need to go, which is GOOD. C.1975 That's the first picture in the Cleveland Policy Planning Report which led to the creation of RTA. Now the city actively sabotages its transit for obtuse reasons, it's sad.

The title of this map is "The Breach" Interesting Naymik's opinion piece demands facts and is first to report that the FTA would still fine GCRTA after the Mayor opens Superior Avenue like he said the city would five months ago Aug. 1. You're to assume a journalist would call the FTA before reporting that fact -- which makes me wonder what journalist is correct, considering Ginger Christ's story posted an hour before Mr. Naymik's contends that RTA would be relieved of any fines were the Mayor to order the barricades' removal. While I do agree cool heads need to prevail, from a rider's perspective this fine decimates the whole system. It needs to be fought. So if opening the square saves RTA from the fine, then that needs to happen. Honestly, that this is even a fight is flabbergasting.

http://imgur.com/a/i6icm Very good points. Job centers have reoriented along the interstates. Ultimately I'd like to see a high-frequency grid that goes to all the employment centers in Cleveland region indiscrimately. Getting workers to jobs is step one for economic development. But affordable housing in the city in walkable neighborhoods oriented around transit, I think low income people need to have priority -- not saying a monopoly.

To answer the question as to what the breach is: When the Mayor closes the 600-foot section of Superior to bus traffic it violates the definition of the Transit Zone the city itself agreed to in the full funding agreement it made with the FTA. So that is why they want their money back. The city, along with the RTA, agreed to designate approximately one mile of Superior avenue from W. 3 to E 17 to include 24-hour exclusive bus Closing one-tenth mile of Superior in the middle of that segment, thats the breach. Impeding bus traffic in a time-consuming, roundabout fashion in what the city agreed to designate with the federal government a transit zone the Feds would pay money to construct, that's the breach.

Thank you for sharing, KJP! Great sleuthing. I love the old St Luke photos. Those apartments adjacent to the blue/green line stop at E. 116th are gone with a Cleveland public library branch there now and an elementary school next door. St Luke is largely senior housing and has an inter generational charter school plus boys and girls club. It looks like the proposed zoning for the year 2020 around W. 65th redline would turn the gardens on Lawn (formerly Maggie's farm) into town homes and makes the convenient store there on the corner probably not a fitting use. More town homes too on 57th toward metro Catholic. Looks like the gardens back there wouldn't be zoned for either in the future. Lots of gardens lost for what's branded Eco village. Also, wonder how much housing affordability and transit use are related. Is design which ostensibly is better to put around transit so great when the people who can afford to live in it don't use public transit? While density is better for transit clearly, do people moving into these new homes have proclivity to take transit is a question worth posing. Most recent data shows Detroit Shoreway with net population gain, but that's while it loses Latinos and black families being priced out. Detroit Shoreway is gentrifying. Which after Ohio City is arguably the best transit oriented neighborhood on the west side. Millennials should gravitate toward transit goes the story, which is good. But the Cleveland region isn't exactly making it easy to be car free for young people. Public transportation in Cleveland, as far as netting ridership and who actually uses it, cuts across class. The 15 bus doesn't have the highest ridership because it's fast and direct. It has the highest ridership because it meanders through the areas where people take the bus. Even though it takes forever. Which means the geographies with the best access to transit should have a priority for low income. Not to say you don't want mixed income, but that's what equity planners would argue. Got to at least put it on the table. On a side note, I would love to some good TOD around the West Park rapid stop. The abandoned Harley lot repurposed into mid rise apartments would be amazing.

Not a good outlook right now. Let's hope reason prevails and the administration folds on closing Superior Avenue. The funds to do that don't exist. Lord knows neither the city nor the RTA have $12 million lying around. $12 million dollar fine in addition to projected $19 million in lost sales tax revenue. That's like one-tenth of RTA's budget.

Mayor Jackson's December 30 press conference regarding FTA letter.

Contract awarded for pay-to-park, coming soon to West Side Market lots. Looks like it will cost $300 thousand for install. From 12/21 City Record

RE: privatizing parking Starts at 10:30