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Fortunately, many parts of America are having much more reasonable responses to climate change. Unfortunately, Ohio might be the most backwards state on climate change. Kasich's "pause" on renewable energy standards, House Bill 6, "green" natural gas, the law mentioned in this article are all such embarrassments.

Seeing Bedrock's plan got me wondering what the future public riverfront access will look like if it comes to fruition along with Canal Basin and Irishtown Bend, so I approximated them in Paint on Google Maps. It'll just be so much better in a decade or two if all this stuff actually happens. I think boardwalks along Scranton and Columbus peninsulas are decently likely too, so we could have quality public pedestrian access on both sides of the river from almost the lake all the way to the industrial valley. Current, for reference:

Maybe the Caraustar property? I know KJP hinted at a development there in another thread a few days ago.

It’s been awhile since I flew Frontier, but I actually didn’t think the seats were too bad. I’m just happy they’re providing direct service to a new destination for CLE. That’s one thing that will encourage me to fly with them. The previous times were to SEA and Cancun, which both had little to no direct service from CLE outside Frontier.

These are all great points. It would certainly do more harm than good towards any future commuter rail movement if ridership is low, and it really doesn't travel through high population areas. The focus should definitely be TOD around existing rapid stations vs. hypothetical new CVSR stations. Perhaps it would be best to stick to just a CVSR extension and explore commuter rail if the demand/housing materializes sometime in the future.

I really love the idea of being able to go by train from downtown to basically anywhere in the national park, and I think it'll be a unique amenity in attracting residents and increasing tourism. At the same time, it seems like it would be a wasted opportunity if there wasn't some sort of commuter rail component to this. Even a train just going back and forth between Tower City and Independence during normal M-F commute times seems like it could be hugely popular for commuters and be a sort of proof of concept for expanded rail in the region.

I was wondering the same thing. Stating a specific figure like they did would lead me to guess yes.

From NOACA's "Major Projects" presentation at the Board of Directors last week: I'd never seen this extension mentioned with respect to NOACA before. This, along with Ronayne's tweet and NPS's community access plan, seems like some legitimate momentum. All of these entities have funds they could kick in (I'd imagine CVSR itself probably has the least, which is why this hasn't happened yet) and hopefully a desire to make it work.

A preliminary peek at the survey results of the Lakefront Connector survey… I wish the Shoreway removal option was getting more love, but at least it’s obvious that people want the land bridge. The connector study is supposed to wrap up this spring with a final recommendation by this fall. Info found here from the City’s presentation to NOACA: https://www.noaca.org/home/showpublisheddocument/29234

LeBron signed an extension with the Lakers, so he's not a free agent after this season.

I got my EV relatively recently, and range anxiety is not a concern at all day-to-day, but non-Tesla fast charging infrastructure in West Virginia is still so bad that I'd probably have to take my ICE vehicle if I wanted to road trip in that direction. I agree with everyone else, though, hydrogen will never catch on. As bad as EV infrastructure is in some places, every state has a plan to fill in their gaps and federal money to help add stations, so it'll hopefully resolve in the next few years.

After some Googling, it looks like Donald Shury lives at 10500 Edgewater Dr. He owns State Alarm, which sells security systems, and is apparently headquartered in Youngstown for some reason. 2394 Professor looks like it's a pretty small property to do much business activity there, so no idea what he might have in mind for it.

Lithium prices will not keep climbing since the increase in price/demand will induce exploration to increase the supply. Energy density of lithium is not that important in this application because available space is plentiful, unlike in a car. Obviously we differ on this, but a carbon emitting energy source should be a non-starter. It doesn't fit with Cleveland's goal of 100% clean energy by 2050. If you're looking for non-lithium energy storage, we could pursue iron-air (Form Energy is building a manufacturing plant on the Ohio River in WV) or compressed air, but any kind of storage would still be better than building an unnecessary generator that sits idle unless we lose grid power. I have solar on my house. It generates a ton in the summer and not that much in the winter. That's still viable and valuable assuming it's coupled with wind, storage, and other energy sources (even small modular nuclear if it ever gets approved). I won't be able to go off-grid, but peak-shaving helps prevent grid operators from buying expensive sources of power in high-demand periods. That's the kind of thing the microgrid should try to accomplish, since the times of needing to be "islanded" as the sole power source will be rare. It should also strive to be technologically advanced. When given the opportunity to design something like this, why would we populate it with a technology that will be approaching obsolescence in the next 10 years?

It doesn't seem like there's been much reporting since the last post in this thread. This article from cleveland.com later in August gave a little more information. It sounds like the team has be put back together, as people sort of started abandoning the project after the previous ruling that the turbines couldn't run at night. And even once the planning team is back together, they still need to find a developer. The Inflation Reduction Act passing should give some certainty to developers that they should be able to get at least a 30% tax credit and potentially more, which was definitely not a guarantee when this project was conceived.

The presence of energy is not the important part of the microgrid. There's no shortage of gas distribution in Ohio, and Dominion already has huge storage fields near Canton. Having reliable electricity when the macro grid is unreliable is the point. Building a new gas-fired plant would obviously provide electricity, but it would probably be prohibitively expensive since it would be mostly redundant. It would also age poorly, as we'll need to be done with carbon-producing energy in a couple of decades at most. Just installing utility-scale batteries seems like a better way to go. This would actually help during times when the macro grid is operational as well, since it can smooth demand and prevent the need for peaker plants to come online. Long-duration storage is still pretty nascent, but coupling with local wind and solar could probably provide a microgrid decent independent runtime.

Nuclear plants are not cheap and take years to decades to build. You mentioned carbon-free in your nuclear question, then propose burning fossil gas as another solution? I'm not sure how having natural gas would impact the decision to pursue a microgrid anyway.

I'm surprised and excited to see that this is happening: That section of Huron and Ontario is terrible visually and terrible for pedestrians and cyclists, and this is an easy and obvious step to help with that. It'll hopefully move us a little closer to this vision: https://www.cleveland.com/life-and-culture/g66l-2019/03/ad2d745c99592/grassroots-plan-for-running-biking-loop-over-downtown-bridges-deserves-support-steven-litt.html

EV proponents do not forget that at all. They all want better infrastructure for fast charging on trips and slow charging for people without garages. California has great EV infrastructure already and 10 years to continue improving it before the ICE ban. EV's already make up about 20% of new sales there. There's a huge push for more charging nationwide that will hopefully ease the burden on those whose use case isn't there right now. In the meantime, there are plenty of people that can transition now and there lives will be easier for it. You're right though, the law will be basically unnecessary based on the current rate of adoption. EV's will already be the dominant choice by then. It also wouldn't force anyone into an EV. Used cars will still exist, which is what most people buy anyway.

Is your commute less than 300 miles? Are there 6-8 hours a day that you're not driving? If so, it sounds like EV's are suitable. That describes a huge proportion of the population, especially if you're a 2 car household that also has an ICE car for road trips. I got an EV a few months ago and it has not been a burden in any scenario. We still have an ICE if we need to take a long drive somewhere without charging. It's not complicated at all. EV's cost about 1/3 to 1/4 as much as ICE's to refuel, so I'm not sure how it's not economically feasible. This experiment occurred naturally when Tesla's incentives expired after they hit 200,000 vehicles sold. Demand has remained extremely high for years since this happened and they've even continued to raise prices substantially. Several other carmakers (Hyundai and Kia for example) just lost their incentives due to the IRA and they're still selling out no problem.

All those teams play in the same market as an MLS team. I think the ceiling is much higher for a team in Cleveland if it’s the highest-level soccer team in the city. I’d guess the ceiling is still pretty low, but hopefully over 1000. I think a soccer-specific stadium would be a driver for some extra attendance for awhile at least assuming it had some nice amenities.

Wildfires could certainly force people out of their homes. Coastal flooding/rising sea level as well, though that seems to be impacting the east coast more at the moment.

Same with Acacia Reservation, which I recently visited for the first time. I loved being able to see the progress from golf course to natural area over the ten years since the Metroparks acquired it.

I knew I'd seen this discussed before, and I found @KJP's right-of-way maps in the Transit Ideas for the Future thread. It does have the potential to be a great addition to the trail network. If it's possible to convert the ROW all the way to the southwestern end, that would connect a few neighborhoods that aren't well-connected at the moment. The northern end would easily connect with the Redline Greenway, Lake Link, and Towpath trails, plus maybe the Columbus peninsula (though I'm not sure they'd maintain the lift bridge for a trail).

Well it was just announced today that the NASA location is also closing due to lack of business, so there goes that theory...

That's interesting because Coffee Coffee Coffee just took over operation of the coffee shop at NASA Glenn within the last two months. It's only open Tuesday-Thursday 7am-10:30am. Maybe that's enough income for a lot less work and more time with his family.