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Ethan

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Everything posted by Ethan

  1. On a purely visual level, this really seems to tell a story of how sports stadiums can be a boon to big city downtowns. I've visited Charlotte a multiple times since I have family in the area. I don't think sports is the main reason for the growth of the city, but if you draw a line between the two major sports stadiums, the difference between the two pictures is night and day. There are many reasons for that being the case (and I could name several), but with all the discussions about Browns stadium, these pictures are interesting food for thought.
  2. Sure, agreed, except it already is downtown, and in reality, only needs a minimal renovation in order to keep operating for several more decades. As several of the above posts have correctly argued, the ROI on stadiums isn't there. I would say given that, the most important factor, after keeping the Browns in NEO, is minimizing public investment. If that means the Haslams putting in more of their own money in Brook Park great! (though the infrastructure improvements alone may make it moot). If that means renovating the Stadium downtown, great! The opportunity costs of building a new stadium in or near downtown isn't worth it compared to letting the Browns go to Brook Park. Those hundreds of million dollars in public funds can be better spent elsewhere.
  3. I think you have a typo here... "Loiter is more than just a cafe and foot marketplace" Or else I'm very confused about what they do here.
  4. Sounds like the Caitlin Clark news, while interesting, can be interpreted literally anyway you like, so it may not be all that useful. One thing to be happy about though is that Cleveland and Cincinnati seem to be universally the top two teams, so Ohio is almost certainly getting a new time. And most likely the city that gets left out will be next in line. I will say, from a purely map based perspective, having a team already in Louisville make me think they may prefer Cleveland, but honestly it sounds like it's a tossup at this point.
  5. While one snowy game going in our favor is anecdotal and probably shouldn't make that much of an impact, it already seems like the vibe may have started to shift. The timing couldn't be worse for the Haslams, getting one of our only wins this year against the Steelers in a game where the weather was definitely a factor, it's not great for their case, even if, like I said, it probably shouldn't matter that much. Personally, I like football played in the elements. It calls back to the time when football was a tougher sport. But mostly, I'm for anything that reduces public expenditure.
  6. Undeniably a cool video, but I honestly think their charm offensive is going to fail. Ronayne and Bibb seem united in opposition, and the team is less popular than I can ever remember them being. 1.2 billion in taxpayer funds was always a big ask, but with the present situation being as it is, I don't think they're likely to get that or anything close. A couple hundred million from the state and county, and I'm sure Brook Park will exempt them from all the taxes they can, but I don't think the Haslams will be able to swing this unless they front more of the money themselves.
  7. This is cool, I'm excited to see a brick high rise being proposed. Glass has had too much of a monopoly on new high rises in recent times. https://chicago.urbanize.city/post/renderings-revealed-condo-development-1325-w-fulton
  8. It looks like they aren't quite requesting the max amount at 33 million. Are there any other projects requesting the max amount?
  9. The first half of this is fantastic, and I'm right there with you! The second half of this is ridiculous, and... I'm right there with you.
  10. Ethan replied to Luke_S's post in a topic in Sports Talk
    NHL expansion team is almost certainly a non starter due to teams in Buffalo, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Columbus. The other advantage of WNBA compared to NHL is that while both could play in RoMoFiHo the NHL and NBA seasons are basically on top of each other, but WNBA plays in the summer, so WNBA would basically be filling in during the arena's slow season. While this isn't something that personally excites me, I'm happy for anything that's good for Cleveland.
  11. Hopefully Bedrock gets the full amount for this project. The Cavs / sports hospital facility is nice, but this is more the kind of thing I was hoping to see on the riverfront. Hopefully it can serve as an anchor for the rest of the proposed apartments / residences and can help push the later phases through the finish line!
  12. Agreed, now apply this thinking to the current green line, as it exists today, and you will see why I think it should be rerouted. There's no density anywhere along this route, and if it wasn't already there, no one would advocate putting a train there. Fairmount isn't a good routing, but it has one thing going for it feasibility, the median can be used to route the trains. That's the reasoning. It would be a dead section of the routing with few to no stops, but that's the case, and to a larger degree, with the current routing and every single proposed extension I've ever seen for it. Edit: As an aside, I mostly like your green line rerouting, it seems relatively simple, and feasible, and a significant improvement. It's one of the better green line extensions/reroutes I've seen. Getting to the University is a good idea, and seems attainable. Several of the green line extensions favor going down Cedar, down Cedar is a good routing, either for BRT or a green line extension, but it isn't feasible, and if it's done as a green line extension, you end up missing many (most?) of the best stops along Cedar. The real problem with going down Cedar though is the opposite problem of Fairmount, it's likely infeasible. It isn't overbuilt by much, if at all. Getting rid of two of the lanes for either BRT or light rail will be a nonstarter. It has good urban form West of Taylor, but East of Taylor it starts to feel suburban pretty fast. I just don't think it's worth extending rail into areas without good urban form, at least relative to other rail projects we could propose. BRT is a bit more of a reasonable ask, but there's no way the locals would favor losing traffic lanes to BRT. -- I'm very much in a feasible not sexy headspace right now, and rerouting the Eastern leg of the Green line seems to fit that bill, either by just sending those trains down the blue line, thus doubling frequency on the more successful leg, or by rerouting the green line with the most feasible routing towards UC/CC. Now in an ideal world we'd be able to put the blue line on 5-10 minute frequencies without touching the green line, and we could serve Cleveland Clinic with a subway under Euclid. But we don't live in that world.
  13. If you're going to divert one of the blue/green lines from shaker square, why not divert the weakest line? From the perspective of Shaker Square, that's the eastward green line, both westward lines go downtown, and the Eastward blue line goes down Van Aken which has decent to good density throughout. The easiest way to do that would be below, there are more optimal routings, this one just seems the most manageable. Long term this would create a nice east side loop, which seems more useful to me than extending transit further and further into more and more car dependent suburbs. this alignment would also immediately create a direct, if circuitous connection between downtown and Cleveland Clinic.
  14. ^ What are the ridership numbers for the green line East of Shaker Square? They can't be high, there are basically no ridership generators, low density etc. Outside of history and tradition, I don't see compelling reasons to continue running either blue or green trains down this segment of track. If we have to be economical, I think the smart decision is to double down on the the blue line East of Shaker square. Run all the trains down the line with relatively high density, and quality ridership generators, such as Van Aken. If we are proposing rerouting the trains anyway, such as above, I can't see a good reason not to connect both downtown and UC direct to Van Aken. Sending either line down the current green line right of way seems like a waste, and potentially sabotaging the potential of one line or the other, particularly if we will only have enough cars to run each line on 30 minute headways. Regardless of any other changes, I think it would be better for the region as a whole to run the blue line at 15 minute headways than to maintain the green line as it is. Probably a hot take, but that's how it seems to me at the moment.
  15. I do think this low line concept could help the West Bank of the Flats and near west side generally. That said--this is a half mile long bridge partially covered and over water. It doesn't matter how much more developed this area gets, it will always feel somewhat isolated in non peak hours. I think emptying it and closing it at sundown is a good idea, and probably necessary for this project to be successful. I'm also a little skeptical that this walk will ever be better than just going down through the flats, particularly since we are adding or improving parks throughout the walk, but it will basically immediately be better than going over the top of the bridge, which is awful. More enjoyable walk options is always better though, but I'd almost always go through Canal Basin Park and Irishtown Bend if I have a few minutes to spare...
  16. Ethan replied to taestell's post in a topic in City Discussion
    Pleasantly surprising take from the Republican nominee for Secretary of the interior and governor of North Dakota.
  17. Ethan replied to amped91's post in a topic in Ohio Politics
    I didn't know about that. That doesn't rule out him running for governor, but it probably drops the probability a few points. Still might be more likely than not though. He's very popular with Trump's base, if he decides to run he's probably immediately the front runner. Anyway, it's a few years off, and for a different thread.
  18. Ethan replied to amped91's post in a topic in Ohio Politics
    Yup, he confirmed as much. Personally, I think he may be eyeing Dewine's chair...
  19. I went to the actual text and read the actual proposed bill (at least the consequential sections). While I agree that this would likely passed with a different summary, I don't agree that the summary post court correction was inaccurate. Hence why I call it a poison pill. Gerrymandering is a loaded word, so I avoided using it above, but an appropriate summary of what you quoted is that the bill required bipartisan gerrymandering.
  20. Well, if the proof is in the pudding, Iowa has always appeared to have some of the least gerrymandered maps in the country, so it must work for them. Issue 1 would have passed without the poison pill of requiring the committee to use political voting patterns to draw districts primarily based on how they will be expected to vote with the goal making expected seat numbers equal to the statewide tally. Iowa by contrast forbids its commission from considering politics at all, and works exclusively from census data. That said, lawmakers are much more involved in redistricting in Iowa than they would have been with issue 1. Committee members are bipartisan appointments, but the main involvement is that they have to approve the maps. Interestingly they basically always do. Anyways here's ballotpedia's summary. "State law establishes the following criteria for both congressional and state legislative districts:[40] Districts must be "convenient and contiguous." Districts must "preserve the integrity of political subdivisions like counties and cities." Districts must "to the extent consistent with other requirements, [be] reasonably compact–defined in terms of regular polygons, comparisons of length and width, and overall boundary perimeter." In addition, state House districts are required to be contained within state Senate districts "where possible, and where not in conflict with the criteria above." It is explicit in state law that district lines cannot be drawn "to favor a political party, incumbent, or other person or group." "
  21. Ethan replied to amped91's post in a topic in Ohio Politics
    https://nypost.com/2024/11/11/us-news/two-frontrunners-emerge-in-race-to-replace-j-d-vance-in-senate-trump-will-make-the-call/ The NY Post thinks the appointment will be either Timken or Ramaswamy, with Dewine favoring Timken, and Trump favoring Ramaswamy. Their unnamed experts claim that if Trump pressures Dewine in favor of Vivek, he'll buckle. I'm not sure I buy that, but that's their reporting.
  22. Ethan replied to StuFoote's post in a topic in Aviation
    Moving here as this has nothing to do with the campus district, but... Talking to people irl, I'd say this site is a reasonable representative sample of opinions on BKL. Among people who know what BKL is, a small minority actively want to keep it open, the reminder are split between actively wanting to close it, and thinking the conversation is pointless.
  23. Replied in appropriate thread Agreed, this will never happen, but it's surprisingly reasonable. Knocking down a building or two in Tremont would free up a lot of space near downtown. More reasonably though, if the DOT decides to play ball, much of this land, particularly that near Ontario/Orange could be opened up for development. Still not likely in our current environment, but I can much easier imagine a shift in the political winds sufficient for this change than rerouting 77. -- I'd like the hospital site for a stadium, if it were feasible. It's not, so it's a moot point, but it checks the boxes for me, on the edge of downtown, near freeways, etc.