gildone

The link doesn't work for me. Noozer: as for the cap, I think that's a good solution, other than not doing the project in the first place. Any post 1950's buildings that go I won't care about as that's when architecture in the US really went into the toilet, but it's a shame to lose the older ones. My biggest concern is the E. 26th St yard. I thought ORDC and ODOT were trying to work that one out? Sounds like ORDC needs to talk to the new governor about this. If ODOT really gets the enema it needs under the new administration, perhaps they'll be more willing to pursue alternatives and things that would mitigate the impact-- like caps (I can hope, can't I??? )

February 25, 2007 In Transit (NY Times) Travel by Rail in Europe Is Set to Get Even Faster By JENNIFER CONLIN European rail companies are cutting the time it takes to get from one city to the next. Thanks to a series of new international fast rail projects, taking a train from Edinburgh to, say, Moscow may no longer b http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/travel/25transtrain.html?pagewanted=print

Just send a letter to the editor at: letters @plaind.com Mr. O'Donnell's e-mail is probably: podonnell@ plaind.com

^I was speaking in general terms that it's possible in properly designed communities. Besides, I said "that's what most people are stuck with", and what they will chase is car-centered mobility because that's what they are stuck with.

Except that there simply isn't enough cropland in the US to support America's current level of driving with biofuels AND feed the nation. Electric cars may increase things some, but overall, America is going to be forced to drive less in the coming decades. We'll exhaust every possibility to try keep things as they before we finally admit it, but that's going to be the outcome. You also have to remember that our car-centric lifestyle has far less to do with pure market forces than it does with public policy. Government transportation policy, energy policy and land use policy are forcing the market to provide car-centric development. Think about it, developers in Columbus, for example, didn't start offering new-urbanist style developments until the city council changed its zoning code to make such development legal. As far as I can tell, the developers are having no trouble selling what they are building in these new-urbanist neighborhoods, so the market wasn't offering everything people wanted before because it was illegal to build it. You can have high mobility without high car use. I think the correct phrase here is car-centered lifestyle. "They" will chase it because that is what most are stuck with.

Why is it that we are so willing to spend money on something like this, but not on something even more useful-- like efficient, convenient alternatives to driving? Full speed ahead for intelligent car design Financial Times, 20 February 2007 - A planned ‘active safety' system in US cars promises to cut congestion, but drivers may be reluctant to take it up. A decade or so down the road from now, if all goes to plan, driving in the US will be a smoother, less adrenaline-rich experience. Your car will be wired to avoid colliding with other cars or swerving off the road, sometimes by steering, decelerating or braking automatically. Motorways will bristle with wireless equipment that can beam you messages, charge tolls without stopping, or pre-empt traffic lights for emergency vehicles. Your car will also send information on traffic or weather conditions to central agencies in an effort to prevent delays and dangerous pile-ups... http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c530d532-c087-11db-995a-000b5df10621.html

As long as this is "fantasy" we can put terrain concerns aside. As I said above, the Europeans overcome their terrain concerns. They are just willing to spend money to overcome them where we are not (unless, of course, it's a highway, then we WILL spend the money). It's expensive, but doable. The same goes for urban obstacles such as those mentioned in Cincy by jmecklenborg. Regarding Cleveland-- as far as freight goes, Cleveland is within ~500 miles of about 1/2 of the population of North America. That makes it an excellent location for a freight hub.

Pittsburgh-Columbus-Indianapolis-St. Louis-Kansas City should be included too.

It's possible with tunnels. The Europeans have built lots of them for their rail systems. Expensive, yes, but feasible.

Although the title refers to climate change, many of the the subsidies listed show how driving as a whole is subsidized as a well as subsidizing oil depletion: Subsidizing Climate Change http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB2ch04_ss7.htm By offering price breaks for oil use, energy generation by coal-fired power plants, and airlines, humans are in effect spending much-needed money on our own destruction, Lester R. Brown writes for the Earth Policy Institute. Each year the world's taxpayers provide an estimated $700 billion of subsidies for environmentally destructive activities, such as fossil fuel burning, overpumping aquifers, clearcutting forests, and overfishing. An Earth Council study, Subsidizing Unsustainable Development, observes that "there is something unbelievable about the world spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually to subsidize its own destruction."

Exerpt from a PD article on the Governor's recent speech in Cleveland. http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/stories/index.ssf?/base/isedu/1171974727176520.xml&coll=2 Development of other modes of transportation also will feed development, including greater emphasis on mass transit and intermodal transportation. But he said he does not see a statewide initiative for passenger rail service in the near future. What gives?!?!?!?! This runs counter to his campaign and what was on his transistion website :wtf:

In more general articles such as this, he does not get into details because they get too technical for general audiences. The proof lies in his more technical writing and in the clients he and the Rocky Mountain Institute consult for. One example: some years ago, RMI consulted for Interface Corporation (manufacturers of commercial carpet and flooring systems). The result: Company profits doubled even as the number of employees nearly doubled and carbon emissions declined (I forget by how much, but it wasn't insignificant). You'll probably find the details of Interfaces experience in Ray Anderson's book: Mid-Course Correction. There are plenty of other examples. If Amory's ideas didn't work, RMI wouldn't have any clients.

Getting off Oil http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid1237.php From the Rocky Mountain Institute Spring 2007 Newsletter

I agree, Seicer. Like I mentioned, the public meetings I attended were full of irrational, uninformed, and selfish people. KJP: I know that it would be more expensive to have a demo project go all the way into downtown Akron, but wouldn't it be worth it? How many riders are they going lose because it stops short of downtown? What about commuters who want to go to Akron?

^The people in Silver Lake are really going to hate that. Oh well. What goes around comes around. When the CAC was being debated, tThere were some anti-rail people in Silver Lake who actually made threatening phone calls, etc to other residents within the village who supported the project. At the public meetings many of them said they would accept passenger trains but not freight. Now, they're getting both.

The line in Michigan is called the Adrian & Blissfield As I recall being told from an Akron Metro employee, US Rail is paying to upgrade the track.

^this new plan seems like a reasonable compromise.

^the new line to Lhasa isn't on this map.

Perhaps Strickland would veto such a bill.

They certainly do. I went to a couple of public meetings about the CAC commuter train proposal. All emotion, not one iota of rational behavior and they made no attempt whatsoever to assemble any facts.

Least-Cost Access/Hypercars At RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute), we believe that Hypervehicles have the greatest potential to improve the environment in the short term. However, as explained in Problems Hypercar® Vehicles Won't Solve, such a technological fix may well exacerbate other problems(congestion, road-building, sprawl, etc.) unless accompanied by sensible public policy. Transportation policy needs to change anyway—Hypercar® vehicles simply increase the urgency . Sustainable transportation requires designing communities around people, not cars: rethinking land use so that we needn't travel so much. This in turn requires an end-use/least-cost policy framework, where the desired end use is not mobility per se but access—to jobs, goods, services, and recreation. Such policies should foster fair competition between all modes of access, including those that displace the need for physical mobility, such as already being where you want to be. Creative public-policy instruments can introduce market mechanisms to a transportation system long crippled by lopsided subsidies and top-down central planning. Most developing countries are following that bad example. But needed innovations are starting to emerge: ways to make parking and driving bear their true costs, improve competing modes, and substitute sensible land-use for physical mobility. (The above text was excerpted from Natural Capitalism, by Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins. For complete text see Chapter 2: Reinventing the Wheels: Hypercars and Neighborhoods) * Next: End-Use/Least Cost Thinking

And extend Ohio Hub services to Akron & Canton as well. Ed

Admittedly off topic from this thread, but Boreal did post an article on climate change. This is for those who don't believe that we can cut carbon emissions without harming the economy: More Profit with Less Carbon: http://www.sciam.com/media/pdf/Lovinsforweb.pdf Climate: Making Sense and Making Money: http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Climate/C97-13_ClimateMSMM.pdf What can we do to fix the climate problem? "Climate protection, like the Hubble Space Telescope’s mirror, got spoiled by a sign error: in fact, climate solutions are not costly but profitable... http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Climate/C06-10_FixTheClimateProb.pdf An article about how Portland, Oregon is booming economically while reducing carbon emissions: A Liveable Shade of Green NY Times 7/3/05 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/opinion/03kristof.html?ex=1171774800&en=2045ce0f796179c8&ei=5070

Your SUV analogy isn't really relevent. It is very possible and very much doable to significantly reduce our fossil fuel use without harming the economy. It's just a matter of getting the "economic rules" right. Almost everything the government does influences the marketplace. Sometimes the influence is good, but with respect to energy and pollution, the "economic rules" do not produce the desired outcome, in fact it encourages waste and pollution (despite EPA rules), and discourages the development of alternative energy sources and energy efficiency. If you get the “rules” right-- change what we tax and what we subsidize, and eliminate the barriers that discourage the marketplace from making better choices, you get the desired outcome. And yes it CAN be done in a way that is profitable. The city of Portland, OR has been a leader in encouraging a reduction in carbon emissions. The result has been a net gain in employment and economic activity. Again, I suggest you read some of reports done by Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Intitute, read Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, and you’ll see what I mean.

I don't either. You have to live with your choices. I also hope this project keeps moving forward too.