jam40jeff

Kasich wants the CAT (0.26%) to apply to all wagers. The 33% tax applies only to revenue (wagers - payouts) even under Kasich's proposal I believe.

Or Kasich's choice, #5 - Decrease funding for transit and pull strings to eliminate projects for future consideration.

I agree. Circulators would help a lot. But it seems by the recent circulator cuts that those lose the most money. And I'd have to assume a Beachwood circulator would be less cost effective than say the Lakewood one was. The problem all comes back to a lack of density. You'd have to have long routes with many stops where only a few people may get on or off in a whole day. You can't "bundle" stops for multiple workplaces because it's a completely pedestrian unfriendly environment. That being said, there still are a few people walking to their job from the limited bus stops in the area served by the 94 and 5 buses (speaking of which, couldn't you have taken the 5 down Chagrin from the end of the Blue Line?).

That's completely false. Actually, Ohio would be one of the only states to charge anything on total wagering (the Corporate Activity Tax) if Kasich gets his way. Granted, the CAT is only 0.26%, so the big boys are fighting over a very small change in the effective tax rate here. I think this may be more of a p!ssing match based on "the principle of the thing" more than anything else.

Google Maps is way off in that area. Gates Mills Blvd. is a pretty easy travel with its traffic circles and low amounts of traffic. There's no way 3.7 miles would take 13 minutes (that's an average of 17 MPH!).

Gross revenue is not income minus operating expenses. That would be profit. Gross revenue would be everything that is wagered. Wagers minus payouts would be net revenue. Net revenue minus operating expenses would be net profit. Gross receipts and gross revenue are effectively the same thing in this case (gross receipts includes donations and things like that, usually used by non-profits, charities, etc.). EDIT: Now reading the Constitutional Amendment has me all confused. I know gross revenue is not income minus expenses, but I'm not sure I was right about gross revenue not being what I defined net revenue to be above as applied to casinos.

No, there's not. There's a lot of jobs in Beachwood, but all of the office parks have huge parking lots and setbacks and retention basins and impassable barriers diving properties. I work there and I know how hard it is to walk even just a few buildings over often times. It's not dense at all when compared to downtown or any area that could effectively be served by transit. And I'm just talking about Chagrin. Look at Harvard Rd. or Richmond Rd. between Chagrin and Harvard or even that super-sprawling plaza south of Harvard.

Except that to link up the suburbs we need a regional transit agency, not a county transit agency. Of course that's not going to change without leadership at the state level making it happen. And how incredibly inefficient and expensive it is to build transit in far-flung sprawling areas that have no density.

Yeah, and only one of the three slots is still available. It doesn't seem like many states have applied for a slot, so I'm kind of surprised I-80 in PA got turned down, unless (1) they're getting picky since there's only one slot left or (2) they just didn't want both major east-west interstates in PA to be toll roads.

Before the election, I tried to warn everyone I knew that this guy could become the worst governor any state has ever seen. I think he's turning out to be even worse than I expected.

Unfortunately, I kind of expected that Carrasco might be rusty and Price is always tough. You can't win 'em all, but hopefully we can bounce back tomorrow and take the series.

There may have been a lot of meetings and discussions, but apparently there wasn't too much thinking. First, they want to demolish two historic structures. People complain, so their solution is just to surround it, not incorporate it. I think a 5 year old using fingerpaints could have figured that design out. Now they still want to demolish the larger of the two historic structures, and have added insult to injury by wanting an ugly skywalk which will also ruin the facade of a third historic structure. But, yeah, it's probably the best they could come up with since they expect their clientele not to have to walk more than about 50 feet and all of it indoors.

You think, even if Rock Ventures gets exactly what they want, this parking plan will "ruin" downtown. A bit extreme, no? Of course it's extreme; I was exaggerating to get my point across that drawing suburbanites downtown at any cost isn't a good idea. But I still maintain that the Welcome Center is a big negative for this portion of downtown, and could easily have been designed better with the urban framework in mind.

Hts and Burnham, I'm not even talking about trying to convince suburbanites to come downtown. If they want to come downtown, fine. If not, fine. But if they'll only come downtown if we ruin it to please them, I'd rather just keep it as is and they can stay away.

I agree with what you're saying. What I don't support is ruining the existing built environment for these structures. Tearing down buildings for parking, long diagonal skywalks, and a massive curbcut including two "curve-in lanes" that don't even require drivers to slow down are not things we need one block from the center of Cleveland. If they were proposing 5 times as much parking on a vacant lot and pedestrian traffic wasn't adversely affected, I'd say "build away".

Same here. If they cared about UO I'd have been fired years ago, haha.

Hovering over you? A firm elbow to the midsection should take care of that.

Parking garage Parking garages

This? http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/tolling_pricing/interstate_rr.htm

I'm not a huge O-Cab fan, but come on. He's batting .273 and is second on the team in RBI with 20. His OBP does suck because he doesn't draw too many walks, but he does have the second most hits on the team. Again, I don't think he's a great player or anything, but it's quite a stretch to call him an automatic out at this point.

Look at images 15 and 16 on the Landmarks page. Doesn't it seem as if they are planning on building a new garage where the May Co. garage is? All these people want to do is turn downtown into one big parking lot for the casino.

You were quite the busy man today! Thanks for the pics.

Ooh! Elevator races! Sounds fun! :)

I went back and read your post and I see I didn't follow your logic correctly the first time. Yes, I agree with what you were saying. Also, the trolley idea is perfect. It'd be great for the casino, casino-goers, and non-casino-goers all at the same time.

I agree with most of what you said, but I think this is an overgeneralization. I know plenty of suburban people (my in-laws included) who like to go downtown for various reasons (sports, theater, restaurants) who probably would also be interested in checking out the casino. I doubt they'd come down just for the casino, but it'd be another fun thing to do while they're down there. Many people who make a 20 or 30 minute drive to downtown want to make a night of it before they retreat to their boring suburb, and the casino would be just another thing to do while they're downtown. These are the people who have a "take it or leave it" attitude towards gambling. If it's convenient, they go to the casino, but they wouldn't make a special trip for it. (As far as gambling, I would fall into that category as well.)