JeTDoG

There's a lot of great dialogue going on here, and many excellent questions and suggestions. Now I have some questions myself, of all of you: how many of you have posed these questions or suggestions to RTA, and via what venue? Have you attended any Board meetings, public hearings, or other feedback opportunities? Have you ever sent an e-mail to ANYONE at RTA? Have you done anything other than discuss it here? If you haven't, then now is as good a time as any to get started (make it your belated New Year's Resolution). I'm a relative newcomer here, and maybe I'm speaking out of turn, but to think that messages posted here will get the attention of the "powers that be" reeks of hubris of the highest level, and their possible ignorance of this board has NOTHING to do with "sticking it to the little guy". MyTwoSense and clvlndr, I don't mean to single you out, but you have definitely been among the more vocal critics in recent discussion. Have either of you ever engaged anyone at RTA in any kind of dialogue (without using terms like "half-assed", "screwed", and "shafted", if you can avoid it)? If not, I suggest that you do so. You've got questions that deserve answers (and they are answers I'm certain the rest of us would like to hear), so seek them out from the people best able to provide them. If you have had such communication, I'd be curious to know what your experiences have been.

Here's a link to the overview presentation on the new fare collection system given at Tuesday's meeting: http://www.riderta.com/pdf/presentations/2007-01-09-FareCollection.pdf As you can see, it will incorporate a POP element and, eventually, stored-value smartcards...

Since I sat on the sidelines for most of this (a very entertaining read, by the way), let me start off by saying "can't we all just get along"? :lol: I applaud the passion shown by everyone... :clap: just keep it topical, and avoid the personal attacks ("your argument sucks" is fine, but keep away from the "you suck" comments). Now, onto why I quoted X's comment above. In a sense, we CAN tell them where to build, through the use of tax incentives, zoning (as you mentioned), permitting, etc... Cue Tony Soprano, "That's a nice store you've got there... be a real shame if that tax incentive went away, though" :wink2:. Unfortunately, in this case we (through our elected officials) didn't, and I'm willing to recognize the reality of what we've got and work with it toward a greater good. I also don't necessarily fault the powers-that-be, as they know that they are in a competitive situation with every other locality, and that being overly-restrictive will result in development of ANY kind drying up. To give an example of the type of local development that will continue to benefit from this (or regardless of this), I live on the Cleveland/Euclid border, near E 200th, and while there is a Subway and a Home Depot steps from my door, I still eat more meals at Adam's on 200th and Gus's Diner on 185th, and when I needed a broken window pane replaced, I took the sash over to E 200th Hardware and had it fixed same day, and he even primed the sash for me "because it looked like it needed it" (I know of no Home Depot, Lowe's, or any other big box that offers such services). In a nutshell, If I just want PRODUCT at the lowest PRICE (which is most likely if I've already done all the value-added research), I'll go to a big box. If I want SERVICE and/or EXPERTISE, it's local all the way. That is a competitive advantage that no big box store will ever be able to compete with, and the big box model even recognizes this, which is why they compete so aggressively on price -- it's really all they've got.

Unfortunately, at this morning's RTA Board Committee meetings, the announcement was made that the proposed joint development is off, as the proposer has officially withdrawn for reasons undisclosed. Plans at this point are to button up the front of the building and revisit joint development opportunities in about a year, when Euclid Corridor development is further along and timing may be more conducive to a successful joint project. MidTown Cleveland, Inc., is heavily involved with, and interested in, keeping the remaining structure standing. It was also mentioned that the remaining structure is free and clear of any asbestos contamination, as is the rest of the site. Anyone care to see if Zaremba or someone is interested in doing anything with this? Michael Schipper of RTA mentioned that the top floors have an unobstructed lake view...

Unfortunately, this comment is indicative of the "build it, and they will come" mentality that has doomed many a silver bullet project in the past. Just because you do what's right doesn't mean that the public will respond in a manner that is reasonable, or even logical. The people in the suburbs left the city when there were still attractions here, so it was obviously some other factor, or combination of factors, that caused them to leave. Steelyard was a risky project from the get go, so putting in known draws (such as the uber-evil Wal Mart) is a means of mitigating the unknown of placing this type of development so close to the downtown core. I have friends in Euclid who, if there were an IKEA in Steelyard, would likely modify their behavior pattern to save their IKEA run for an occasion that brought them closer to Pittsburgh, because they "just don't go downtown". I'm trying to change that attitude, but it takes time, and works slowly. You cannot expect that any one factor will be a motivation to people. It's the combination of factors that causes sentiment, and then behavior, to shift.

Considering the massive scope of this project (retrofitting every vehicle, station, and facility with all new equipment, as well as training of all involved staff), and that it will result in RTA's using a combination of magstripe and stored-value proximity-read (i.e., probably RFID) farecards, this actually seems like a bargain. Sure, it's a big chunk of change, but it's a chunk that should result in a more efficient system in the long run. If you want to examine the scope of the project (a likely cure for insomnia), you can probably get copies of the relevant RFP documents from RTA. I'd imagine they're publicly accessible (no doubt there will be reproduction fees involved if the documents are large).

As a regular reader of the DC-area's commuterpage.com newsletter, I'd say it's more a matter of DC's transit system sucking so badly by comparison (and their letting Tangherlini go just continued their litany of missteps). Speaking for myself, as a former Buffalonian (the second 18 years of my life) born and raised in NYC (the first 18 years of my life), I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, and while RTA ain't perfect, it's head & shoulders above the vast majority of the competition (insert relevant reference to "in a room full of blind men, the one-eyed man is king", or "don't criticize how badly the bear dances, but be amazed that it dances at all"). With a little poking & prodding from the more vocal among us (heed urbanlife's call to attend a Board meeting some day), maybe it can become world-class yet.

yes and no... some of the sleeper cabs I've seen these days can get pretty lengthy (a Kenworth K900, for example, can be as much as 130" bumper to back of cab, and can have a sleeper as long as 86" behind that), and there's also the prospect of doing this with straight box truck chassis (think cube van w/o the cube, such as a Mitsubishi Fuso FM series, which tops out at a whopping 408" bumper to rear of frame)... either of those are fairly lengthy, and the shallower angle of attack presented by the longer vehicle would likely make it more susceptible to whipping/swaying to paraphrase Jessica Simpson (and this is the ONLY time I'll ever do this), "I totally know what that means, and I DON'T want it!"

grazie :-) it'll be nice to have other lunch alternatives downtown, speaking of which, the newly-reopened West 6th Pizzeria is a welcome addition -- great food, slightly high-priced, but typical for the district...

Not to imply any kind of agreement with insane legislation like this, but just for the sake of clarity, what we are talking about here is four TRUCKS linked together, not quad TRAILERS (and I agree, triple trailers are bad enough). As an example, see the attached graphic I snarfed from thenewstribune.com. I only wish they had posted an appropriately-scaled automobile graphic for comparison.

Anyone know what the build-out on the south side of lower Euclid, next to Jimmy John's Subs, is for? I saw metal studs being put in place today, and there are indications that some work has already taken place inside, but no real hint of what the future of the property is. Having this developed into something useful would be a nice addition for that block, just in time for the EC construction to finish up and springtime crowds to come back.

KJP- To address a couple of points you've raised -- Joe Calabrese doesn't see transit FUNDING as a zero-sum game, at least not from the standpoint of money coming into the Authority. However, since RTA is prohibited from operating at a deficit, the ALLOCATION of said funding, once it is secured, is most definitely zero-sum. There's a fixed pool of money with which to provide services, and to provide additional services, you can either attempt to wring out additional efficiencies from the services you have, or move service around (cut one area to increase another area). Also, he better than anyone understands the need to seek greater funding of public transit. In his position as chair of OPTA, he has been tirelessly professing his distress at the way public transit funding has been cut in the state of Ohio over the last five years, and nearly every nudget-related press release from RTA echoes these facts ("funding for public transit from the State of Ohio has been reduced by 63 percent from 2001 to the present", a direct quote from the press release regarding 2007 budget approval.). I do concur with your hope that state funding will improve under Strickland, but I'm not holding my breath...

RTA's expectation is to have some of the vehicles out on the road some time in early 2007, well before the entire project is complete. At this point, the vehicles have just about completed their Altoona testing. There's still in-house testing, maintenance training, and especially driver training to be done, since these things are 1/3 - 1/2 again as long as a typical coach, and with the median stations being high-curbed for easy boarding, it's WAY too easy to take out 60' of sheet metal if you don't know what you're doing :-o.

MGD, I'm not sure what you were expecting in the way of improvements, but there have been a few... the very fact the roadbed is now concrete rather than asphalt means that it will stand up to the heavy load presented by the 60' articulated BRT vehicles (take a look at the curbside southbound on Ontario, and you'll see what happens when a poor substrate asphalt road is subject to heavy compression, it's like toothpaste in a tube). Also, much of the work that has been done involved utility relocation, vault fill-in, and other improvements that you might not see, but definitely make a difference in the long-term sustainability of the infrastructure .

I guess I was also put off by the overly-pretentious 'tude exhibited by our guides... if you're selling me something, making me feel belittled, patronized, and insulted is probably NOT a good start. I would like to get a look at Stonebridge myself sometime soon...

I hope I didn't strike a nerve, Wim, but when I toured Cloak Factory, I was not the least bit impressed with the fit & finish of what I saw, and everything struck me as exhibiting a distinct lack of planning or sense of utility. Their most expensive unit had a cheap prefab spiral staircase, a loft "skybridge" that felt like it might collapse under any appreciable load, and a turnbuckle rebar bisecting said loft at waist level, among other issues...

:wtf: dammit... even though I couldn't afford one of these, the look I got at their model unit had me planning a string of bank robberies to arrange sufficient cash :shoot: ... the sliding walls separating the master bedroom from the rest of the unit, the use of stone and wood throughout... this was one that I looked at and said, "wow, somebody actually got it right"... it is my sincere hope that another developer picks up this ball and runs with it... just not the idiots who did Pinnacle and the Cloak Factory

Just so there's no misunderstanding, these 60' vehicles are the Euclid Corridor articulated buses... this isn't really anything new, as these were known to be coming. This just formally introduces them into the budget.

I agree that the whole contention that the ECTP is causing this business to shut down is BS. A few months back, there was a similar article that referenced the struggles being faced by a Chinese takeout place in the Halle Building because of ECTP. I decided to check it out for myself and see what the deal was. After finally finding the place (located in the basement, with NO roadfront signage indicating such), I ordered lunch, and discovered why their business truly was so poor -- it was some of the worst swill I had ever ingested! Need I remind anyone of the oft-fallacious argument, "post hoc, ergo propter hoc"? KJP, I do like your proposal of bridge financing/grants for collateral improvements -- maybe something to stress for future projects (TOD and otherwise), though I'm not sure if federal funding guidelines are "creative" enough at this time to allow for such innovation.

Personally, I'm with MyTwoSense in wanting to see it rebuilt at the mall site. That area has boatloads of potential, accessibility beyond belief while still retaining proximinity to a wide range of reasonable accommodations, and building there would encourage (okay, force) arrivals downtown from the airport (via RTA Red Line, hopefully) to actually interact with downtown, as opposed to fly in-convent(is that the verb form of convention??)-fly back out without ever really knowing where you've been. "Incidental tourism" dollars like that may not seem like much, but they add up over time.

Are you confusing the issue? Issue 3 definitely failed. my bad, apparently the Cuyahoga County BOE page has bad or incomplete data, the numbers I posted above are verbatim from their site for "State Issue 3"... I think they're only posting county numbers for the state issue (yeah, 'cause THAT'S friggin' useful!) anyway... WOO-HOO!!! nice to see that this went down...

That goes to show what polls are, nothing but "statistics", with all the concomitant inaccuracy... with 1424 of 1434 precincts reporting, issue 3 has passed, 225,626-186,145, or 55%-45%. For the record, I voted against it, not necessarily because I'm against gambling (in fact, I'm not), but because I cannot agree with this being codified into the state Constitution. It's the same reason I voted against the minimum wage proposal. Now, that being said, I don't know if a casino being built behind Tower City is as much of a foregone conclusion as RyanScav seems to imply. There's still a number of hoops that will need to be jumped through. Also, the comment about Tower City's tenants being "a step above Randall Mall" is, as clvlndr stated, "hyperbole on steroids". I've seen downtown malls go to hell before (Main Place Mall in Buffalo, NY, after the developer's failed attempt to turn it into a telecom hub just before the internet bubble burst, leaving Buffalo's onetime retail core with a whole lot of dark fiber and storefronts walled up into data centers that now sit idle), and Tower City, and the Galleria for that matter, are far from that condition. The downtown residential development taking place is approaching a tipping point that bodes well for both of these locations. By the same token, I've seen suburban malls wither and die (Thruway Mall and Seneca Mall, again in the Buffalo area), and they've been reborn after someone realized it was time to level the damn thing and start over again. But I digress...

FYI, KJP et al, even when Euclid is reopened, the only buses that will be running along the downtown piece will be the #6 and the E-Line trolley... the other reroutings that took bus traffic off of Euclid Avenue will remain in effect...

'tis quite okay, I've been lurking here for a while.... my opinions are bound to raise a few ires, no doubt, so I've been very selective in where I've chosen to make my presence known...

I was at Citirama, and I was not impressed. The build quality for what I saw was horrendous (including one house whose front walk slab and steps had shifted/collapsed due to a neighboring sprinkler being left on overnight!), the prices were, in most cases, outrageous, and the overall designs, while not necessarily being "suburban", were generally not suitable for the Cleveland climate - winter weather demands either an airlock entry, or some sort of structure other than a doorway opening to a cathedral-ceilinged great room. There was a grand total of ONE builder who understood this, and had modified their plan accordingly. I was encouraged by the "green" houses that were there, and the technology used therein, and it felt good to talk to a supplier who reacted to the words "ground source heat pump" with something other than looking at me like I had three heads. Unfortunately, this was the exception rather than the norm, and I saw little different here than I've seen at these "builder showcases" for the last ten years or more -- and it's not just here in Cleveland that I've seen it...