Cleburger

Not sure if this was posted on any other forums (a quick search revealed no results). Arrived home from a trip to find a postcard mailing from ODOT advertising a public open house on the Cleveland Lakefront West plan scheduled for February 23. Here's the details from the card: February 23, 2010 5:00 pm-8:00 pm Exhibits Open 5:00 pm Presentation: 6-7 pm Q&A 7-8 pm Pope John Hall Gymnasium Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church West 6928 Detroit Ave Cleveland OH www.buckeyetraffic.org/lakefrontwest I personally won't be able to attend due to another trip, but would love to hear from any UO members in attendance about updates to the Shoreway plan.

To the detractors of the project. You need not look further than the first paragraph: "Opportunity fled Emma Barnes' Kinsman neighborhood decades ago, along with the white people who flew to the suburbs and the industry that closed up shop (but conveniently forgot to take its toxic waste). Kinsman earned the bleak tag of "Forgotten Triangle." Barnes, 79, has lived among the neglect all her life, but local government and big business want to assure her that prosperity is on the way." This poor woman has lived in despair HER ENTIRE LIFE in that neighborhood. And she's only 79. But the Scene turns her into an example of piling on some poor folks. When there's no where to go but up, are we really doing much damage? All I have to say is: at least it's not a wall-lined limited access highway. Cleveland could do much worse.

It's this sort of anti-pedestian lane thinking as above that leaves Cleveland with little "pockets" of optimism and growth, but seldom does the wave extend from neighborhood to neighborhood. We end up with Tremont, Ohio City, Detroit Shoreway, Downtown, with fields of blight in between (not always for geographic and topograhic reasons as in this case, but still....). In my opinion some bike/pedestrian lanes would do wonders for tying together Downtown, Duck Island, Tremont AND Ohio City by giving pedestrians and bicyclist multiple routes. Also imagine the spike in the marketability of a home in Tremont if you were able to zip home on your 2 wheeler for some lunch and be back downtown at your office within an hour, and relatively sweat-free. A proposition that, while doable now, is not exactly convenient.

Whatever they do in there we should consider ourselves lucky. There are other cities with Indian gaming who get a pole barn and a gravel lot until the permanent structure is built.

Mohegan Sun was also built out in the middle of nowhere and probably lacked some of the logistical and design challenges of building within a confined urban space. For $280 million they put up a heck of casino, or have added on extensively since the initial construction. They even have the large-scale basketball arena there.

Call me crazy--but I think if this was designed right, with an aesthetic not unlike the sides of the Detroit-Superior bridge, that a bike/pedestrian path with some benches for gazing on downtown might just be a popular destination!

ODOT is backwards. The rest of us shouldn't be. Let the letter writing begin. Let ODOT know we don't want to be known any longer as a backwoods, population-shedding state, city or region!

I believe Public Hall and Public Auditorium are used interchangebly. The Music Hall is about 3,000 seats and shares the stage with Public Hall, facing the opposite direction. The Little Theater is next door to that, and if I'm not mistaken there is another even smaller space either upstairs or downstairs, but it's been years since I've been in there. I find it hard to comprehend that there are people in Cleveland who would even consider getting rid of these fantastic venues or the malls, which are true to the original designs and grand open spaces of the city planners. And why on earth would we build another hotel when there is a perfrectly good Marriott and Crowne Plaza across the street that suffer from horrendous occupancy levels already. Hopefully someday the demand would be there, but for now let's deal with what we have.

I beg to differ. It is actually four beautiful venues under one roof. A treasure. A piece of history. Does Cleveland have too many venues? Maybe. But if the city offers up the right rent deal I'm sure there will be events at Public Hall once more.

:clap: Great news! That combined with the restarted east bank of the Flats will create quite the stretch of activity in the west shoreway region!

TWO BLOCKS! OMG! I have to walk?? You mean there's no parking right by the front door? What is this some kind of socialistic commie European country? Every American has a God-given right to park by the front door, even if it means using the handicap placard you stole from the old lady last week!! Damn commies..... :) ESPECIALLY when I go to the gym once a week. God forbid I have to walk 1/8 mile to the gym! How would I ever make it though my spinning class? ;)

Certainly your luck would be better with the intern than having the ATU member drivers hang signs. I'm quite certain they would flat out refuse such a duty. Even picking up a candy wrapper next to their seat is usually out of the realm of the job description. :)

Hopefully this will keep happening. Nothing could be more important than college kids living downtown. I'd take 1,000 of them anyday before wasting more money and time on an aquarium etc. I have noticed that CSU is advertising heavy out-of-state. Hopefully we'll keep attracting out of town collegiates!

Here here 327. :clap: It is absolutely absurd that the city bothers itself with this sort of concern, while meanwhile bad decisions are being made and the city is crumbling around us.... Regulation of the display ads? Fair enough. But an outright ban on lucrative income for RTA? Why don't we just pay for more people to leave NE Ohio....

Didn't the Home & Garden show move to Euclid anyway? I'm with you on all other comments. I've complained directly to the airport many times about the overall lack of cleanliness and employee attitudes. I distinctly remember the girls working the food court bagel and Burger King being extremely rude. As if eating that junk isn't enough punishment....

In fact, the city appears very opposed to this idea. the city made a deal for exclusive advertising on the triangular kiosks a few years ago, and attempts to expand the program to provide revenue for rta, recycling containers, uniform newspaper machines (the "nice" street elements you may see in other cities supported in part by ad revenue) were all rejected by the city. it is a good question, and one that more people should be asking the city why this isn't happening. to be fair, there are downsides (real and perceived) of cluttering the ROW with additional advertising, which the city stands behind. Just another argument for regionalism and cooperation. Why not have both governmental bodies work to sell ad space, and split the commission based on the space sold? Of course, once sold, we'd have to remind RTA to mount their display ads above the height of an average three year old. ;)

They can cry foul, but as Dennis Kucinich is complaining, the ARRA funds cannot be used for operating costs. I understand the argument, but that's the rules of the game. Another infastructure investment in the future could boost ridership on RTA and lead to increased revenue in the future. We should also hope that the economy and sales tax revenues come back enough to cover any population loss during this downturn....

Could also be a sign of a mass exodus... ;)

I'm still with you 327. As stated many times above, I'd love to see rail down Clifton once more. The Detroit/Clifton area is some of the highest-density living in Cleveland, and I think it would be a great investment in the area. I love the old photos of the streetcars traveling down the side of Clifton Blvd rather than the center. What I wouldn't give to see that again. But, as a resident of the area, I have self-serving interests. BRT or nothing? If the feds dangled funding for BRT down Clifton I would choose BRT rather than do nothing at all and let the neighborhood die (as it is now). I'm sure it's been discussed in other threads, but once the BRT right of way has been established, wouldn't it be easier to add in rail at a later date? Maybe that should be pushed as a part of the design feature?

Sounds like you're sipping the Calabrese Kool Aid bigtime... Yeah, why don't we continue lowballing ourselves, setting our sites low (more like having them set low for us), and go into our all-too-typical "beggars can't be choosy" mode. When we continue to settle for the mediocre, the damage is often next to impossible to undo. Meanwhile Rus Belt neighbors Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Minny-St. Paul are opting for rail while people like you dismiss those of us who are silly enough to believe we can/should expand upon the rail transit base we have as hopeless "dreamers". And, oh yeah Cleburger, did you notice car-crazy LA dumpted BRT Santa Monica extension plans in favor of good old fashion steel-rail LRT? And, yeah Cleburger, let's do Calabrese thing one better, why dontcha. Let's once again drag out that tired old anti-rail rant of trashing the Waterfront Line -- of course ignoring the fact that TOD development has not been properly studied or developed for the line, which smartly was built to serve what should be the most desirable areas, development-wise of town: our waterfront. Nevermind that, even now, high-density Flats East Bank development is poised to rise next to the WFL's Flats East Bank station despite the credit collapse... It's thinking like yours, Cleburger, that keeps Cleveland perpetually mediocre. I'll repete, Clvlndr--that I support the expansion of rail with open arms. However, and I am unaware of the rail expansion in other rust belt towns you speak of, other than Minneapolis, which I don't consider to be very rust belt. So in the use-it-or-lose-it age of federal funding, as Strap pointed out above, I'd rather have BRT on Clifton that the current pothole ridden, sidewalk crumbling scene we have now. Interesting comparison of the Waterfront Line as well--which was completed in the Flats heyday in the mid 1990's, and here we are 15 years later with a stalled project and still no development happening. Now that's what I call TOD! ;)

So lose Federal funding in favor of the dream of new light rail in Cleveland? I'd opt for BRT over nothing.... Just remember--the last time RTA went with new light rail--we got the "practice run to nowhere" aka the Waterfront Line.

I just went back and re-read the Kucinich letter and saw the part where he put his support behind it after withdrawing his support. I agree with you Straphanger--well stated argument. I just wish Dennis could see beyond pandering to the lowest common denominator and look at the bigger picture. After all, the entire line would be within his district, no?

I like that rendering McCleveland. Definitely gives a good scale as to how the building would frame in the Main Ave bridge. Can't wait to pump some iron then rollerblade down to the beach to hit the gyro stand! :-D

Way to kill a good Sim-City buzz.... :-D

All I gotta ask is, who is going to clean said "beach?" Anyone who has boated the Cuyahoga knows it's filled with logs, dead fish, trash, condoms, beach whistles, etc.... All of these things would end up on the "beach" on a daily basis.