KJP

All Cleveland Amtrak trains are affected. Eastbound trains 30 & 48 were canceled before leaving Chicago. Westbound trains 29 will be terminated at Pittsburgh and 49 at Cleveland where CSX tracks meet NS.

Building permits were submitted this past week for the north building in the Silverhills development.

Unfortunately as I was leaving the groundbreaking ceremony, I slipped on some mud near my car. As I fell, my left calf slid across a metal strip at the bottom of a Metroparks trailer. The 7-inch gash went down into the muscle. My wife rushed me Lutheran Hospital ER where I got 20 stitches and a pair of crutches for the next two weeks. I am VERY lucky that it missed an artery. Ah, the things I do for NEOtrans....

Something may be coming across the street

Shoving ye spades into the leitir By Ken Prendergast / August 25, 2023 Today was a hooley 175 years in the making. Hundreds of people celebrated today on the banks of the Cuyahoga River, across the waters from the lietir, or hillside where work is already starting to stabilize a slope on which Irish immigrants settled under difficult circumstances long ago. Today, their struggle is about to be memorialized with the $100-plus million Irishtown Bend Park. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2023/08/25/shoving-ye-spades-into-the-leitir/

Ohio Republicans on the Ballot Board just rejected a proposal for Ohio voters to see the full amendment text for reproductive rights on the November ballot. They are instead opting for language written by the Ohio Secretary of State's Office, that has numerous accuracy problems.

Any rail right of way abandonment has to be approved by the Surface Transportation Board. If there is still an active rail customer with service, or even one wanting rail service, the rail right of way cannot be abandoned. Railroads are ultimately public utilities which provide a public convenience and necessity and cannot unilaterally disconnect service.

"the continued overapplication of manure, coupled with the addition of more animals to the watershed, should guarantee that the problem will get worse, not better." U.S. EPA should reject Ohio’s flawed plan to fix Lake Erie’s toxic algae crisis: Jeff Reutter https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2023/08/us-epa-should-reject-ohios-flawed-plan-to-fix-lake-eries-toxic-algae-crisis-jeff-reutter.html

@Dev In the 80 rail miles from CUT to South Broadway Avenue in Lexington, I count about 37 miles of single track segments that would probably have to have a second main track added/restored. Most of this line is double-tracked already, which is good, and many sections used to have a second track so rail overpasses of roads and rivers are two tracks wide which is also good. There are several rail overpasses/bridges that are one track wide that would have to be rebuilt or replaced with two-track-wide spans. They are the rail overpasses of CSX railroad in Walton, and of Rt 32 in Sadieville. Plus, the Eagle Creek trestle near Sadieville is single-tracked, but its bridge supports, piers and abutments all were built for a second track and 630-foot-long deck which is no longer there. At about $15 million per mile for adding a second main track, including expanding the Positive Train Control traffic management/signal system, universal crossovers (so trains can switch between both tracks) every 10 miles if necessary, road crossings with safety features and lengthened activation circuits to account for higher passenger train speeds, the closing of some crossings and the separation of a few others, and curve elevations (banking) so passenger trains can travel at up to 79 mph around most curves, we're probably looking at about $600 million. That doesn't include stations. In addition to CUT and downtown Lexington, I would put stations in Georgetown, Erlanger and another somewhere in the middle like Williamstown. Five stations at an average cost of about $5 million each adds another $25 million to the total. With engineering, environmental permitting and contingencies, we're probably looking at something in the $700 million to $800 million range.

Thought I'd write about it..... The fate of East Cleveland By Ken Prendergast / August 23, 2023 In the 1950s, after my mother Edith March Prendergast divorced her first husband, she moved herself and her two boys to Greater Cleveland to be near family. After a brief stay at the Alcazar Hotel, she settled at the south end of Glenmont Avenue in Cleveland Heights. Then she moved to the north end of Glenmont which is in East Cleveland. There, she, Dale and Dean stayed until the early 1960s when she married my father James and moved into his home in Lyndhurst. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2023/08/23/the-fate-of-east-cleveland/

My son has soccer practices or games just about every weekday evening and most weekends. Only on Tuesdays are the practices not mandatory.

If East Cleveland depopulates in a manner similar to other East Side Cleveland neighborhoods like Central and Hough, its slide may not stop until it has only 10 percent of its peak population, or a mere 4,000 people. If that happens, East Cleveland will no longer have the population to be a municipality. In that case, the process of a municipality annexing a village or township can be simpler: https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-709.30

Here's why the #Browns must prioritize keeping Austin Watkins Jr. over Anthony Schwartz at the wide receiver position: Snaps: Schwartz 97 | Watkins 91 Targets: Schwartz 12 | Watkins 24 Receptions: Schwartz 5 | Watkins 15 REC%: Schwartz 41.7 | Watkins 62.5 Yards: Schwartz 40 | Watkins 245 Yards/Route Run: Schwartz 0.45 | Watkins 2.88 ADOT: Schwartz 8.7 | Watkins 15.7 Drop Rate: Schwartz 28.6 | Watkins 6.3 QB Rating: Schwartz 50.7 | Watkins 124.5 The Drop Rate takes into account the catchable targets a player receives, factoring in throwaways and passes that couldn't be caught. Schwartz's 28.6% is the third highest in the NFL preseason so far. Watkins' 6.3 is the second lowest rate of any receiver with 20+ targets.

For Sun Newspapers, I wrote about East Cleveland as a cautionary tale for other suburbs. I wrote that column back in the mid-1990s after East Cleveland lost one-fourth of population, dropping to near 30,000 people. From that reduced amount, it has since lost another 2/3 of its population.....

Until interests in University Circle, Glenville and Cleveland Heights start complaining and calling for action, you're probably right that nothing will be done. I suppose we could all just let nature take its course and let East Cleveland continue to evaporate until there's nothing left but an urban prairie. And what's interesting is that the worst decline that this suburb has experienced has occurred just in the past 15 years.

No, that's mostly Glenville. Agreed. There's real opportunity there IF the land can be made development-ready and put under the governance of an administration that has a clue. And @MyPhoneDead mentioned the site near the Superior RTA station -- which is targeted by a New York City developer who has the luxury of not having to hear the decades of horror stories of trying to do anything positive in East Cleveland.

Do you really think the Ohio GOP cares about setting a precedent with a Democrat-dominated municipality? And how many potential East Clevelands are there in Ohio? The state has taken over school districts before. The crime, blight and spread of same to neighboring communities is a real threat to the region. East Cleveland previously was in fiscal emergency from 1988 to 2006. It's in fiscal emergency again and has been since 2012. So East Cleveland has been in fiscal emergency for 29 out of the last 35 years! C'mon, this has got to stop. It's right next door to one of the most economically vibrant areas in the state and yet it remains a disaster. There's no reason for East Cleveland's ever-worsening condition except for its own governance. Yes, Cleveland would get the more blighted part except if state and federal monies were provided to significantly clear and clean land, and reassemble it into large, fee-simple parcels along streets rebuilt from the sewers up. Look at the area along Euclid Avenue, north to the tracks, all the way through East Cleveland. Level everything, along with the industrial triangle along East 152nd and Ivanhoe that extends into Cleveland. This was proposed to be the endpoint of the first phase of a Red Line extension to serve a new industrial district. To me, with at least a competent local government overseeing such sites, I would think developers and investors would be very interested in such cleared and cleaned lands. And I would think Cleveland would be very interested in the tax revenue potential if such lands were made development-ready. East Cleveland could be turned from a threat to neighboring communities into a potential asset.

More Amtrak Airo Trainsets Ordered to Meet Surging Demand https://media.amtrak.com/2023/08/more-amtrak-airo-trainsets-ordered-to-meet-surging-demand/

Because I fear the Democrats are too nice and lack the imperative, I hope the Ohio GOP does the one thing it could and should do before it is forced from power next year or next century -- take over East Cleveland and encourage mergers with the cities of Cleveland and Cleveland Heights (East Cleveland's problems are too big to be taken on by just one city) by offering more than the $10 million recent token gesture to aid in the rebuilding of that city. The state needs to authorize $100 million and leverage at least $1 billion in federal money to rebuild the city's infrastructure and tear down/clean up thousands of substandard properties. That includes remediation of lead paint and other toxins at many homes that can still be salvaged as well as focusing redevelopment incentives on this city. It's time for all regional, state and federal governments to join forces and call for a takeover and a massive rebuilding of East Cleveland from the sewers up.

@MyPhoneDead All stops on high-frequency transit routes are eligible. It includes these areas shaded in green. Blue-shaded areas are those with transit-supportive housing densities (30+ units per acre)....

Concur

Cleveland getting national attention

Nice article