KJP

Greater Cleveland: poverty amid plenty By Ken Prendergast / May 23, 2023 Amid the good news in Ohio and especially in Greater Cleveland that unemployment has fallen to pre-pandemic lows is the harsh reality that inner-city joblessness remains high. This is despite thousands of jobs made available by economic growth and retiring Baby Boomers. Meanwhile, three-fourths of all available jobs are beyond the reach of public transportation or, where public transportation is fast and frequent, there are many jobs but few quality housing options. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2023/05/23/greater-cleveland-poverty-amid-plenty/

I don't consider anything in an inner-ring suburb to be sprawl. I'm happy to see such a high-density, mixed-use development finally provide an urbanized endpoint ridership anchor to a 107-year-old rail transit line in this inner-ring suburb. Wish we had a couple of them on the Green Line too! Say, a southward expansion of the campus village from John Carroll University to the Warrensville Station and a charming, cozy station village at Green Road.

@Ethan Waterfront Line track stays at/near the Carter Road elevation until it finishes curving toward Tower City and emerges from its portal. Then it rises up to Tower City track level. Its curving track would be entirely covered rather than just partially covered as it is now.

The Venice is older. Kent was a division point for the Erie Railroad (the upper tracks) where train crews changed. The Venice is where railroad crews on all passenger trains and westbound freight trains (about two dozen daily until Conrail took over in 1976) came to get a drink and some food after their runs. The Erie Yards were just north of downtown and the railroad was Kent's biggest employer until the 1960s when the university overtook it.

The Waterfront Line trains already do go under the Red Line tracks. The inbound Waterfront Line track would stay at a lower elevation for a little bit longer, until it is alongside the realigned Red Line track and then it completes its climb up to Tower City track level. Here's a comparison between now and proposed.... Existing: Proposed:

Perhaps the biggest barrier to bringing Amtrak into Cleveland Union Terminal/Tower City Center is figuring out how get around the Stokes Federal Courthouse. I think I may have figured out a way to do it -- IF the Amtrak/CVSR station could be put where the current GCRTA station is now (restructured ultimately as a four-track through station) and the GCRTA station is moved to where the old Shaker Rapid platforms were (which GCRTA briefly used when it was rebuilding its Tower City tracks). Since GCRTA will soon go to an all-light-rail system, it doesn't need such a big/long station at Tower City anymore. And there are a couple of ways of bringing CVSR into Tower City. One is cheaper but slower. The other is more expensive and faster, and can share costs with Amtrak as well as a shortline railroad to gain access to the industrial Flats. I'd love to hear your ideas and thoughts about this. This diagram shows the minimum trackage that might be necessary to put existing Amtrak and CVSR services into Tower City, resulting in about 10 trains per day and 150,000-200,000 passenger boardings per year at the outset. More trackage would be needed to accommodate the Amtrak Connects US plan resulting in about 30 arrivals and departures per day and 500,000 to 1 million passenger boardings per year (equal to a small-medium airport in the middle of downtown Cleveland's central business district). This is the expensive but fast way to get CVSR in/out of Tower City. This could cost-share with Amtrak/FRA funding as well as freight access funding to create linkages between disconnected short-line freight railroads. And this is the where the real pinch point is. Here's a less expensive way to get around the federal courthouse IF Amtrak/CVSR can take over the GCRTA station and the GCRTA station can move to the old Shaker Rapid station at Tower City.

Amtrak, NC by Train to expand Piedmont service in July https://www.progressiverailroading.com/passenger_rail/news/Amtrak-NC-by-Train-to-expand-Piedmont-service-in-July--69304

Glad to see Frank Avenue extension underway. I'm surprised to work on the parking garage for Medley hasn't begun.

Yes

There is no woke agenda but there certainly is a crazy agena. Leave institutions of higher learning to find their own way, even if it is conflict with yours

Good news from Minnesota, even though I doubt Duluth-Minneapolis will get much ridership.

Where is the info that there are 10k unfilled manufacturing jobs? Is that in Greater Cleveland or statewide?

Cities have traffic. There's nothing wrong it unless you try to make the traffic more fluid by destroying the city to accommodate more/faster moving cars. West 25th Street in Ohio City has traffic because it is a successful, dense, urban neighborhood. One way to tell your city is failing is when it has little or no traffic. From CtyGrl Photography (@CtyGrlPhoto on Twitter)....

An amazing photo I could study with a magnifying glass for hours and still see something new on it tomorrow. This photo is from about 1920-22 as demolition hasn't started yet for the Cleveland Union Terminals Group. The Detroit-Superior bridge is brand new so the movable span for the old Superior Viaduct is still intact. And the Bulkley Boulevard (predecessor to the West Shoreway) has a T-intersection with West 25th which was later rounded off so cars could go faster through the intersection and endanger pedestrians more. The landfill east of the lakefront docks still doesn't have a purpose yet (site of future Municipal Stadium). And that's just a few of the highlights! I'm sure you'll notice many other features.

I doubt a tower crane will be needed for this. Smaller cranes will likely be used.

@Luke_S I think it's for the Clifton-Lake bridge project.

Cool. Let's do it.

Wish they would have used some of the money to restore the community circulator.

Done....

Long overdue for this project to have its own thread Stokes West gets go-ahead By Ken Prendergast / May 19, 2023 Developers of a large apartment complex in Cleveland’s University Circle could start construction of the $40 million project before August if all goes well in the coming weeks. That optimism was earned today after City Planning Commission gave the project final approval of its new, overhauled design and a zoning change to accommodate that design. The development is different from several others nearby because it isn’t trying to brush with or break through the top of the market when it comes to rents. Instead, Stokes West intends to offer smaller, more affordable apartments, many of them already furnished for new arrivals in Cleveland and from across the world. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2023/05/19/stokes-west-gets-go-ahead/

Because the transportation index nationally is going in the toilet. And the transportation index usually leads the economy by about 4 months.

The problem is tunnel boom -- where the air displaced by the train as it enters the tunnel cannot be displaced because there's nowhere for the air to go. So not only does the tunnel portal and tube have to be designed differently, so does the train. Check out the Tohoku Shinkansen and the Zao Tunnel near Fukushima where the speed limit in the tunnel is 320kph, exactly the same as the top speed of the rest of the Tohoku Shinkansen. Note the design of the Tohoku Shinkansen at left. The Zao Tunnel diameter is also larger. But the tunnels under the Allegheny Mountains don't need to be continuous. They only need to be under each ridge. Once on a snowy weekend, I mapped out a level route once and I recall that in the most rugged section -- the 60 miles between Mercersburg and Berlin near Somerset -- it needed a half-dozen tunnels. Several more tunnels, albeit shorter, were needed between Somerset and Pittsburgh, a distance of another 60 miles or so.

There's so many big projects in University Circle that this project was never pulled out into its own thread. I guess I could've done it. Just another $40+ million project.... Stokes West gets go-ahead By Ken Prendergast / May 19, 2023 Developers of a large apartment complex in Cleveland’s University Circle could start construction of the $40 million project before August if all goes well in the coming weeks. That optimism was earned today after City Planning Commission gave the project final approval of its new, overhauled design and a zoning change to accommodate that design. The development is different from several others nearby because it isn’t trying to brush with or break through the top of the market when it comes to rents. Instead, Stokes West intends to offer smaller, more affordable apartments, many of them already furnished for new arrivals in Cleveland and from across the world. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2023/05/19/stokes-west-gets-go-ahead/

I emailed two of the top executives at Akara Partners, asking if the land was for sale, and so far no reply. I know at least one of them opened the email.

No but renters have rights too and I hope they exercised them. BTW your post is the first time I ever heard someone say something bad about Berges. From all the comments I've gotten on social media and emails from people about the article, everyone says great things about Berges.