KJP

In early November 1997, a very successful commuter rail run was held over several days by GCRTA, NOACA and rail supply industries using a visiting Bay Area CalTrain commuter train. The train traveled from West 110th Street in Cleveland to Lorain and back and was full of city officials from all affected communities, chambers of commerce and others. The next day it was downtown for a static display at the Amtrak station. The third day, it roared through a lake effect snowstorm at 79 mph to Painesville and back (it was snowing so hard at Painesville, the engineer couldn't see the station until he blew past it, requiring a long back-up move). Every one loved the idea of commuter rail in NE Ohio. A few weeks later, I broke the story on the tripling of West Shore freight train traffic (from 13 to 38 daily trains on average) for Sun News which resulted in a big press conference by Kucinich, West Shore mayors and others. Since Sun News came out every Thursday and we weren't on the Internet in 1997, I interviewed Kucinich and the mayors a week early with the promise they wouldn't say anything publicly until Sun News came out on Thursday. They were willing to do that because I'm the one who told them about it. They were grateful I told them. They held their press conference that morning. At the press conference, other media asked me how I knew about it. I mentioned in the article that the reference to the tripling of West Shore freight traffic was buried in a 1,000-plus page filing with the federal Surface Transportation Board. The filing included proposed traffic changes resulting from NS and CSX jointly buying and splitting Conrail roughly equally between them. Local media asked me, did I really sift through more than 1,000 pages of the filing? Of course not. My friend Howard Harding (RIP), a transportation planner at the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study, found it while preparing a summary of proposed Northeast Ohio rail traffic changes as a result of the Conrail split. He contacted me because we were both active in the Ohio Association of Railroad Passengers (today's All Aboard Ohio) and I was covering the planned addition of commuter rail on NS's West Shore route for Sun News. The commuter rail plan was very popular among the West Shore mayors and Kucinich. At first, Howard and I were certain that this was being done by NS to kill the proposed commuter trains or, at best, get the communities to support infrastructure improvements via Berea so NS could reroute freight trains out of the West Shore. It wasn't even operationally realistic to triple the freight traffic as NS had single-tracked the West Shore line just four years earlier in 1993. Some of us thought NS was floating this to trigger a public reaction. What reaction? Perhaps, adding capacity to the alternate routing through Berea would either allow the commuter trains to replace the freight trains or the West Shore tracks could be removed, especially east of the Avon Lake Ford Plant to Cleveland. But NS's proposed tripling of freight train traffic soured any notion of adding trains to the line -- even though the commuter trains wouldn't have counted against the negotiated cap of 13 daily trains because the cap only limited the number of through trains that began or ended their journeys outside of Vermilion-Cleveland. Local freight trains that served local industries did not count against the cap. At a public hearing at Lakewood Council Chambers, citizens were horrified that so many freight trains would be coming through the West Shore. Lakewood children who walk or bike to school would run in front of trains or risk being late. Safety forces would be delayed in making runs to save lives. Noise and dust and dirt from trains would reduce property values. All heII would break loose. Suddenly adding trains to the West Shore line was bad. Before, adding commuter trains was good. Now, any additional trains was bad. So realism is an opinion. It is everchanging and it depends on who you ask. On Nov. 10, all of the mayors and chambers and Congressfolk loved commuter rail in the West Shore. By Christmas, any notion of adding trains in the West Shore became radioactive. "Reality" can and will change again.

Both renderings have the same new buildings in them. Watch the fly-through video of the rendering (and maybe add some good music to go with it -- I suggest Thierry David's "Connected"! 😎 )...

North Coast Connector: ready for its close-up By Ken Prendergast / May 2, 2023 The North Coast Connector — a project that’s considered by many city and community development officials as the key to unlocking the potential of downtown Cleveland’s lakefront — is starting to come together. The state is moving forward on a big piece of funding for its construction. The city is moving forward on funding for detailed architectural designs. And public involvement meetings to help shape those designs will be held starting this week. To quote Gloria Swanson in the 1950 classic movie “Sunset Boulevard,” the proposed land bridge is “ready for its close-up.” MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2023/05/02/north-coast-connector-ready-for-its-close-up/

My wife and a friend were at the convention center today for a conference of content creators. It's a three-day conference but my wife attended only one day.

@MyPhoneDead to keep this thread on topic, I redirected that discussion here...

Ten years ago, a project like this would be very high profile. Now, it barely gets mentioned.

They seek routes with at least 500,000 riders per year at the outset. That's possible with 3C, but they would have to operate at 110+ mph and that means having tracks separate from freight. That's doable in the short term between Galion-Columbus-London but would take a lot more effort to do over the entire route. The freight trains on the CSX and NS lines between Dayton and Cincinnati could consolidate onto one line, leaving the other for passenger traffic. There is an abandoned rail ROW between Dayton and Springfield, and passenger-only tracks could be laid next to NS between Springfield and London, and next to CSX between Galion and Cleveland. So it's certainly possible but will not be cheap.

Yes, NS's Cleveland District through Lakewood. I try not to anticipate what someone else will believe, let 50,000 people, without asking them first. Even so, the deal with NS to cap the number of through freight trains at 13 daily expired four years ago. Even if it wasn't, if Brightline acquired the line, it wasn't a party to that agreement. Cleveland-Chicago trains wouldn't run to Detroit. I would run them as per the map below which would offer a 3.5-hour running time for Detroit-Chicago trains, two hours for Detroit-Cleveland trains, and four hours for Cleveland-Chicago trains. There would be direct Cleveland-Chicago trains, but all Cleveland-Detroit trains would have cross-platform connections to trains traveling Detroit-Chicago, just as Detroit-Cleveland trains would have connections to Cleveland-Chicago trains. Key to the map...... Orange line -- Brightline acquiring or leasing existing, upgraded tracks Black line -- new Brightline tracks along existing, active railroad tracks Yellow line -- new Brightline tracks along existing highway Red line- new Brightline tracks along new right of way or abandoned railroad/other right of way The reason why Brightline would succeed in expanding in Ohio whereas Amtrak may not is because Brightline supports political campaigns, and Ohio is a corrupt, pay-to-play state like Florida. Brightline will also subsidize the trains with real estate revenues whereas Amtrak will require the state to financially backstop the trains, even if Amtrak is paying the subsidy in the first few years.

A financial donation to the project counts as a "gift."

Redirect from the SHW HQ thread.... Nice job blocking the sidewalk along Euclid Avenue. The property owner, the contractor and the city could be sued for violating ADA.

I would have Brightline use the South Shore instead, then the Turnpikes or alongside NS, to near Vermilion and take it over to enter Cleveland. I'd also take over the CN/GTW between Toledo and Detroit, utilizing 200 miles of existing track.

I used to have some of the long range plans for Hopkins from my Sun Newspapers' days. But I can't seem to find them. I'll keep looking. Hopkins can accommodate 747s including Air Force One and the occasional Middle East royal in town for medical care at the Cleveland Clinic...

Very busy planning commission agenda this week -- especially with funding for Irishtown Bend from the city's ARPA Waterfront Activation Fund. https://planning.clevelandohio.gov/designreview/drcagenda/2023/PDF/CPC/CPC05-05-2023.pdf

Very busy planning commission agenda this week -- especially with detailed design work for public infrastructure improvements and demolition of the Eagle Avenue ramp all funded out of the city's ARPA Waterfront Activation Fund. https://planning.clevelandohio.gov/designreview/drcagenda/2023/PDF/CPC/CPC05-05-2023.pdf

Very busy planning commission agenda this week -- especially with detailed design work for lots of lakefront stuff from downtown east to Euclid including North Coast Connector, CHEERS, and Euclid Beach/Euclid Creek stuff all funded out of the city's ARPA Waterfront Activation Fund. https://planning.clevelandohio.gov/designreview/drcagenda/2023/PDF/CPC/CPC05-05-2023.pdf

In the 1970s, my father and I toured Roundwood, built by the Van Sweringens. I wished I was older when I saw it. I seem to remember it as cozy, not cold, yet luxurious. https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/historic-roundwood-manor-hits-the-market-for-45-million/Slideshow/41896005

But it seems like a lot of cities, particularly older ones like ours, have dual nodes of activity. Pittsburgh has Oakland, St. Louis has Clayton, Cincinnati has Uptown, Columbus has OSU, and Detroit has several dense nodes although most are outside city limits. I think we could add some more University stuff downtown to give it more all day activity.

Yes, just because I quoted someone doesn't mean I agree with him. I believe the Green/Blue lines need to be rebuilt. I believe they need more density around their stations. Of course, this isn't appropriate at all stations, especially in Shaker Heights, but there are some stations in Shaker where more density and mixed use is needed to support a transit line whose purpose is more than just getting people to work at one end of the line. The Van Aken District, the Van Aken-Lee-Chagrin area, expanding the John Carroll University campus village south along Warrensville to the Green Line station, possibly developing the West Green parking lots and nearby greenspace, and of course making sure Shaker Square doesn't decay to the point of no return, as well as developing at each station stop west of there. And I would definitely reroute the Blue Line to University Circle. I think that's a must. I would also restart planning for a Blue Line extension to Harvard/I-271 and the Green Line to Beachwood Place. I think lot of Russians and Ukrainians living nearby would probably use it, as would people working at retailers in that area.

Main Avenue (Shoreway) bridge.

Yes, very true. But another part is that more people from the eastern suburbs commute to University Circle and the office parks along the I-271 corridor than they do to downtown. The Shaker Rapid serves neither.

Anatomy of an ‘American Transit Disaster’ In his new book, historian Nicholas Dagen Bloom chronicles the collapse of public transportation in US cities — and explains who really deserves the blame. By David Zipper April 27, 2023 at 8:00 AM EDT American transit agencies are standing on the brink of a devastating fiscal cliff. Covid-era emergency dollars are dwindling, and revenues remain well below pre-pandemic levels. Without new funding, transit leaders could be forced to close budget gaps by cutting service or raising fares – and likely both. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-04-27/chronicling-of-the-collapse-of-public-transit-in-the-us

There will be closures if the capital budget is passed, if they finalize the documentation on the funding (assuming Congress doesn't cut it and RTA can fill in the remaining funding gaps), if they hire a contractor for the price they like, then they will announce closures -- in one to five years from now.

Yeah, Brightline had Chicago-Detroit/Cleveland on its map not too long ago. Wonder why they dropped it?