KJP

Problem is, they aren't maintaining the new stations they built. Geez, why doesn't RTA get some corporate sponsors for their stations and have the corporate employees do community service work tidying up the place. And with the corporate sponsorships, RTA could make more costly/complicated repairs.

Next time, tell them to get their butts out of the car and on the train! Or to drop you off at the station and you'll meet them downtown. Hoped they liked burning $3.20 gas.

Did you sneak a peak at my column?? I have a line in there that tells Americans to "buy a freakin' mirror." Don't know if they'll keep the "freakin'" in there though!

Yes. Plus the addition of a direct flight to Paris (seasonal?) and a flight to Shanghai, with one enroute stop in Newark.

I believe this situation in the Bay Area is one of the most important pieces of transportation research in decades -- moreso because it's a real-world sample. The lesson in this research is that, in order to reduce traffic congestion, you don't add new lane-miles to the roadway system. YOU REDUCE THEM AND PROVIDE REAL ALTERNATIVES TO DRIVING. Intiutively, I think many of us already believed that to be true. This situation shows that it really is. I think Los Angeles offers the extreme lesson. If adding more and more lane-miles to a roadway system reduced traffic congestion, then driving in Los Angeles would be an absolute dream.

Too bad only 16,000 were in attendance. C'mon Tribe fans! The team's in first place and on a roll. Well, we're on the road now. Hopefully fans will turn out when the team comes back...

I just noticed the following in the list I copied over from the EPA... 20. Lucas County Youngstown-Warren-Sharon, PA-OH Area Ooops!

A wanna-be ghetto puppy from Compton would get the car analogy.

That was last Tuesday afternoon, next to the Fulton Road bridge. :wink:

Don't blame only the industries and power plants. Fact is, most of a region's polluters are typically on the highways. We all may have these really neat catalytic converters in our cars, but they don't start working until the engines warm up. That's when cars do most of their polluting. So all these people who drive to transit park-n-rides or stick to roads with computer-synchonized traffic signals thinking they're cutting pollution and doing the right thing aren't doing much at all. Toledo is in non-attainment. In fact, 33 Ohio counties were designated nontattainment for EPA’s health-based standards for 8-hour ozone pollution. There are different levels for non-attainment -- marginal, moderate, serious and severe. The following 25 Ohio counties are in marginal non-attainment: 1. Stark County Canton-Massillon, OH Area 2. Butler County Cincinnati-Hamilton, OH-KY-IN Area 3. Clermont County Cincinnati-Hamilton, OH-KY-IN Area 4. Clinton County Cincinnati-Hamilton, OH-KY-IN Area 5. Hamilton County Cincinnati-Hamilton, OH-KY-IN Area 6. Warren County Cincinnati-Hamilton, OH-KY-IN Area 7. Delaware County Columbus, OH Area 8. Fairfield County Columbus, OH Area 9. Franklin County Columbus, OH Area 10. Knox County Columbus, OH Area 11. Licking County Columbus, OH Area 12. Madison County Columbus, OH Area 13. Clark County Dayton-Springfield, OH Area 14. Greene County Dayton-Springfield, OH Area 15. Miami County Dayton-Springfield, OH Area 16. Montgomery County Dayton-Springfield, OH Area 17. Allen County Lima, OH Area 18. Washington County Parkersburg-Marietta, WV-OH Area 19. Jefferson County Steubenville-Weirton, OH-WV Area 20. Lucas County Youngstown-Warren-Sharon, PA-OH Area 21. Wood County Toledo, OH Area 22. Belmont County Wheeling, WV-OH Area 23. Columbiana County Youngstown-Warren-Sharon, PA-OH Area 24. Mahoning County Youngstown-Warren-Sharon, PA-OH Area 25. Trumbull County Youngstown-Warren-Sharon, PA-OH Area These eight counties are in moderate non-attainment: 1. Ashtabula County Cleveland-Akron-Lorain, OH Area 2. Cuyahoga County Cleveland-Akron-Lorain, OH Area 3. Geauga County Cleveland-Akron-Lorain, OH Area 4. Lake County Cleveland-Akron-Lorain, OH Area 5. Lorain County Cleveland-Akron-Lorain, OH Area 6. Medina County Cleveland-Akron-Lorain, OH Area 7. Portage County Cleveland-Akron-Lorain, OH Area 8. Summit County Cleveland-Akron-Lorain, OH Area

The Amtrak Customer Advisory Committee (ACAC) is seeking a college student member. The ACAC is a national group that works as passenger service advisors to Amtrak management. The Committee consists of about 25 volunteers who ride Amtrak trains, observe conditions on the trains and produce a trip report for Amtrak management review. The observations are discussed with Amtrak management at two meetings each year at various locations in the US. The report consists of completing an electronic form and submitting it by email upon completion of the trip. The report includes making written comments on subjects such as the hospitality of the train crew, food service and meal quality, the proper wearing of crew uniforms, and other matters related to providing good onboard services, as well as observations on whether the train was late or not and any obvious safety issues. Since many passengers on Amtrak trains are college students, the ACAC has always sought to have at least one college student as a member. Our most recent college student graduated and went on to a new job. So we are looking for another student to be a member of the ACAC. This is an excellent opportunity for a student to closely observe the inner workings a large national passenger transportation company and develop professional relationships with these managers. Specific issues that Amtrak managers deal with include operation of the trains, relationships with host freight railroads, employee motivation and training, working with organized labor, leadership and team building, providing food and beverage services on dining cars and café cars, providing coach and sleeping car accommodations, handling reservations and ticketing, and numerous related issues. In addition to the rail industry, there are many close parallels in the management and operation of airlines, hotels, restaurants, tour companies, ocean cruise lines, recreation companies, bus lines, and transit companies. If you know of a student who might be interested, please have them send a brief resume of experience and interests, as well as a contact address and telephone number by email to Kate Warr at [email protected]. The requirements are that the student travel about 1,000 to 2,000 miles a year on Amtrak, complete the trip reports after each trip, and meet with the ACAC members and Amtrak managers twice a year in various locations in the US. Amtrak will provide sleeping car travel, food, and hotel accommodations for the two annual meetings. The ACAC membership term is for three years, although participation is voluntary and any member may leave at any time if necessary. Kate Warr will be glad to provide further information if you contact her at the above email address. John Guidinger ACAC Member Jackson, Michigan.

Yeah, ya better. There is an inexpensive Day's Inn across the street from my building, right on Clifton. The next block north, between Lake and Edgewater, is a Travelodge. Both are an easy walk to bars and 24-hour restaurants between West 117th and West 115th on Detroit Avenue and Clifton Boulevard. There's bus service on Clifton to downtown, on Detroit to downtown (or the West Blvd Rapid station), or the 804 Circulator to the West 117th Rapid station.

That's the Metro Blue Line, a light-rail transit line running from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles. It has top speeds of 65 mph and runs on a conventional train track. It is about as similar to maglev as a Toyota Prius is to a Lamborghini Murcielago.

I'd like to double-check that 3-million square-foot figure. I can't do it right now, but I'd like to look at the phase one site and see if 3 million square feet of leasable space can fit into it while still conforming to the Warehouse District's masterplan. Stark says he wants to conform to the masterplan. His plan includes having several levels of parking sandwiched into the middle floors of buildings, while still staying under 4-6 floors at the northwest corner, rising to near 20 stories at the southeast corner.

I'll be on it next week.

Of course not. It's all the fault of the oil companies. Get them to act responsibly, and everything will be just fine. I've written a column for next week's paper on that basic theme.

The low-cost gas station in front of where I work just hit $3.20 today. I found this at www.peakoil.com .... ___________________________ My fellow Americans are at it once again, blaming everybody but themselves for rising gas prices: The NY Daily News (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/05/03/2007-05-03_tanks_for_nothing_dc_bigs.html) wrote: It found 72% of motorists expect to be paying more than $3.50 a gallon in the next few months, 83% suspect illegal price gouging - and the huge majority want it stopped. "Americans are fed up with skyrocketing gasoline prices and they want action," said Pam Solo, president of the Civil Society Institute, which questioned more than 1,000 motorists. ----- "These survey findings should send a real jolt through the corridors of the White House and the halls of Congress," Solo said. Researchers found drivers sick of dependence on Middle Eastern oil, government reluctance to increase fuel efficiency requirements and oil companies' empty promises about green energy. The press release from Civil Society Institute is here (http://www.40mpg.org/getinf/050207release.cfm) and the complete survey is here (http://www.40mpg.org/pdfs/050207_CSI_40MPG_gas_price_survey_report.pdf). Something interesting from the complete survey, vis a vis demand destruction: A fair number of Americans say they will be making changes in their spending or leisure travel if gasoline hits $3.50 a gallon. More than half (51%) say they will definitely or probably cut back on other spending and 46% say they will cut back on summer or end of year holiday travel if this happens. Nearly three in 10 (29%) say they would definitely or probably buy a hybrid or fuel-efficient car in response to $3.50 gasoline.

You mean tomorrow (Friday)?

Take a picture of any large, suburban shopping center, add a few decorations reminiscent of the steel mill that had occupied the site, and you've got Steelyard Commons.

SCOPE? or, SCOOP?!

Stark's proposed Waterfront Line realignment was limited to the area west of West 3rd, and the realignment was actually pretty minor. It wouldn't affect a proposed site for the North Coast Transportation Center on the lower level of a new "Mall D."

I've written a couple of articles on allegations about Mittal Steel's emissions. Some of the residents near the industrial valley complain of chronic asthma and other medical problems.

Sorry. Between being too poor to have a life and not liking to go to festivals and such alone, I don't go out much. The exceptions are if it's work-related.

I'd love to see a visionary plan like that for Northeast Ohio. We'd improve our chances of getting out from under the EPA's air quality non-attainment status. We'd lower our disgustingly high per-household transportation costs. We'd raise the stature of downtown as an employment center. We'd increase the accessibility of suburban jobs to the urban poor. And we'd have a more united metropolitan region.

I came up with an estimate based on the Warehouse District's masterplan for the area between West 3rd, West 6th, Superior and St. Clair. I posted that in a message somewhere in this thread. But when I used the search function on this site to find it, nothing came up. I think it was something like 400-500 units??