KJP

No, you're not off track (and yes, smack yourself for the bad pun!). I called Bob Stark to see if he could tell me what was happening with his project. I'll get into more of that in the Pesht thread. But when I updated him on the West Shore transit project, and asked him if a TIF were possible on Pesht to pay for the rail line, he said no. The reason, like you suspected MGD, is that he is trying to develop a political consensus for using a TIF on Pesht to pay for infrastructure work downtown to make Pesht possible. That includes extending the street grid northward to the lake. He didn't say anything about the port island however. And the TIF would not only include things like property and incomes taxes, but county sales taxes, as well. I will reiterate this in the Pesht thread, so if you have comments on this aspect, it might be best to make them there so we can keep this thread on track (see, I can do bad puns too!). But he said it before I could: use station-area developments and TIFs at locations elsewhere along the West Shore route to help finance the project. In North Carolina, they are using this approach to pay the ENTIRE cost of a $800 million commuter rail line between Charlotte and Raleigh. I hope he (or someone from Stark Enterprises) can attend the West Shore stakeholders meeting coming up on Aug. 30!

I was just thinking (Run!) .... Consider the Steelyard Commons development and its TIF, which is to be used by the city to help extend the Towpath Trail northward and for neighborhood redevelopment projects. Steelyard Commons is a roughly $100 million project, which netted $17 million in TIF funding. Now, consider the first phase of Stark's Pesht project, which he estimates would cost about $1 billion. If the Steelyard Commons TIF is any indication, and if a Pesht TIF were sought for developing regional rail, it could net $170 million for rail development costs. That should be sufficient for paying the entire tab of the West Shore Corridor project. That doesn't include any additional Station-Area Redevelopments along the route from Cleveland into Erie County. If such STARs would built and TIFs resulted from them, an even better rail transit service might result, and some of the funding could be used to pay the operating costs of the service. The operating costs could range from roughly $6 million-8 million per year for eight round-trip trains daily, to perhaps $20 million annually for a diesel/electric light-rail service offering a train every 15 minutes during rush hours and half-hourly off-peak. How's that for doable?

Whatever is done with the bridge cannot slow down the 70 freight trains per day (and two Amtraks) which use it. The reason is that, just southeast of the Euclid-East 55th bridge, the rail line's grade gets steeper as it climbs aways from the lakefront. NS already has to slow its freight trains to 25 mph to negotiate a relatively sharp curve near St. Clair in the East 30s. Some eastbound freight trains have stalled on the hill southeast of Euclid-East 55th. Any additional curvature to the rail line near Euclid-East 55th to go around a bridge project would have to be done carefully. Once completed, the bridge project would likely have to restore the railroad tracks to their original alignment.

By the way, the directions on Mayfield are east-west, not north-south. The tracks do run north-south at that location, however.

So why doesn't the author sink an abiotic oil well and retire? .... http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3785 Blog: Science Petroleum: Why We'll Never Run Out Michael Asher - August 14, 2006 6:34 PM There's no shortage of scare stories about looming oil crises -- Don't believe 'em [Washington] ...The President has signed legislation creating the Federal Oil Conservation Board, to ration dwindling supplies of petroleum...a recent report from the US Geological Survey has indicated oil supplies may be gone entirely within six years... Last week's newscast? Actually, it was 1924, and the President was Calvin Coolidge. An interesting story that proves little, except that scare stories about oil shortages have been around longer than any of us. My first experience with oil scares was in grade school in the mid 1970s, where legions of well-meaning teachers taught us the planet had "30 years" of oil remaining. Those years have come and gone, and oil reserves have actually grown larger -- fifty years worth or more. So much, in fact, that doomsayers have been forced to fall back on discredited old theories such as "Peak Oil." -- a topic I'll save for another blog.

Negative. Just passing along lessons learned, be they from kindergarten or this morning, to those who indicate a need to know. :speech:

On that score, it has its origins much farther back... ...to the 1960s and 70s plans to build a mix of at-grade and subway rail transit along Euclid or Chester, ...to the 1950s Albert Porter proposal to include a rail transit right of way in the Central Freeway, ...to the 1944 CTS post-war transit improvement plan, ...to the Van Sweringen's 1929 county-wide rapid transit plan, ...to the 1920 public vote on whether to build several subways into downtown Cleveland, ...and to several concepts even before that. Too bad it's not possible to build tracks out of paper.

I always find the discussion of urban growth boundaries and other development regulations to be fascinating. It's not because I disagree or agree with the regulations, but because of how existing laws can be used to serve changing societal values. That is, after all, one of the magical features of the Constitution -- an 18th-century document can be interpreted to govern a 21st-century society. So, let's consider the issue of smoking. Until quite recently, it was considered a constitutionally protected freedom of choice to smoke wherever you wanted. You could smoke anywhere in offices, restaurants, on planes, etc. And tobacco companies could advertise wherever they wanted (some of you are probably too young to remember that Winston commercials were broadcast during the Flintstones cartoons!). All of those things are unthikable today, as smokers have become veritable lepers in society. What changed? It wasn't constitutional law. Societal values were changed through research, education and advocacy. The law was interpreted differently to adjust to those new values, despite having to overcome a very well-funded, powerful and entrenched political lobby group -- the tobacco companies. So think about how existing constitutional law can be interpreted to favor development regulation. Such as: 1. National security: we are rapidly losing the most productive farmland in the world to sprawling development, which not limits our ability to grow more food, but to dramatically expand agricultural activities for ethanol to wean ourselves from our oil addiction and dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Ironically, it's the automobile-dependent sprawl-burbia lifestyle which is on a collision course with a domestic alternative to oil imported from politically unstable nations. I love ironies like this! 2. Social justice/spatial mismatch of jobs to job seekers: consider U.S. Census data which shows 70 percent of the new jobs are being created at the urban fringe, while the greatest concentrations of labor and unemployment are near to the urban core. As the new jobs are created farther and farther away from available labor resources (and the financial abilities of those persons to reach the jobs), it creates a spatial mismatch in which public/private actions to perpetuate it may constitute a civil rights violation. 3. Tax burden: expanding the size of the metro area at rates that exceed (and often greatly exceed) the growth of a urbanized region's population, wealth and taxbase creates duplicative tax-supported infrastructures (roads, sewers, public facilities, etc) and thus public expenditures and the taxes needed to support them rise faster than growth of and population/wealth. Put this one under the constitutional mantle of ensuring limited government. 4. Tax burden Part II: For elected officials of political jurisdictions just beyond the urban fringe, they see pretty tax dollars twinkle in their eyes when they have a chance to attract new development. That's understandable. But what they don't understand is net fiscal impact. It is true that industrial taxpayers have the most beneficial net fiscal impact on local governments. But coming in second is agriculture -- because it requires little or no public services. Trailing far behind on the net fiscal impact scale are housing developments and retail. Yet, when industrial taxpayers come to town, the residential and retail aren't far behind. Rural local governmental officials need to understand that tax revenues are only half of the equation of new development. And they need to understand this before deciding whether to zone land as agricultural, or to rezone it for new development. Those are just a few issues off the top of my head. Feel free to add any others you might think of. A discussion of constitutional interpretation vs. changing societal values is one that we should be having here, and might even warrant a separate thread.

Wisconsin DOT chief chimes in on California's, nation's rail development future.... ________________ Building California's passenger rail future - Frank Busalacchi Friday, August 11, 2006 Travelers across America and throughout California are voting in record numbers for expanded passenger-rail service in the United States. These "votes" are coming in the form of record passenger-rail ridership. Amtrak ridership increased in fiscal year 2005 to 25,374,998, marking the third straight year of passenger gains for the national intercity passenger railroad, despite service disruptions that included major hurricanes in the South and repair work that impacted Acela Express service in the Northeast. Gains in passenger rail travel are occurring in all parts of the country. California is one of those states seeing impressive gains in ridership. A total of 4.9 million passengers boarded Amtrak trains in California in 2005, compared with 4.6 million in 2004 -- a 5 percent increase in one year. California has the second largest number of rail passengers in America, closely behind New York, where 5.1 million passengers traveled by rail last year. California is home to the nation's second, third and fifth busiest rail corridors in the nation. Only the Northeast corridor is busier. Ridership in California is growing at an even faster clip in 2006. Total passengers riding Amtrak trains in the January to March quarter of 2006 rose by 10 percent over the same period in 2005. Although the overall picture is improving, it is not free of challenges. Chronic lateness on the Coast Starlight is a continuing problem. Ironically, it is the simultaneous increase in both passenger and freight traffic that is causing this chronic lateness. The demand for rail service is rising, and there is a solution: Increased investment in our rail infrastructure by the federal government and the state. What do these ridership numbers mean? Americans are struggling with worsening highway and airline congestion, even as fuel prices rise. In the post-Sept. 11 environment, travelers are wary of a system that depends so heavily on airline travel. Thursday's thwarted terrorist attack by British authorities once again stresses the importance of passenger rail service. If the airlines have to be grounded -- even for a day -- because of terrorist attacks, the trains suddenly become a vitally important alternate form of transportation. That was the case on Sept. 11, 2001, when hundreds of thousands of travelers had to shift their travel from air to rail. Everyone from business travelers to older citizens are looking for options that won't cost them more time or money. In short, Americans want transportation alternatives, with rail playing a significant role. The States for Passenger Rail Coalition, which I chair, was founded in 2000 just as we started to see passenger demands for expanded rail service increasing. Today, there are 27 states represented from all parts of the country and we will continue to make the case for strong state-federal partnerships to expand our nation's passenger rail network. California is one of the newest members of the coalition, and we are very pleased to count California in our growing list of member states. California has invested heavily in its passenger rail system -- $1.8 billion in investments since 1976. Much of that investment also benefits the freight railroads, and helps alleviate congestion on our highways. I believe we owe the traveling public the transportation choices they demand, as evidenced by their increasing use of rail. But improved passenger rail service will not come without a strong commitment by the federal government to fund passenger rail. For too many years, passenger rail service in America has been hamstrung by the year-to-year funding decisions of Congress. This unpredictable funding process has varied with the shifting political winds. This is no way to run a railroad! It makes future planning extremely difficult. The States for Passenger Rail Coalition is calling on Congress to provide a dedicated source of capital funding for passenger rail, just as Congress does for highways and aviation. We support federal legislation that gives passenger rail the same 80/20 federal-state funding split that the highways enjoy. It is time to level the playing field for all forms of passenger transportation. I recently traveled to Spain to tour their passenger-rail system. It is fast and reliable -- trains will travel between Madrid and Barcelona at 217 miles per hour. This is happening in a country with a gross domestic product similar to Korea's and Mexico's. The key in Spain, as in most European nations, is that passenger-rail development receives strong government funding support. Many Americans return from Europe every year and ask this question: "Why can't an advanced nation like the United States have first-class, high-speed rail travel such as what the Europeans enjoy?" The answer is simple. If Washington policy-makers would cease bickering over Amtrak and follow their own advice to provide a dedicated source of capital funding, we could have the same level of service Europeans enjoy. Prudent oversight and accountability are essential for any undertaking of this scale but it is crucial to our economic security and to future generations that we make progress now. Over the coming year, the States for Passenger Rail Coalition will work hard to support a dedicated source of capital funding for American's passenger-rail system. We can no longer allow passenger rail to lurch along on unpredictable annual appropriations. We can provide Americans with the level of service they seek and for which they vote as they step aboard passenger trains in record numbers. Frank Busalacchi chairs the States for Passenger Rail Coalition (www.s4prc.org <http://www.s4prc.org>), and is secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

Cleveland's version of what's happening nationally.... (see below) http://www.riderta.com/nu_newsroom_releases.asp?listingid=914 RTA News July 27, 2006 http://www.riderta.com/nu_newsroom_releases.asp?listingid=914 RTA quarterly report card shows increase in ridership CLEVELAND – The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s (RTA) quarterly report card shows that more riders are choosing RTA for their safe and reliable services. The report card compares the first six months of 2006 with the first six months of 2005. + Ridership increased by 1.3 percent over last year. + Traffic safety – the number of preventable collisions per 100,000 vehicle miles -- also improved by 18.8 percent. The figure dropped from .96 in 2005 to .78 in 2006. + On-time performance improved 6.5 percent. RTA buses and trains were on time 82 percent of the time in 2006, compared to 77 percent in 2005. “We are delighted that more and more riders are benefiting from RTA. Everyone here at RTA is working hard to make service exceptional for our riders and our numbers show a significant success. We will continue to improve and provide an even better experience for our riders,” says Joe Calabrese, RTA CEO and General Manager. The report card also shows decreases in four other areas – customer satisfaction, farebox revenue, reliability and employee attendance. All quarterly report cards are posted here... http://www.riderta.com/nu_newsroom_reportcard.asp ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ http://www.riderta.com/nu_newsroom_releases.asp?listingid=924 RTA News Aug. 15, 2006 Public Transportation Ridership Up Significantly During 1st Quarter 2006 4.25% Increase; Nearly 2.5 Billion Trips on Transit Nationwide Public transportation ridership in the United States grew by 4.25% in the first quarter of 2006, compared to the same period in 2005, according to a report released by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) today. "This significant rise in transit ridership shows that more and more Americans are choosing the affordability and convenience of public transportation," said APTA President William W. Millar. "The high price of gas, coupled with expanded transit service, has made public transportation attractive to a growing number of Americans in small and large communities across the country." The report showed nearly 2.5 billion trips taken on public transportation in the first quarter of 2006 and all modes of public transportation showed ridership increases. Light rail (modern streetcars, trolleys, and heritage trolleys) had the highest percentage of increase among all modes, with an 11.2% increase in the 2006 first quarter. Some of the highest areas reporting the highest increases in light rail ridership had opened new services over the past year. The light rail systems in the following areas showed double digit increases: San Jose (27.3%); Minneapolis (26.0%); Philadelphia (18.0%); San Diego (17.3%); Buffalo (16.7%); Sacramento (14.9%); Los Angeles (13.4%); New Jersey (12.7%); and Memphis (10.4%). Ridership on buses posted the second largest increase at 4.5% nationwide. The report breaks down bus agencies into four categories based on population and bus ridership in each of these categories shows bus ridership increases. Bus ridership in a population group of more than 2 million showed a 4.0% increase. In the second category of 500,000 to 1,999,999, bus ridership climbed by 4.2%. In areas with a population range of 100,000 to 499,999, the bus ridership increased by 6.8% and in the smallest areas with a population below 100,000, the ridership showed the largest increase at 7%. The largest bus agencies showing double digit increases were located in the following cities: Detroit (18.7%); San Antonio (14.9%); Dallas (13.8%); Houston (10.8%); and Seattle (10.1%). Commuter rail showed the third highest national ridership increase for the 2006 first quarter with an increase of 3.4%. The top five commuter rail systems with the highest ridership increases for 2005 were located in: Oceanside, CA (13.2%); Dallas (10.9%); Chesterton, IN (10.2%); Philadelphia (8.2%); and New Haven (7.9%). Demand response (paratransit) increased by 3.7%, followed closely by heavy rail (subway) which increased by 3.2%. The areas with largest heavy rail ridership increases were: Los Angeles (16.4%); New York area services - Staten Island (13.7%) and the PATH system (11.9%); Chicago (6.6%); Washington, D.C. (6.1%); Miami (4.8%); and San Francisco (4.5%). Trolleybus ridership increased by 2.1% and all other modes increased by 2.9% in the 2006 first quarter. To see the complete report, go to http://www.apta.com/research/stats/ridership/

That church looks like one in Parma (which has some very impressive churches, BTW). I can't remember what main thoroughfare it's on -- maybe State Road?

Way to go, Mr X! Awesome.

One thing I've noticed is that if you're in the Projects & Construction section and you use the search function, it will search only for the words you want in the Projects & Construction section. But if you click on urbanohio.com at the bottom or top, and then do the search, it will search all forum sections. FYI...

That am really goodly English there, pardner....

Yes, a few of them. One of them is actually posted on-line at http://www.clevelandmemory.org/SpecColl/cut/dedbk/cut.html It's a reprint of a book published in 1930. I bought a reprint of it during CUT's 50th anniversary. Another book is "The Terminal Tower Complex" by Jim Toman and Dan Cook. It is Volume I of the Cleveland Landmark Series and published by Cleveland Landmarks Press Inc. (at least my 1980 copy was!). But probably the best book of all is "Invisible Giants" by Herbert H . Harwood Jr. The book is about the Van Sweringen brothers and how they built their empire. They initiated a development and used it build something larger, and used that to build something even bigger, and so on. Thus, ultimately the book leads up to the construction of the Cleveland Union Terminal complex (a $1.6 billion investment in today's dollars). Fascinating stuff! Here is a link to a description about the book: http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=20113 The book is also available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0253341639/103-2895885-9319003?v=glance&n=283155

The article referred to "Wade Park campus’ new 280,000-square-foot hospital tower" -- how tall will this tower be?

I really like that idea, and for the reason that Gotribe mentions.

Don't forget the statistic that the Cleveland Union Terminal was the largest excavation project since the Panama Canal. And I seem to recall it may have even been larger than that. Although, like you said, it didn't involve blasting through rock.

My take Dan is that it would have been easier for the Vans to build a surface station on Public Square, based on the elevation issue. For westbound trains heading out of Cleveland Union Terminal, they had to negotiate a relatively sharp curve and climb a 1%+ grade on the Cuyahoga Valley viaduct. That's not a great way to come out of a station. But the Vans wanted a subterranean station above which they could build their real estate portfolio -- which is what the Vans ultimately were all about.

I believe Chicago's ordinance applied only to the steam/freight roads and not to interurbans, streetcars or other passenger railways. The purpose wasn't to segregate the traffic as much as it was to keep street traffic from being blocked by long, slow freight trains -- especially with all the interchange traffic and rail yards in Chicago. That may explain why the IC electric's South Chicago branch was allowed to remain on 71st Street. As for the Metra Elgin Line you rode in to town from Schaumburg on, consider how far out Schaumburg is. I'm not saying you didn't see what you saw, but you traveled more than 20 miles before you got to the Chicago city limits, with another 9-10 miles from there to Union Station. And I believe there are still some grade crossings left on that line in Chicago -- one of them being right outside the entrance to Union Station. BTW, lots of big-city train stations were built in the late 20s or early 30s, though the planning for them tended to start right after WWI. Cleveland Union Terminal was no different, as voters awarded a station-construction franchise to the Vans in 1919.

It's true they are interchangable descriptions for the neighborhood, but Litt noted the site was Murray Hill Road (supposedly paraphrasing something Maribeth Feke said)... Now, however, the agency can envision raising $10 million or $12 million from public and private sources much sooner to build an entirely new station in a far better location a third of a mile south at Murray Hill Road, Feke said. It's a minor thing, because unless the Red Line is going to be rerouted, the proposed site is at Mayfield Road. It's kind of funny, actually, because the PD is consistent in their reporting errors -- the map they published last week showed the same, incorrect location for the new station! Oh well. Better luck next time, I guess.

On budget, on schedule Port Clinton News Herald, 8/2/06 Along one of the area’s most heavily traveled roads, orange cones and huge mounds of earth sit alongside the pavement as construction crews work on widening and improving the street. For months, residents traveling along Ohio 53 North have dealt with closed ramps, bottlenecked traffic and concrete dividers as construction crews widen the road to four lanes between the Ohio Turnpike and North Street, replace the bridges in the path and install more efficient traffic signals. Andrea Voogd, public information officer for the Ohio Department of Transportation, said the project is on budget and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, is on schedule. The $14.8 million project is scheduled to be completed in September 2007. Voogd said Great Lakes Construction was hired to complete the project. In the meantime, the westside lanes were closed Monday, and traffic was switched to the new eastside lanes. The Booktown Road intersection was also closed to access from Ohio 53. Last Monday, the westbound U.S. 20 off and on ramps to U.S. 53 also closed, according to information from ODOT. The closures are expected to take between 20 and 30 days.

Paved highways was the key point. The so-called love affair with the automobile wasn't possible as long as cars were stuck in the mud.

Sorry, I can't play this game. My 75-year-old mother was an Army brat and her first husband was in the Army. So she had the misfortune of making 62 moves in her life, including living at Pearl Harbor from 1937-39 and twice in Germany, first in 1946 and again in 1954. Some of her family's friends died in the attack on Pearl Harbor and when she arrived in West Germany in 1946, she vividly recalls riding trains through its devastated cities. When the trains stopped in those cities amid the rubble, children came running up to the train begging for candy, scraps and anything else the American soldiers would throw out of the train. And then she visited the still-intact concentration camps.... She still sheds a tear to this day when recalling her experiences in West Germany.

As far as passenger rail goes, Cleveland was less of a passenger rail hub than cities of comparable size. At its peak, Cleveland hosted 90 regularly scheduled passenger trains a day, whereas Cincinnati had 125 and St. Louis 260. Cleveland was a freight railroad hub, much of which was for getting iron ore off the lake freighters to places like Youngstown and Pittsburgh. Consider that it once had four routes to the southeast (Erie RR, Pennsylvania RR, New York Central/Lake Erie & Pittsburgh/Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, and Baltimore & Ohio), where as it had only two each to the west, southwest and northeast. Chicago also has few grade crossings, as it long ago passed an ordinance requiring all railroads within city limits to have grade-separated rights of way. Cleveland never passed such a law, but a number of railroad grade-separated their lines anyway. Most active in this regard was the Nickel Plate RR, which in 1915-16 completely grade separated its right of way through Cleveland. Also, many older industrial cities like Cleveland have (or had) belt-line railroads, but ours was built to mainline quality standards. Many other belt-line railroads are (were) for industrial access and thus had lots of grade crossings and were fairly low-speed operations.