KJP

Here's a report from 2002 that has direct correlation to the Inner Belt project... http://members.cox.net/neotrans2/Freeway%20urban%20impact.pdf In it, on Page 4, is this quote that's very relevant to the Inner Belt: As historian Mark I. Gelfand has noted: "No federal venture spent more funds in urban areas and returned fewer dividends to central cities than the national highway program."

Finally, a decent article on the importance of land use in directly affecting our transportation choices and, thus, our nation's gluttonous oil use..... _________ http://www.planetizen.com/node/19750 Connecting The Dots On High Gas Prices planetizen.com 15 May, 2006 Author: Anthony Flint Pundits may not be facing up to the ultimate answer to rising energy costs -- our physical environment -- but the American consumer is already deep into the calculus, says Anthony Flint, author of This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America. Connecting The Dots On High Gas Prices A friend of mine switched jobs recently, from a big employer in an office park off Boston's second beltway, to offices downtown. Before, he had a two-hour roundtrip commute driving alone in his car; now he walks to the train station in Boston's Roslindale section and rides 10 minutes, just enough time to read the Wall Street Journal, he says. With the shorter commute he's had more time to be active in the neighborhood, where the storefronts on Washington Street are getting makeovers one after the other, and new restaurants seem to open every few months. He marvels at the prices at the local gas station just like everybody else in Boston – but joyfully, he’s not filling the tank once a week anymore. More like once a month, if that.

I thought you were concerned just about Lakewood's density. Now I see it's the traffic that was the concern, correct? A community like Lakewood, with density and mixed uses, actually is a textbook way to limit traffic. In a typical suburb, with everything spread out in areas of segregated land uses, you have to drive everywhere, and you usually have to drive at least a few miles just to accomplish the simplest of tasks. But in a community like Lakewood, even if you drive, it's usually just a few blocks to the store (I'm ashamed to admit, but sometimes I actually do that when the weather is really crappy). But most times you can walk anywhere, take the community circulator (runs every 15-20 minutes or so) or hop on your bike and ride from one end of the city to the other in 20-30 minutes. I will be interested to hear your reactions to seeing our lack of traffic!

How about some greenspace to break up that cliff development? That thing is pretty overbearing, IMHO.

The spread of crop diseases like soybean rust jeopardizes the reliability of yields and increases production costs. Refineries and offshore rigs had to be shut down for months because of Katrina. The impact of a major crop failure lasts for a year, minimum, until completion of the next crop cycle; a multi-year failure isn't an impossibility. Excellent point! I hadn't considered that before. One point that is often made is that for ethanol to replace a significant amount of oil on the market, much of the corn we grow for food would have to be reallocated to ethanol production. I saw a stat that, if we replaced all of the U.S.'s oil consumption with ethanol, we'd have to devote the entire U.S. land mass to growing corn. Of course, ethanol has a very poor energy returned on energy invested of like 1:1 to 1:2 whereas conventional oil averages 1:50. That ethanol figure includes all farming and distribution costs, since ethanol can't be pumped through a pipeline and has to be transported by more expensive and energy-intensive truck or train. Ethanol proponents frequently leave that little tidbit out of their EROI stat sheets.

^ Excellent resource! Thanks for posting that.

Actually I was referring to our transportation-land use patterns, but the fish-water analogy works for ozone too I suppose.

I can see how Lakewood would be intimidating. It was for me, at first. I used to live in Geauga County (a mostly rural county east of Cleveland, though I lived in its exurban western part closest to Cleveland). When I moved out of my parents' house that was up for sale, I looked at moving to Lakewood. But a mix of intimidation, uncertainty of what I was looking for and a limited amount of time to find a place landed me in Berea. While Berea was a neat old farming village turned college town that had been swallowed up by suburbia, it lacked the energy I wanted. After three years there, I got the place I wanted -- a fifth-floor condo in the northeast corner of Lakewood. It's the densest part of Lakewood, with 20,000 people living within 1 mile of me. I don't need a car here (though I do have one), can walk to countless things within 10 minutes, and is active almost 24 hours a day. And, many who attend CSU live in my neighborhood as the frequent #55 bus service on Clifton ends at CSU. Lakewood takes some getting used to for those not accustomed to density. But it's 11,000 people per square mile average is virtually identical to that of the whole of Chicago or Toronto. And it's half that of New York's density. So for those who love urban settings like I do, it's a special place. And, yes, Google Earth is a wonderful resource, as you say. I use it often for developing planning imagery which I often post here. I've seen many posts by other UrbanOhioans who also use Google Earth. BTW, crime rates are pretty tough to find. I remember coming across a real estate locator web site that posted crime info, but I'll be damned if I can remember what it was. Consider a Google search, or just ask about specific areas of the city. We'll be able to give general descriptions of how safe a specific area is in relation to other areas of the city. But I doubt many here will be able to offer comparisons to West Palm unless somewhere on this forum has lived there (or has family there?).

I had fun making that. Certainly more than Jack Torrance did in typing his! BTW, you ever notice in The Shining that each one of those pages with "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" typed on them is different? They must have had a whole secretarial pool typing up all those different pages. They sure didn't photocopy them! Back to the playoffs... One of these days I'll actually get around to watching them.

^ Especially for something that we don't use for 90 percent of the day.

^ Isn't funny how we in Ohio are smarter than all other populous states in determining that we shouldn't fund rail and transit? Actually, it's not funny at all. It's sad, and our cities suffer for it. Show me a great city and I'll show you a great transit system that's tied to a transit-oriented land use plan. We in Ohio don't have any of those -- great transit systems, great land use plans nor do we have great cities. But boy we sure do have lots of potential -- potential we've had for oh so many decades. Potential we will continue to have for so many more until we have leaders (governmental and business) who understand the inextricable relationship between each mode of transportation and the divergent land use patterns they foster and rely upon. Sometimes we are like fish who don't even notice the water they're living in. Yet we just take it for granted that there's no other way.

Given our need to cut energy consumption, we need to think less about dragooning Americans back into the cities and more about finding ways to make all communities more self-reliant and less energy consuming. How is defending a failed land use form that is sustained only with massive government involvement a way to accomplish this? It also sounds like his assumption is that this is as high as oil prices will go. In the 1970s, both oil price spikes were just that -- a geopolitically induced, short-term spike. It wasn't structural as it is now, with prices on a curving upswing that cannot be stopped absent a massive redirection of government policies (given the $100 gas rebate and other pandering that Congress has offered, I don't see that massive redirection happening for a while). While I don't think suburbs will whither and blow away, I do think that the resurgence that cities have been enjoying in recent years will accelerate as gas prices continue to rise. Articles like this are what's called the "bargaining" component of our oil addicition as we try to hang on to little bits of our destructive lifestyle. It follows anger and precedes acceptance. I suspect we may be bargaining for a good many years -- which is what we did in the 1970s until that short-lived crisis passed.

^ Good points. To add to Rob's comments, I am using my tax refund to pay off my last six car payments (yes, it was a 60-month loan). Now that I don't feel the need to drive my car because I'm no longerl financing the purchase, I feel less inclined to drive it. You know, drive more to amortize the fixed costs on a per-mile basis.... With fewer miles, I am searching for a better deal on my car insurance, working under the assumption I will be driving less than 5,000 miles per year from now on. I could sell the car, but after my kitty got terminally sick a couple weeks ago, I realized I still need my car for emergencies. There is a rental car agency within a 3-minute bicycle ride, but it's not always open. Plus, my parents are pushing 80 and while they live on a bus route, it's more than an hour away from me -- too long again if an emergency arises. So, I am keeping my car, but am going to get the cost of owning it to as low as possible. If I can get the insurance to $50/month or less and drive it less than 300 miles per month, that's $30/tank at current prices. That's a huge savings over the $240 in gas, $145 car payment, and $165 insurance (plus unexpected repairs) I'm paying per month right now. An RTA monthly express pass is just $54, although RTA fares are going up in July. Even if it goes up to $70 or so, I'm still saving a bundle of cash.

I believe that congestion mitigation and air quality are factors in deciding which projects are awarded funding. Problem is, not enough projects that truly warrant CM/AQ funding are being submitted to receive it. Thus, projects like new parking garages get approved because they do reduce traffic congestion and enhance air quality because motorists don't have to circle around an area looking for a parking space. Yeah, I know that's bunk compared to funding better land use and public transportation. But, like I said, better uses for CM/AQ funding aren't being submitted by local governments, transit agencies, ODOT, etc. etc. to Ohio's MPOs. And intercity rail is a permitted use of CM/AQ, although not explicitly. Boston-Portland Amtrak operating funds are paid for by CM/AQ, as have numerous trackwork projects (the new third main track in Cincy's Mill Creek Valley), new/expanded/renovated stations, and so on. The CM/AQ money is there. The funding authority is there. The local and state projects aren't (at least in Ohio).

And if you feel like you have no choice but to buy lots of gas, then it's time to change your lifestyle. If you don't want to change your lifestyle, and just want gas prices to go back the way they were, your lifestyle (and that of at least a couple hundred million others) is the reason why gas prices are rising. They will keep on rising unless enough people live within the means of a flat and soon-to-be diminishing oil supply. End of story.

I'm pretty sure MGD was just joking. It looks like the same style of building was all I was saying. Probably built during the same time period.

One was from Seven Hills, the other from Wickliffe.

It's all in the mouse.

Perrysburg Township plan panel urges 'no' vote on bid for rezoning Toledo Blade, 5/11/06 Perrysburg Township trustees won't have much advice to rely on when they consider a rezoning request for a proposed subdivision on the northwest corner of Thompson and Neiderhouse roads. The Wood County Planning Commission recommended turning down the zoning change, saying the proposal is too dense. The township zoning board voted 2-2. The tie is considered a recommendation not to approve the change. The township trustees have scheduled a public hearing on the zoning request for 8:15 p.m. Monday, during their regular meeting.

Noozer! Stop that!

Some good news for a change at NASA Glenn.... http://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1147509585181800.xml&coll=2 Glenn wins big space project Money, many jobs expected to follow Saturday, May 13, 2006 Becky Gaylord Plain Dealer Reporter NASA Glenn Research Center got liftoff Friday, winning vital, lucrative space work worth, over the project's life, at least $2 billion and possibly hundreds of jobs. Glenn staff will manage the work on a major element of the Crew Exploration Vehicle, the rocket replacing the space shuttle, which NASA officials want in space by 2012... http://www.cleveland.com/news/wide/nasa0513.gif

This is the kind of thing Kassouf said he wants for his "proposed" high-rise condos in downtown Cleveland.

^ True, in the case of our latest two taggers.

It's just south of Madison Avenue, north of the Red Line, east of Madison Park, and west of West 117th Street (or, more specificially, west of the old Union Carbide plant that's right at the Madison/West 117th intersection). There's only about eight streets in Birdtown, three of which are called Robin, Quail and Lark -- hence the neighborhood's name.

I think it says "I dropped out of school at age 19 while in the eighth grade, I have no idea who my father is, my mother is a crack whore, and I have no expectation of living to see 30, so what the f*ck, I'm gonna paint the town..."