KJP

I think a bigger reason for NS wanting the pedestrian underpass is because they ultimately want all passenger stations on the Cleveland - Chicago main line (and probably elsewhere on the busiest portions of their system) to be dual-platform stations. Having to cross passenger trains over to the track adjacent to single-platform stations reduces the capacity of the mainline and often causes delays to passenger and freight trains alike. At least at Cleveland, Toledo and Chicago, passenger trains get off the mainline to serve those cities' stations. All the others -- Hammon, South Bend, Elkhart, Waterloo, Bryan, Sandusky and Elyria -- are all single platform stations, and aren't on the same sides of the mainline. It's quite an inconvenience for landlord NS.

These folks at the Ohio Department of Development aren't thinking. If they are, it's against Ohio's urban areas -- which is a pretty common theme in state government these days.

Nice buildings and people shots. Do fellow RTA riders ever wonder aloud if you're from out of town or something, snapping pics from the bus? And, this one is truly amazing...Fenn Tower seemingly next to East 6th Street...

^ Nice to see they incorporated the ballpark with the surrounding neighborhood....NOT. How very un-New York like. It's a nice looking ballpark, but it reminds me more of the Meadowlands, in terms of its setting. No will confuse its surroundings with those at Fenway, Wrigley or even Yankee Stadium!

OK, so no one is chiming in after the Cavs beat the Nets, the hottest team in recent weeks, and beat them on the Nets' home court? C'mon folks! That was a playoff warm up if there ever was one!!

And shouldn't it be TOSU, since they're insistent that the university's name begin with "The"?

I just learned that a Cleveland-based consultant was part of the early concept planning for this mega-burb. He brought Kennecott reps to Cleveland and showed them Shaker Heights -- a planned suburb. Hence, light rail was added to the planned mega-burb. Glad to see we can be a model for other areas. Too bad suburbs in our own metro area take Shaker Heights for granted.

I was about to ask whether the Waterloo depot was originally on the New York Central line, or relocated from the north-south line. Then I looked at my handy-dandy 1928 rail atlas of the U.S. and saw they were both NYC lines! Cute depot. And the Baker Street looks fabulous. Too bad we can't seem to get any trains back in there, but the Ohio Rail Development Commission has started their analysis of a Columbus - Lima - Ft. Wayne - Chicago leg of the Ohio Hub System. So, we'll see what happens. It's one of the routes where all the mayors along the route are pushing for service, chief among them Mayor Berger in Lima.

Glad to see Cleveland is rated 17th. That's not too shabby. But how can Phoenix be at 22? Or Las Vegas at 28? I would think those sprawling, land-locked cities would rank much more poorly. And where's Cincinnati on the list?

^ I was pleasantly surprised too. We should do something like this with the massive Ravenna Arsenal, assuming we can find all the buried munitions!

Cleveland is also an interesting gateway city between the East Coast and Midwest. It is the only big city between New York and Chicago. Huh? Cleveland is a really clean city, probably one of the cleanest in the US, and people are nice and helpful. And quite pretentious with the adjectives!

Here is a cogent analysis from another website that puts a more grave light on the oil situation (if that were even possible!): The concept I present to you today is Net Oil. When one understands the concept of net oil it quickly becomes apparent that the situation is far more dire then Peak Oil leads you to believe. Peak Oil is based on the logic of Marion King Hubbert's curve which states that when half the world's oil is gone the rate of oil extraction will peak and decline. The Hubbert curve roughly resembles a bell shaped curve. After the peak is reached the world will have less oil every year. The results of peak oil will be at the very least an end to infinite growth replaced by perpetual economic and social decline possibly which only may lead to societal collapse. The process will take a long time after all half of the worlds oil still remains to be extracted after the peak. If Peak Oil represents a long emergency of slow energy decline then net oil represents an apocalyptic end to energy as we know it. The concept of Net Oil is based on Energy Returned on Energy Invested or EROEI. It can easily be explained by this simple equation any economist will recognize. Profit (Net Oil) = Revenue (Oil Outputs) - Costs (Oil Inputs) Oil has been so cheap from an EROEI perspective over the last 140 years that it is easy to assume pumping oil has no costs. With an average EROEI of 30 to 1 return on energy investment in the last century all oil pumped for all practical purposes is profit or (Net Oil). The world Average EROEI has been falling for years and right now is around 15. So if the world is pumping 85 MBPD then put into the Net Oil Equation it looks something like this. Net Oil = 85 MBPD - 5.67 MBPD = 79.33 MBPD. Net Oil dares to ask the question of how much useful energy or how much Net Oil is left in the ground after the peak of oil production. The first half of the worlds oil extracted had a very high EROEI. Some times approaching 50 to 1 Net Oil capture. In the last 140 years humans have pumped out almost 1 trillion barrels of oil and almost all of that was net oil. The oil we must extract over the next few decades will have much lower EROEI. The full implications of this are dire to say the least. It means that of the oil that remains very little of it will be net oil. Over 80% or the all useful energy may have already been consumed leaving only 20% of the world's total energy for the future uses. Net Oil helps explain the the so called missing barrels of oil production in recent years. In the last five years oil world production has increased by 9 MBPD from 76 MBPD in 2001 to 85 MBPD in early 2006. Not all of this increase can be accounted for by normal demand. Chinese demand has grown hugely every year and has doubled to incease by 3 MBPD. American demand has increased by 1 MBPD but Europe and Japan have added none and India has only inceased silightly compared to Chinese growth. Roughly 4 MBPD can no longer be accounted for. The new oil coming online has much lower EROEI then past oil and older fields are also dropping in EROEI. The tapping of unconventional heavy oils has lead to an increase in unconventional demand to process those oils. The 4 MBPD that cannot be accounted for is energy that is used to pump out the inceasingly more difficult to extract oil. In the next five years Saudi Arabia plans to increase funding for oil extraction by 50 billion dollars. Much of that will go to pay for creased energy costs in the Net Oil Equation. World Oil production may very well increase to 100 MBPD in the coming years but the cost in lower EROEI undoubtably will rise. If the EROEI falls to 5 then 20 MBPD of that 100 MBPD will simply by associated with the cost of pumping that said oil thus leaving only 80 MBPD for other uses. When the EROEI drops below 5 the world will come to a breaking point which will witness apocalyptic declines in useful energy. If EROEI declines from 5 to 4 then that represents a 20% net energy decline. The much promoted tar sands only have an EROEI of 2. If we do manage to get 5 MBPD from tar sands only the half of that will be net oil. Many older nearly depleted American wells only have EROEI of 2. Other great wells of the world are declining as well not just in output but EROEI as well. If you were to graph the Net Oil curve it would look like a cliff with massive year after year declines when the breaking point occures. Even if absolute production keeps up the amount of useful energy will decline at rates many times greater then Hubbert model declines. Society as we know it would not survive such massive declines in useful energy.

This isn't based on anything specific, but I suspect Stark believes that: > Stark is comfortable that the other two contenders share his development philosophy for University Circle; > Stark wants to concentrate his resources on other projects; > Combination of the above.

But it's sad to see this mayor in Perrysburg doesn't grasp the concept of regionalism. If his approach were applied to a family's home lifestyle, the oldest son would be demanding a share of his parents' income because their work schedules seldom allow them to drive him to soccer practice. I often hear people say that the transit ridership is in the suburbs. That's hogwash. Transit cannot effectively serve the suburbs, given the low density, lack of mixed uses or a pedestrian-friendly street grid, the scatter-graph of trips for work, school, shopping etc. as opposed to more linear-, corridor-, pipeline-type trips in parts of the metro area that do have those features where transit still gets used. The only way transit ridership can be increased in most suburbs is to change their land use patterns and/or change the cost structure (ie: make each mode's pricing reflect the true costs they incur). Until that happens, you can run a million buses everywhere in the suburbs and they still won't get used to the per-capita extent that they are in higher-density communities built along mixed use corridors. I do agree Ohio RTAs have to change their thinking about their operations, but I think that predominantly involves taking a more active approach to land use issues. There are some things the RTAs can do to make suburban land use more productive ridership generators, but these may be fewer and farther between than similar developments in the core city. While transit does work best in the spiderweb-type route matrix, there can be multiple spiderwebs, but requires high-density centers for these multiple hubs -- assuming the suburban street patterns allow this. Often they don't. It would likely require a complete redesign of suburban areas, and I don't think the Mayor Nelson Evans' of Ohio appreciate that or even want that.

Probably. Sames as some of the rush-hour express buses from the heights, including the #9 (Mayfield) and #32 (Cedar/Fairmount), which are proposed to run on the EC bus-only lanes.

^ Makes me sick

Yes, the 247 loop will be maintained as the 47 loop, with its routing (which runs past City Hall) shown below in relation to the other two "trolley" bus routes.

After I saw your message, a few minutes before 9 a.m., I turned on the TV and looked for HGTV (never watched it before) and saw the last seconds of the show. Anyone know if/when it might be on again? I'm searching he HGTV site but haven't found anything yet.

It's a replica cabin, as part of Settlers Landing park. Great pic of the church in Tallmadge. When I went to school at Kent, I passed through Tallmadge many times but only vaguely recall the church. I had no idea it was that old, so I will pay more attention to it the next time I pass through.

I've often felt that a dinner theater concept would work well there. Why not some productions on the immigrant experience of coming to America? If you've seen Godfather II, there's a scene from the 1910s in a playhouse where the Italian immigrant experience is portrayed. That's one of my favorite scenes in any movie, and would pay to enjoy a production like that while served some authentic Italian food. Order your food before the show starts, have it served at intermission, and consume it during Act II. I'm there.

No, it's not the end of the Republic. However, we had little economic competition in the world during those tough times and could recover from them more quickly without a major stimulus from governmental sources. Today we do have competition, and its not just due from cheap labor in places like China, India, Malaysia and other emerging economies. It's about the quality of the infrastructure of education, communications, transportation and sustainable energy. Despite the fact that these systems are the economic foundations for all nations, our infrastructure is becoming outdated, ill-maintained and unnecessarily costly to operate. The emerging nations are making the investments that we aren't. Sometimes we act as if we’re still a Wild West frontier that believes the free market will solve all our problems and government and the increased tax burdens that come with big government are evil … just listen to Mr. Blackwell.

Terrific architecture, street scenes and the choo-choos ain't too shabby either! I would love to see something like this in Stark's Warehouse District, like along Frankfort.... And the photo below may require some explanation. In some subway systems, the station platform areas are kept warm by putting in these rows of sliding glass doors at the trackside edge of the platform. When a train pulls in and the train's doors open, it triggers the sliding glass doors to open, too. This would be a nice addition to rail systems in colder U.S. and Canadian cities!

As we march toward $3 per gallon, before the busy summer driving season and without the aid of a hurricane, I thought you all might find interesting a California DOT-commissioned report from 2003, with lots of data that's applicable to the rest of the nation. For those of you doing urban planning in a post-cheap oil world, this link might be worth bookmarking for future and frequent reference... http://www.jfaucett.com/caltransenergy/ The executive summary is worth reading even if you're not an urban planner.

I posted this much earlier in this thread, but they have the same slope instability issues along the Rocky River valley (loose shale, etc). That didn't stop developers from building two condominimum/townhouse projects at the top of the slopes. One is in Rocky River on Wooster Road immediately south of Detroit Road. The other the Emerald View condos on Lorain Road at the east end of Fairview Park. The Fairview condos are selling in the $200K-300K range, while the Rocky River townhouses sold in the $300-$400K range. These price points are very similar to those of similar construction in/near downtown Cleveland. How were they able to do it from an engineering point of view? In both cases, the developers built each housing unit on a concrete caisson, but I don't remember how far down the caissons went. I don't think it was to bedrock. In the case of the Fairview Park condos, the patios/decks weren't built on the caissons and instead have their footers in the soil. That's resulted in them moving a few inches and causing some angst among the residents. But the housing structures are sound for both developments. The caissons were expensive of course, but not so much that they caused either project's price points to be out of line with other offerings in the area. I suspect that may be the case with a new Riverview development. I vote for a high-rise market-rate condo tower, which would require caissons down to bedrock anyway.

^ Way to go PeeDee!