KJP

I got the impression from past news articles it would be in the 15-20 story range.

The success of pedestrian-only streets usually depends on the land uses which surround them. In the 1970s, they tried them in districts that often had one or two land uses (usually retail and office) and made the pedestrian-only section way too long. I'd take a Cleveland street like Frankfort, from Public Square to West 9th, and make it pedestrian-only. But I'd also surround it with lots of small first-floor shops, bistros and sidewalk cafes topped by offices, housing and even hotels or hostels to ensure a mix of ped traffic at all hours. I'd make it bright and intimate, with lots of balconies overhanging the narrow street to ensure the community can police itself. I think that would offer a wonderful urban setting! Hey Stark, you reading this?

Not a dumb question at all! And welcome aboard. The county wants their HQ to be on Euclid Avenue, but you raise an interesting question. Why not build on the parking lot just west of East 9th Street, where the Hippodrome building stood? I suspect the goal is to reduce the office vacancy rate downtown to boost prices and create demand for more Class A office construction. I don't like losing an office tower either, but I suspect that's a big reason why. I'm with the others, too, on why there is a desire to demolish the 1010 Euclid building. I think that could make for terrific loft housing and/or live-work spaces. Start making noise, since they are still early in this process. Write those letters to the commissioners and to the local papers. Make it an issue!

Seems my celebration that RTA brass will ask staff to work with ODOT on analyzing the inclusion of rail in the Opportunity Corridor was premature. An RTA official told me on Friday that "We have had some internal conversations about the Corridor, but not yet determined the best way to position with ODOT, but I think we will soon." Feel free to continue the letters, e-mails and phone calls flowing to the RTA board. To find out how to contact them, click on the link below, then click on the individual board member names. Below their bios you will find their contact info (though most e-mails go to the board Secretary Rhonda Raidl - [email protected] - 216-566-5187) http://www.riderta.com/ar_organization-board.asp

Normally, I would post an article like this in The Great Peak Oil Thread in the transportation section. But this list measures cities on more than just public transportation. It also judges their land use, their ability to grow food locally and without oil-based fertilizers, ability to make goods locally, and even offer telecommuting. However, you'll have to wait until April, when SustainLane publishes the entire 50-city rankings. For now, feel free to debate the top ten cities which are most prepared to cope with an oil crisis according to SustainLane..... http://sustainlane.com/article/734//Ten+U.S.+Cities+Best+Prepared+for+an+Oil+Crisis.html Ten U.S. Cities Best Prepared for an Oil Crisis Did your life change when gas prices hit $2 or $3 a gallon last summer? For many people across the United States higher gas prices meant cutting down on unnecessary car trips or taking public transportation. Some even sold their gas-guzzling SUV, while others switched to alternative fuels such as biodiesel. So, what will you do when gas hits $4 or $5 or even $8 a gallon? Some experts see pump prices in this range as being likely in the event of numerous potential world political or climatic events, like a major 2006 Gulf Coast hurricane. SustainLane has looked at the largest 50 U.S. cities with this scenario in mind. We wanted to know which cities will be the best places to live and work if gas prices suddenly rise because of coming events out of anybody's control. SustainLane has ranked the largest 50 U.S. cities based on recent city commute practices, metro area public transportation, sprawl, traffic congestion, local food and wireless network access (in order of importance: see chart). There are many other areas that rising oil prices will affect: construction, retail goods of all types, utilities (especially in the Northeast, the one part of the nation where heating oil is used)—virtually every aspect of our economy will be hit. We looked at the areas most directly impacted: how people get around, where their food comes from, and how they work. New York City is the city most prepared to cope with a $100+ tank of gas. With its strong city and regional public transportation system, New York stands out above the rest. From New York City’s subways to the Tri State area’s suburban train lines, New York is truly the only American city where people are committed to riding over driving. "As the largest city in the country and the business capital of the world New York City must be prepared for what comes our way, and we are," said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. "That New York City has been recognized by SustainLane as the best prepared city to face a nation-wide oil crisis is testament to the resiliency and strength of our infrastructure." Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Philadelphia also ranked high for access to public transportation and commute rates, though congestion was a significant problem for The Bay Area and Boston in particular. The top ten cities also combine strong public transportation with access to locally grown fresh food, and most (with the exception of Honolulu) have significant access to local wireless networks for telecommuting. Philadelphia leads the largest 50 cities in the U.S. with the highest combined per capita rate of farmers markets and community gardens. A homegrown system of local farmers and gardeners could prove to be a better alternative than the current system, where food is transported an average of 1500 miles to your dinner plate. Seattle is the national leader in wireless connectivity, followed closely by San Francisco, Oakland, New York and Portland. Telecommuting could be an important way for large numbers of people to work from home if gas becomes completely unavailable, as it was sometimes during the 1973-74 Oil Embargo. Finally, the most prepared cities and their metropolitan areas are relatively dense (except Portland) and had low sprawl, with the exception of Seattle. City services, jobs, shopping centers and entertainment are centrally located in all of these top ten cities. That is not the case with many other mid- to-large sized American cities that ranked lower in our analysis. One commonality each of these ten cities has--though this was not used to determine the ranking--is that each is a major port. Port cities have the natural advantage of receiving imported goods without the added fuel needed to send truck fleets across the nation to landlocked areas. Just as it was for hundreds of years before the twentieth century, a city's geographical location may once again become the most important factor keeping its economy thriving. Regardless of where you live, it will pay to be aware of what public transportation options are available in your community. If you’re thinking about moving to a different city or neighborhood, transportation options should be high on your list of considerations. Beyond buying local organic food, which uses less oil-based fertilizer, and is likely to become less expensive compared with conventional long-distance transported supermarket food, you should become familiar with what you can grow and make for yourself at home. Buying locally produced and sourced goods is also a way to balance dependence on the oil-intensive global economy. SustainLane’s SLED offers a rich network of these small to medium-sized businesses, many that may be in your community. Sign up for updates and in April, SustainLane will release the complete list of the 50 largest cites ranked according to their preparedness for rising oil prices. In June we will release the results of our US City Ranking for overall sustainability, including healthy quality of life and economic readiness for the challenges of the 21st century. Data for these rankings covers 2002-2006 and was collected from U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Smart Growth America, Intel Corp., Texas Mobility Study/Texas A&M, and through primary research with U.S. cities.

It wasn't back in the day and the road is the same width today.... On Detroit at Cook Avenue, 1951 On Detroit at Warren Road, 1949 However, I favor operating rail transit over the NS line, which stays less than 1,000 feet from Detroit Avenue across Lakewood, except until the very western end of the city.

That crowd seems kind of light for a Slovenian film in Cleveland. Wonder if it was promoted in the neighborhoods/churches?

Air travel now is the Greyhound bus of the 21 st century. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THAT LINE!!!

They'll just lay down a Super Bowl slam on us, and we'll have no choice but to climb back into our bottles of Crooked River Ale. Bastards. :finger:

See my message posted at: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=6470.msg83952#msg83952 But I will reiterate that China's planned conventional steel wheel on steel rail high-speed line will cost $21 million per mile while the Maglev line costs $39 million per mile. Yet maglev buys only a 40 mph increase for nearly double the cost. Sorry, but I'm still not sold on maglev, outside of localized, specialized applications like airport people movers and what not. This real-world data comparison from China only reaffirms my beliefs. And, when China officials considered a maglev for the Beijing-Shanghai route, they discovered that conventional high-speed rail would offer 80 percent of the travel time savings of maglev but at half the cost. It's why they chose conventional HSR. It's also why France gave up on maglev a long time ago and went with the TGV (which can operate over any railroad track, including curving, low-speed routes up into the Alps to serve ski resorts, without requiring a change of trains).

I'm not aware of any, although some streets in lifestyle centers like Crocker Park and Easton might qualify. But they're all rip-offs of the real deals in Europe, like these wonderful streets in Dublin....

To my knowledge, you can build a development as close to the tracks as the transit agency will allow you. As long as the transit agency's property line isn't crossed and the trains don't hit the building, I think they're OK.

Today, the Cleveland Cuyahoga County Port Authority took the following action (from their press release): ...Authorized the transfer of port-owned property located within the RTA loop (on the Waterfront Line) to the city and back to the port for purposes of tax-increment financing. The property has been mentioned as a possible relocation site for local Defense Finance and Accounting Service operations. Also, John Carney was named officially as the board chairman. The former chairman (since 1993), Sterling Glover, will remain on the board as chairman emeritus.

Another dead-at-the-sidewalk building. Geez, just a coffee nook would do wonders.

I wasn't thinking so much of a single employer, just what that property would/could accommodate in terms of total employees. It's not a large footprint for a building, so it wouldn't take too many employees to be the anchor tenant of a pretty tall office building.

Then there's Halloween at Ohio University, followed by Kent State. Their downtowns would be flooded with costumed revelers, and some of the costumes were awesome. At Kent in the late 1980s, guys dressed as nuclear cleanup workers with ventilators and carrying glowing green things in radioactive-protective buckets, or as Hans and Franz, or as 15-foot-tall cornstalks that stayed motionless until the crowd around them changed and then they would start moving again on stilts scaring some girls to scream. Girls dressed as Playboy bunnies, 1920s flappers, or sexy nurses and French maids. But the downtown merchants stayed standing in their windows to keep the stores from getting broken into and wrecked. It didn't always work in Athens, I understand.

Although with such cheap fares, you may get some interesting people riding. All they have to do is go to their local library to get the cheap web fares. And I wonder if you can pay your fare on the bus.

Sun had an article yesterday which offered more detail on this project. It's pretty much a certainty at this point that the Ameritrust tower will be demolished, as each floor lacks enough space on it. Even the county commissioners offices would have to be spread among multiple floors if the Ameritrust tower is re-used. I'll see about getting the article (it's not likely to be posted online).

I changed the thread name to reflect the change in news/discussion topics relating to this development.

Seems to me the bidding starts at $1! Early birds get the $1 fare. Late-comers get to pay the max.

Some of those movies in that list were documentaries, like the "Fourteenth Victim: Eliot Ness and the Torso Murders" (2003). I suspect "Giant Coal Dumper" was also a documentary-type film, same with "Bleeding Orange & Brown: A Cleveland Tradition."

That's about the square footage of the Higbee building. By the way, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates the average space per office employee is 387 square feet, which includes common areas.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion. However Parsons Brinckerhoff, an internationally respected transportation planning/engineering firm, came up with a different conclusion. They analyzed all Northeast Ohio commuter routes in the late 1990s and found the Cleveland to Lorain rail corridor as having the highest ridership, revenue and feasibility potential of any route they analyzed. The feasbility wasn't just based on the ridership and revenue, but in terms of capital start-up costs. Since then, the route sees far fewer freight trains, negating the need for adding a second main track to much of the route. Also, the fire sale going at Chicago's Metra (cheap, good rail cars) and at Amtrak (cheap, new locomotives) will significantly reduce that expenditure as well to mere pennies on the dollar. Parsons Brinckerhoff found in their travel surveys that there was enough of a travel demand to make downtown Lorain the western terminus of the rail service. Some have suggested that going as far west as Vermilion also is worthwhile. Right now, there is no way for an urban Cleveland resident to reach any shift for the industrial and commercial employers in Lorain County and much of Western Cuyahoga County (namely Westlake). To balance the commuter rail schedule, there will have to be some reverse rush-hour trains operated. Might as well carry people on those than have them dead-head. Cleveland RTA bus schedules from Avon/Avon Lake have three buses inbound in the morning rush and three outbound in the afternoon rush. To/from Public Square, these take about one hour (slightly more in the morning, slightly less in the afternoon). The commuter rail schedule (including a transfer to the Red Line at West Boulevard in the interim) would take about 40 minutes to/from Avon. Through rail service, with no change of train, to downtown would take less time. To/from Westlake Park-n-Ride, RTA freeway flyer buses take 35 minutes inbound in the morning to Public Square, and 28 minutes outbound in the afternoon. The rail service would take about a half-hour, including the change of train at West Boulevard. Through service would be even faster. The number of buses it takes to serve these two cities alone is unecessarily large and costly -- not to mention what's needed to serve the densely populated cities of Rocky River and Lakewood and the Cudell neighborhood of Cleveland (where their main business districts are within 500 feet of the tracks). The train wouldn't be subject to snow storms, or road construction or the frequent accidents on I-90. Plus, the Inner Belt is about to go under ODOT's knife for the next decade. And gas prices are only going to go up. Rail is more fuel efficient than buses (especially when you have to operate so many to offer those wasteful point-to-point schedules, or when you try to operate a bus over long distances like a train and have it stop in every business/housing node along the way). And, of course, rail can be powered by electricity, making it virtually invulnerable to oil price spikes. But don't take my word for it. Get the NOACA NEOrail report and read why Parsons Brinckerhoff thought so highly of the West Shore Corridor. Their short answer: few other long-distance corridors in the region have as much traffic bound for downtown Cleveland as the West Shore (to say nothing of the shorter trips to Lakewood's downtown, or other destinations along the route).

RTA isn't interested in rail on this route or any other (except maybe to the southeast, where I-480 between 77 and 271 is likely the region's most congested interstate). Lorain County officials recently approached Cleveland RTA about running rail service on the NS line. RTA's response was that some more express buses out to Lorain might be done jointly with Lorain County Transit. Lorain County folks said "no thanks."

Buses just aren't as quick and nimble as cars, even if they operate nonstop. Plus, this is a new service, so they're probably just being conservative with the schedule. And sometimes they put some padding in the schedule to account for construction, weather, accidents, etc. Of course, some of Greyhound's buses take more than eight hours to travel between Cleveland and Chicago, while Amtrak takes between 6 and 7 hours (a lot of that is padding too).