KJP

They can get more people to respond to the survey but none of them have any money to contribute to campaigns in a meaningful way. There is no rail industry construction supply group for Ohio, though I tried starting one a dozen years ago. And even if there was, few of them have any idea how do lobby for public dollars because there's been little or no public money for rail to acquaint them how to do it. It's a chicken-and-egg situation, which means we have to evolve toward it -- something that will take many years, likely decades. Think of where we are if the road-building industry is our model. The Ohio Department of Highways was created by the legislature in 1905 to get Ohio farmers' shipments out of the mud-rutted roads. We're not even at that point yet. Yes, we have an Ohio Rail Development Commission. AAO's predecessor OARP created that, thanks to the late-OARP President Howard Harding and State Rep. Bob Hagan in 1994. But most of ORDC's funding was taken away from it shortly after it was created. It was taken by the railroads, no less. ORDC was funded by the corporate franchise tax and the railroads didn't want to pay the tax so they paid the legislature to get rid of it, leaving ORDC to beg for $4 million per year every two years from the Ohio General Assembly. All of that goes to shortline freight railroad capital projects. ORDC also gets some highway money to pay for road-rail grade crossing improvements. In 1996, ORDC was about ready to ask the legislature for $60 million from the state capital budget for start developing 3C Corridor, Cleveland-Pittsburgh and Cleveland-Akron-Canton commuter rail. Governor Voinovich's Chief of Staff Paul Mifsud came to that ORDC commissioners meeting and public berated them for being "in outer space" for even considering funding for passenger rail. Mifsud, by the way, later went to prison on corruption charges. It would be another 10 years before passenger rail planning began taking hold again, this time for the Ohio Hub plan that soon attracted $400 million from the feds for developing 3C Corridor. We all know what happened with that. It set back Ohio at least 15 years in passenger rail development. AAO was the fiscal agent for a lobbying campaign called Linking Ohio during that 3C effort. We paid out money to lobbyists, advertising companies, polling firms and more. We oversaw more money (about $100,000 which is small for a lobbying effort) during that campaign than we had seen in a decade, going back to when I leading a two-corridor campaign called the CTC Corridor Campaign and the 3C Corridor Campaign. I raised $100,000 in a couple of years back then which helped get the Ohio Hub planning going and to get Ohio to join the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission. I worked with Ohio Republican Senator Jeff Armbruster (whose Lorain County-based family got rich owning gas stations of all things) to get Ohio to join MIPRC. Today, AAO is much more broad-based than when I was among those running it. There was anywhere from 1-3 of us involved on a daily basis with more involved on a weekly basis. Today, it seems like more people are involved and that's good. Ohio elected officials pay attention to likely voters. And they pay attention to money. They use the money to manipulate voters and to get other lawmakers to fall in line. I've had lawmakers brazenly tell me they can't (not just won't, but can't) do anything for passenger rail unless we donate to their campaign. And the amounts that make a difference are in the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and it won't start turning for you in Ohio unless you grease it. Nobody is greasing it for passenger rail. By law, Amtrak can't lobby. Ohio rail industry suppliers don't know how. And the likes of AAO don't have any money. Companies like Brightline do, and that's where our salvation may lie. Ohio's politics are a lot like Florida's and Brightline greased the wheels the down there for Miami-Orlando. Now they are focused on Las Vegas-LA/Rancho Cucamonga. They aren't going to take a hard look at Ohio or anywhere else until after these Service Development Plans are done and there's some data for them to look at. Then Brightline will compare the more than two dozen SDPs around the country, decide where they want to invest, and force the others to wait their turn.

The city is not being asked to approve anything other than the Global Center thingy.

Now THAT's a TOD!! Located right next to the South Miami Metrorail station. There's a fair amount of density around that station but crossing US 1 at grade if you're a pedestrian is a bit scary. Hope they build a walkway over US 1 into this development. BTW, I was confused by the map in your post until I realized that north is to the right.

ODOT has done surveys in the past. I'm familiar with ones they've done going back into the 1990s. The results have consistently shown strong public support for more rail and transit funding. But ODOT doesn't entirely control their own budget, although they have more flexibility than they're often willing to admit. And since Ohio is a pay-to-play state, and the voters aren't contributing to campaigns the way the special interests are, the status quo/feedback loop is always going to win out. ODOT is an ATM machine for the road contractors and as long as Ohio is a pay-to-play state, the money is going to stay with those who have the money.

Everything I've heard from the Haslams' side is that they've decided on Brook Park. But the county's disinterest in supporting that decision has thrown a monkey wrench into the financing.

So how about those Bedrock plans! 😉

Yes, but because the river is so wide in the navigable portion, I've never seen it overflow its banks since it was widened in the late 1940s.

He did, but it hasn't been announced yet and it reportedly is being scaled back. I don't know who it is, but it's not Canon.

Downtown Cavs/Clinic facility groundbreaking set By Ken Prendergast / October 3, 2024 Final approval is expected tomorrow by the City Planning Commission of designs for the proposed Cleveland Clinic Global Peak Performance Center featuring the Cleveland Cavaliers’ new practice facility and the Clinic’s sports health/wellness programs. But how do we know approval is expected? Because the groundbreaking ceremony for the new center has been set for the week after next. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/10/03/downtown-cavs-clinic-facility-groundbreaking-set/

Infrastructure-wise, yes. Transportation companies-wise, it's a return to competition.

Whaddya say. Back on topic?

Downtown employers reconsider suburban moves By Ken Prendergast / October 2, 2024 Two large Downtown Cleveland employers may be reversing course regarding their future office locations. One was bound and determined to leave for the suburbs but now its plans are up in the air. And despite the grist coming from the real estate rumor mill, the other employer says it’s not going anywhere — yet. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/10/02/downtown-employers-reconsider-suburban-moves/

I'm also seeing a couple of applications for tents on the Bedrock property around Collision Bend. Usually there are attachments to them showing details of what's being planned and why but these don't have any. I suspect they may be part of an upcoming groundbreaking ceremony.

Knew sold its portion of the development (the townhouses) to another developer involved in the project who intends to build them when the for-sale market improves.

The EU has been liberalizing its rail system in stages to increase competition, improve efficiency, and reduce costs: Rail freight Since 2007, any licensed EU railway company can apply for capacity and offer rail freight services throughout the EU. The EU Commission says that liberalization has led to lower prices, more services, and better quality. International rail passenger services Since 2010, any licensed EU rail company can offer international passenger services. Domestic rail passenger services The EU has proposed opening this market to EU-wide competition. The fourth railway package, approved in 2016, set a target of liberalizing passenger rail transport on December 14, 2020. This is taking longer than expected and varies from country to country. France and Spain have advanced the liberalization of freight and high-speed services but local/regional commuter rail is taking longer... https://www.groupe-sncf.com/en/group/strategy/market-liberalization https://railmarket.com/news/passenger-rail/22137-liberalisation-of-spain-s-passenger-rail-services-who-is-in-the-game In Germany, Deutsche Bahn, a government corporation, operates freight and passenger services, owns infrastructure and basically does everything rail in Germany. I haven't heard any progress reports there but it sounds like things are taking even longer in Germany.

Sadly, Bedrock has not submitted any plans for Tower City redevelopment. So there's no indication that any meaningful investment in Tower City is forthcoming. The riverfront is a different story however.

Haven't heard a peep.

So here's the RTA Red Line to Wickliffe graphics. Circles are approximate station locations (about 0.7 of a mile to 1 mile apart) and X for rough locations for universal (aka bidirectional) crossover tracks. I'm posting these separate from the previously posted NS Lake Erie District track reroute graphics (although the NS reroute is visible in the last few of the Red Line image). Here they are from west to east, starting at Windermere station in East Cleveland.

The Red Line extension study was done in 2014-15. It has exceeded its shelf life and would have to be done again if there was renewed interest in doing anything here. Unfortunately, in North America, you cannot operate light transit vehicles in mixed traffic with heavy freight trains. In America we design our trains and their contents to survive collisions. In Europe they designed their rail systems to avoid them. Here, our freight trains are much bigger and heavier; an RTA train would be obliterated by a freight train if they collided. So they have to separate operations. Most times this means separate tracks, but it can also mean at different times, called a temporal separation. In the middle of the night, a freight locomotive can come down a designated portion of the Red Line to a certain point and deliver or pick up freight cars at a shipper or two and get out before the RTA service begins again in the morning.

Fixed it. In one possible scenario, a licensed passenger rail operator could secure an operating contract to use the existing tracks between Cleveland and Cincinnati. But I doubt they would until the tracks are upgraded to passenger train standards, capacities and speeds -- to be determined by a operational simulation, as is done now. The passenger train operator could upgrade the tracks themselves with public or private financing. Or the right-of-way agency could fund the capital improvements by using the first 5-15 years of user fees to fund the non-federal share of a grant to upgrade the infrastructure. I would use the existing hierarchy of operations that guides train dispatching decision-making and computer programming. This ranges from the top end of the food chain to the bottom -- from disaster-relief/evacuation operations and short-distance express passenger services at the high end to light-engine and non-emergency deadhead rolling-stock moves at the other.

The parking lot to the right of the building is. The parking lot to the left is not.

I think there's supposed to be significant sections of dedicated bus lanes in there.

More coming over there

Cleveland launches affordable housing fund By Ken Prendergast / October 1, 2024 Last evening, a new Cleveland Housing Investment Fund (CHIF) was launched when Cleveland City Council passed legislation that requires the city to provide financing to the new fund. The city’s $18 million commitment leverages $20 million pledged by Cleveland-based KeyBank to boost the development of mixed-income rental housing and home ownership opportunities. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/10/01/cleveland-launches-affordable-housing-fund/

They might have already considered it and rejected it 10 years ago. My guess is that they shied away from it because they are terrified of asking NS or CSX to change anything in their operations. Like, once I suggested building a wye track so that Blue/Green trains could make a right turn at the Red Line near East 70th. The second track for returning trains going from the Red Line to the Green/Blue lines could even use an existing flyover of an old industrial track with modifications that included moving one of the NS main tracks away from the Red Line so the Red-to-Blue/Green connecting track could take its place next to the Red Line. But GCRTA Asst. GM Mike Schipper said to me "Ask NS to move a track? No." Maybe they're right. Or maybe they didn't offer them enough. Orlando got CSX to give up its ROW through town for the SunRail commuter rail route by offering to build them a new intermodal terminal on another line west of Orlando. CSX said "cool." Maybe RTA buys CSX's 20-acre abandoned engine terminal, south of their railroad west of East 152nd Street, for an electric bus charging station. Then GCRTA's "changes their mind" and offers it to NS for a new, larger bulk transfer terminal to replace the 10-acre one on their current line, just off Chardon Road north of Euclid Ave.