KJP

Tri-Rail express vs. Brightline: How prices food, ride, timing, other amenities compare https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2024/07/11/tri-rail-express-vs-brightline-comparing-prices-food-ride-timing/74279287007/

Cleveland’s Public Square gets $750K for improvements By Ken Prendergast / July 13, 2024 The work to improve Cleveland’s centuries-old Public Square, a New England-style community commons, is never done. In the latest effort, Downtown Cleveland Inc. will receive $750,000 in funds from the Ohio legislature’s one-time Strategic Community Investment Fund for a more welcoming, engaging and inclusive Public Square for all. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/07/13/clevelands-public-square-gets-750k-for-improvements/

Brightline Details How It Will Increase Seat Capacity 75% To Meet Demand https://www.thenextmiami.com/brightline-details-how-it-will-increase-seat-capacity-75-to-meet-demand/

It was for Euclid, Public Square and for Superior.

Seriously? How is it "hostage" when you apply for bus lane funding?

Downtown dealmaking takes time, new approaches By Ken Prendergast / July 12, 2024 Although the real estate listing for Ohio Savings Plaza, 1801 E. 9th St. and its associated Park Plaza, 1111 Chester Ave., show their transaction status as “under contract,” it’s been that way for many months. It will retain that status for at least two more months. What’s going on behind the scenes reveals the complexities and even creative new ways of pursuing big deals in this market at this time. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/07/12/downtown-dealmaking-takes-time-new-approaches/

Americans are a mess vs Europe where: • They prioritize community/relationships • Heavy focus on work-life balance • Foods aren't filled with chemicals • Better healthcare system • They're more active Among many other things that lead to an overall less stressful life & less stress-induced weight gain.

The number of homeless on transit and the increase in homeless camps around town is why I've increasingly spent more time and money out in the suburbs with my family. And when I do go downtown, parking is way too easy, cleaner, more reliable and cheaper than RTA, especially when I'm with my wife and son which is a lot. So yes, I do know better. I have better choices and I'm choosing them.

Stockyards nuisance is finally coming down By Ken Prendergast / July 11, 2024 By the end of this month, a former box factory turned nuisance at 7275 Wentworth Ave. in Cleveland’s Stockyards neighborhood will be visited by the wrecking ball. But crews are already on site cleaning up the long-vacant building that has been used by vagrants, drug users and dealers and reportedly by the property owner’s affiliate for illegally storing millions of fluorescent light bulbs before and after a suspicious 2018 fire. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/07/11/stockyards-nuisance-is-finally-coming-down/

This transit advocate went to two Guardians games in June with transit advocates. I drove both times. Parked for free for the first game. Parked for $30 for the second (on-street parking was hard to find during Superman filming). Didn't regret it. The last time I took transit to a game, we were heading home and got on the 55 at Public Square while the driver slept on the handicap seats. He chewed out my friend and I for talking and interrupting his sleep. That was it for me. I don't need to walk the gauntlet of homeless at the West 117 station and I don't need to ride with people with mental problems who are either driving or riding. The next time I take transit in Cleveland will probably be to see the new trains in 2026.

That's pretty impressive, but Intro hit 90 percent leased before their official grand opening ceremony. Intro's a bigger building but commanded roughly the same rent per square foot ($3/SF).

Circle East improvements continue, more due By Ken Prendergast / July 10, 2024 In a 30-acre area of targeted investment called the Circle East District, located in East Cleveland, the Cuyahoga Land Bank announced it has completed major features of its first phase to revive the neighborhood. The multi-phase $95 million effort led by the Cuyahoga Land Bank to rebuild the neighborhood from the sewers up began two years ago. However, a commercial component to the redevelopment has hit a legal snag. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/07/10/circle-east-improvements-continue-more-due/

Here are four NS track charts -- two for the northernmost eight miles of the Cleveland Line from Yellow Creek, OH through Ravenna and Hudson into Cleveland and two for the first nine miles of the Chicago Line heading west out of Cleveland via West Park and Berea. The two pages of Cleveland Line maps meet the two pages of Chicago Line maps meet at Drawbridge There's a lot of information in these including south is at the top of the charts, the long vertical lines showing mileposts (RD115-RD123 for the Cleveland Line, CD182-CD190 for the Chicago Line), overpasses/underpasses/at-grade crossings, trackside signal locations and the directions they face for which track, amount of freight tonnage in million gross tons (MGT) for each main track in the prior year, when the rails were last replaced, the degree of track curvature, maximum track speed for freight trains and, across the bottom is a line showing the grade of the trackage including percentage of the gradient (+0.28 percent uphill from the lower milepost, -0.77 percent downhill from the lower milepost, etc). The portion of the NS Chicago Line over Lake Shore Boulevard (West Shoreway) had a gradient of 0.91 percent which is pretty steep for a mainline freight railroad. You can see that most of the grade for the Cleveland Line coming in from the southeast side starts at the Harvard-Broadway area and continues for about seven miles to near the connection (now a continuous track through) to the Chicago Line. From Drawbridge west, shown on the Chicago Line track charts, the tracks go uphill steeply until the West 140th-Lorain area and flatten out a bit, but are still going uphill at 0.13-0.32 percent. The point of these maps show that, in order for a rail tunnel to be built, the tracks need to climb from a tunnel floor of about 500- to 510-foot elevation below the Cuyahoga River to an elevation of 775-780 in the vicinity of the West Park RTA station at a 1 percent grade. That's pretty steep. To back it off to 0.75 percent would mean starting the grade just north of Puritas Avenue and excavating a new right of way from there. On the southeast side, the tracks at Harvard/Broadway are at an elevation of 795. To drop from that to 500- to 510-foot elevation below the river in 40,600 feet means a gradient of 0,71 percent which is pretty good. Since the current gradient is uneven, there would still have to be excavating done and probably straightening of the many curves since curves increase the effective gradient and cant deficiency forces on trains.

Welcome to my neighborhood of 28 years! The 26 used to be combined with the 3 to be called the 326. When buses on side of town ran late (which was and is often), it would get later and later to the point that the bus behind it would catch up to it. So instead of having a bus every 15 minutes, you'd get a 30-minute gap with the bus showing up packed with standees. You'd have to get on because you didn't the empty bus behind it yet. A good way to fix this is to go to a proof-of-payment fare structure systemwide and standardize the traffic light preemption among all safety forces in the county (probably could get a Homeland Security grant for this) and put GCRTA buses on the same system (get an FTA grant for that), thereby giving buses (and Shaker Rapids) signal pre-emption at all intersections. Those two changes would not only dramatically speed up all transit routes and save labor and fuel costs, but it could improve the on-time performance of transit lines.

Those were tourist attractions and bright shiny toys. Now we're building housing in the city at faster rates than anywhere else in the county (and possibly the metro area). Now the city is creating job-ready sites for the jobs. The Riverview development appears to be a compilation of all three (how's that for bringing us back on topic? 😉 ).

Every 10-20 years or so, we go through a blitz of retailers over-building to try to corner the market on the next big thing. In the 1950s, it was gas stations. In the late-1960s and early 70s, it was convenience stores. In the 1980s, it was fast-food restaurants. In the 1990s, it was banks. In the 2000s, it was drug stores. Nowadays, it's urgent care centers. I hope these urgent care centers will help fill the void when it comes to pharmacies that these fading drug stores are leaving behind.

Me too Downtown occupancy finally rings at The Bell By Ken Prendergast / July 9, 2024 Despite recent bumps in opening The Bell, the team that converted the former Ohio Bell headquarters into apartments and commercial spaces has hired two Chicago firms to market and manage the property. The announcement comes as the Downtown Cleveland building has received its occupancy permit, effectively declaring the $100-plus-million conversion project as complete. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/07/09/downtown-occupancy-finally-rings-at-the-bell/

I agree. Adding a building like this is huge. Removing that 10-story eyesore is even huge-erer.

I rode this line to Florida in 1986 when Amtrak's Silver Star traveled this way. I always thought this would be a good high speed rail line, separate from most freight traffic. Amazing to see this happening...

I don't know what the Encyclopedia Britannica is smoking because the depth of the river channel and harbor is approximately 28 feet and has to be constantly dredged to maintain it. That said, a 21-foot-tall rail tunnel would have to be built some feet below that. So we're probably looking at a tunnel floor depth of about 60 feet below the water's surface which has an elevation of 569 feet. The tracks approaching the Cuyahoga River drawbridge to the east and west already have gradients up to 0.78 percent. Anything near a 1 percent grade is pretty steep for a long, heavy freight train. Tunneling below the river would require moving the starts of descent to the lake basin by another 2 miles farther away both east and west. Those descents currently start near Lorain Avenue on the West Side and McCracken Road on the East Side.

It won't get built then. The fact that any project has a construction timeline in this high-cost, low-rent market is remarkable. I hope they can pull it off.

John Deere laying off about 600 workers across Midwest; expanding Mexico facilities https://fox8.com/news/john-deere-laying-off-about-600-workers-across-midwest-expanding-mexico-facilities/

Hough renovation secures financing, start date By Ken Prendergast / July 8, 2024 In a long-planned redevelopment, the renovation of a vacant and vandalized 10-story apartment building at the east end of Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood finally has the green light to start work. That green light came today as $47 million in financing closed for the project and construction is due to start before the end of this month. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/07/08/hough-renovation-secures-financing-start-date/

Meanwhile, this is how Cleveland treats dedicated bus lanes (which when compared to rail reveals the fallacy of "dedicated")...

In my gangster voice "I got yer farebox recovery ratio right here!" Wisconsin Republicans spent like 15 years talking about how no one would ride a train in the Midwest and it would be an expensive boondoggle...and then a new route was added and it turned a profit in less than two weeks. https://bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2024/07/03/borealis-train-amtrak-passengers-milwaukee-chicago.html