KJP

I don't know. All of this is just playtime stuff. Nothing serious. My days of being serious about rail expansions are over.

Adding ridership generators to the Waterfront Line By Ken Prendergast / March 11, 2024 Over the next two months, a Cleveland State University study will identify untapped lands in Downtown Cleveland along the inactive light-rail Waterfront Line and consider how to encourage their development for the benefit of the lakefront and the transit line. The findings could ultimately be incorporated into the city’s lakefront plan which has yet to be finalized. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/03/11/adding-ridership-generators-to-the-waterfront-line/

Probably could. I haven't kept up to date on fare collection tech to see if GCRTA's new buses and trains will be equipped with new fare machines and cell phones can be used to pay fares. GCRTA could do a mix of single track but GCRTA doesn't trust its train operators to operate safely on single track. Otherwise we might have had a single track Blue Line to Harvard/I-271 by now. Instead, a double-track was too expensive and didn't meet the criteria for federal funds. So I don't see GCRTA accepting any single-track extensions. Pity.

Can't. Need the temporary parking lot for the library.

And what to do with the old Board of Elections building on Euclid?

Elections board to the ex-Plain Dealer building? By Ken Prendergast / March 8, 2024 While not as controversial or as impactful as the county’s pending moves of its consolidated jail or courthouse facilities, the new site of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections (BOE) could boost its new surroundings. With up to 200 permanent employees, plus hundreds more at election time and many more visitors for early voting, the positive and negative impacts on the BOE’s new surroundings could be significant. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/03/08/elections-board-to-the-ex-plain-dealer-building/

Yup. But this is the closest thread that applies. Unless we discuss it in the TOD thread.

Optimism! I love it.

Not with the lack of Class A leasable inventory in/near University Circle. While no one is going to be financing a spec office building in this market, I suspect that if one was built in University Circle, it will fill up pretty quickly. And Midwest Development Partners is in a bind. It can't advance to the next phase until Library Lofts is open and the MLK Branch Library is relocated into it. Only then can they demolish the old library and its parking lot across Stokes and build the next phases on those sites.

We want to hear from you! My Planning Studio Capstone Course is conducting a study on the Waterfront Rail Line in Downtown Cleveland. Our client is the City of Cleveland Planning Commission. Our goal is to develop recommendations for potential future development along the Waterfront Line that will increase ridership and integrate seamlessly with Cleveland's waterfront redevelopment efforts. It's been an absolute pleasure working alongside my cohort, professors, and the City of Cleveland. Cleveland has so much to offer, and being a part of the waterfront's redevelopment process is incredibly exciting. We look forward to your input. Thank you!

Non-natives have noticed Cleveland on the upswing. It’s about time: Justice B. Hill https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2024/03/non-natives-have-noticed-cleveland-on-the-upswing-its-about-time-justice-b-hill.html

Browns continue to add land in Berea By Ken Prendergast / March 7, 2024 Either an affiliate of the Cleveland Browns or the city of Berea own all of the land visible on the right side of Front Street including the former Serpentini Collision Center until reaching north to Lou Groza Boulevard, marked by the traffic signal in the distance. Both the Browns and the city also own much of the land on the other side of the street, including the last house on the left. In their place, the Browns’ owners plan to construct a large, mixed-use development (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/03/07/browns-continue-to-add-land-in-berea/

Thanks for the write-up. I rode both Tri-rail and Brightline shortly after each started. Tri-rail is much more frequent, sophisticated and the stations more elaborate now. Brightline is like nothing else in the USA, and its only international service I can compare it to is the Eurostar, which was also brand new when I rode it. I highly recommend Brightline for someone's first-ever American train ride. And yes, Brightline is under Florida East Coast Industies umbrella, same as the Florida East Coast (freight) railroad. Same tracks and infrastructure, just improved and more of it.

The old fairytales of a Cleveland winter don't apply as rules of thumb anymore. Everything is being rewritten. The only thing that's guaranteed is a trend toward less cold and snow. When I reach my 80s (I'm 56 now), Cleveland kids are going to ask me what was winter like in the 1970s and 80s and they're not going to believe me. 60s tomorrow. Looks like several inches of snow on Sunday. Will be melted on Monday.

Ohio and the rest of the Great Lakes region looks pretty good by comparison -- as long as you don't build right next to the lakes (rising lake levels, erosion, etc)! A HIDDEN CRISIS IN US HOUSING In places most prone to wildfires and hurricanes, state “insurers of last resort” are absorbing trillions of dollars in risk. https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-home-insurance-real-estate-crisis/

You sure? We've had one solid week of winter this season and a couple of days where the newly fallen snow melted before the end of the day. This is the kind of winter Tennessee had when I was a kid in the 70s. Earth had warmest February on record as this year trends hotter than 2023 https://www.axios.com/2024/03/07/weather-heat-climate-change

Yes

Hough health center ready for $19.5M rebuild By Ken Prendergast / March 5, 2024 On May 19, 2021, shortly after the Northeast Ohio Neighborhood Health Services Inc.’s (NEON) Hough Health Center, 8300 Hough Ave., closed for the night and employees went home, an apparent electrical fire sparked. The resulting flames spread throughout the building, causing millions of dollars in damage. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/03/05/hough-health-center-ready-for-19-5m-rebuild/

North Coast Waterfront Development Corp. names its first executive director By Ken Prendergast / March 5, 2024 Over the decades, one of the biggest barriers to developing Downtown Cleveland’s lakefront with public and private amenities was the lack of a staff dedicated to that purpose. That barrier began to come down today with the hiring of the first staff-person to lead the new North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation (NCWDC). MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/03/05/north-coast-waterfront-development-corp-names-its-first-executive-director/

Posted last November in a thread that hasn't gotten much traction since.

Temperatures across Northern Ohio and Northwest Pennsylvania for Winter 2023-2024 were considerably above normal while precipitation was a little below normal and snowfall well below normal. A couple of record-high temps from yesterday... Toledo, OH reached 78F, breaking the previous record of 76F in 1983 Erie, PA reached 76F, breaking the previous record of 70F in 1966. More details here - https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&product=RER&issuedby=CLE

I don't understand how the formula works. It's supposed to be a mix of service-area population, transit ridership, extent of transit system and the like. So for the partial-year apportionment FY2024, Dayton gets more money than Columbus or Cincinnati and Cleveland gets nearly triple? https://aptapassengertransport.com/fta-announces-9-9-billion-in-federal-formula-funding/ FTA has announced $9.9 billion in federal formula funding to support public transportation throughout the U.S. The funding will help communities maintain and operate trains, buses, and ferries; upgrade stations and tracks; plan and design new transit corridors; and provide access for seniors and riders with disabilities. Ohio UZAs Akron, OH -- $4,338,909 Canton, OH -- $2,418,087 Cincinnati, OH-KY -- $12,461,511 Cleveland, OH -- $28,973,838 Columbus, OH -- $11,221,679 Dayton, OH -- $18,239,443 Toledo, OH-MI -- $3,508,193 Youngstown, OH -- $2,184,967 Neighbor UZAs Buffalo, NY -- $12,372,096 Detroit, MI -- $25,543,783 Indianapolis, IN -- $10,918,621 Louisville/Jefferson County, KY-IN -- $8,063,481 Pittsburgh, PA -- $35,476,244 St. Louis, MO-IL -- $32,789,159 The $100 Million Club Boston, MA-NH -- $202,814,151 Chicago, IL-IN -- $340,892,304 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA -- $248,482,005 Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL $112,487,892 New York-Jersey City-Newark, NY-NJ -- $1,246,092,478 Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD -- $198,084,015 Seattle-Tacoma, WA -- $115,161,493 Washington-Arlington, DC-VA-MD -- $227,726,041

It's nice to have first-world problems. But we'd better stick to development discussions or this thread will get locked. And I'd hate for that to happen now because I hope to have a big Lakewood story by the end of the week.

Slavic Village’s Olympia Building to be renovated By Ken Prendergast / March 4, 2024 Increased interest in reviving historic structures around the mostly intact Broadway-East 55th intersection in Cleveland’s Slavic Village neighborhood has expanded to include the 113-year-old Olympia Building, 3335-3361 E. 55 St. That building will feature renovated apartments over existing storefronts and the preserved lobby for the Olympia’s adjacent movie theater demolished long ago. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/03/04/slavic-villages-olympia-building-to-be-renovated/