Crocker Park is definitely an example of density working well.  Though it should probably be noted that it lacks cultural diversity.  The blending of the two is where the problems typically come from. 

 

 

I don't in any way consider Crocker Park successful or a model Greater Cleveland should follow.  Yes, it's better designed than the typical cul de sac + strip shopping.  But CP was carved out of cornfields at the edge of metro area and is auto dependent/transit unfriendly.  It's about the furthest thing from TOD one could imagine... I get KJP's proposal, however, to use CP-type housing at the Warrensville-Shaker Rapid station.  It makes sense because there is plenty of vacant land around the Rapid station from where the Van Sweringens had planned a depressed super highway (out to their planned Shaker Country Estates) 90 years ago.  KJP's plan is both TOD and and within the suburban context of a wealthy neighborhood not far from a substantial residential university with it's on small retail/services district.

 

In the recent past we've gotten it bass-ackwards here in Greater Cleveland building strip and/or big box development along the RAIL Rapid Transit like Chagrin-Lee-Avalon and the W. 117 big boxes and high-density developments like CP away from population centers and transit.  Recent developments like Uptown, Van Aken and Intesa/Centric, though, give me hope that the tide it turning.

 

I liked KJP's plan a lot. Wealthy people aren't going to stop existing, nor are they going to stop wanting lavish abodes. Let's entice those abodes along the rails, and not out in West Geauga or Hudson.

 

I think we all agree that Crocker Park is fine except for its location. So I wouldn't hold its location against it as a model for higher-end development in a better location. :P

 

Wealthy people also aren't going to stop wanting some separation between themselves and those people who have radically different values.  Indeed, people with options prefer that especially where they live.  The location's fine.

 

I don't know what you mean by "values."  In the so-called Inner Ring suburbs like Shaker and Cleveland Heights, a lot of wealthy families opt to move there to be closer to more urban experiences and people who are different from themselves and their children.  The hallmark of Shaker Heights, especially, is to provide people/families from the middle-income to the wealthy, a community that provides the best of all worlds...  There will always be those folks who believe their ideal is to separate themselves from those who are different by moving way out to the homogeneous ex-urbs often in cookie-cutter McMansions... It's a free country.  But you can't paint all wealthy people, just like you can't paint all of anybody, with such a broad brush.

 

... and btw, I can't kick about the quality of the Crocker Park development.  It's just such a tragedy, and too typical of greater Cleveland, and indeed, Ohio, that such a development was designed without one thought given to transit... In fact, truth be told, there was thought given to transit: that is, Stark and his people wanted to build far away from transit whereby transit, and the people who rely on it, would be irrelevant.

[/quote

 

Notice that Shaker Heights hallmark doesn't include poor people but you have a problem with Crocker Park?

^Wrong!  There is a significant, mostly black work-class section in the southwestern corner of Shaker Hts.  Shaker has historically promoted diversity and, in the late 1960s, it (and Chicago's Oak Park) were the first American cities to actually implement voluntary busing-- that is, Shaker leaders and wealthy Shaker residence, didn't like the fact that some schools were too white and some, too black, so they undertook busing throughout all the Shaker schools to achieve a balance... And did I mention that Shaker schools have always been seen as among the  area's best.  Yes, they've dropped a little in recent years, but are still near the top in Greater Cleveland, esp when you consider college placement, SAT scores and numbers of National Merit Scholars. 

^Wrong!  There is a significant, mostly black work-class section in the southwestern corner of Shaker Hts.  Shaker has historically promoted diversity and, in the late 1960s, it (and Chicago's Oak Park) were the first American cities to actually implement voluntary busing-- that is, Shaker leaders and wealthy Shaker residence, didn't like the fact that some schools were too white and some, too black, so they undertook busing throughout all the Shaker schools to achieve a balance... And did I mention that Shaker schools have always been seen as among the  area's best.  Yes, they've dropped a little in recent years, but are still near the top in Greater Cleveland, esp when you consider college placement, SAT scores and numbers of National Merit Scholars.

 

You're the one leaving the ''mostly black work-class section in the southwestern corner of Shaker Hts.'' out of the Shaker equation, not me.  Not sure what this has to do with Shaker's school busing policy or this thread.

Is anyone aware of any progress on the TOD plan around the Ohio City rapid station, specifically the Pizza Hut plaza on W25/Lorain?

http://www.cleveland.com/architecture/index.ssf/2013/06/a_new_rta_plan_for_transit-ori.html

http://www.dimitarchitects.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=154&Itemid=60

 

The article linked has an architectural rendering of 200+ residential units in residential-over-retail touching the Ohio City W25 station. I've only heard of a growing trend for Ohio City / Tremont lately.

 

Off-topic. Why isn't there much development on the East side of W25 between Detroit and the CMHA tower? Unstable soil? Land acquisition? Area in transition? I could see Ohio City's W25th being densely built with multi-story residential-over-retail, between Lorain/Detroit. Perhaps, Lutheran Hospital could give up some parking, or move their parking, and put some buildings at street level.

Is anyone aware of any progress on the TOD plan around the Ohio City rapid station, specifically the Pizza Hut plaza on W25/Lorain?

http://www.cleveland.com/architecture/index.ssf/2013/06/a_new_rta_plan_for_transit-ori.html

http://www.dimitarchitects.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=154&Itemid=60

 

The article linked has an architectural rendering of 200+ residential units in residential-over-retail touching the Ohio City W25 station. I've only heard of a growing trend for Ohio City / Tremont lately.

 

Sometimes I think RTA was more interested in it than the property owner was. The current use is undersized for the potential of that site. Perhaps 3231[/member] can provide an update.

 

Off-topic. Why isn't there much development on the East side of W25 between Detroit and the CMHA tower? Unstable soil? Land acquisition? Area in transition? I could see Ohio City's W25th being densely built with multi-story residential-over-retail, between Lorain/Detroit. Perhaps, Lutheran Hospital could give up some parking, or move their parking, and put some buildings at street level.

 

Unstable hillside. It could be built upon if caissons were sunk 200 down to bedrock, but that's very expensive and would take a big building (25+ stories) to justify it.

^Wrong!  There is a significant, mostly black work-class section in the southwestern corner of Shaker Hts.  Shaker has historically promoted diversity and, in the late 1960s, it (and Chicago's Oak Park) were the first American cities to actually implement voluntary busing-- that is, Shaker leaders and wealthy Shaker residence, didn't like the fact that some schools were too white and some, too black, so they undertook busing throughout all the Shaker schools to achieve a balance... And did I mention that Shaker schools have always been seen as among the  area's best.  Yes, they've dropped a little in recent years, but are still near the top in Greater Cleveland, esp when you consider college placement, SAT scores and numbers of National Merit Scholars. 

Maple Heights did something like that too, when Broadway Elementary closed.  While open it had virtually all the black students.  This was at the behest of the superintendent, and not very popular within the city. 

 

But in retrospect all it really proved was that race is not culture.  The impact was nothing like Cleveland's. 

Honestly I think it will be really hard to redevelop that plaza.  It's full of rent paying tenants, it's a fairly new building, it has its own parking.  Someone would have to empty out all those tenants they already have and are making money off of in order to go through an expensive, difficult, risk-laden redevelopment process.  Wouldn't the owner of that building, even if they are interested in doing actual development and not just being a landlord, be better off deploying those assets into a piece of property that isn't generating money already? 

 

Wouldn't we as a city and community be better off focusing our attention and resources on our many, many vacant lots and buildings instead of on fully functioning buildings just because we don't like them?

Here's another TOD, this one to bring ridership to the end of the Waterfront Line. In fact, this isn't too different from the Burke and Muny Lot conceptual land use plans OK'd by the Planning Commission. The only major difference is that I've rerouted the Waterfront Line to the north side of the Muny Lot so it gain can elevation to climb over the NS rail line to reach Davenport Bluffs and then extend south on East 17th, which I would turn into a dedicated rail/bus transit and bike corridor. I would extend East 18th north to an at-grade intersection with the Shoreway and North Marginal Road, crossing above the rail lines and South Marginal Road. The Lakefront plan has a couple of at-grade intersections with the Shoreway, including an East 15th Street (or thereabouts). Another benefit of rerouting the Waterfront Line around the north side of the Muny Lot development is that it would put in between the residential towers to the south and Geis' Burke office district to the north, thereby providing a more diverse ridership base. And it would provide rail access for employees and travelers to Burke Lakefront Airport!

 

munylot-burke-waterfronttod by Ken Prendergast, on Flickr

Honestly I think it will be really hard to redevelop that plaza.  It's full of rent paying tenants, it's a fairly new building, it has its own parking.  Someone would have to empty out all those tenants they already have and are making money off of in order to go through an expensive, difficult, risk-laden redevelopment process.  Wouldn't the owner of that building, even if they are interested in doing actual development and not just being a landlord, be better off deploying those assets into a piece of property that isn't generating money already? 

 

Wouldn't we as a city and community be better off focusing our attention and resources on our many, many vacant lots and buildings instead of on fully functioning buildings just because we don't like them?

 

The focus on this development is its location adjacent to the W 25th Street Rapid Station.  There are plenty of vacant lots to develop, of course, but the proximity to the Rapid here is the idea. 

 

One assumption being made is that all of these TOD rely on residents using transit and just the occasional sport event etc. but daily use for work etc.  Not sure about the benefits of any of these TOD given Cleveland's lackluster transit use, especially the rapid transit system.

Land use within 1000 feet of each transit station is one of the most influential factors on the usage of a given transit system.

 

FYI: 60 percent of trips made on Cleveland's transit system, including the Rapid, are "commute" trips to/from work or school.

Land use within 1000 feet of each transit station is one of the most influential factors on the usage of a given transit system.

 

FYI: 60 percent of trips made on Cleveland's transit system, including the Rapid, are "commute" trips to/from work or school.

 

I would have guessed higher.

 

I'd suspect they amount to 80% of rider-miles, or more.  Also, if one run errands at the beginning or end of the trip, does it still count as a "commute" trip?

Without knowing more about its origin, not sure I have much confidence in the accuracy of a stat like that for RTA. RTA can't even report it's average weekday ridership for various modes/lines to APTA.

Without knowing more about its origin, not sure I have much confidence in the accuracy of a stat like that for RTA. RTA can't even report it's average weekday ridership for various modes/lines to APTA.

 

To quote Bill Belichick, "I can only go by what I see." :)

Without knowing more about its origin, not sure I have much confidence in the accuracy of a stat like that for RTA. RTA can't even report it's average weekday ridership for various modes/lines to APTA.

 

Exactly.  I would suspect it's really higher, like 80%.  Though if you count a one mile trip to the store as equal to a 15 mile commute trip, the number is more feasible.  Especially if "trip" means the entire journey counted once regardless of transfers.

 

Numbers are fun things and if you restrict access to the base information you can make them say anything you want without really even being dishonest.

RTA uses the 60 percent figure to demonstrate to policymakers the crucial role that RTA plays in the region's economy -- and why it deserves more funding. So if the number was actually closer to 80 percent, I think RTA would be using it.

That presumes RTA knows the actual share. They might. But they also might be relying on a poorly administered survey from, like, 10 years ago. I'm not generally cynical about "numbers" like Erocc, just sensitive to possible quality deficiencies based on the method of collection.

 

More generally, RTA is fairly opaque when it comes to data. There's almost no ridership data on their website. We can all see the aggregate ridership by mode they report to APTA and they tweet out occasional good news, but they don't post any ridership data by route, station, or weekday vs weekend. I mean, I get it to some extent, their resources are stretched, POP is hard to track, and their payment equipment is garbage, but it does limit public discourse.

^RTA is probably the only big city transit agency without APTA weekday figures. There's got to be ways to get accurate passenger estimates despite POP, which several transit systems use and, yet, still report weekday numbers.

 

I don't get PHS14's negative prognostication for TOD at all.  TOD is the way to go for RTA, and it must be working even in it's limited existence here to date.  Overall rail numbers have been climbing after the collapse of the late 80s through early 2000s.  I have only eyeball evidence, but even while downtown employment is still depressed, it appears that non-commuting rail patronage is up, such as "entertainment" and sports venue trips.

 

 

^RTA's overall rail numbers in 2014 (the last full year reported to APTA) were almost identical to what they were in 1996, the earliest year APTA reports. At least over the past two decades, there's been no upward trend, just growth/collapse in line with the economic cycles.

 

I do think there's something to sports/event ridership as a factor, though. I bet it's still lower now than it was 15 years ago in light of the Tribe's attendance issues, but it could help explain a counter-intuitively high share of trips taken for non-work/school purposes.

^Even if the overall rail numbers were the same from 1996 to 2014, there was likely a shift away from home-to-downtown commuting, if anything, because the number of jobs downtown have fallen since then.  Also the growth in restaurants and entertainment venues had grown sharply in 3 rail-accessible districts since then: downtown, Ohio City and University Circle by 2014 (and even more in the 2 years since).  None of these 3 districts had anywhere close to the venues they had in 2014, and  certainly not what they are, today, even if you factor in the loss of the go-go era Flats venues, esp along the Old River Road East Bank corridor vs. today (where a comeback of sorts is occurring).  This would likely mean that this non-commuting uptick not confined to just sports (where in 1996: the Browns had left/were at zero rail trips; the Indians were selling out every game and the Cavs were mediocre with attendance likely way below today in the championship chase/LeBron II era).

^The confounding factor is that the bus system has been gutted over that period. You could be right that entertainment riders have been making up for lost commuters, but it could also be a shift of bus riders to rail as RTA has cut routes (this isn't a good thing; overall RTA ridership is down sharply since 1996). I'm not really arguing one way or another, just that I'm not sure how good the data really is.

No, you're right, the bus-to-rail shift has undoubtedly has been a major factor, too.  In the Euclid Ave corridor, alone, the number of bus lines (and bus runs) has declined sharply in that era -- I believe there's only the HL and the #8 bus on Carnegie, the latter of which (IIRC) may be reduced to only weekday, daytime-only service, if the cuts for this line go through.  The busy 32s and 9 buses from Cleveland Heights and beyond to the eastern suburbs now terminate in Univ. Circle or at the Clinic and no longer go downtown, thus forcing commuters to either transfer to the Rapid or the HL to complete their downtown trips.  And radial bus lines have disappeared totally from streets like Woodland Ave, on the East Side, and Bridge Ave, on the West Side ... among others.  No doubt many of the riders left in the wake started walking to Rapid stops.

What is considered the optimal distance someone would need to be to a transit stop to use it?  I see someone here mentioned 1000 feet. RTA at the hearing today mentioned 1/2 mile as a reasonable distance to walk. Does there need to be north-south as well as east-west for optional usage?

^RTA is probably the only big city transit agency without APTA weekday figures. There's got to be ways to get accurate passenger estimates despite POP, which several transit systems use and, yet, still report weekday numbers.

 

I don't get PHS14's negative prognostication for TOD at all.  TOD is the way to go for RTA, and it must be working even in it's limited existence here to date.  Overall rail numbers have been climbing after the collapse of the late 80s through early 2000s.  I have only eyeball evidence, but even while downtown employment is still depressed, it appears that non-commuting rail patronage is up, such as "entertainment" and sports venue trips.

 

I don't have a negative prognostication for TOD.  However, with the decline in downtown employment and jobs sprawl throughout the metro area, into the Akron metro as well, TOD on RTA lines, especially the Rapid, assumes that residents will be going downtown to work.  Akin to the Shaker Rapid lines from 1913 and even the initial Red Line route in 1950s.  That's not the case any longer as RTA ridership, especially the rail service, shows.

 

Entertainment and sports venue trips certainly help but will not carry a rail line; daily commuters do.  It also helps to have good sports teams with lots of fans using transit. 

 

There certainly is limited to zero actual TOD in Cleveland.

There certainly is limited to zero actual TOD in Cleveland.

 

Wow. You really don't let a lack information get in the way of sharing an opinion, do you?

 

Most of the land use in the cities of Cleveland, Lakewood, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Hts were designed as TODs to maximize transit use. Shaker Square is used in urban planning textbooks nationwide as one of America's preeminent examples of TOD. And if you want something more recent, Uptown won the top Silver score from Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in competing against projects worldwide.

https://www.itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/transit-oriented-development-are-you-on-the-map/best-practices/

There certainly is limited to zero actual TOD in Cleveland.

 

Wow. You really don't let a lack information get in the way of sharing an opinion, do you?

 

Most of the land use in the cities of Cleveland, Lakewood, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Hts were designed as TODs to maximize transit use. Shaker Square is used in urban planning textbooks nationwide as one of America's preeminent examples of TOD. And if you want something more recent, Uptown won the top Silver score from Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in competing against projects worldwide.

https://www.itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/transit-oriented-development-are-you-on-the-map/best-practices/

 

Wow, you really don't let the facts get in the way of sharing an opinion either.  All your TOD quotes have somehow led to a 60% drop in RTA ridership since its peak.  Everyone knows that the Shaker Hts lines, Shaker Square etc were all that 100 years ago, before Americans got in their cars.  Of course development back then was oriented around rail and streetcar lines.

 

Was Uptown built specifically because of the Red Line or HealthLine?  Or did Uptown garner its award after the fact?

 

 

 

The answers to your misconceptions can't be answered in a forum posting. Please read "Getting There - The epic struggle between road and rail in the American century."

The answers to your misconceptions can't be answered in a forum posting. Please read "Getting There - The epic struggle between road and rail in the American century."

 

I'm more interested in Cleveland's epic struggle to get real, and current, TOD. 

Sorry, but to quote the famous philosopher Mick Jagger, You Can't Always Get What You Want. The answer isn't limited to Cleveland, or even Ohio.

 

Maybe a a really cool picture will help?

 

The "cycle of car-dependency" & public policies that subsidize suburban #sprawl @LitmanVTPI http://t.co/NaOSHYaBDJ

 

Sorry, but to quote the famous philosopher Mick Jagger, You Can't Always Get What You Want. The answer isn't limited to Cleveland, or even Ohio.

 

Maybe a a really cool picture will help?

 

The "cycle of car-dependency" & public policies that subsidize suburban #sprawl @LitmanVTPI http://t.co/NaOSHYaBDJ http://t.co/PtiIUkO5B6

 

The answer in this thread should be limited to Cleveland since this is a Cleveland thread in UrbanOHIO.  One definitely can't get the Cleveland TOD any of us wants...and the political leadership we need. 

The answer in this thread should be limited to Cleveland since this is a Cleveland thread in UrbanOHIO.  One definitely can't get the Cleveland TOD any of us wants...and the political leadership we need. 

 

"OK doctor, this is a diabetes forum. Don't waste my time talking about obesity, poor diet, lack of exercise and genetics. Just tell me what's the cure for diabetes."

There certainly is limited to zero actual TOD in Cleveland.

 

Wow. You really don't let a lack information get in the way of sharing an opinion, do you?

 

Most of the land use in the cities of Cleveland, Lakewood, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Hts were designed as TODs to maximize transit use. Shaker Square is used in urban planning textbooks nationwide as one of America's preeminent examples of TOD. And if you want something more recent, Uptown won the top Silver score from Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in competing against projects worldwide.

https://www.itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/transit-oriented-development-are-you-on-the-map/best-practices/

 

What I'm getting from his comments is that the TOD of last century isn't really cutting it as employment patterns have changed, and RTA is still clinging to the old patterns.  I would disagree with this assessment to a point as we are seeing University Circle-Cleveland Clinic (the second biggest employment concentration in this area) becoming a mini-hub of sorts for the 32/9 et al. 

 

However, RTA still overstates the importance of downtown in the overall picture, and I would suspect that is due to bureaucratic inertia and a lack of competition than any set policy.  There's still quite a bit of redundancy on some of the routes between natural hub points and downtown.  The Shaker Rapid leads the pack in this regard, both lines don't really need to go downtown and a direct rail connection between Shaker Square and UC/CC has more potential than anything else in town with the possible exception of the Lakeview Terrace site.

A well-designed transit line runs quickly to the densest parts of the city.  https://t.co/8X12CuodDJ

Maybe the concept should include transit oriented toward existing development, like that line of industrial stuff from Solon to Hudson, or south from the airport past UPS into Strongsville's industrial sector.  There's also Concord to the NE.  And those aren't jobs for BRT at all.  A region this sprawled needs commuter rail.  Instead we're going to widen that 271/480 stretch till it reaches LA proportions.

There certainly is limited to zero actual TOD in Cleveland.

 

Wow. You really don't let a lack information get in the way of sharing an opinion, do you?

 

Most of the land use in the cities of Cleveland, Lakewood, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Hts were designed as TODs to maximize transit use. Shaker Square is used in urban planning textbooks nationwide as one of America's preeminent examples of TOD. And if you want something more recent, Uptown won the top Silver score from Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in competing against projects worldwide.

https://www.itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/transit-oriented-development-are-you-on-the-map/best-practices/

 

What I'm getting from his comments is that the TOD of last century isn't really cutting it as employment patterns have changed, and RTA is still clinging to the old patterns.  I would disagree with this assessment to a point as we are seeing University Circle-Cleveland Clinic (the second biggest employment concentration in this area) becoming a mini-hub of sorts for the 32/9 et al. 

 

However, RTA still overstates the importance of downtown in the overall picture, and I would suspect that is due to bureaucratic inertia and a lack of competition than any set policy.  There's still quite a bit of redundancy on some of the routes between natural hub points and downtown.  The Shaker Rapid leads the pack in this regard, both lines don't really need to go downtown and a direct rail connection between Shaker Square and UC/CC has more potential than anything else in town with the possible exception of the Lakeview Terrace site.

 

Technically, RTA does run 2 Shaker Lines into Tower City downtown.  But in actuality, it runs 2, 1/2 lines into downtown, with each running on 30 minute base intervals, and the combined service (on the Shaker Sq.-to-TC segment) every 15 minutes, or the equivalent to the base service on the Red and Waterfront Lines.

The answer in this thread should be limited to Cleveland since this is a Cleveland thread in UrbanOHIO.  One definitely can't get the Cleveland TOD any of us wants...and the political leadership we need. 

 

"OK doctor, this is a diabetes forum. Don't waste my time talking about obesity, poor diet, lack of exercise and genetics. Just tell me what's the cure for diabetes."

 

Misplaced analogy.

There certainly is limited to zero actual TOD in Cleveland.

 

Wow. You really don't let a lack information get in the way of sharing an opinion, do you?

 

Most of the land use in the cities of Cleveland, Lakewood, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Hts were designed as TODs to maximize transit use. Shaker Square is used in urban planning textbooks nationwide as one of America's preeminent examples of TOD. And if you want something more recent, Uptown won the top Silver score from Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in competing against projects worldwide.

https://www.itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/transit-oriented-development-are-you-on-the-map/best-practices/

 

What I'm getting from his comments is that the TOD of last century isn't really cutting it as employment patterns have changed, and RTA is still clinging to the old patterns.  I would disagree with this assessment to a point as we are seeing University Circle-Cleveland Clinic (the second biggest employment concentration in this area) becoming a mini-hub of sorts for the 32/9 et al. 

 

However, RTA still overstates the importance of downtown in the overall picture, and I would suspect that is due to bureaucratic inertia and a lack of competition than any set policy.  There's still quite a bit of redundancy on some of the routes between natural hub points and downtown.  The Shaker Rapid leads the pack in this regard, both lines don't really need to go downtown and a direct rail connection between Shaker Square and UC/CC has more potential than anything else in town with the possible exception of the Lakeview Terrace site.

 

University Circle isn't developing because of transit, certainly not the Red Line.  The HealthLine is a nice complement but the growth in UC is not because of transit.  I don't see or read any promos for transit with Uptown or UC in general.  Same thing with Flats East Bank.  Transit is there, for now, but wasn't even running full time when the project was announced and opened several years later.  Now the WFL is on the ropes again.  The WFL, like most of the Red Line, is routed poorly.

 

Cleveland continues to sprawl so much that Akron has become a separate metro.  The real problem is the thinning population with the sprawl and the declining population in particular.

 

Jobs and new people are the answer to all these transit dreams.

The answer in this thread should be limited to Cleveland since this is a Cleveland thread in UrbanOHIO.  One definitely can't get the Cleveland TOD any of us wants...and the political leadership we need. 

 

"OK doctor, this is a diabetes forum. Don't waste my time talking about obesity, poor diet, lack of exercise and genetics. Just tell me what's the cure for diabetes."

 

Misplaced analogy.

 

The forces shaping sprawl extend to Columbus and Washington DC and go back more than 100 years through numerous corporate and public policy missteps, as well as changing personal preferences. If Cleveland was the only city experiencing no-growth sprawl, we could limit the discussion only to Cleveland. That's why I encouraged you to read that book I suggested.

 

University Circle isn't developing because of transit, certainly not the Red Line.  The HealthLine is a nice complement but the growth in UC is not because of transit.  I don't see or read any promos for transit with Uptown or UC in general.  Same thing with Flats East Bank.  Transit is there, for now, but wasn't even running full time when the project was announced and opened several years later.  Now the WFL is on the ropes again.  The WFL, like most of the Red Line, is routed poorly.

 

Cleveland continues to sprawl so much that Akron has become a separate metro.  The real problem is the thinning population with the sprawl and the declining population in particular.

 

Jobs and new people are the answer to all these transit dreams.

 

Huh?    Cleveland and Akron are sprawling into each other.  I live halfway between them and see it every day.  Unlike many here, I don't have a problem with sprawl in general, it represents people's personal preferences as much as anything else.  But that's what's happening.

 

You're right about the Red Line, especially how it basically bypasses Cleveland Clinic.  The question needs to be, does the transit serve the development, or vice versa.  That's a mission-statement-level strategic consideration of the regional powers that be as a whole.

 

Right now GCRTA falls in the middle and does neither well.

Huh?    Cleveland and Akron are sprawling into each other.  I live halfway between them and see it every day.  Unlike many here, I don't have a problem with sprawl in general, it represents people's personal

 

And that "anything else" represents significant governmental intervention that externalizes the costs of sprawl to others, including onto poor people isolated by it. That's what new investments in modern TOD can address -- putting jobs and opportunity (and even affordable housing) within reach of people whether they have a car or not.

^

There certainly is limited to zero actual TOD in Cleveland.

 

Most of the land use in the cities of Cleveland, Lakewood, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Hts were designed as TODs to maximize transit use. Shaker Square is used in urban planning textbooks nationwide as one of America's preeminent examples of TOD. And if you want something more recent, Uptown won the top Silver score from Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in competing against projects worldwide.

https://www.itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/transit-oriented-development-are-you-on-the-map/best-practices/

 

What I'm getting from his comments is that the TOD of last century isn't really cutting it as employment patterns have changed, and RTA is still clinging to the old patterns.  I would disagree with this assessment to a point as we are seeing University Circle-Cleveland Clinic (the second biggest employment concentration in this area) becoming a mini-hub of sorts for the 32/9 et al. 

 

However, RTA still overstates the importance of downtown in the overall picture, and I would suspect that is due to bureaucratic inertia and a lack of competition than any set policy.  There's still quite a bit of redundancy on some of the routes between natural hub points and downtown.  The Shaker Rapid leads the pack in this regard, both lines don't really need to go downtown and a direct rail connection between Shaker Square and UC/CC has more potential than anything else in town with the possible exception of the Lakeview Terrace site.

 

University Circle isn't developing because of transit, certainly not the Red Line.  The HealthLine is a nice complement but the growth in UC is not because of transit.  I don't see or read any promos for transit with Uptown or UC in general.  Same thing with Flats East Bank.  Transit is there, for now, but wasn't even running full time when the project was announced and opened several years later.  Now the WFL is on the ropes again.  The WFL, like most of the Red Line, is routed poorly.

 

Cleveland continues to sprawl so much that Akron has become a separate metro.  The real problem is the thinning population with the sprawl and the declining population in particular.

 

Jobs and new people are the answer to all these transit dreams.

 

Does it matter so much as to whether Flats East Bank was built because of the WFL or that it is easily served by it?  ... or that if the answer is the former, this necessarily makes the WFL a failure and not worth continuing?  And can you even prove that FEB wasn't at all influenced by the existence of the WFL?  Is it not irrelevant that if, at the time FEB was announced, the WFL wasn't even running full time as you note -- and if, btw, you're right, don't you think that the absence of a development like an FEB (for your purposes, I won't even call it TOD) helped contribute to the WFL's struggling, part-time operation/condition at the time?

 

.. Btw I totally disagree with your premise that University Circle's current thriving situation is not at least, in part, influenced by its accessibility to high-quality, high-capacity mass transit.

In fact, cities cannot achieve greater prosperity and vibrancy without quality mass transit and land use policies tied together. And that is a major reason why cities like Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit, St. Louis and others have such high rates of crime, poverty, abandonment, blight and unemployment. And it's why cities like Portland, Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal do not. I wish I could cite more US cities, but Americans tend to view smart growth land use policies as contrary to a higher priority to individual rights of private property ownership.

In fact, cities cannot achieve greater prosperity and vibrancy without quality mass transit and land use policies tied together. And that is a major reason why cities like Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit, St. Louis and others have such high rates of crime, poverty, abandonment, blight and unemployment. And it's why cities like Portland, Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal do not. I wish I could cite more US cities, but Americans tend to view smart growth land use policies as contrary to a higher priority to individual rights of private property ownership.

 

Yes.  We do. 

 

Indeed, the idea that the owner of a piece of property has more say-so over its use than the government and/or some semi-arbitrary "planner" is a basic principle of our system and has been pretty much since this nation was founded.

 

it may make it more challenging for planners, but...

The answer in this thread should be limited to Cleveland since this is a Cleveland thread in UrbanOHIO.  One definitely can't get the Cleveland TOD any of us wants...and the political leadership we need. 

 

"OK doctor, this is a diabetes forum. Don't waste my time talking about obesity, poor diet, lack of exercise and genetics. Just tell me what's the cure for diabetes."

 

Misplaced analogy.

 

The forces shaping sprawl extend to Columbus and Washington DC and go back more than 100 years through numerous corporate and public policy missteps, as well as changing personal preferences. If Cleveland was the only city experiencing no-growth sprawl, we could limit the discussion only to Cleveland. That's why I encouraged you to read that book I suggested.

 

No, I don't need anymore of your book referrals.  Sprawl goes on in many places; Cleveland's current problem is a lack of new infill residents.  The area is thinning out.

 

University Circle isn't developing because of transit, certainly not the Red Line.  The HealthLine is a nice complement but the growth in UC is not because of transit.  I don't see or read any promos for transit with Uptown or UC in general.  Same thing with Flats East Bank.  Transit is there, for now, but wasn't even running full time when the project was announced and opened several years later.  Now the WFL is on the ropes again.  The WFL, like most of the Red Line, is routed poorly.

 

Cleveland continues to sprawl so much that Akron has become a separate metro.  The real problem is the thinning population with the sprawl and the declining population in particular.

 

Jobs and new people are the answer to all these transit dreams.

 

Huh?    Cleveland and Akron are sprawling into each other.  I live halfway between them and see it every day.  Unlike many here, I don't have a problem with sprawl in general, it represents people's personal preferences as much as anything else.  But that's what's happening.

 

You're right about the Red Line, especially how it basically bypasses Cleveland Clinic.  The question needs to be, does the transit serve the development, or vice versa.  That's a mission-statement-level strategic consideration of the regional powers that be as a whole.

 

Right now GCRTA falls in the middle and does neither well.

 

Akron has separated from the Cleveland metro.  Used to be Cleve-Akr metro of almost 3 million people.  The problem with NEO sprawl is there is no population growth to infill the sprawl.

No, I don't need anymore of your book referrals.  Sprawl goes on in many places; Cleveland's current problem is a lack of new infill residents.  The area is thinning out.

 

Then please stop offering opinions that weren't earned (including that one about a lack of infill residents).

 

Cleveland is a MSA. Akron is a MSA. Both are still part of the Clevleand-Akron CSA as is Canton now: http://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/econ/ec2012/csa/EC2012_330M200US184M.pdf

 

You sure are high-maintenance. When am I up for tenure?

^

There certainly is limited to zero actual TOD in Cleveland.

 

Most of the land use in the cities of Cleveland, Lakewood, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Hts were designed as TODs to maximize transit use. Shaker Square is used in urban planning textbooks nationwide as one of America's preeminent examples of TOD. And if you want something more recent, Uptown won the top Silver score from Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in competing against projects worldwide.

https://www.itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/transit-oriented-development-are-you-on-the-map/best-practices/

 

What I'm getting from his comments is that the TOD of last century isn't really cutting it as employment patterns have changed, and RTA is still clinging to the old patterns.  I would disagree with this assessment to a point as we are seeing University Circle-Cleveland Clinic (the second biggest employment concentration in this area) becoming a mini-hub of sorts for the 32/9 et al. 

 

However, RTA still overstates the importance of downtown in the overall picture, and I would suspect that is due to bureaucratic inertia and a lack of competition than any set policy.  There's still quite a bit of redundancy on some of the routes between natural hub points and downtown.  The Shaker Rapid leads the pack in this regard, both lines don't really need to go downtown and a direct rail connection between Shaker Square and UC/CC has more potential than anything else in town with the possible exception of the Lakeview Terrace site.

 

University Circle isn't developing because of transit, certainly not the Red Line.  The HealthLine is a nice complement but the growth in UC is not because of transit.  I don't see or read any promos for transit with Uptown or UC in general.  Same thing with Flats East Bank.  Transit is there, for now, but wasn't even running full time when the project was announced and opened several years later.  Now the WFL is on the ropes again.  The WFL, like most of the Red Line, is routed poorly.

 

Cleveland continues to sprawl so much that Akron has become a separate metro.  The real problem is the thinning population with the sprawl and the declining population in particular.

 

Jobs and new people are the answer to all these transit dreams.

 

Does it matter so much as to whether Flats East Bank was built because of the WFL or that it is easily served by it?  ... or that if the answer is the former, this necessarily makes the WFL a failure and not worth continuing?  And can you even prove that FEB wasn't at all influenced by the existence of the WFL?  Is it not irrelevant that if, at the time FEB was announced, the WFL wasn't even running full time as you note -- and if, btw, you're right, don't you think that the absence of a development like an FEB (for your purposes, I won't even call it TOD) helped contribute to the WFL's struggling, part-time operation/condition at the time?

 

.. Btw I totally disagree with your premise that University Circle's current thriving situation is not at least, in part, influenced by its accessibility to high-quality, high-capacity mass transit.

 

For starters, FEB was never promoted for its access to the WFL at all and still isn't even though the WFL line is running again.  At the time of FEB announcement the WFL was reduced to stadium events and paltry weekend service I believe.  FEB is not tied in with the WFL.  Where would the patrons and residents go on the WFL anyway?  Too inconvenient for regular use.

 

Never said UC patrons and residents don't use transit.  Again, Uptown and UC do not promote transit access.

 

When is Cleveland going to have a developer announce that a project is happening because of transit access? 

 

Current TOD standards can be a bus line.  Not too hard to avoid being TOD otherwise.  Is the 515 Euclid project going in because of the HealthLine?  No, of course not.  Is the lakefront harbor and Rock Hall being developed because of the WFL? Nope.

 

The Ped Bridge will eliminate the need to use the WFL to reach the lakefront for downtown visitors.  Where would they go as well?  Back to the bowels of Tower City?

 

 

Huh?    Cleveland and Akron are sprawling into each other.  I live halfway between them and see it every day.  Unlike many here, I don't have a problem with sprawl in general, it represents people's personal

 

And that "anything else" represents significant governmental intervention that externalizes the costs of sprawl to others, including onto poor people isolated by it. That's what new investments in modern TOD can address -- putting jobs and opportunity (and even affordable housing) within reach of people whether they have a car or not.

 

Cleveland needs jobs and population to create real TOD.  You can reference all the history books you want about railways, roads, cars etc. but Cleveland needs real jobs to attract people.

You've got it backwards. Cleveland needs TOD to create jobs. Young people move to quality places that offer low-mileage lifestyles, then they look for jobs.

 

Which developments were influenced by transit if not caused by it? Start with Tower City Center redevelopment. Along the Waterfront Line, the investors in the National Terminals Building (now The Archer), The Bingham, Crittenden Court, Kirkham Place Townhouses and a number of restaurants in the mid-1990s all stated that the Waterfront Line was the leading factor in them investing there. The Waterfront Line was projected to carry 600,000 riders per year. Instead it carried twice that in its first year. As the Flats declined, so did the WFL.

 

There are simply too many projects to list. But some of them are listed here as is Cleveland's proficiency in leading in this area:

http://www.urbancincy.com/2015/08/beyond-downtown-clevelands-rta-rebuild-spurring-new-development/

http://www.pps.org/projects/designing-clevelands-first-tod-project-at-e-120th-st-station/

http://www.progressiverailroading.com/passenger_rail/news/New-Cleveland-station-boosts-transit-oriented-development-plan--46847

http://activetrans.org/blog/bus-rapid-transit-can-be-successful-usa

http://urbanscale.com/blog/how-your-city-can-succeed-in-transit-oriented-development/

 

Take care.

For starters, FEB was never promoted for its access to the WFL at all and still isn't even though the WFL line is running again.  At the time of FEB announcement the WFL was reduced to stadium events and paltry weekend service I believe. 

 

That's not true.  FEB was first announced near the end of the Campbell administration in 2005.  At that time, the WFL was running full service.  It wasn't reduced to part time service (weekends and special events; see link, below) until 2010, but was restored to 7-day/week service on May 30, 2013, around the time the E&Y/Aloft Hotel portion of FEB opened.

 

http://www.riderta.com/news/may-30-waterfront-line-opens-seven-days-week

You've got it backwards. Cleveland needs TOD to create jobs. Young people move to quality places that offer low-mileage lifestyles, then they look for jobs.

 

Which developments were influenced by transit if not caused by it? Start with Tower City Center redevelopment. Along the Waterfront Line, the investors in the National Terminals Building (now The Archer), The Bingham, Crittenden Court, Kirkham Place Townhouses and a number of restaurants in the mid-1990s all stated that the Waterfront Line was the leading factor in them investing there. The Waterfront Line was projected to carry 600,000 riders per year. Instead it carried twice that in its first year. As the Flats declined, so did the WFL.

 

There are simply too many projects to list. But some of them are listed here as is Cleveland's proficiency in leading in this area:

http://www.urbancincy.com/2015/08/beyond-downtown-clevelands-rta-rebuild-spurring-new-development/

http://www.pps.org/projects/designing-clevelands-first-tod-project-at-e-120th-st-station/

http://www.progressiverailroading.com/passenger_rail/news/New-Cleveland-station-boosts-transit-oriented-development-plan--46847

http://activetrans.org/blog/bus-rapid-transit-can-be-successful-usa

http://urbanscale.com/blog/how-your-city-can-succeed-in-transit-oriented-development/

 

Take care.

 

Sorry, but, for example, of the 3Cs in Ohio, Cleveland has the best transit and is not seeing the job and population growth that Columbus has had and now Cincinnati is starting to see.  COL and CIN has dismal to barely any public transit yet Cleveland, with its great transit options, was just named the most distressed U.S. City, worse off than Detroit.

 

Where are people like Congresswomen Fudge?  She has some of the poorest most distressed zip codes in the country.  Where is her pull on creating jobs and transit?  Then Cleveland serves up someone like Dr. Valarie McCall, the honorary CSU PhD that actually uses the ''Doctor'' title but doesn't use public transit.  She's the City mouthpiece with RTA and serves on its Board and was idiotic enough to state that she just noticed the trash on the Airport-Tower City segment of the Red Line last year.  Translation: I've never been on the Rapid to or from the Airport before and am only on it now because of the decades old garbage pile-up and the RNC.  Yet somehow she's making informed transit decisions for transit users.

 

You should have her job.

 

Also, the cited examples include, TOD at the E 120th Street Station (now closed) and, despite the WHD developments, the WFL closed.  The apartments and people stayed but the transit line didn't.  The WFL is still attracting riders from the WHD to justify its continued existence.  As you point out, the WFL went the way of the Flats; all the train riding boozers left.  Has anyone mentioned the poor routing of the WFL?

 

Where are the jobs?  The project adjacent to the new Little Italy Station may be proceeding, without commercial portion; new residents, but no jobs.