Spent the afternoon downtown wandering - enjoy.

 

 

Great timing with the sailboat - I ran across the park to get it :)

 

 

 

 

I am beginning to like the art installation here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is the sign for the Visitor Center one of those lighted ticker styles?

Yes, it has scrolling information, ticker-style.

Nice!

Nice pics!

Great photos of the Capital of Cuyahoga County!

I really liked the pics but you know what makes me sad?  Such a beautiful day...and the city looks deserted.

 

The city need to find more reasons to get people downtown on the weekends.   Maybe if parking was more welcoming...

"Maybe if parking was more welcoming..."

 

Yeah... more welcoming parking... lord knows that more welcoming parking will get people downtown on the weekends!!!

 

???

Maybe if parking was more welcoming...

 

Are you serious??  Do you realize what you've said and the type of people you've said that "infront" of?

 

The city looks fine as the architecture is the subject not people.  I wonder what time of day these photos were taken.  that could be an indication as to the light foot traffic.

Never mind the fact that parking meters don't need to be fed after 6pm or on weekends (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

Oh and note - it's the CITY not making parking welcoming, not the parking lot owners. I mean, can't the city just force parking lot owners not to charge on weekends? :roll:

 

 

Yeesh, give the guy a break. He did say "Maybe".

 

People are pouncing like rabid bobcats around here lately.

 

P.S. Nice pics!

Sorry - it's just that people have been posting some inane and absurd ideas (remember, they had planned to demolish the Playhouse Square theatres to make parking "more welcoming") lately. I don't know if it's the humidity and dewpoint dropping IQ points or what, and I fully admit I've been one of the main pouncers but

 

There are certain truths that people need to comprehend and one of them is that Cleveland doesn't need more parking/auto-centric design. When I hear people suggest things like "more parking", I feel that 1. they need to learn and 2. we need to teach them. If people want ample welcoming parking - it's called Wal-Mart. If they want a vibrant neighborhood, the tradeoff is that parking isn't easy to find (see Little Italy, or portions of Ohio City and Tremont).

 

To get back on topic, on a Sunday afternoon (when JeffreyT took the pics) it's not likely that you'll see heavy pedestrian traffic on certain downtown streets like East 9th (except for the lakefront - note the Goodtime III crowd), or the areas just to the east of the CBD (until Avenue District is built out). Last month some friends and I grabbed lunch on a Sunday at Waterstreet Grille on West 9th and the sidewalks had plenty of people.

^"On a Sunday afternoon...it's not likely that you'll see heavy pedestrian traffic on certain downtown streets like East 9th (except for the lakefront...)"

 

This only makes sense.  It is the heart of the financial district which at that time is loaded silly with closed banks, law firms and investment firms.

 

I would imagine that if you took pictures on LaSalle Street in Chicago on the same day you would have also noticed a lack of pedestrians, while streets like Michigan Avenue and areas towards the lake would have been booming. 

^"On a Sunday afternoon...it's not likely that you'll see heavy pedestrian traffic on certain downtown streets like East 9th (except for the lakefront...)"

 

This only makes sense.  It is the heart of the financial district which at that time is loaded silly with closed banks, law firms and investment firms.

 

I would imagine that if you took pictures on LaSalle Street in Chicago on the same day you would have also noticed a lack of pedestrians, while streets like Michigan Avenue and areas towards the lake would have been booming. 

Agreed.  I usually stay at a hotel on west Adams between LaSalle and Wells if i don't stay on Michigan Ave. when in Chicago and that area is dead after 5 PM and on weekends. You can hear crickets!

A good chunk of those pictures were taken between 11am & 1pm on Sunday - when I figure that most people were still recovering from an awesome Saturday night ;)

 

I then spent a couple hours inside the Great Lakes Science Center & the Trolleyville Museum, and there was a very large crowd down on the lakefront because of the Grand Prix - however I avoided people in my pictures because I was trying to focus on the city.....I even asked a couple to move once :)

Never mind the fact that parking meters don't need to be fed after 6pm or on weekends (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

Oh and note - it's the CITY not making parking welcoming, not the parking lot owners. I mean, can't the city just force parking lot owners not to charge on weekends? :roll:

 

Well, the Muni lot is far and away the largest lot downtown and if I'm not mistaken the train line covers it.  People unwilling to take RTA all the way from home due to time and safety concerns might be willing to use that. 

 

Might be worth a shot some summer weekend especially if the Indians are out of town.

 

Parking is always going to be an issue because no matter what one does to promote transit, people-in-general prefer private transportation for trips more than a few minutes and less than a few hours long.

Very nice...I can always go for more Cleveland pics!

Parking is always going to be an issue because no matter what one does to promote transit, people-in-general prefer private transportation for trips more than a few minutes and less than a few hours long.[/b][/color]

 

Maybe someday our government will promote transit use as much as it does driving. Until a majority of Americans have high-quality transit available to them, asking what mode of travel they prefer is like asking how much orange juice you can get from a bushel of apples!

 

So in case you want to hear a different viewpoint, consider....

 

"The vast majority of American households have at least one car. If the available transit is poor quality, they don’t have to use transit, and most won’t. Here the American Housing Survey has even more interesting news. In 1993, only 28.8% of U.S. households reported that they had satisfactory public transportation available (down from 39.39% in 1983 and 54.52% in 1974, the first year surveyed).17 And here’s the kicker: while annual transit trips per household nationwide remained virtually steady from 1974 to 1993, annual trips per household where satisfactory transit service was available doubled over the same period, from a low of 150 in 1976 to 300 in 1993.18 What has held down transit ridership is not unwillingness to use satisfactory transit, but its declining availability. In fact, the 1993 AHS Supplement indicates a virtual one-for-one correlation between households having satisfactory transit and households using that transit at least weekly."

-- Does Transit Work? A Conservative Reassessment, Free Congress Foundation

 

Here's a couple of examples of what happens if high-quality transit (especially rail transit) is available where people live and work...

 

"More jobs are concentrated in downtown Chicago than anywhere in the region, and more than half a million people commute to those jobs every day.… More than 1.1 million trips are made each day to Chicago’s central area…. Between 50 and 60 percent of trips made to the CBD are on transit (emphasis added)."

--CBD Transit Market Strategies Study, prepared for RTA by Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, Inc., March 1997

 

 

"In the heavily developed area of the city (of Washington DC) and its immediate suburbs, the use of MetroRail travel has been increasing faster than automobile travel, while the use of such automobile-oriented solutions to traffic congestion, such as HOVs, has been declining. This proves that when transit facilities are available along corridors with concentrated development, transit ridership grows. It also provides some useful insights as to how future growth and revitalization efforts in Fairfax County and adjoining jurisdictions need to occur. In short, there is a need for more high quality public mass transit, not less.

 

"To update the Washington Post survey of December 9, 1995, the COG’s Transportation Planning Board (TRB) reported in its January TPB News that 37% of the citizens want improvement and expansion of the MetroRail system, 25% want road improvements, 16% prefer general public transit improvements, and 10% prefer buses. Twelve percent did not express a clear preference. In this survey, no double counting was permitted, but the ranking was the same as in the Washington Post’s earlier scientific public opinion poll taken in 1995."

-- Fairfax Coalition for Smarter Growth, Inc., May 9, 2000

Parking is always going to be an issue because no matter what one does to promote transit, people-in-general prefer private transportation for trips more than a few minutes and less than a few hours long.[/b][/color]

 

Maybe someday our government will promote transit use as much as it does driving. Until a majority of Americans have high-quality transit available to them, asking what mode of travel they prefer is like asking how much orange juice you can get from a bushel of apples!

 

That may be true for commuting to and from work, though you may find that people's definitions of "high quality" aren't exactly practical. 

 

But it's pretty clear that people prefer cars for shopping and anything involving their children.

 

Americans as an aggregate really don't care what the government "promotes".  They do what's convenient and perceived to be safe.

And that's why people are sheep.

The Trust building looks great, can't wait for the county to put some money into cleaning up its exterior and really let that building show proud.

ha, running across to get the sailboat.

 

i'm like a little kid when I heard the center street swing bridge start moving.

great pics.