How was he a villain? All I hear is that Kucinich was mayor during our default.  Most say that he was horrible.  Others say that he was standing up to the corporations. I really don't know much.

I don't fault standing up to the corporations to a degree -- I'm on the liberal side, myself.  In the end, Dennis proved right in protecting Muni Light (later, Cleveland Public Power) from the clutches of CEI to assure residents more fair and lower electric rates -- this was Dennis' shining hour.  But his minuses greatly outweighed this victory.  Kucinich was an alienator not a consensus builder.  Then, as know, we were in desperate straights-- needed someone not to merely consensus builder on many issues, and Dennis was not that.  He fought with then Cleveland Trust (now Key Bank) on forcing the city into too many concessions on loans that would have saved the city from a highly avoidable, humiliating default.  He pitted rich (sic, the "fat cats") against poor (the "little people"), black against white, city against suburb, etc.  Life in general, esp in Cleveland, was not that simple and we suffered greatly for it.  Although it would be difficult to point a finger at him as a direct cause, certainly the anti-business atmosphere created Kucinich and his PD-dubbed "Kiddie Hall" (staffed by a bunch of young, idealistic often mean-spirited, inexperienced types who had zero people skills) by appeared to begin the steady exodus of corporations from Cleveland that ultimately led to our pitiful state, business wise, today.  Like I said, I don't want to lay it all on Dennis' head, b/c there were in some cases other factors... but he sure didn't aid matters, either....

KJP, how does this relate to the Ohio Hub plan? From the sounds of it, this would just operate in Ohio (and possibly Pennsylvania), rather than be a truly regional system.

Regional (also commuter) rail can be used as "a foot in the door" for the Ohio Hub, since defeating capital cost barriers for one can be used to defeat barriers for the other.

 

And, all this depends on what is defined as "the region." Typically, commuter rail and regional rail are interchangeable terms. Sometimes the same can be said for regional rail and intercity rail. The difference between intercity rail and commuter rail is the type of traveler the service is designed for.

 

Commuter rail typically has these characteristics:

+ Route length of 20-75 miles, often within a single metro area;

+ A dominant central business district at one end with either no major CBD, or at most a secondary CBD, at the other end;

+ Makes station stops every 2-15 miles;

+ Offers trains scheduled primarily during the peak hours for work trips;

+ Offers discounted multiple-ride fares/tickets, such as weekly or monthly passes, in addition to single-ride fares/tickets.

 

Intercity rail typically has these characteristics:

+ Route length of 60 miles+ between two or more metro areas;

+ Offers trains scheduled at various times throughout the day, though some may be during peak hours that attract work trips;

+ Makes station stops every 10-50 miles;

+ Has on-board food service, given the total route distance and end-to-end travel time (though some longer commuter services do as well);

+ Tends offer different classes of on-board service (economy class, first/business class, etc. though some longer commuter services do as well);

+ Doesn't usually offer discounted multiple-ride fares/tickets, but some intercity trains do.

 

There are routes where the differences between intercity and commuter services are hard to see, such as between Los Angeles and San Diego. In fact, Amtrak honors Metrolink and Coaster commuter rail tickets on its intercity trains, and vice-versa. The Dayton-Cincinnati portion of the 3-C Corridor could fall into that category, as might much of the Cleveland - Youngstown - Pittsburgh corridor.

yes this iwas really about commuter rail, but i'd think strongly ties into building support for the ohio hub plan as well. 

 

although the push for commuter rail has been going on and off for as long as i can remember in lorain, i am pleasantly surprised at the attendees and to see the broader support this topic is bringing up. the troops are rallying to the cause.

 

do note nimby dullard and commuter rail opponent dennis kucinich was not even there to debate the issue! squawwwk he's chicken!

 

also, how nice the irony that they held the meeting in the brand new unused rail station building was not lost on anyone!

 

I wonder if they would tie a Cleveland to Lorain rail line into the Cleveland Quarries project in Avon

Why is Kucinich against commuter rail?

I wont attempt to pretend like i know what I'm talking about.  Does anyone see a direct possibile rail link between the quarries and black river landing?

 

Interesting extension and one that would probably serve one of the growing areas in the county.  But let's not confuse commuter rail with high speed rail (as is referenced on the map).

 

I wonder if the key toward reversing Cong. Kucinich's opposition to a Lorain-Cleveland-Hudson commuter rail line could be found in "throwing a godd bone" toward the communities of Bay Village, Rocky River and Lakewood?  Since rail traffic and noise is a major concern, why not make the intrroduction of comuter rail conditional upon building the necessary upgrades to create quiet zones through all three communities?  To be sure, this is not a cheap fix, but it would address what seem to be the main concerns of all three communities.

 

It would likely take a combination of fully protected crossings (quad gates and/or vehicle/pedestrian barriers) and grade separations (where possible) and some kind of noice barrier/ fencing to prevent tresspassing along the line.  This is not an engineering nightmare by any means.  It can be done.  There just has to be the political will to do it and that can be acheived by meeting everyone's needs and concerns as closely as possible.  As Cong. Kaptur indicated in one of the above stories, if a consenus could be achieved between her, Cong. Brown and Cong. Kucinich.... can an earmark to build this line be far behind?

 

I wonder if they would tie a Cleveland to Lorain rail line into the Cleveland Quarries project in Avon

 

Probably not until Phase 7. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (of Toledo) and Congressman Sherrod Brown (Avon Lake) are the backers of this. That should tell you geographically where this thing may be headed.

 

Why is Kucinich against commuter rail?

 

He rebuilt his political career by getting trains out of Lakewood, Rocky River and Bay Village. To him, supporting commuter rail through those same communities would be going back on his word and going against people's wishes. Kucinich painted the railroad as the source of late-night horns, dust at all hours, noise, blocked crossings, threats to children walking to school (Lakewood uses no school buses), a destroyer of neighborhoods, etc. etc. He so demonized the railroad that I don't think he feels he could explain why he would be supporting commuter rail and not come across as blatantly two-faced. To quote him: "I support commuter rail, just not on this route."

 

Problem is, the Cleveland-Lorain route has the highest ridership potential and economic feasibility of any proposed commuter rail corridor in Northeast Ohio. On that score, he shouldn't support commuter rail on any route. After all, ridership and feasibility are the only criterion which matter. All the other issues he apparently has about commuter rail can be dealt with. In other words, he already is being two-faced.

 

In reality, if a demonstration commuter rail project is offered, all he needs to say is "I'll be scrutinizing this carefully to see if the positive impacts outweigh the negative ones and then determine if the rail service should be continued."

 

But, to get him to say that, someone needs to go to his base of support (environmentalists, poor urbanites seeking suburban jobs, etc.). They need to convince Kucinich to at least get out of the way.

In reality, if a demonstration commuter rail project is offered, all he needs to say is "I'll be scrutinizing this carefully to see if the positive impacts outweigh the negative ones and then determine if the rail service should be continued."

 

ugh -- they have already had a demonstration run in the past.

 

including commuter trains, my understanding is only lakewood had any concerns at all and regardless the total amount of trains going by his constituency would still remain below the limit totals of what originally dennis negotiated with the railroads.

 

dennis is anti-progress / jobs and even worse here he proves to be a regional cooperation obstructionist. he is the problem with ne ohio politics, his day has passed.

I'm not sure if this is "transportation" or a "project", but I found this rendering of one of the potential sites, Prospect and East 21st, for the East Side Transit Center to be built in conjunction with the Euclid Corridor.  The development includes the transit center with indoor parking and waiting for several buses, several stories of parking, and a CSU fieldhouse.  It is a fairly substantial structure.  It looks like it would be the third tallest in the Quadrangle, after Fenn and Rhodes Towers.

 

 

From the Architect's website:

 

Transit Center

Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority

Cleveland, Ohio

 

The East Side Transit Center will provide weather-protected facilities for transit patrons including some retail outlets and facilities for RTA drivers and security personnel. The center as presently planned will have layover berths for 12 to 16 buses arranged to permit smooth and efficient arrival and departure as well as ingress and egress to existing streets. The ESTC will also be closely situated and linked to the massive Euclid Corridor improvement project currently under design. A 600 space multilevel parking deck topped by athletic facilities is being jointly developed with Cleveland State University for the ESTC site.

 

http://www.osborn-eng.com/public_rta.html

 

I count 11 stories from the rendering. Pretty substantial!

 

Thanks for posting that, X man!

wow isnt that a parking lot right now?

Wow, I didn't think that it would be so substantial.  I knew that it was going to be an indoor facility, but had no idea that it would reach so high.  This would fill in a huge gap in that part of downtown.  Any word on construction dates or approval timelines?

That is the new transportation building I believe at CSU.  Money from that transportation bill that was passed earl in the year is being used to fund that project slated to start in early 07.

Looks good, not something half assed and half thought out. Nice addtion of some much needed volume and height that prospect is lacking around that area.

yes, this is a huge parking lot that extends from Prospect to Carnegie and creates, as Wimwar said, a huge gap.  The building in the image looks like it has several floors of offices/apartments as well.  Could be RTA/CSU offices or new housing?  I, too, saw this in land-use maps, but have never seen a rendering or elevation perspective.  I like it!

Looks good, not something half assed and half thought out.

 

Um, I disagree.  Doesn't the construction of 600 parking spots undermine use of the transit center on the same site?  No wonder RTA is a P.O.S.

Looks good, not something half assed and half thought out.

 

Um, I disagree.  Doesn't the construction of 600 parking spots undermine use of the transit center on the same site?  No wonder RTA is a P.O.S.

 

The spaces are for CSU, not RTA.  CSU is consolidating a lot of its parking so that it can build housing and misc facilities on the existing surface lots.  At the very least, CSU and RTA are to be commended for working together to create a better project.

Well, those are 600 people at CSU that won't be riding the bus, right???    Come on people.  Think holistically!  I can already hear hundreds of millions of dollars being flushed down the drain.  Hell, RTA probably loves that CSU is undermining the Euclid Corridor Project--that way they can justify not making any future capital investments in the transit system.

 

Cleveland is forever shooting off its own foot, and wondering why the hell it has difficulty walking.  Fucking open your eyes.

but 600 parking spaces that will take the place of surface lots on campus is a huge deal...I'm sure you've seen the master plan...as each surface lot is accommodated in new garages, new housing and other structures go up.  I consider this as a big win.

Well, those are 600 people at CSU that won't be riding the bus, right???

 

Come on people.  Think holistically!

 

Think realistically and comprehensively.  Those kids out in Westlake and Bay are not going to ride the bus to their night classes.  I wish that they would, but its just not going to happen until there are other factors that force changes in transportation choice.  A parking garage that is only replacing current parking spaces, opens up other land for housing development, enables TOD on nearby parcels, is close to the highway exit, and is next to a 14,000-seat arena is not a bad idea at all. 

Dan, CSU is consolidating the surface parking that it owns by building structured parking so that it can develop the rest it into housing, educational uses, and retail.  Why don't you learn a little more about what you're talking about before you come around here insulting us. 

 

Study up a little before you shoot off your mouth:

 

http://www.csuohio.edu/campusmasterplan/index.html

I'm not intending to insult anyone on this board.  It maddens me that Cleveland keeps doing things the same way, yet expects different results.  A transit hub and a parking garage are completely incompatible uses, and given Cleveland's proclivity for automobile-oriented development, it's not too hard to figure out which investment will suffer. 

 

Given the hundreds of millions of federal money (mine as well as yours) being poured into the Euclid Corridor Project, CSU should not have to replace *every* single parking spot.  It's not as if there is a massive parking shortage, especially at night.  The idea that this reshuffling will promote TOD is laughable, as a parking garage is the single worst kind of "TOD" you could ever hope to have. 

 

This isn't rocket science or magic.  You simple cannot have dense, walkable neighborhoods if you insist on maintaining the same number of parking spaces everywhere you go.  You'll run out of real estate before you can build a critical mass--no matter how many garages you erect. Dead downtowns like Detroit and Baltimore are testament to this.

 

I know my opinion doesn't matter much because I'm just a loud-mouthed asshole who moved away.  Just consider that there might be a better way that the status quo. 

^You really do not make much sense.  First off, CSU needs more parking along the north and south side of campus if they want to continue expanding.  They are building one on Chester presently, and this will be a good addition to the south end.  Also, increasing parking spaces can lead to further developement.  That area has zero parking right now.  Think in the future to, if the city continues to grow, this could become a park and ride for reverse commuters. 

I think one that's overlooked here is that when people have to pay for parking, or pay the full cost of it, they are more likely to consider options to driving. Many of those surface parking lots on which the transit center and CSU's College Town/Varsity Village will be located charge rates that don't reflect the full cost of providing that parking. Once specific example I can cite immediately is that many of those parking lot owners petition the County Auditor's office to reduce the estimate value of that land so their taxes are similarly reduced.

 

This is part of an evolutionary process. Increasing the density of downtown land uses at this stage of the game will require a significant parking component due to the lack of regional transit options. As downtown and core city densities increase, driving becomes less convenient with walking, biking and core-city transit use increasing. Public demand for better transit will occur once we've reached that critical mass.

 

Skipping some of the intermediate steps is a revolutionary approach which requires major change, and this community doesn't appear to be ready for that. I, of all people, would love to see the revolutionary approach. But, logically, few things happen that way unless people are really unhappy with the status quo, and I just don't see that level of unhappiness in the community.

KJP, I agree with you except for one point, which is that it isn't just "this community" that isn't ready for this.  I don't know of many US cities at all that could get away with just up and eliminating any significant amounts of parking these days.  New York, Boston, Chicago, and DC are probably the only US cities in which a developer can count on transit carrying a sufficient portion of their market to their doorstep.  That includes retail, education, housing, or any other land use.

 

Nothing big, I just don't like "this community" getting unnecessarily singled out.

I know, but I'm not emotionally attached to any other community, so I don't worry about them.

Once again, Dan - you need to knock it off with the language. It's pathetic that you can't criticize this project without resorting to profanity strewn tirades. I suggest you either clean up your act, or take a break and cool your jets.

One benefit of parking garages that I haven't seen mentioned is that garages provide covered parking -- something that is far more desirable over surface lots for at least six months out of the year here in Cleveland.  I have coworkers that only pay the higher garage rates during the winter. 

 

If this new garage on the south side of CSU causes just one surface lot in the area to be developed for something other than parking, and there are at least three on Superior in that area, Cleveland almost certainly comes out ahead.  As the density of people living downtown increases I think that will lead to more demands for better transit, and maybe we'll be talking about rehabbing parking garages to condos sometime in our lifetimes.  I agree that it isn't happening as fast as we'd like, but at least Cleveland is moving in the right direction.

 

 

While a garage is certainly preferable to a surface lot, this project is still reflective of a backward approach to development.  Why spend over $200 million on the Euclid Corridor project if you're just going to build parking garages at the stations?

What incentive, then, does anyone other than the poor, elderly, and disabled have to do anything other than drive?

 

It would be nice to think that at some point, a rational person would say "Okay, we have enough parking garages."  Continually promoting the status quo as the only way to do things until some magical moment in the future arrives to change everything has just one flaw--the future never comes.  It's like investing money in bonds with the irrational hope that one day, you'll achieve the same returns as stocks.  An initiative needs to be made at some point to change the status quo, or the results will never change.   

 

Hell, look at Detroit.  While Detroit has seen some considerable success in recent years, especially given how far that city has fallen from grace, there are dramatic roadblocks that keep it from reaching its full potential.  For each new building that gets erected or redeveloped, an almost equally-sized lot must be taken (either an empty lot or by demolition) to build a monstrous parking garage.  For the 14-story Compuware building, a 12-story parking garage had to be built next door, even though Detroit probably has more parking lots in its downtown than any other city in the U.S.  At full build-out, the downtown would thus be 50% parking garages.  Is that the kind of city you want to create on the North Coast? 

 

Does anyone realistically think that at any point, someone would look at a downtown that consists of 50% parking, and decided that there is sufficient density to support an expanded rail transit system?  I'm sure KJP will correct me if I'm wrong, but part of the reason RTA has the worst-performing rail lines in the nation is precisely because of the abundance of cheap parking in Cleveland.

 

X mentioned DC (among other cities) as one of the few cities where developers don't have to worry so much about providing parking.  Well, the Metro didn't magically show up in the 1970s.  A conscious decision was made to build a world-class transit system and focus development around the stations.  As a result, empty lots got developed, and densities increased, which led to further use of the transit system (see how this is self-perpetuating?).  Even 30 years later, redevelopment is still occurring, and following the routes of the subway tunnels across town.

 

RTA is trying to provide a better transit option along the Euclid Corridor, but the follow-up with regard to development isn't there.  Cleveland continues to proceed with the suburban mentality of assuming everyone wants to drive.  What's worse is that, as KJP pointed out, CSU will more than likely subsidize the parking spots.   

 

So, you could build this garage for $15,000 - $20,000 per spot, with the fees charged barely covering the annual maintenance costs, or you could have profitable leasable space that generates tax revenue, employment, and contributes to life on the street.  As far as I'm concerned, it's a no-brainer. 

 

You can pave over the entire City of Cleveland if you want.  At some point, you'll have a million different places to park, but no reason to park there.  The mindset has to change--Cleveland's fate depends on it.

 

Why spend over $200 million on the Euclid Corridor project if you're just going to build parking garages at the stations?

 

Wait a minute -- this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the Euclid Corridor project. Nowhere in RTA's plans are parking garages shown "at the stations." In fact, Midtown Cleveland Inc. was recently successful in pushing legislation through City Council that *requires* transit-oriented development along a significant portion of Euclid, Carnegie and Chester avenues, to complement the new bus rapid transit line. The legislation imposed new zoning that requires buildings to be constructed right up to the sidewalk, at least 3 stories high and with office or retail on the ground floor along those three avenues between E. 40th and E. 79th Street. CSU, meanwhile, is building on its surface parking lots between E. 18th and E. 30th in a long-overdue effort to create a walkable campus.

 

The East Side Transit Center is not a station of the Euclid Corridor project. It's a bus hub for the near east side.

http://www.csuohio.edu/campusmasterplan/pmp.pdf

 

This link actually gives an accurate idea on how Cleveland State plans on managing parking. There seems to be nothing that indicates that the parking deck is used by RTA, other than the transit center underneath. It is part of Cleveland States ongoing plan of elimination of its vast acres of surface lots for structured parking decks.

 

I would say this is a good development for the following reasons. #1 Its an improved east side transit center as compared to what already is used as an east side transit center; currently busses just line up and down the curb along e 21 and e22, this is an actual formal bus interchange spot. #2 Its more than just a parking garage, Cleveland state could have just made a garage, but they also included athletic facilities. #3 The convocation center now has adequate parking facilities to serve it during events. #4 with more Cleveland State structured parking in that area; it makes non-structured Non-Cleveland State parking less viable. Most of the lots near Cleveland State on prospect are used by Cleveland State students. If you take away the need/incentive for students to park there, it opens up the possibility and encourages of re-development of the surface lots for a higher order use. #5 It allows Cleveland State to redevelop its vast surface lots for other uses, new replacement parking must be made before re-development.

 

You can argue till your blue in the face that transit is the way it must be the only way but it’s just not going to happen. Cleveland State is a commuter school, and as such needs a lot of parking, that’s simply the way it is. By design the cities further from Cleveland aren’t well served by transit, but still have people that come to Cleveland State. You got to put them somewhere as the drive to school, and it might as well be done in the best way as possible.

 

Dan, you're certainly welcome to comment, but I think you need to look at the big picture before flying off the handle about bits and pieces.

 

Cleveland is hardly "maintaining the status quo".  In fact, if you look at the big picture, we are making tremendous strides.  Just because you don't like every detail doesn't negate that fact.

 

The Euclid Corridor removes a lane of traffic in either direction on Cleveland's main street for BRT, it also removes a lane of traffic for bus only lanes on Superior and on St. Clair during rush hour.  Cleveland's main street will be rebuilt to be more pedestrian friendly than it ever has been.  Bike lanes are being added to the street between CSU and Case.  TOD guidelines are going to be followed throughout Midtown.

 

CSU's plan consolidates parking into garages, many of which will have additional uses, including the parking garage in question.  On the site of the parking lots will be housing, retail and institutional uses.  This is a HUGE leap forward for an institution that up to 5 years ago saw "campus development" primarily as a job of acquiring land to clear for parking lots and "green space".  If you can't see the difference then you aren't paying attention.

 

What will incentivise people to take transit is creation of a comfortable, reliable, and efficient transit system.  Eliminating parking without providing that better transit system first is not going to make more people ride transit to get downtown.  The people just won't come downtown.  It'd be akin to cutting off the umbilical cord before the baby is ready to be born.

 

Looks good to me.

 

Can anyone take a photo of this gap and post it. 

 

Wow, I didn't think that it would be so substantial.  I knew that it was going to be an indoor facility, but had no idea that it would reach so high.  This would fill in a huge gap in that part of downtown.  Any word on construction dates or approval timelines?

X, by "status quo", I mean perpetuating the automobile-dependent lifestyle.  No matter how much lip-service is paid to things like the Euclid Corridor project, or bike lanes, we all know that car is king in Cleveland.  There simply isn't a world-class city anywhere that relies on the automobile as the primary means of transport.

 

I get the feeling that everyone else on this thread is looking at this project in a bubble--that is, as a nice little project on CSU's campus.  I see it as a dangerous precedent that undermines investments in transit, present and future.  Not that roads and parking and all that aren't necessary in a city, but Cleveland has more parking than it knows what to do with.  I don't think anyone can suggest that night-time commuter students need different parking spots than day-time office workers.  Isn't that a redundancy that can be done without?  Because our automobile-dependent nation expects cheap parking everywhere, you have a spot at the office, a spot at home, a spot at school, a spot at the grocery store--there are literally 4 parking spots for every car in America.  Wouldn't you rather have even more land available for development?  Why is CSU providing a subsidized good that is already in plentiful supply (if not oversupply)?

 

And yes, if you click on the link to the A/E website, this project is designed to tie in directly to the Euclid Corridor project. 

 

I agree that a better transit system is needed.  You can't just keep building the parking, though, hoping that the better transit system materializes one day.  What happens is that RTA will claim (and rightly so) that "everyone wants to drive", simply because an environment has been created where its difficult to do anything BUT drive.  This is why after 25 years, Cleveland is getting one marginally improved bus route, while other cities build entire rail systems.  Initiative needs to be made on both fronts simultaneously.  RTA began with the improved service on Euclid, but there's no follow-up on the other end, and this $9 million investment in parking (my guesstimate for the parking component alone) directly undermines that by offering a subsidized competing mode. 

 

 

As I see it, the parking is already there, CSU is just organizing it into a more land efficient manner and RTA is adding a major transit station that is not there.  This will also free up land for a residential campus, something that CSU does not have.  Something that makes for a greater demand for urban transit.

 

Also, the majority of CSU students are on campus from 9-2.  Peak office parking hours.  If CSU wants to shift people to transit, their first best step would be to provide students with a U-Pass for transit.  This has been very successful at other colleges. 

 

At any rate, it's not that I don't see your point, Dan.  I just don't think that you are offering any sort of realistic solution.  I'd rather see people lured to transit with incentives and better facitilities than "forced down" into transit by removing parking.  I don't think that would create an outcry for better transit, anyway.  It would probably just create an outcry for more parking.

 

I'd rather see people lured to transit with incentives and better facitilities than "forced down" into transit by removing parking.  I don't think that would create an outcry for better transit, anyway.  It would probably just create an outcry for more parking.

 

Or, reducing parking at the downtown campus would cause more CSU students to enroll at the suburban campuses, and force CSU to expand them. Now, if they had more downtown student housing, then you might be able to get rid of some of the parking supply. But I think that has to come after the structured parking is built to make land available for providing the housing density.

Yeah, I think CSU is doing that anyway.  It's a two-pronged approach.  Make the main campus into more of a campus and expand the extensions to give the commuters options closer to home (and that they might be more "comfortable" with).  Even with all that, CSU is still predicting that they will primarily be a commuter college on their main campus.

^^

Students allready got U-Pass for transit, a quagmire in itself. In 2002, the student body voted to approve the U-Pass by a vote of 473 for and 132 against. Basicaly a fraction of the student population decided to tack on $25 to every full-time student for the few that opt to use it. It was  basicaly "forced down" transit, alot of students feel burned by it and don't support the program. Perhaps opinions will change with the brt.

Not really what I mean by someone being "forced down" to transit.  I meant creating scarcity in another transportation system in order to boost transit usage.

 

I'd guess that every student is subsizing parking, too, whether or not they use it.  It is unlikely that the amount that students pay for a pass is paying the full cost of creating and maintaining the parking.

What I've forgotten to say in all this is that I think the rest of the project is fantastic.  IMO, there aren't nearly enough mixed-use developments in Cleveland.

 

I have to ask, though.  How many surface parking spots is this garage replacing?

^Its tough to quantify how many lots the structure will replace. If you read through CSU's masterplan, they are pretty careful to note how many spaces they must create in garages to replace the ones that they building on.  Believe, CSU doesn't want to build parking just for the hell of it.  Its expensive to build theses structures.

A quick note on the U-Pass...I thought it was a fantastic idea when I decided to enroll at CSU and later found out about the program.  I was paying about $75 a month for Metrocards in NYC and have spent a grand total of $25 on transit for the last 3 months in Cleveland.

 

On that note, I know that there is a large group of students on campus that balk at having to pay that amount, though they may never set foot in a bus or rapid.  But I could easily counter that I'm paying for their parking spaces, so I'm not having that. 

 

I was also pretty riled up when I arrived on campus for orientation in August with my bike and couldn't find a bike rack anywhere!  I asked the campus police rep who came to orientation and he could only list 2 on the entire campus!  Urban Ohio's very own "the guv" successfully lobbied for a new rack for the Urban Affairs building, but the system in general is still seriously lacking.

 

This can relate directly to the parking/transit conversation.  If you provide more bike racks, will more people ride?  Is on-campus housing the chicken that must precede the egg?  Will lack of other options (ie: less transit options or less parking options) force people into riding bikes? 

 

Considering that CSU is a university that has developed through some of the most unfortunate decades of American architecture, we have a lot of work to do to create that "campus" feel that so many of our greatest universities have in abundance.  I think we're on the right track with transit improvements, new housing and campus living amenities, but it's going to take a while. 

 

Getting back to this thread, though, I'm really curious to find out about the timeline and about the remainder of the structure that we haven't figured out a use for yet...

I remember reading about CSU's intention to build some sort of field house above the transit center. Yet, I remember it being a 'long-term' idea.  Maybe that has changed? 

 

When CSU builds more housing, I hope that it is mixed-use. Coffee shops and bars will entice kids to live in the area. Beyond Fenn Tower, there are not any further announcements regarding the next wave of student housing.  I hope the next project is announced on the heals of Fenn's opening--it would be good to continue the momentum.

Seems like a good point about the bike racks.  Though I suspect (and hope) that they will be more present once the ECP gets going with it's bike lanes.  It will become much more obvious that racks are needed when you have this big new project with bike lanes and no racks near the school.

 

 

a few notes:

 

the ECP is supposed to feature bike racks at all stops, though i've never seen them in the plan. similarly, but outside of this topic, is that the ECP is supposed to feature wi-fi along the route.  but again, i've never seen it in the plan eventhough i've mentioned the ease with which it (and bike racks) could be implemented.  the ECP vehicles will feature storage for two! bikes inside the middle of the vehicle.  bike racks around campus, preferably in visible locations, is something im suggesting to CSU as a means of increasing activity and reducing parking requirements.  these ideas will be incorporated to my exit project which will define a set of sustainability indicators for the university.

 

as for the transit center, i understand that the first two or so floors will be the "airport like" waiting environment for bus riders which will include convenience retail.  the next five or so will be parking.  on the next two or so floors CSU wants to build a small boutique style hotel/hostel for visiting athletes and performers at the wolstein center.  the building will be capped by some sort of athletic facility and, as you can see from the drawing, will also feature an elevated walkway to wolstein.

Guv,

 

Any word on when this thing might be built?

it is grouped in with the next group of building projects.  the current group includes fenn, the rec center and grad and admin bldgs.  the next group, as i understand it, includes the new bldg for the college of education, the demolition and rebuild of the cage which will include a bookstore, and the transit center.  each group includes construction of structured parking as means of enabling the next phase as parking revenues are paying for all garage construction.