Probably not necessary, I'm sure he knows!!!  :-D

Has there been any hint that this could be delayed because the interbelt may have to be shut down.  This is purely speculation on my part, but it just seems so out of left field (now traffic studies show crazy tie ups). 

Maybe the innerbelt bridge is in poorer shape than originally thought, in light of the twin cities bridge collapse.

 

Like I said, pure speculation on my part.  Just wondering if anyone has heard anything of the sort.

I'm not going to say I really care one way or the other, but I think if they put traffic lights on the Shoreway and reduce the speed limit to 35 mph, it's going to be a major, major change for rush hour commuters, which I guess is their primary concern. I've timed this before - I can get from Cove and Edgewater in Lakewood to Huron and E. 9th downtown in 15 minutes during rush hour. This is what people are going to bitch like all hell about because I'm assuming by adding lights and slowing down the speed limit, it'll be like going from downtown to University Circle on Chester during rush hour, which is a pain in the ass.

 

Perhaps there is a way to compromise? For example, from 7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. perhaps all the light blink yellow or something like that? I'm just trying to imagine how you'd handle that traffic volume because unless gas goes up to $10 a gallon, people are going to still drive downtown and there's no way you're going to take Detroit. That'd be infuriating.

I think 35 is a little slow. Maybe 45 and it appears there will only be four light installed, correct?

 

I think LSB in Chicago works fine.  It should work fine for folks in metro Cleveland.  I don't believe that those living in the 'burbs should have a say in a development in Cleveland proper.

I think the speed limit has to do with streets that have sidewalks. Streets with sidewalks have more pedestrians, so the speed limit is lowered as a safety precaution to pedestrians. An example of this in the metro would be Harvard Avenue. West of Northfield, its speed limit is 25 or 35 mph. That side of the street is lined with shops, houses and sidewalks.  East of Northfield there is nothing but shrubs, trees and golfcourses lining the street with no sidewalks, and the speed limit is 50 mph.

I think the speed limit has to do with streets that have sidewalks. Streets with sidewalks have more pedestrians, so the speed limit is lowered as a safety precaution to pedestrians. An example of this in the metro would be Harvard Avenue. West of Northfield, its speed limit is 25 or 35 mph. That side of the street is lined with shops, houses and sidewalks.  East of Northfield there is nothing but shrubs, trees and golfcourses lining the street with no sidewalks, and the speed limit is 50 mph.

 

I have never paid attention.  Damn, first my memory, now my eyes.  I reduce my caffeine intake and now I'm falling apart.

I think 35 is a little slow. Maybe 45 and it appears there will only be four light installed, correct?

 

I think LSB in Chicago works fine.  It should work fine for folks in metro Cleveland.  I don't believe that those living in the 'burbs should have a say in a development in Cleveland proper.

 

I don't think the suburbs should have the last word, but a little collaboration never hurt anyone. With that said, this hold up seems to have less to do with Lakewood/Rocky River than it does some highway-obsessed bureaucrat.

The question gets anwered to me; we miss out on federal monies because our govt peeps don't do the papework; we don't have enough of a connection between our local reps, including the Mayor, and the State. I always get the impression, and maybe it's just me, that fiefdoms here in Cleveland are more important to our local people than developing a long term network of brainstorming and negotiations with state and county officials.  Is it me or is this true? It's like the Bush Admn just calling Iraq evil etc and diplomacy going by the wayside.

 

If you can shed some light that proves me wrong I will be glad! 

  I agree with Carole.  We need someone connected to the State. 

 

We just bought in Battery Park -- if this doesn't happen we'll be piZZed!  We took a chance on helping to build the city -- why can't the State.

As Jane Campbell once said, one of the best things that could happen for Cleveland is for our region to secede from the state of Ohio.

By all means, let Councilman Matt Zone and, especially, Jay Westbrook know your feelings on ODOT's stance about the Shoreway rebuild.

 

And, by the way, expect to see Lee Fisher put some heat on ODOT very soon.

Quebec and Cleveland!  Quebland!

I'm not going to say I really care one way or the other, but I think if they put traffic lights on the Shoreway and reduce the speed limit to 35 mph, it's going to be a major, major change for rush hour commuters, which I guess is their primary concern. I've timed this before - I can get from Cove and Edgewater in Lakewood to Huron and E. 9th downtown in 15 minutes during rush hour. This is what people are going to bitch like all hell about because I'm assuming by adding lights and slowing down the speed limit, it'll be like going from downtown to University Circle on Chester during rush hour, which is a pain in the ass.

 

Perhaps there is a way to compromise? For example, from 7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. perhaps all the light blink yellow or something like that? I'm just trying to imagine how you'd handle that traffic volume because unless gas goes up to $10 a gallon, people are going to still drive downtown and there's no way you're going to take Detroit. That'd be infuriating.

 

I agree that people are going to bitch and moan about the longer commute time on the Shoreway, because that's just what people do.  But even a downgraded Shoreway will be able to move a lot of cars relatively quickly- it's not like they're narrowing it to one lane each way.

 

As for Chester: calling that route a pain in the ass is just a testament to how spoiled Clevelanders are in their commutes.  The idea of being able to drive 5 miles through the heart of the city at rush hour in only 15 mins is unthinkable to people in many urban areas.

Amen and well said!  :clap: Chester might be a PITA compared to some rinkydink backwater but it's NOTHING compared to most comparable cities. Anytime someone complains that "waaaah, my commute's going to be 5 minutes longer" - I want to dropkick them to somewhere like Chicago (or even smaller cities which have much worse commute times than Cleveland) and let them stew in their juices and grow some ulcers. Then they can come back and realize just how easy they have it. Suck it up, nancies!

Amen and well said!  :clap: Chester might be a PITA compared to some rinkydink backwater but it's NOTHING compared to most comparable cities. Anytime someone complains that "waaaah, my commute's going to be 5 minutes longer" - I want to dropkick them to somewhere like Chicago (or even smaller cities which have much worse commute times than Cleveland) and let them stew in their juices and grow some ulcers. Then they can come back and realize just how easy they have it. Suck it up, nancies!

Amen to that.  A similar sized city close by is Pittsburgh.    I lived and worked there for many years.  The city is surrounded by hills and rivers -- that's the obvious part.  The not so obvious part is that there are only so many ways to work around the hills and rivers and build roadways to get to the city.  The traffice is phenomonal as anyone who has ever waited and participated in the event that IS 4 lanes of traffic collapsing into 2 in order to go through one of the many tunnels through the hills only to find one of 2 lanes closed due to an accident can attest to --- the traffic in Cleveland is a RELIEF compared to Pittsburgh!  At least that is what I felt when I moved to Cleveland.  So, if it takes 5 minutes longer on a commute because the speed limit is reduced and a few lights are added -- get up earlier, fill up a second mug of good coffee, and find some creative way to spend all that energy on instead of anger.

It took at least 1.5 hours to get from the Loop to Ohare on Dec. 17th when I went to India.  Now this is quite the daily norm especially around that part of the city but boy, what I wouldn't give to be stuck in that traffic compared to Bombay! 

 

More NEO-ians need to leave for a bit!

^just so long as they come back to set their roots. :wink:

I agree with you, but in a way I don't think it matters what it's like in Chicago or NYC. This is Cleveland and Ohio. Cleveland is being compared with driving elsewhere in the region. It's not like people here can choose to drive here or one of those other places with horrible traffic. So, I'm saying that relatively speaking in regard to the region, driving down Chester during rush our is a pain in the butt. How do you make people accept that beyond saying "it's way worse elsewhere?"

 

Honestly in those other cities, I wouldn't even consider a car. Around here, that's not as convenient.

^ I know people on here cringe at the sight of the names Paul Volpe and City Architecture... However I recall him saying something in regards to the E.12th streetscape project (when people were talking about how the project was going to make it more difficult for traffic) that yes, it might make things a little more of a PITA. But that sometimes that has to happen to create a good urban environment... This is the perfect example.  If the shoreway has to slow down and delay people's commute 5-10 minutes... SO? I mean seriously there is so much to gain from this that it's worth a little extra commute. People will have to deal with it.  I have had it with ODOT's sole objective in this city being getting people around, through, past, and out of our city at the speed of light. At some point it is not just about convenience... but about development and inspiring and enabling growth.

^ I know people on here cringe at the sight of the names Paul Volpe and City Architecture...

 

I don't think that all of us feel that way. I'd take Paul Volpe's designs for Cleveland over Bob Corna's. City Architecture does a decent job. We just need more firms in on the action. City Arch can do a decent job.

I agree with you, but in a way I don't think it matters what it's like in Chicago or NYC. This is Cleveland and Ohio. Cleveland is being compared with driving elsewhere in the region. It's not like people here can choose to drive here or one of those other places with horrible traffic. So, I'm saying that relatively speaking in regard to the region, driving down Chester during rush our is a pain in the butt. How do you make people accept that beyond saying "it's way worse elsewhere?"

 

Honestly in those other cities, I wouldn't even consider a car. Around here, that's not as convenient.

 

I hear ya, the comparisons don't make for satisfying answers.  But I think they do help contextualize the trade-off that McCleveland describes.  No-one is saying we should just tear out every highway and replace them with biking paths, but we have so little congestion in our town that we could probably afford to slow things down a little bit if the benefits are going to be real.

^ I know people on here cringe at the sight of the names Paul Volpe and City Architecture...

 

I don't think that all of us feel that way. I'd take Paul Volpe's designs for Cleveland over Bob Corna's. City Architecture does a decent job. We just need more firms in on the action. City Arch can do a decent job.

 

I don't really have any problems with them either... I just know often when they are brought up, snide remarks follow.

It's analogous to gas prices.  People complain about gas prices here and then sputter when I point out that gas is cheaper here than almost any place I know.  Unless I botched a conversion somewhere, gas is $7.76/gallon in the UK.  But people don't want to hear that because they're insulated from truly high fuel prices or truly bad traffic. 

 

I don't know the west side much.  Aren't the same people who use the shoreway to get into work the same that could take advantage of the West Shore commuter rail being proposed?  I've only been in that area a handful of times but even in those few visits it's boggled my mind how difficult it is to get down there to the park.  This Hebebrand seems like...a massive tool.  Is it okay to say that?

^Good point re: the comparison with gas prices.

 

Yes, a good chunk of these commuters could take advantage of the West Shore commuter proposal.

 

Well, he definitely sounds like he's reneged on his earlier comments about the Shoreway.  What that makes him, I don't know.

I 90 tore the heart out of my family's neighborhood near West Tech. (Never heard Cudell much back when I was growing up.) Isn't that enough freeway between Lakewood and Downtown?

 

Hooray for West Shoreway Blvd.!

Great Lakes Guy: 3 Great Lakes Cities Travel the Same Road

 

http://greatlakesguy.blogspot.com/2008/01/3-great-lakes-cities-travel-same-road.html

 

Across the region, urban residents faced with major highway reconstruction projects are calling for engineering designs that embrace access for pedestrians and bikers, pay more attention to mass transit, and strive to enhance urban character.

 

And, across the region, transportation officials show signs of resisting ideas that work toward improving access for pedestrians and bikers, integrating mass transit options, and enhancing urban character.

I get negative vibe from Hebebrand.  Balking at this project, pooh-poohing any creative visions for the Innerbelt and cramming a monstrous bridge north of the existing one.  Never met him, only know what I read in the papers and in the internets.

Thanks for the article, Guv. Someone needs to send that to Matt Zone to reinforce the good fight he is fighting, and to ODOT to show them that it's not 1950 anymore.

I get negative vibe from Hebebrand.  Balking at this project, pooh-poohing any creative visions for the Innerbelt and cramming a monstrous bridge north of the existing one.  Never met him, only know what I read in the papers and in the internets.

 

I don't really have my people and ODOT stuff straight, but isn't Hebebrand appointed under Strickland, wasn't it Proctor before, responsible for the majority of the inner belt bridge fiasco.  Is it just crappy ODOT policies (obviously developed in a different age), or is it these people are total, clueless idiots, or both. 

^Hebebrand is just the local project manager (District Manager even?) and predates Strickland.  Policy-schmolicy, I think it's a case where the politicians need to put the lost-the-forest-for-the-trees engineer in his place.

most of the ODOT staffers/managers are not political appointees. 

 

even though strickland can change the overall direction and priorities by appointing a new director who controls the $$, many of the day-to-day actors are the same, and i think this is part of the problem - they haven't changed their focus on what ODOT should be doing.

I see, but there is a new head of ODOT that people were somewhat happy about (replacing Proctor)?  But its more about the same old mindset all the way down the line...  Not easy to change the direction of something that has such a miopic view of what they do.   

 

By the way, some news about Proctor for everyone that wasnt wishing him so well when he departed........

 

An investigation in allegations of favoritism and misconduct by the former director

http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2008/01/28/daily23.html

Editorial from the PD:

 

Editorial: Gov. Strickland and ODOT must quit stalling on West Shoreway

 

The West Shoreway project is something Cleveland needs; Strickland and ODOT have long-standing promises to keep

 

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

 

There is no possible excuse Strickland, Fisher and ODOT can concoct for not proceeding.

 

Quit stalling

 

The West Shoreway project is something Cleveland needs;

 

Strickland and ODOT have long-standing promises to keep

 

The decision by Gov. Ted Strickland's ad ministration to delay - or scuttle alto gether - an important Cleveland highway project shows a stunning insensitivity to this community's needs.

 

If Strickland and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher - who at last check still lived around here - care even a little bit about the people of Cleveland's neighborhoods, they'll see to it that the Ohio Department of Transportation stops trying to kill vital highway projects here that have been planned for nearly a decade.

Good for the PD to call out the governor, especially if he is trying to make himself available to be VP

^Definitely.  This is very, very frustrating.  I'm not a big fan of the stupid innerbelt excuse either.

Actually, I get the Innerbelt excuse. I think this city is going to have a true appreciation of traffic congestion when the half of the Innerbelt's lanes, in both directions, are closed during the bridge reconstruction. I regularly get to see what the Innerbelt is like when one lane on the bridge is closed -- traffic backs up at least a couple of miles. To lose two lanes in each direction is unfathomable.

 

And no RTA bus/park-n-ride expansion plus keeping West Shoreway open is enough to soften the pain. ODOT should be jumping all over the West Shore Corridor, now! There's still time to develop this option.

Well I certainly agree with the West Shore Corridor part!  I hear you, I certainly understand the innerbelt excuse, I just think it's lame to let ODOT hold the Shoreway project hostage to the interminable innerbelt project.  I don't doubt traffic will increase on the alternative routes, but people will get used to it and life will go on.  A four mile backup at rushhour would still give Cleveland a comparative advantage traffic wise over most big cities- business will not come a grinding halt.

^But remember, the innerbelt was not the excuse, it was "refined numbers"

 

bunch of jerks, I tell ya

http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1206520208126350.xml&coll=2

 

West Shoreway boulevard project won't begin until at least 2013

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Sarah Hollander

Plain Dealer Reporter

The West Shoreway's conversion into a boulevard is now scheduled to begin no sooner than 2013.

 

The Ohio Department of Transportation will wait until it finishes repairs to the Inner Belt Bridge through downtown to avoid compounding traffic problems.

 

In the meantime, ODOT plans to improve neighborhood connections to the Shoreway and Lake Erie. Construction on this part of the job could begin as early as 2011.

Is this the only topic for the shoreway? If so, I think that the title is a bit odd. Could we change the name to something like "Cleveland: Converting the Shoreway into a boulevard"

*Sigh*  Not a fan of this delay.

^well, it is actually better news than what we've been hearing over the past six months.

Plan to turn Cleveland's West Shoreway into a boulevard gains momentum

Posted by Karen Farkas/Plain Dealer Reporter December 05, 2008 20:11PM

Categories: Real Time News, Traffic

 

CLEVELAND - The dream to turn the West Shoreway into a slow-speed boulevard and gateway to Cleveland's West Side neighborhoods is about to become reality after years of disagreement between residents, city officials and highway planners...

 

 

http://www.wkyc.com/news/politics_govt/politics_article.aspx?storyid=102229&catid=130

Proposed intersections have ramps that allow traffic to move without lights and at West 73rd Street, traffic and a multi-use path will go north under railroad tracks then east to an exiting bridge over the Shoreway, he said.

 

I don't understand this sentence. If someone else understands it, please explain it to me.

 

 

Proposed intersections have ramps that allow traffic to move without lights and at West 73rd Street, traffic and a multi-use path will go north under railroad tracks then east to an exiting bridge over the Shoreway, he said.

 

I don't understand this sentence. If someone else understands it, please explain it to me.

 

 

 

enter MayDay with a map!  lol

Looking at the intersection of W 73rd and Father Caruso, the tracks are just to the north and anything but an at-grade crossing would be challenging without disrupting the Battery Park neighborhood.  There is no bridge over the Shoreway to the east, but there is the underpass that serves Edgewater Park - I suppose that could be part of this W. 73rd extension although it's more in line with W. 69th...

 

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&layer=c&cbll=41.487965,-81.734667&panoid=MMgRGwdJ4i-Qr0US_Jcwuw&cbp=12,4.0793238144826205,,0,10.737178549689765&ll=41.488022,-81.728153&spn=0,359.973907&z=16

 

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=41.488022,-81.728153&spn=0,359.973907&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.489842,-81.732616&panoid=FEQpkAErKEuXls1pxSRdFQ&cbp=12,333.49092136556856,,0,1.2621412479293963

Plan to turn Cleveland's West Shoreway into a boulevard gains momentum

Posted by Karen Farkas/Plain Dealer Reporter December 05, 2008 20:11PM

 

CLEVELAND - The dream of turning the West Shoreway into a slow-speed boulevard and gateway to Cleveland's West Side neighborhoods is about to become reality after years of disagreement between residents, city officials and highway planners.

 

More at Cleveland.com

 

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/12/plan_to_turn_clevelands_west_s.html

 

 

^I'm not that familiar with this project.  What will be done with the bridge over the flats. Will it remain as-is?

I was wondering about that, too ..

 

One of my neighbors had said he had seen a set of plans (yeah, I know ---3rd hand info, but it's all I gots ;) ) that showed a slightly easterly rerouted W. 73rd that used a portion of the land currently held as a parking lot by the factory that sits between 70th and 73rd South of Father Caruso.

 

The grading would begin a few hundred feet South of the railroad tracks on this new 73rd and cut down to the Shoreway.

 

Supposedly Father Caruso would then be bisected, being a dead end at 70th and at 73rd (where the current Norht entrance into Battery Park lies).  This seems odd though, since a lot of construction effort has already gone into beautifying the North entrance at 73rd and Fr. Caruso.

Yes, it will.