Ohio bill includes money for renovation of Cleveland square

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2016/01/ohio_lawmakers_propose_35m_in.html

What happened to the $5 million dollars Mayor Jackson requested for Public Square to eliminate the shortfall and now it is $3.5 million dollars introduced into the bill?    It appears we now expect the funds be re-appropriated from the lakefront pedestrian bridge to pay for he cost overruns.  Doesn't this just mean now the bridge is now underfunded?  Imho I don't like the way this is headed.  Shouldn't Cleveland's portion of the $10 million dollars assigned to that project  be reallocate instead? 

What happened to the $5 million dollars Mayor Jackson requested for Public Square to eliminate the shortfall and now it is $3.5 million dollars introduced into the bill?    It appears we now expect the funds be re-appropriated from the lakefront pedestrian bridge to pay for he cost overruns.  Doesn't this just mean now the bridge is now underfunded?  Imho I don't like the way this is headed.  Shouldn't Cleveland's portion of the $10 million dollars assigned to that project  be reallocate instead? 

 

Here we go again.

What happened to the $5 million dollars Mayor Jackson requested for Public Square to eliminate the shortfall and now it is $3.5 million dollars introduced into the bill?    It appears we now expect the funds be re-appropriated from the lakefront pedestrian bridge to pay for he cost overruns.  Doesn't this just mean now the bridge is now underfunded?  Imho I don't like the way this is headed.  Shouldn't Cleveland's portion of the $10 million dollars assigned to that project  be reallocate instead? 

 

Here we go again.

 

I find your remarks offensive. I asked legitimate questions  with regards to an article posted by another.

The Plain Dealer got it wrong. This is not the whole capital bill, just the reappropriations component.

What happened to the $5 million dollars Mayor Jackson requested for Public Square to eliminate the shortfall and now it is $3.5 million dollars introduced into the bill?    It appears we now expect the funds be re-appropriated from the lakefront pedestrian bridge to pay for he cost overruns.  Doesn't this just mean now the bridge is now underfunded?  Imho I don't like the way this is headed.  Shouldn't Cleveland's portion of the $10 million dollars assigned to that project  be reallocate instead? 

 

Here we go again.

 

I find your remarks offensive. I asked legitimate questions  with regards to an article posted by another.

 

You are easily offended. You take every opportunity to gripe about this project. It's tiring. You don't like the project. You've made your point. I'm sure there will be money for the pedestrian bridge in the next capital appropriations bill. Because the bridge won't be done until 2017, money can be redirected to more pressing matters such as finishing PS.

This is me trying to be subtle about getting back on topic

 

 

 

Progress Update (photo just taken):

Moses Cleaveland has a new home on Public Sq., in the middle of where Ontario used to go @WEWS @steven_litt https://t.co/66nu596EvG

 

Moses Cleaveland has a new home on Public Sq., in the middle of where Ontario used to go @WEWS @steven_litt https://t.co/66nu596EvG

 

And a happy birthday to him as well. Born: January 29, 1754

 

Does anyone know what is happening under the tents?

^ I believe they provide shelter as workers go section by section along the pathways completing all of the intricate  brick and stonework. It allows them to do this in cold/wet weather as they most likely are heated.  If I recall some of the finishes looked to involve groutwork and concrete stamping.

I something up thread that said the water feature was removed. Is this true? If so that was my favorite part of it.

I don't think its been removed. they were putting pipes in the ground yesterday.

Renovation of Public Square continues in Cleveland (photos)

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/02/renovation_of_public_square_co.html

Cleveland's Public Square project remains on pace for June 1 completion

John Kosich

8:17 PM, Feb 22, 2016

 

CLEVELAND - The statue of Moses Cleaveland sits on the south side of Public Square looking north from a spot that a year ago was still busy with traffic in the middle of Ontario Street. The statue's placement is one of the final touches as the $37 million overhaul of the square nears its June completion date.

 

"We're in line for completing the project June 1 as planned," said Group Plan Executive Director Jeremy Paris looking out over the square.

 

"You can see how much progress we made," he said looking at the work on this sunny February day ranged from the continued planting of trees, work on the cafe under construction and the piping in place for what will be the square's water feature.

 

The project was helped Sunday with $3.5 million from the state.

 

MORE:

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-news/cleveland-metro/clevelands-public-square-project-remains-on-pace-for-june-1-completion

Cleveland.com has a great new set of photos of the construction progress: http://www.cleveland.com/architecture/index.ssf/2016/02/warm_winter_helps_speed_public.html#incart_river_home

 

I have all sorts of reservations about the overall plan, but I think I'm going to love the execution. I really dig the material palette.

 

[corrected for typos]

Cleveland.com has a great new set of photos of the construction progress: http://www.cleveland.com/architecture/index.ssf/2016/02/warm_winter_helps_speed_public.html#incart_river_home

 

I have all sorts of reservations about the overall plan, but I think I'm going to love the execution. The really dig the material palate.

Agree on the materials. So glad they didn't skimp on the pavers. I do wish that all of Superior within the square got the pavers, but whatever.

 

And yet another .com comment section turns into an indictment of Cleveland Hopkins....very interesting.

What a great year to have a mild winter - Public Square is shaping up to be a real gem for the city!

I wish there was no bus lane going through the middle of it - perhaps that can change in the future - I don't

know if they did some kind of traffic study that determined it was needed - it just doesn't seem

like it would've been such a big deal to route the buses around the square, but I'm sure there are people

well informed on whether that was absolutely necessary.  I loved Steven Litt's comment that the unification of the square

makes the empty northwest lot even more noticeable.  Oh would I love to see that 4th skyscraper on the square someday soon.

I'm thinking that the forthcoming WHD Superblock will take care of some that void.  By the way, when does construction

begin there?

^ I'm excited for Public Square too. It will change downtown in a big way I think. They did do a study for the traffic flow and they found that if they closed Superior to buses, it would create a "ring of steel" on the perimeter of the square of buses circling around. Plus, it would add significantly to RTA's operating costs. I'm sure KJP could provide numbers. The square is being built in a way though that Superior can be shut down for special events and perhaps permanently in the future in conditions warrant such a move.

 

I also would love to see something built on the Jacobs' lot. It's one of the sites Sherwin Williams has its eyes on for a new headquarters building (in addition to a suburban campus site, so let's hope they go with the former).

 

And the Weston project was supposed to have a 2016 groundbreaking for phase 1, but we'll see if that happens. Like nuCLEus, pulling together the financing for the project is a challenge.

^ I'm excited for Public Square too. It will change downtown in a big way I think. They did do a study for the traffic flow and they found that if they closed Superior to buses, it would create a "ring of steel" on the perimeter of the square of buses circling around. Plus, it would add significantly to RTA's operating costs. I'm sure KJP could provide numbers. The square is being built in a way though that Superior can be shut down for special events and perhaps permanently in the future in conditions warrant such a move.

 

I also would love to see something built on the Jacobs' lot. It's one of the sites Sherwin Williams has its eyes on for a new headquarters building (in addition to a suburban campus site, so let's hope they go with the former).

 

And the Weston project was supposed to have a 2016 groundbreaking for phase 1, but we'll see if that happens. Like nuCLEus, pulling together the financing for the project is a challenge.

 

Public Square should have been designed as one park, no bus lane through it.  The ring of steel around the Square now doesn't seem to be that bad but the bottom line is that Public Square should no longer be the city's bus depot.  This will create short term issues for the new Public Square.

Public Square should have been designed as one park, no bus lane through it.  The ring of steel around the Square now doesn't seem to be that bad but the bottom line is that Public Square should no longer be the city's bus depot.  This will create short term issues for the new Public Square.

 

Why shouldn't it? It's been the transit hub since the 1850s. With it being the hub of streets, it's a natural transit hub too. So why is that suddenly bad? All public realms in this city belong to everyone.

Before this get's out of hand, we've had this same argument like 50 times in this thread before, half of which were deleted. I have no moderator authority, but I'm making a polite request that anyone who wants to hash it out again start a new thread so we can keep this one for construction updates.

Public Square should have been designed as one park, no bus lane through it.  The ring of steel around the Square now doesn't seem to be that bad but the bottom line is that Public Square should no longer be the city's bus depot.  This will create short term issues for the new Public Square.

 

Why shouldn't it? It's been the transit hub since the 1850s. With it being the hub of streets, it's a natural transit hub too. So why is that suddenly bad? All public realms in this city belong to everyone.

 

With the goal of making Public Square more inviting, leaving it as the bus-hub kind of holds it back from those goals. We can't deny that the bus stops have been an underlying cause of unpleasant situations or public disturbances that have given Public Square its reputation. Just because it's been the hub through time doesn't mean it cannot change. Times Square is a hub of streets, but it isn't NYC's bus hub. It's more focused on visitors' experience and the aesthetics, which makes it enjoyable. Moving the hub away from the square would just make the "new" Public Square more enjoyable and more comfortable for those who want to enjoy it peacefully.

Times Square was never THE transit hub of NYC. We can argue whether it was a transit hub at all.

 

Let's be honest what moving transit off Public Square is all about. It's about shoving poor people and minorities into dark corners of the city where we can forget about them in furtherance of desires to create a caste system for America where different classes no longer mix.

 

EDIT: I've redirected the transit debate to this new thread....

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,30556.msg791881.html#msg791881

What Public Square really needs is...a giant Ferris wheel.

Public Square should have been designed as one park, no bus lane through it.  The ring of steel around the Square now doesn't seem to be that bad but the bottom line is that Public Square should no longer be the city's bus depot.  This will create short term issues for the new Public Square.

 

Why shouldn't it? It's been the transit hub since the 1850s. With it being the hub of streets, it's a natural transit hub too. So why is that suddenly bad? All public realms in this city belong to everyone.

 

It's not ''suddenly bad'', it's been bad for decades.  PS can be considered a park now, not a transit hub.  The most recent redo was done in the 1980s, PS became a homeless camp.  No one else really used the Square.  Reality again.

It's not ''suddenly bad'', it's been bad for decades.  PS can be considered a park now, not a transit hub.  The most recent redo was done in the 1980s, PS became a homeless camp.  No one else really used the Square.  Reality again.

 

I use Public Square a lot. My office is in Tower City. I get off/on the bus on Public Square. Sorry, I don't see "bad." I see an active city center with all kinds of people. Maybe city life isn't for you.

Public Square should have been designed as one park, no bus lane through it.  The ring of steel around the Square now doesn't seem to be that bad but the bottom line is that Public Square should no longer be the city's bus depot.  This will create short term issues for the new Public Square.

 

Why shouldn't it? It's been the transit hub since the 1850s. With it being the hub of streets, it's a natural transit hub too. So why is that suddenly bad? All public realms in this city belong to everyone.

 

It's not ''suddenly bad'', it's been bad for decades.  PS can be considered a park now, not a transit hub.  The most recent redo was done in the 1980s, PS became a homeless camp.  No one else really used the Square.  Reality again.

 

I don't think Public Square was ever designed to be a park in the first place. Why the focus now? That's why I have a problem with the redesign.

Maybe it's symantics, but the original (1796) purpose of Public Square was to mimic New England style town squares and serve as a "public grazing area and meeting place". Obviously over the next 200+ years, as you would expect, the area has evolved over time.

 

In 1850 the city had similar battles over excluding stagecoaches from the square.

Public Square should have been designed as one park, no bus lane through it.  The ring of steel around the Square now doesn't seem to be that bad but the bottom line is that Public Square should no longer be the city's bus depot.  This will create short term issues for the new Public Square.

 

Why shouldn't it? It's been the transit hub since the 1850s. With it being the hub of streets, it's a natural transit hub too. So why is that suddenly bad? All public realms in this city belong to everyone.

 

It's not ''suddenly bad'', it's been bad for decades.  PS can be considered a park now, not a transit hub.  The most recent redo was done in the 1980s, PS became a homeless camp.  No one else really used the Square.  Reality again.

 

I used to sometimes catch the bus/rapid at the square up until 1985.  It wasn't quite that bad, and it certainly wasn't when Tower City was having its heyday during the late 90s.

 

While I sympathize with the idea of not letting PS become a hub of bad behavior (race or economics aren't the issue, behavior and values are) let's not make it out to be worse than it was.

Maybe it's symantics, but the original (1796) purpose of Public Square was to mimic New England style town squares and serve as a "public grazing area and meeting place". Obviously over the next 200+ years, as you would expect, the area has evolved over time.

 

In 1850 the city had similar battles over excluding stagecoaches from the square.

 

It was the center of the city in 1796 and it's the center of the city today. Nothing has really changed in all that time. Plans to realign transit so the "right" people can inhabit the new Public(!) Square is just wrong on so many levels.

We've replaced grazing areas with food carts :)

It's not ''suddenly bad'', it's been bad for decades.  PS can be considered a park now, not a transit hub.  The most recent redo was done in the 1980s, PS became a homeless camp.  No one else really used the Square.  Reality again.

 

I use Public Square a lot. My office is in Tower City. I get off/on the bus on Public Square. Sorry, I don't see "bad." I see an active city center with all kinds of people. Maybe city life isn't for you.

 

Then why the redo on PS with all kinds of people using it?  I see the ''bad''...deal with it.  Lived in cities all my life.

 

How else do you use PS instead of using the bus? 

It's not ''suddenly bad'', it's been bad for decades.  PS can be considered a park now, not a transit hub.  The most recent redo was done in the 1980s, PS became a homeless camp.  No one else really used the Square.  Reality again.

 

I use Public Square a lot. My office is in Tower City. I get off/on the bus on Public Square. Sorry, I don't see "bad." I see an active city center with all kinds of people. Maybe city life isn't for you.

 

You don't see any ,"bad"?  Come on now, that's just putting blinders on. You can disagree with what PHS14 is saying, but that doesn't mean you have to go to the opposite extreme and act like everything is perfect. There is good and bad in Public Square. Everything doesn't always have to be one or the other.  Also, because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they can't enjoy "city life". They just see that life differently. Isn't that what a city is all about?

I've seen people spit on the sidewalk a few times. I've seen garbage left sometimes. I saw kids goofing off. Mostly I see people walking through and of course the usual preachers and protests. What's so bad about that? It's the front door of a city that's got some of the worst poverty and poorest education among big cities in the USA. Considering that, the folks on Public Square are pretty well behaved. And that's saying a lot considering how dirty and dangerous American cities are vs. international cities.

 

BTW, I also saw someone throw up once on the square and I've seen someone arrested once, but that was a kid at an Occupy protest who was trying to get arrested so his buddy could videotape it. That's all.

I've witnessed and heard about women getting harassed, menaced, even followed in Public Square for years. It's a real problem there.

^I have witnessed women being harassed all over the city.  It is certainly not unique to PS and news flash:  it is not going to stop without real societal changes.

I've been walking through Public Square on my way home from work for eight years and I can honestly say I've never seen a woman harassed nor have I ever had a problem. However, the garbage is disgusting. I used to think the downtown ambassadors did a great job keeping downtown clean.  Now, I think they do a terrible job. I'd be willing to bet I pick up as much trash as most of them do in an 8 hour shift. On the whole, Cleveland is ten times cleaner than NYC. Every street is Public Square X3 (was just there for five days).

 

I've been walking through Public Square on my way home from work for eight years and I can honestly say I've never seen a woman harassed nor have I ever had a problem. However, the garbage is disgusting. I used to think the downtown ambassadors did a great job keeping downtown clean.  Now, I think they do a terrible job. I'd be willing to bet I pick up as much trash as most of them do in an 8 hour shift. On the whole, Cleveland is ten times cleaner than NYC. Every street is Public Square X3 (was just there for five days).

 

I believe PS is one of the few areas downtown where the DCA ambassadors do not have jurisdiction.

To bring this back around to the PS renovation project, who will do routine cleanup of the square post-renovation? I understand that city workers will repair and do maintenance of the park facilities. But please don't tell me they will pickup litter because they certainly don't.

^According to all the reporting, the Group Plan commission is raising an endowment to cover maintenance and programming. Not sure if it's been reported who will handle the routine upkeep, but sounds like it won't be reliant on the city parks budget, and maybe not even regular city employees.

 

cool lil short video on the evolution of downtown from public sqaure

^ Nice!!

^ yeah that was pretty cool. good work there sharky.

 

i wish they would have used this major redesign opportunity to put a bus tunnel under the square along superior (aka a future subway tunnel), but oh well. just beating a dead horse. but yeah there is nothing wrong with busses and transit moving all around it, thats how its always been and anyway its the middle of town where are they supposed to go? maybe it would be good to use hybrid electric or natural gas powered busses on at least some of these routes so they don't idle there. that could keep the noise and fumes down, but thats another issue.

Question for those who walk the square as part of their daily routine: are workers in the process of widening the turning radii at the southwest corner of Ontario and the south roadway (i.e., for cars turning from Public Square onto southbound Ontario)? From the web cam, it looks the old corner was scraped off and is being rebuilt with new curbing, but I can't tell if the gentler-looking turn is an optical illusion. Wouldn't surprise me if that was a traffic engineering "compromise" of closing off Ontario through the square, but would be sort of annoying.

 

More generally, how has traffic been downtown now that it's had many months to adjust to the new roadway pattern?

 

UPDATE: now it looks like work has begun to cut away at the southeast corner of Ontario and south roadway, so I guess the city really is opening up those turning radii. God forbid cars and trucks have to turn through the city's busiest crosswalks slowly.  Four steps forward, half a step back, I guess. Or maybe I'm jumping the gun and should wait to see the final result for these corners.

Question for those who walk the square as part of their daily routine: are workers in the process of widening the turning radii at the southwest corner of Ontario and the south roadway (i.e., for cars turning from Public Square onto southbound Ontario)? From the web cam, it looks the old corner was scraped off and is being rebuilt with new curbing, but I can't tell if the gentler-looking turn is an optical illusion. Wouldn't surprise me if that was a traffic engineering "compromise" of closing off Ontario through the square, but would be sort of annoying.

 

More generally, how has traffic been downtown now that it's had many months to adjust to the new roadway pattern?

 

I cross there pretty regularly to the catch the #55 in front of the old Metzenbaum federal courthouse and they are doing some work there now. I can't tell what it is yet from sidewalk level, but it has the pedestrian access to the curb on the west side of Ontario narrowed to two person-widths which makes things a little difficult considering how busy that pedestrian crossing is.

 

In fact, it's probably the busiest pedestrian crossing in the city -- so I hope they're not rounding off the curb as it will increase the speed of turning cars and make it less safe for pedestrians.

They are rounding off the curb. I saw the new curbs in place today and they are significantly cut back from what they were before.

 

While I hate to see that happen, I understand it. If you watch the buses that now have to turn around the square, they can't make the turn. From the right lane they have to honk wildly to make cars stop so they can hook around the corner because they can't make the right turn

^That makes sense. Disappointing, but if it's it that tough on buses, maybe necessary.

 

This raises another question. Can't we now narrow the blocks of Ontario immediately adjacent to the Square?

 

EDIT: or maybe we can't. I guess the corner changes means both lanes outside the SW quadrant will be able to turn right onto Ontario and two lanes heading north on Ontario into the square will be able to turn right onto the south roadway. Maybe a similar arrangement on the north side of the square. The third lane would still be useful for trucks, parking, and idling police cars, etc., I suppose.

^ And narrow Superior as well?