seeing the light on the OPPORTUNITY corridor

Submitted by Susan Miller on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 19:19.

Yep, just like we suspected... the Opportunity Corridor never was planned as a corridor and neither was the boulevard along the lakefront on the west side. This is soooooo stupid. Take some of those tax dollars and pay for a few interns to do fact checking for ya ODOT!

I am nonplussed that after all the BS about West Shoreway slowing, medianing, tree planting, access providing and boulevarding someone finally checked the book and discovered that this never should have been proposed in the first place!!!

Editorial: State, local officials can't let ODOT make a U-turn on the Shoreway

"After years of studies and public meetings, ODOT is now telling the city that it may not be able to include intersections in the plan or to lower the speed limit from 50 mph to 35 mph. On the speed issue, the department cites regulations apparently unnoticed until now. High speed, no stoplights. Not much of a boulevard, now is it?

Redoing the Shoreway is supposed to slow traffic, to make it easier for Clevelanders to reach the lakefront, to open land for development and recreation. A glorified repaving job won't do any of that."

Well have a beer and laugh at the irony of how our tax dollars are spent and then buy a tank of gasoline and drive away to someplace with brains, because if you can't see that this is just workforce development in the form of ODOT meetings... get out your spectacles!!!

“The idea of transforming the West Shoreway into a boulevard emerged a decade ago during Civic Vision discussions organized by then-Mayor Michael R. White. His successor, Jane Campbell, made it a key element of her lakefront planning; at public meetings, the proposal never failed to spark excitement. Cleveland's current mayor, Frank Jackson, has also embraced it."

CIVIC VISION?!?! Don't we mean civic blindness?

Or maybe it is just repaving with frills. Or maybe it is a way to make repaving seem palatable to residents and taxpayers in NEO. After all the grandiose plans for roadways in NEO, signature bridges (that will ultimately result in a paint job and a crutch for the innerbelt bridge), for all the meetings at the Greek Church in Tremont and the drawings and renderings and consultants and plans and arguments and letters and disenfranchised cyclists, environmentalists and drag raceway promoters, was this all just a method for Cleveland Clinic to get 490 to usher the ambulances with visiting dignitaries to their back door (ER)?

Let us please recall that the Lee Clark Freeway (and more freeways that linked to them) was stopped dead in its tracks by some little ladies in tennis shoes way back well not too long ago. Little ladies strap 'em on (those tennis shoes), cause we may need to lay down (a la "sit in") again in front of the likes of Albert Porter.

The West Shoreway won't be a boulevard because ODOT can't slow down and the Opportunity Corridor, too will be a high speed freeway right through the new surface parking lot at CCF that used to be a beautiful deco building.

I’d link the ODOT plan, but “Firefox can't find the server at www.innerbelt.org” Go figure!

 

This is so typical! We said no to a highway and now the “powers that be” are trying another method to foist it upon us. We said no to gambling, but now the MedMart is the biggest gamble we’ve seen in recent history. We’ve got commissioners planning major improvements while the coffers are empty. Hey Tim and Jimmy, balance my budget with a fake economic development tax will ya?

 

Oh boy! Can we get some leadership that can see past their ___ (fill in the blank yourself)?

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Sick of the PARTY

Submitted by lmcshane on Thu, 02/07/2008 - 09:36.

I know that this might not seem on topic, but bear with me.  These mega PARTY projects are unwittingly funded by the "people."  We line the pockets of a select few and then we stage fundraising parties to cover our tracks and help the unfortunate wallflowers not chosen to be part of the BALL.  I am sick of it.  I want to see any one of these philanthropists, really plunk down a bundle to restore a whole neighborhood.  Start with the Inner Circle. 
I don't need hor d'oeuvres with that.

here we go with corridors again

Submitted by Susan Miller on Sun, 02/17/2008 - 16:25.

Plain Dealer on UCI development: "Unfortunately, what many call the biggest and most important road project has little prospect for funding.

Mayor Frank Jackson and University Circle leaders are lobbying for the Opportunity Corridor. The $300 million project calls for a boulevard pushing east from where Interstate 490 dead ends at East 55th Street, and merging with East 105th Street.

It's viewed as a more-efficient link for University Circle employees traveling from the south and west. More importantly, it could spur investment in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods, city leaders said."

Want to take a look at the opportunity corridor plans? Click here. Ooops... Did ODOT lose their domain name registration? I found some old Opportunity Corridor presentations. Here we can read such stunning grammar as this, "Where is the Forgotten Triangle? Cleveland, Ohio Among the Poorest City in the Nation". Uh, that would be "the poorest city in the nation", or "among the poorest cities in the nation".

In this WCPN report, we read these words, "The so-called Opportunity Corridor is a proposed plan to bring highway access to University Circle."

Highway access? I thought it was boulevard access. Let's sort this out. At a recent CSU Levin College gathering I asked Fairfax Renaissance director, Vickie Johnson what her stance on the Opportunity Corridor was and she said she was in favor of it. I asked if she felt that having an interstate highway through the neighborhood would benefit resident and businesses. She said, well it will be a "boulevard by the time it reaches Fairfax." Oh, I thought, then in what neighborhoods will it be a highspeed freeway? Would that be in Slavic Village and Central?

Since we are now hearing that the West Shoreway can't be slowed, medianed or stopped, what does that mean for the opportunity corridor?

There's more conversation at GCBL (but unfortunately all Marc's links to ODOT plans also come up blank). He writes, "So, what is the vision for Opportunity Corridor? ODOT hired consultants who identified an immediate need for a community master plan that engages residents and businesses and plots out what they want. RTA has already started designs for its E. 55th station but hasn’t revealed them yet. Can you help RTA and the Opportunity Corridor Steering Committee bake in a transit-oriented village and eco-industrial park to current efforts?"

The conversation at Urban Ohio offered among some interesting discussion on rail options for the Red Line, this quote:
"Over the last 80 years we have been making cities much more for cars' mobility than for children’s happiness." -- Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogotá, Columbia.

Looks like we're being given the heads up to resume discussion on this idea even though we are stalled on the West Shoreway, have plans for Cleveland Bulk Terminal at Whiskey Island still floating out there, have now rearrange the lakefront plan by moving the port, blah, blah, blah... Do we have a vision yet? It's about as clear as mud to me. How are we doing on air quality? Still in nonattainment? Looking for another extension?