Is the bus system in NEO as screwed up as it is here in the Phoenix Metro Area? I live in a suburb of PHX (Mesa) which has its' major streets laid out in a near perfect grid and the bus authority still manages to design bus routes like this:
http://www.valleymetro.org/bus/Bus_Routes_Jan_28_Framed/images/Map_120.g...

You need to make sure the Cleveland mass transit authorites wil design a mass transit system that most people will actually use.

Four hours of talking, numerous trips to the coffee urn, but it was worth it. Unlike the port relocation update the day before when the meeting ended 40 minutes early and Port Board Chairman Michael Wagar refused to hear Ed Hauser make one more point, ODOT's 21st Century Transportation Task Force seemed to be prepared to listen last night. It was telling to me, how many people included a variation on "listen to the people" in their two minutes of comments. At the end, the moderator even asked if there was anyone who had not signed up who had a comment and we continued to sit and listen.

A gentleman named Jerry Bohinc from Gates Mills took the mic. He began by telling the story of monumental change in the economy when the Erie Canal was built through NY to Ohio. He mentioned that once the canal was finished, the Port of Huron, Ohio suddenly became the largest distributor of grain outside Odessa in the world. That was then.

What he proposed for now is a MagLev triangulation of Cleveland Columbus and Pittsburgh. It would, he said shift the center of our US economy to our region by connecting the thought centers of the three cities with their universities, health facilities and cultural ammenities. I wished Chris Ronayne had been there because he would have been all over that idea that people could get to University Circle from Columbus and Pittsburgh in 1/2 hour.

But think about it, if you currently take 30 minutes to drive across town, with a maglev train, you could be in another city in that time. Sometimes you gotta jump to the future, sometimes you gotta just take the next incremental step. But if we are now considering (finally) high speed rail along the 3C corridor, why not consider really new technology to triangulate these three midwest shrinking cities?

Now... is this some technology that's being developed in China and that we would have to import from other thought leaders? No, it is being developed in Pittsburgh! See their site here. Bohinc said he rode the maglev in Shanghai, but would love to ride one from Cleveland to Pittsburgh one day. So while Calabrese touts the BusRapidTransit as the next best thing since sliced bread, Bohinc and now we see farther. Two governors, four senators and thirty seven representatives... could shift the center of the knowledge economy in the US. This is much much bigger than relocating the port and starting with container shipping that would serve Cuyahoga County. This is big thinking. Can we do it before Manhattan is submerged by climate change's rising waters? I don't know, but this is a big idea and merits further investigation. I'd say, CWRU, Cleveland Clinic, elected officials and port board members, sharpen your pencils and get ready for a real change.

I couldn't help but think of my favorite songwriter and his recording, The Future. Here's one hopeful song by Leonard Cohen (so many people think he is not hopeful). Democracy "Sail on, sail on, oh mighty ship of state" "The heart has got to open in a fundamental way"

I'd been longing for some big ideas and here they were - right there in the Joseph Cole Center delivered by a stranger who at a port meeting wouldn't have had a chance to speak.