A few years back the Clinic built a 5000 car garage.    This is when "transit oriented design" was the rage.  TOD was to be centered around rail transit nodes.   So it was just sarcasm that the Clinic was being savvy with a car node. 

Now, the Disadvantaged Triangle Corridor freeway has been kicking around for a decade too.   Another really, really sicko Clinic/Forest City/Odot scheme.  Talk about terrorist developers taking advantage of stuck-in-place inner city folks...!

http://realneo.us/content/how-can-joe-roman-sleep-night

So now, another  block big car garage for the  Clinic.   Heart experts. Car experts. Transit oriented. 

Pump it up.   Blood.

 As lmcshane quoted a few years back: "An advanced city is not a place where the poor move about in cars, rather it’s where even the rich use public transportation" 

 image credit lmcshane

 Please see REALNEO post from 2007 - did Sam Miller engineer the "Opportunity Corridor" ??

"Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. "

 Hmm 

http://realneo.us/blog/lmcshane/clevelands-two-tier-reality

Today several organizing groups held a Transit Rider Meeting 12/12 at the Cleveland Public Library Martin Luther King Branch.  The organizers included: SEIU Local 1, Ohio Student Association, Ohio Organizing Collaboration and Communities for Responsible Energy.

To his credit - GCRTA General Manager Joe Calabrese was in attendance for the whole meeting.  Councilman Kevin Conwell who sits on the Cleveland City Council Transportation Committee was there for the first part of the presentation and then left.  Martin Keane who chairs the Transportation Committee was not in attendance (unless I missed him).

I spoke with Joe Calabrese before the meeting  about the proposed Intermodal Hub (which he says will cost ~ $32 million dollars).    I also briefly discussed the TIGER grant process with him.  He said he would send me their last application.  It was not funded (OH did not have any successful applications in this round). The TIGER application would have addressed track conditions at Tower City, which he says need immediate attention to keep the entire line in operation.  Calabrese also indicated that GCRTA would apply for the federal Smart Cities Challenge.

The presenters broke the audience into small group sessions.  I could not stay for the entire meeting and would like to hear some of the strategies presented.  Credit to all of the folks who came out today and to the organizers.  This is a critical issue for Northeast Ohio.  Service cuts and rate hikes undermine our entire local economy.  To a large extent - we have all dropped the ball by not staying on top of funding and budget legislation in Columbus.  The presenters also pointed out how all of us are paying for the Opportunity Corridor.

If you can help - presenters at the event included:

Camilo Villa, SEIU Local 1
Amelia Hayes, PolicyMatters Ohio
Akshai Singh, Tatyana Atkinson, Malaya Davis from Ohio Student Association
Caitlin Johnson, Communities United for Responsible Energy and Ohio Organizing Collaborative

NOTE: to get to the meeting from the west side of Cleveland - I took #35 to downtown where I transferred to the slow as molasses Healthline (30 minutes!), because Redline (15-20 minutes) was down for the whole weekend.  Construction on this hole in the ground is Frank Jackson's priority, not disabled, elderly and working poor residents.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/12/cleveland_mayor_frank_jackson_28.html
 

More information to come:

http://realneo.us/events/rta-ridership-concerns-how-does-neo-stop-further-societal-deterioration#comment-35339

PLEASE join Clevelanders for Public Transit on FB - https://www.facebook.com/CLEforTransit/ send a letter to RTA http://action.ohorganizing.org/page/speakout/oppose-rta-cuts

So RTA is about to take another nosedive. Sam Allard Grant Segall should have some coverage. As George Zeller pointed out - much of this has to do with how the State of Ohio funding is inadequate. Where are the advocates for NEO at the state level? Much of RTA's problems are also due to their insane policies and misspending of federal monies with respect to the heathline design. Fare recovery had turned the whole RTA experience on the Redline and Healthline into a Gestapo experience, especially, if you happened to be BRT (Blacks Riding Transit). The practice of using RTA police to collect fares was ruled unconstitutional https://www.clevescene.com/…/cleveland-judge-has-ruled-rtas&helli... Now, service throughout the ENTIRE system is hobbled by the interruptions and slow-downs at downtown. This is a mess - and, I have very little confidence that the big minds at RTA (former EC Mayor was seen chowing down breakfast in his capacity as an RTA board member- paid?) and City of Cleveland will solve this. Witness the barricades on Public Square.