The Street That Ate A City

[Bill Call]

Under construction. Stand by for updates.

[marklingm]

Under construction. Stand by for updates.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Bill are you sure you don't mean "stole" or "took a massive bite out of" the city.

Or in the case of Highland Avenue, the Lakewood street that was eaten by a city(Cleveland).

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[marklingm]

Bill are you sure you don't mean "stole" or "took a massive bite out of" the city.

Or in the case of Highland Avenue, the Lakewood street that was eaten by a city(Cleveland).

Jim,

City Hall says that crime is down in the 'Wood ...

... tweet ... tweet ... tweet ...

... but our city assets are being stolen right from under our noses.

And, I'm sure the new city manager will get us our property back from the City of Cleveland ... and others.



Matt

[Bill Call]

Bill are you sure you don't mean "stole" or "took a massive bite out of" the city.

Or in the case of Highland Avenue, the Lakewood street that was eaten by a city(Cleveland).

.

I had one street in mind but I got side tracked.

The new concrete Highland Avenue is a mess. Pot holes, small canyons and minor cracks appear up and down the whole street. Some areas that appear intact have minor cracks along the entire surface. . The newly repaired sections are in worse shape than the older sections.

I hope someone took samples of the concrete. Something isn't right.

I had one street in mind but I guess there are others. Now when I think of one I prefer the other.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Bill

I love these cryptic journeys, but...

Putting cold patches on roads in the middle of winter, is surely a waste of resources,
multiplied by the fact you are putting asphalt into non-prepared concrete. So feel the
Highland angle is a dead end.

And I doubt that it is Madison Avenue, as I took one Lakewood's elected official advice and
drove up and down it to remember how nice it was to drive on before the same company that
screwed up Detroit Avenue got started on it. What a great way to get across Lakewood! Not
to fast, just smooth enough to both enjoy the ride and window shop. A real pleasure, it
did take me back to Detroit before it got totally screwed up.

So that leaves Detroit Avenue and Clifton Blvd as far as I can see. Detroit, because we
have been sold a false bill of goods and no one has ever really put the numbers together
in a way that makes sense, though the LO is working on it. Where residents poured
funding into a street that slowly crept into their residential neighborhoods, making them
part of the high end(?) economic development, that is actually going the opposite way
from everything that Lakewood has been told it is "best in the land" about.

So that gives us Clifton Blvd, that still needs a sewer project that was estimated at $50
million dollars in the Tom George administration, and now has to be over $100 million.
I would have to think we will see that start of that, as soon as they finish the RTA
project and paving, as that is normally when they would dig up a street.

So Bill, give us a hint. Street? Boulevard? Lane? Avenue?

.

[Bill Call]

So Bill, give us a hint. Street? Boulevard? Lane? Avenue?

My original intent was to discuss Euclid Avenue under my broad interpretation of "Lakewood General Discussions" as anything that strikes my fancy.

I had an email exchange with a Plain Dealer reporter about her article on all the development on Euclid Avenue. She mentioned $5 billion dollars in new investment as the result of the Euclid Corridor Project. I asked her where she got the $5 billion number. She responded by providing an older link to another reporters glowing account of the Euclid Corridor Project.

Here's a link: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index ... or_pro.htm

The link has a graphic that includes projects totaling about $3.2 billion. I guess she just added the extra $2 billion just because. If you look at the graphic provided in the link you can see that all of the projects are either publically funded or are Cleveland Clinic Projects. At least one of the projects listed was never built.

Of course that doesn't include the idiotic Cuyahoga County headquarters building, the taxpayer funded restaurants and taxpayer funded hotels, etc.

Your comments on Detroit Avenue illustrate why it's hard to get things done. Reasonable people can disagree about what is a good idea for a City and elected officials try to avoid controversy. I happen to think that the development along Detroit from Bunts to Rocky River is a plus. The Get-Go and Bob Evans are a minus and the new Family Dollar store, Drug mart and Value World are a disaster.

Some think the whole street is a disaster and some think its just swell because anything is better than a vacant lot. I happen to think sometimes your better off with a vacant lot.

Somewhere along the line I'll work in Ed Fitzgerald's statement about the new County Headquarters building. He said that "Everyone agreed it should be downtown". I wrote in a letter to the editor that never got printed that that would be a great epitaph for Cuyahoga County.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Bill

Euclid is what Cleveland is all about today.

Hundreds of solid businesses run out of business by a plan to make Cleveland the medical
center of the world. Based on the fact that we had one of the 10 Cleveland Clinics, and
Cleveland ability to convince itself of anything.

Today Euclid is rebuilt with miles of county, state, non-profit businesses that will never pay
taxxes into the failing school system that just turned to the residents for more funding
though a levy that was gladly passed.

After all, if it is not a non-profit, or driven by grants it probably does not exist in this shell
of a community.

HOW IS THAT CLE+ THING WORKING OUT?

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