New Clifton Bus Line To Be Equiped With Traffic Disrupters

[Roy Pitchford]

Welcome to Agenda 21.

[Will Brown]

As I read the article RTA will also ban parking on Clifton:

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index ... icati.html

Do the residents of Lakewood have any input on this?

I read that story. A few thoughts:

"The improvements -- stretching four miles from West Clifton Boulevard in Lakewood to Lake Avenue in Cleveland -- are designed to turn the heavily-used street into a prettier, more bus-friendly route, traversed by new 60-foot articulated buses."

How is Clifton unfriendly to buses? Has the RTA driver's union complained? Have the buses complained?




Why do we need prettier streets? Guess who gets to pay the annual maintenance costs for tree-lined medians and flower boxes? We don't need high-maintenance pretty, we need low-cost functional!

"A new traffic signaling system will give buses priority.”

This means everyone else goes slower. Why do buses need priority? Is this social engineering?

"The upgrade initially called for bus stations in the center of the street, like the HealthLine on Euclid Ave. Funding snags forced a scaleback."

Thank you Mayor Summers for creating the funding snag! Lakewood does not need a Euclid corridor equivalent.

"But like the HealthLine, planners hope the Clifton improvements become economic generators for one of the metro region's busiest residential and commercial arteries."

Economic generator? Is that what the Euclid Corridor is? More like a real estate vacancy generator. These planners need a headassectomy.


RTA wants to constrict traffic on Clifton even further by reducing the street capacity by one third during rush hour. That is the effect of having a bus only lane, not to mention giving buses priority. We need more capacity during rush hour, not less. We don’t need buses getting through faster, we need everyone getting through faster.

About the only thing that makes sense in this RTA Clifton project is concrete pads at the bus stops.

The objective of streets and street lights should be to get people to where they are going quickly and safely. It seems the objective of planners everywhere is to constrict traffic as much as possible. It must be someone’s job to sit around and say “how can we screw with everyone’s commute this month?”.

Since I get my health care at University Circle, I drive frequently from E55 to E105 using either Euclid or Carnegie. Despite the bus lanes, I find Euclid as fast as Carnegie, and a lot more pleasant because of the extensive restoration and development. So I would disagree with you on that point.

I also think you assume that we will all be driving cars, as we do today, for the forseeable future, despite the fact that public transportation is cheaper, more ecologically friendly, reliable and fast, and frees you to read or take in the sights. I think your assumption is unrealistic, and that we will start to recognize that public transportation is the better option, unless we all start bicycling. I travel internationally frequently, and I think the world has moved to public transportation, while the US is mired in inefficiency. In the last ten years, for example, I have never driven while overseas, yet I manage to get around. Our next trip will be to rural France, and I am going to have to rent a car to get between where we will be staying, and the activities we want to see, and I'm not happy about it. I'm trying to remember how to drive a manual transmission, but you can't even rent one here to practice on, so I anticipate a real show at the airport, but it's Hertz's clutch, so what do I care?

I do think they are blowing smoke about the reasons to upgrade Clifton. It's hardly a commercial artery; in fact commercial traffic is largely banned. So they propose making it nicer for our western neighbors to get downtown, but the improvements will also benefit us. Too many Lakewoodites have a cul de sac attitude, and don't recognize the kind of town we have.

[Bill Call]

I also think you assume that we will all be driving cars, as we do today, for the forseeable future, despite the fact that public transportation is cheaper, more ecologically friendly, reliable and fast, and frees you to read or take in the sights. I think your assumption is unrealistic, and that we will start to recognize that public transportation is the better option, unless we all start bicycling. .

The least expensive, most reliable, fastest, most efficient and ecologically ethical way to move people from place to place is the automobile. It will be so even if the government succeeds in forcing the plebes onto buses.

RTA needs to decide if its in the transportation business or the redevelopment business.
The Euclid Corridor project was a disaster for private business on Euclid. It's only success was in suckering the Federal Government into paying for repaving Euclid. All the development you see on Euclid is dependent on huge tax payer subsidies. Those businesses that don't need subsidies have left. If that is your vision of economic development you are welcome to it.

I don't really have a big problem with the plans for Clifton Avenue except to the extent that they disrupt car traffic in Lakewood. But it's important to keep in mind that public transportation is Cuyahoga County makes very little sense.

You can drive from Avon to Public Square, park your car and be at the office while you are still waiting for the bus. Of course that assumes that a lot of people in Avon are working downtown. They aren't. One of the reasons public transportation makes so little sense in this region is that our regional institutions are working overtime to move to Lake, Lorain and Geauga County.

Comparing public transportation in Europe and the U.S. makes little sense because our population is much more spread out. England is about the size of Ohio and has 52 million residents. Trains and buses make more sense there than here. But even there people prefer cars.

If Cuyahoga County was as densely populated as England there would be 5 million people living and working in Cuyahoga County. That's never going to happen. It's certainly never going to happen when it's the current policy to depopulate the County.