The Observation Deck

During discussions about expanding RTA rail service someone mentioned the "need" for commuter rail through Lakewood. Take this threat seriously.

County leadership is committed to:

Subsidizing the center
Subsidizing the sprawl
Starving the middle

Lakewood is in the middle.

[quote="Bill Call"]During discussions about expanding RTA rail service someone mentioned the "need" for commuter rail through Lakewood. Take this threat seriously.
[/quote]

Threat? I would welcome rail service in Lakewood. Why would you think it would be a bad thing?

They can run it straight down Detroit Avenue ... it's already Trolley Car-friendly!

Bill Burnett wrote:

Bill Call wrote:During discussions about expanding RTA rail service someone mentioned the "need" for commuter rail through Lakewood. Take this threat seriously.

Threat? I would welcome rail service in Lakewood. Why would you think it would be a bad thing?

Excellent question.

Since I'm a bit schizophrenic in many of my opinions I might actually support light rail through Lakewood. But not now and not under the current leadership.

County government and Cuyahoga County institutions have subsidized development that encourages economic growth in areas outside of Cuyahoga County and subsidized development in areas like Crocker Park that encourage economic development outside of Cuyahoga County.

If people were pouring into this area, if new jobs and industry were being created, if we had full neighborhoods and full office buildings then encouraging outward migration and development would not be a bad thing. Lakewood exits because Cleveland had no more room. However, Cuyahoga County and Northeast Ohio have a declining population.

Light rail through Lakewood will just pass through on it's way to new housing, new offices, new roads, new schools and more. Not a bad thing unless all of that new taxpayer development just encourage more urban sprawl and more dispersal of our current population. That type of development just adds more water to an already dangerously thin soup.

On the other hand, if a rail project through Lakewood ended at the Rocky River, if it included numerous stops in the City, if it was accompanied by a commitment to stop the downtown centered, sprawl centered development model then I'm all for it.

Of course, that will never happen so I'm pretty sure it's safe to say I'll never support light rail through Lakewood.

Our political leadership has an obsessive compulsive disorder centered on doing the same thing over and over even though they know it's bad because they just can't help it.

If I were a cynic I'd say that the people who run this region are downtown centered and sprawl centered because the people who provide all those bags of cash want it that way.

The proposals to bring rail back to Lakewood has nothing to do with sprawl. The latest incarnation of this was the West Shore Regional Rail Project clearly was designed to encourage the development of nodes of development around the stations in the downtowns of Cleveland, Lakewood, Rocky River, Bay Village and Lorain. It is designed to provide a link from all these areas to RTA, Downtown Cleveland, the airport, a lakefront multimodal station, the stadiums and the specialty care at the clinic. There was also a substantial amount of inner suburb movement in the projections. A Lorain County Community student doing a internship at Lakewood Hospital for instance.

Comparing the proposed service to what is happening at the new Avon exit or Crocker Park is a far stretch of the imagination. In fact, it is designed to make Lakewood a more desirable location to live. Think about it. If it was built to the Amtrack Lakefront station or Terminal tower, Lakewood would have a direct Carfree connection to Amtrack, Megabus, RTA, the airport, and Greyhound. Lakewood would be the best community for a car free life in the state of Ohio. Lakewood has amazing connections. This is a very desirable feature when a employer is looking where to locate. A place that is connected to everywhere means that employees can get to work easily.

I believe that Lakewood, more than any other community on the West Shore Line would benefit the most from exploiting an asset that we have never taken advantage of. The citizens of Lakewood have been putting up with a freight line that has been considered by many as a liability. It is possible to make that signature rail line into an asset for the citizens of Lakewood and the city itself.

The proposals to bring rail back to Lakewood has nothing to do with sprawl. The latest incarnation of this was the West Shore Regional Rail Project clearly was designed to encourage the development of nodes of development around the stations in the downtowns of Cleveland, Lakewood, Rocky River, Bay Village and Lorain. It is designed to provide a link from all these areas to RTA, Downtown Cleveland, the airport, a lakefront multimodal station, the stadiums and the specialty care at the clinic. There was also a substantial amount of inner suburb movement in the projections. A Lorain County Community student doing a internship at Lakewood Hospital for instance.

Comparing the proposed service to what is happening at the new Avon exit or Crocker Park is a far stretch of the imagination. In fact, it is designed to make Lakewood a more desirable location to live. Think about it. If it was built to the Amtrack Lakefront station or Terminal tower, Lakewood would have a direct Carfree connection to Amtrack, Megabus, RTA, the airport, and Greyhound. Lakewood would be the best community for a car free life in the state of Ohio. Lakewood has amazing connections. This is a very desirable feature when a employer is looking where to locate. A place that is connected to everywhere means that employees can get to work easily.

I believe that Lakewood, more than any other community on the West Shore Line would benefit the most from exploiting an asset that we have never taken advantage of. The citizens of Lakewood have been putting up with a freight line that has been considered by many as a liability. It is possible to make that signature rail line into an asset for the citizens of Lakewood and the city itself.

Jon Eckerle wrote:I believe that Lakewood, more than any other community on the West Shore Line would benefit the most from exploiting an asset that we have never taken advantage of. The citizens of Lakewood have been putting up with a freight line that has been considered by many as a liability. It is possible to make that signature rail line into an asset for the citizens of Lakewood and the city itself.

You are wrong.

The region is losing population and will continue to lose population so the density necessary to support this type of project just doesn't exist and won't exist. Since institutions like Cuyahoga County, The Cleveland Clinic and Tri-C are encouraging and subsidizing urban sprawl that sprawl will not only continue but will accelerate.

The end result of that policy will be to hollow out cities like Lakewood.

The rail line through Lakewood will be just that. A line through Lakewood used by the people of Lorain and North Ridgeville and Avon and Avon Lake on their occasional excursions downtown.

A rail line won't encourage the building of one new apartment or attract one new resident to Lakewood. One of Lakewood's few advantages is its proximity to Downtown. That advantage has diminishing utility. If you could hop on the train in Avon and be downtown in 20 minutes why choose Lakewood?

If light rail in Cleveland is so conducive to housing development then where are all the new housing developments along the RTA line that runs to the airport? If access to public transportation was so important to house hunters then were are all the new apartments on Clifton and why are condos on Clifton selling at a discount?

Light rail through Lakewood would be just another freeway through Lakewood. Do we need more freeways?

several years ago, the suggestion I sent to RTA was the following...

1. purchase lots immedieately north and south of existing rail line through Lakewood in order to add noise abatement trees and shrubs (this was right after the housing market collapsed.)

2. reroute commercial traffic, replace with two tracks for extended red line rapid (branch off of existing at West Blvd), elevate tracks just enough to connect roads beneath rail lines.

3. initial proposed stops at 117th, Buntz, Kauffman Park, and West Clifton.

4. if Rocky River and rest of western suburbs wanted to add on, the line could then be extended.

I'd love to see a better rapid transit service for the west side, but only if it's done well.

Bill is right. Rail through Lakewood will do way more for the suburbs to our west than it will for Lakewood.

There is an article up on cleveland.com right now about all the CDCs that are jockeying to leverage the not-yet-even-started "Opportunity Corridor" for economic development. In neighborhoods like Buckeye and Fairfax.

In today's world, that's not gonna happen. The folks from Brecksville and Westlake are not going to do their shopping in Fairfax, nor are they going to move there. If that were the case, neighborhoods along Carnegie, Chester, E 55th and Woodland would be thriving today.

Eventually, when gasoline becomes extraordinarily expensive, things might change. Folks might have to live closer to work. But in a world of really expensive gasoline, what happens then is anyone's guess.

All that being said, I think we need to enhance our railway network, because as I said, gasoline is going to become expensive to the point where the daily commute for many people by car will become prohibitively expensive.

Tim Liston wrote:Bill is right. Rail through Lakewood will do way more for the suburbs to our west than it will for Lakewood.

the problem with this conclusion is that it assumes that Rocky River will ever approve of a commuter line through their city... and I'm guessing that the Rapid makes a bit more noise than a dog park.