The Observation Deck

The Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency is responsible for prioritizing federal highway dollars. The organization is dominated by politicians whose financial and personal interests lie outside of Cuyahoga County. That being the case, they generally decide that the projects that have the highest priority are things like widening I-90 in Lorain County and adding new freeway exits in Avon Lake. Those projects facilitate new construction and development in the ex-urbs.

Imagine if they decided that a better use of those highway dollars would be to reconfigure the I-90 exit at 117th street. Expanding that interesection to provide more convenient and direct access to the abandoned warehouses and factories on Madison would open up that area to substantial retail and light industrial development. It would also provide a firewall to the rolling gheto.

Regionalizing develpment decisions sounds nice in theory. The result, however, is that Cleveland and Lakewood are being shortchanged. We are subsidizing our own depopulation.

Perhaps the City of Lakewood should consider a formal alliance with Cleveland to speak with one voice to NOACA. Rocky River and Fairview Park have no interests in working with Lakewood so talking with them would be a waste of time. Our future is more closely linked to Cleveland. A formal working relationship would help both cities.

Bill,

The Planning Departments of both Cleveland and Lakewood are working together on the Clifton Blvd. paving project. Cleveland, Lakewood, and the MetroParks are working on the Hogsback Lane project. These are formal projects that we are working together on and they are funneled through NOACA.

The police and fire departments of Lakewood, Rocky River, Fairview, Westlake, and Bay Village have had formal relationships with regards to SWAT, joint police investigations, HAZMAT, fire, and rescue operations. There is talk about formalizing training and response with the Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) in the West shore suburbs.

Governor Taft touts that the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) budget creates jobs throughout the state. The only problem is that Northeast Ohio funds the projects down state and we suffer with terrible road conditions. But, don’t fret, ODOT is planning the Inner Belt project which will cost more than a billion dollars and help people get in and out of town faster. The bureaucrats at ODOT say the Inner Belt project is for safety, which is a lot of hogwash or manure.

Don’t forget about the lovely sound barriers that adorn I 90 in Rocky River, Bay Village, and Westlake. I’m sure the people in those communities would rather have trees and bushes instead of ugly fences. But, trees and bushes do not help justify the jobs of the hundreds of engineers that work for ODOT. To see Gov. Taft’s Jobs and Progress Plan go to: http://www.dot.state.oh.us/BusinessPlan0607/ You can download PDF documents explaining his programs. Hmm, I wonder how many ODOT workers it takes to create a PDF document?

Bill

In 1999 the GAO reported that 58% of the roads in Ohio are not in good condition.

http://www.gao.gov/archive/1999/rc99264.pdf

Shouldn’t ODOT try to fix what we already have before making more?

http://www.asce.org/reportcard/index.cf ... es&page=OH

Seems if there's not some type of push from Lakewood, we ARE going to end on the short end of the stick. We need some better access/exits from I-90 right within our borders. Out somewhere else doesn't help us at all.