In Search of a City: Health Line Keeping Cleveland Healthy
Cleveland never ceases to impress me. Last week, I traveled to the North Coast to participate in a City Club program. I spent the night at the Wyndham Hotel on Playhouse Square, where the musical Chicago was playing. That same night, the Cavaliers hosted the L.A. Lakers at the “Q.”
Because city planners are smart enough to limit on-site parking for major downtown venues, the 20,000 plus people attending events walked from remote parking and filled the streets, restaurants, and taverns for many blocks in every direction of their destination. The pedestrian activity made the street feel vibrant and safe.
My friend, Mark Lammon of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, took me for a ride to Little Italy on the new Health Line that runs for seven miles along Euclid Avenue. This bus feels like a train, runs frequently, and makes limited stops at rail-like stations. It drew full loads of people, including young professionals, well into the evening. In addition to this service, the City also has three light rail lines.
Downtown Cleveland seems to be doing well. I have long wondered about the difference between Cleveland and Detroit. Could it be Cleveland’s commitment to transit?
Tags: Cleveland, Downtown, Parking, Public Transportation
January 26th, 2010 at 9:14 am
My visits to Cleveland this year have held pleasant surprises. This bus, University Cirle, THe National Parks and Metroparks, The train in the parks, The ‘Burbs and their festivals…all make it a cool place.
January 26th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Interesting post Cleve, and thank god Celveland has not sunk to Detroit’s dismal status. Detroit has poor schools, urban plight, and a long record of corrupt local government, all things Cleveland has managed to avoid.
A note of caution, however: The Cleveland RTA is experiencing very serious budget problems leading to major cuts in bus service and staff. Many Clevelandites blame this on the costs of building and operating the Healthline BRT system. In fact, Cleveland area Democratic US Congressman Dennis Kucinich recently wrote an op ed letter in a Cleveland area paper regarding this issue:
http://www.cleveland.com/sunpostherald/index.ssf/2010/01/save_the_circulator_restore_me.html
Let’s just hope that things get corrected before things get worse in Cleveland.
February 1st, 2010 at 2:24 pm
I that article speaks more to the very uneven treatment public transit gets in Ohio vs. highways and roads more than anything else. The BRT Health line is reportedly doing well and has attracted $3.3 billion, ahem *billion*, along Euclid Ave.
http://blog.cleveland.com/architecture/2009/11/rtas_euclid_avenue_healthline.html
As for the comparison to Detroit it seems like that is part of the answer. The People Mover was built to fail and discourage further rail development. While Americans typically have the notion that monorail is a joke, the citizens of Wuppurtal, Germany (pop. 360,000) and visitors of the city ride their monorail which had a ridership of approximately 25 million in 2008 and is 8.3 miles long.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn
If Detroit had built a similarly substantial line we may have seen more rail, not necessarily monorail, under construction in Detroit and attracting development. Still, that’s an interesting question and I’ll have to do some research. On the surface they faced pretty much the same problems (losing half their population, an economy heavily dependent on industry, etc), but Cleveland is not like Detroit, not to say that Detroit doesn’t have a good amount to offer visitors. It still has some stately neighborhoods like Boston-Edison which no one would guess was in Detroit.
http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,11318.0.html
As far as Downtown Cleveland it seemed to face the same problem as ours with mostly empty streets and a few pockets of activity. The most bustling street there is 4th, which is pedestrian-friendly. If Columbus were to tackle the problem of our one-way feeder streets we could see more investment Downtown like we do on Gay St.
As for BRT in Columbus the only street that comes to mind would be Broad since it has so many lanes. Of course, that could harm or kill businesses on Broad and the #10 only needs to be more frequent on weekends and cut out stops that are too close together (in Franklinton there are two stops one block from each other, I mean really?) to be improved.