• As it stands, NOACA is the only MPO (metropolitan planning organization) along the 3C corridor in Ohio that has not approved adding the 3C project to this region's transportation improvement plan (TIP). This step is necessary for the project to receive federal funding, and sends a strong message that Northeast Ohio supports passenger rail investment.

  Please consider attending NOACA's Transportation Advisory Committee meeting on Friday, November 20 at 10 am. The public is allowed to sign in before the meeting and provide comments on this project for up to 2 minutes. Please help fill the room with positive comments on how having transportation choices in Northeast Ohio will help you, your family, business, etc. to live and do business in Ohio. And just as important as a statewide train, transit in Ohio's urban areas needs to be strengthened. All Aboard Ohio has started an advocacy campaign to Save Public Transit.

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Sherry wants to thank everybody who came to The Ugly Broad Tavern bearing turkeys, complete Thanksgiving meals, and more. Due to your efforts, Sherry dropped off an envelope with $211 in cash, three turkeys complete with all the trimmings, seventeen boxes, and more than fifteen bags of food to help fill Brookside Center’s shelves during the Thanksgiving holiday.

It was great to catch up with people we hadn’t seen in awhile and to meet a FaceBook friend face to face for the first time. As always, the tacos were scrumptious, and we enjoyed the conversation and camaraderie at our neighborhood bar, The Ugly. Stay tuned, scuttlebutt has it that there will be a redux of the event before Christmas.

The city reconvened participants from the Cleveland 2019 Sustainability Summit yesterday to gauge progress and assess the needs of twenty ‘Outcome Groups’ that formed at the summit in August. Three months later, progress ranges widely—from a start-up business being pursued, to groups connecting with existing nonprofits and community development orgs, to pledges and policy recommendations written and submitted to the city to others still searching for guidance.

Around 100 people, most of them co-chairs from the 20 groups, were on hand. With a process as messy as convening 700 people to figure out a new direction for the city and a post-summit structure that is still taking shape, progress could be measured in baby steps. Still, many of the groups are moving ahead, setting goals and meeting regularly to figure out strategies.

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Dear Save Our Land reader:

Each year Brookside Center has a local food drive the week before Thanksgiving. Yes, I know it seems like summer just ended but the beginning of the holiday season is upon us.

Sherry Perry is offering a free taco to anyone who stops by The Ugly Broad at Denison and 39th Street with a food or cash donation today, Wednesday, November 18th.

Here is more detail I posted on my blog: http://www.gloriaferris.net/2009/11/give-and-you-shall-receive/.

Since many of you are BCCA  and BCN members, you may have already received a notice on this event from another source. If you did receive another notice, then please accept my apology, if one is needed.

A blessed  Thanksgiving season to you and yours.

Tim and Gloria Ferris

This week heralds the yearly Brookside Center Thanksgiving food drive for my community-Brooklyn Centre as well as Old Brooklyn and Brooklyn. Part of the Westside Ecumenical ministry, Brookside Center helps those most in need in our community by stocking a food pantry, resale shop, and supporting people who need to find resources to help them through rough times. Donations of food or cash  can be dropped off directly to Brookside Center at 3784 Pearl Road.

Or, you can stop by The Ugly Broad Tavern tonight for a taco. And, your question is “what does Taco Night at 3908 Denison Avenue have to do with a local food drive?”  A lot, actually. Bring a food or cash donation  and YOU will receive a FREE taco. If you supplement that taco with a cold beer, some friendly conversation with friends and neighbors, and the good feeling you get  from giving you have the makings of a warm and cozy evening in Cleveland.

As if the last few rounds of fare hikes and service cuts haven’t already crushed RTA and its riders, the proposed round of service cuts for next April will be absolutely devastating.

It’s not just that some routes are being eliminated or cutback and frequency again reduced. If you look at the anticipated service changes, one key component is that several routes that currently serve as direct links to downtown will become feeder routes for rapid stations. This might be more acceptable in a world in which Cleveland had excellent rapid transit coverage with very frequent headways, but we don’t. This means that what is, for many, a one-seat ride downtown will become a two-seat ride, even during rush-hour. Further, because of the way our rail-system was developed more than a half-century ago, we have a single rapid station serving the entire downtown area (the proposed cuts will finally kill the Waterfront line). If you need to get to CSU?.. Or the Warehouse District?.. Tack on another bus ride or a nice walk.

Both service cuts and rate hikes have been detrimental to RTA’s ridership, and it’s a big reason why we got into this death spiral in the first place. Remember, in fact, that the original “fuel surcharge” was spun by RTA as a temporary solution to high fuel prices, according to this PD article from October, 2008:

RTA officials call the increases a fuel surcharge, imposed because of the rising cost of diesel. These higher fares are expected to continue until September 2009. The surcharge could be eliminated if the cost of diesel drops below $3 a gallon or if additional state money is provided. However, it could go up if fuel costs keep rising.

Diesel prices have been under $3 per gallon since about mid-November 2008.

Every quote from Joe Calabrese seems to emphasis the fact that the agency’s hands are tied, and that cuts and hikes are the only possible means of balancing the budget. We shouldn’t accept this at face value.

Last week I asked why RTA can’t move to a tiered system of fare pricing. Columbus, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and numerous other agencies across the country already use it. Do we have anyone who can put together a fancy financing deal to buy the agency some time, like they’re doing in Chicago? A year or two might be enough time to divert some of the expected casino windfall over to transit service. Even if we can eventually establish a better source of funding or pry some cash from the statehouse, re-expanding service will be difficult to justify because ridership will experience another negative shock and many will ask why we ought to provide funding for a service that nobody uses anymore (many are already asking this question).

If you never use RTA and you’re still reading, you might be thinking, who cares?.. why should I care? Consider these two facts: first, strong cities have strong transit systems. Even under-the-radar cities like Dallas and Houston are fast on pace to have more comprehensive and useful transit service than Cleveland. And second, think about cities you’d like to visit; when you’re there, it’s likely you’ll use public transit to get around. Ed made a great point along these lines on a recent trip to Barcelona. Transit service doesn’t directly impact every person in Cleveland, but it is an integral part of any city.
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• Cleveland wants to hear from its residents how it should spend tens of millions in federal Community Development Block Grants. Green urbanism advocates can comment here how CDBGs can be used to support, say, the projects envisioned at the 2019 Sustainability Summit or to revive Cleveland’s Safe Routes to School programs, which were not renewed due to lack of funding.
• John McGovern, Clean Fuels Coordinator for Earthday Coalition, blogs about David Pauer, director of the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Program and an avid bike commuter who helped establish bike parking in many Clinic parking garages. Pauer has a fascinating presentation on how street design can help you lose weight.

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• Alternative Council Redistricting Proposals
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In Part I, I told you about the emergence of the first killer app of open fabrication (formerly known as open source digital fabrication).

In Part II, I showed you that it works.

Now, Part III – Cliché Time

The train has left the station. It’s Game On!

Though leaves are falling and that Arctic wind is close…things just get hotter and hotter…

Now, a mere three months removed from Part II, not only am I using my open source 3d printers to print 3d objects, I’m also manufacturing parts to improve these machines and I’m shipping these parts all over the world.

And, there is a good article (with a silly title) and accompanying video on the WSJ homepage today about the resurgence of Making. (If you watch the video intro carefully you’ll even see MakerGear whiz by) From first print to WSJ cameo in three months…it’s happening, happening fast and happening everywhere. Well, except for Cleveland…

Where have all the makers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the makers gone
Long time ago…

Maybe we can start to change this at Cleveland Startup Weekend. I have one more ticket to the event and I’d like to take a local maker. Let’s spark a local resurgence…tap into this wave of innovative energy…Surfs Up, Dude.

Let me know if you want to Hang Five at #SWCLE.

Press play to hear the Hawaii Five-0 theme.

Rick
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Looking forward to Startup Weekend Cleveland Nov. 20-22. It is going to be a fun-can-do-action-packed event. Get your tixs: http://cleveland.startupweekend.org/tickets

Can’t make the whole event? Buy a Sunday Night Demo Ticket for only $20 and join us Sunday evening around 5pm for drinks and final presentations.
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The city of Cleveland is hosting an important event next Tuesday from 2:30-5 p.m. at Great Lakes Brewing to continue the momentum of the Cleveland Sustainability 2019 Summit. This is a chance for the 20 working groups that formed at the summit to check in and figure out ways to collaborate with each other.

To participate, email the group representatives who will be reporting out at this event your answers to the following questions (and CC mlefkowitz@cmnh.org, info@e4s.org and sharmell_brown@clevelandwater.com):

• What is your outcome group?
• Which projects are moving forward, which are not?
• What have you done?
• What are your immediate 2-3 next steps?
• What do you need to make progress?

Each representative will have 3-4 minutes to share the progress and next steps of their outcome group. No power point presentations please.

All members of work groups (i.e. participants from the 2019 summit) are welcome to attend and participate. The meeting will be facilitated by E4S.

To register, click here.