Improving our passenger rail facilities - park the car

Submitted by Jeff Buster on Sun, 01/31/2010 - 17:24.

  joe cimperman councilor cleveland image jeff buster 1.29.10 colonade Cleveland’s downtown Councilman Joe Cimperman points out that the  Rail Road Station design competition reception on Friday, January 29 took place only a day after Ohio received 400 million dollars in stimulus funds to be used to connect Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati by passenger rail.   The Columbus Dispatch describes what the federal money is intended to achieve – the first passenger rail links between the three C cities since 1971.

 
Entries in the Cleveland Rail Station design competition came from 16 countries and about half the States.  It was energizing to see entries from Italy, China, France, Latvia .... Very Cool!  And it is satisfying to find out that there is interest in improving the present passenger station experience recently described here on Realneo.
 
All the entries are on display at the Colonial Arcade on Euclid in Downtown Cleveland, Ohio through the middle of February. Almost all the entries - besides tackling a rail passenger station - took on the challenge of attempting to provide pedestrian connection between the north end of the Mall and the Lakefront.   This meant going over the existing freight rail lines and over the highway (Ohio 2) with a structure compatible.  and on the same or lower plane. with the Burnham Mall.  
 
One practical consideration is the exhaust from the CSX Diesel freight locomotives which pull through the location every 10 minutes or so - if the roof covering the proposed station is solid, waiting passengers will be fumigated.  
 

It would be helpful if pdfs of all the aproximately 90 entries were available here on Realneo.  Anyone know who is the custodian of the submissions?

 

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competition designers

"For the third year in a row, Bradley Fink and Michael Christoff, who work at Westlake Reed Leskosky and Forum Architects, respectively, have organized the Cleveland Design Competition."

From: Cleveland Design Competition will unleash new ideas for the downtown Mall and lakefront By Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer January 24, 2010

Or if you click on the link in Ms. McShane's post to the design competition website, you will find the competition's email at the bottom of the page. It is info [at] clevelandcompetition [dot] com