Red Line Extension to Lake County (Cleveland, Euclid: university, quality of life, living in)

[cle2sf]

I've seen a few stories on cleveland.com about a potential extension of the Red Line to the northeast through Euclid and possibly all the way to Mentor. Another option is to extend BRT through Euclid to the Lake County line. As someone who grew up in Lake County and now lives in San Francisco, I think extending the Red Line to Mentor would be brilliant and forward-thinking. BART is such an asset to the Bay Area, and extending heavy rail to suburban areas would work wonders for the Cleveland area. As downtown gets revitalized and University Circle continues to boom, Lake County residents would be smart to support direct rail access to these important job centers. Traffic along MLK is only going to get worse, and millennials living in the city are going to want to raise kids sometime. Having rail access will be a huge asset for suburban communities in the coming years.

[Clevelander17]

Decent idea that will never happen at this point because, well, you know why.

[Cleverfield]

Originally Posted by cle2sf

I've seen a few stories on cleveland.com about a potential extension of the Red Line to the northeast through Euclid and possibly all the way to Mentor. Another option is to extend BRT through Euclid to the Lake County line. As someone who grew up in Lake County and now lives in San Francisco, I think extending the Red Line to Mentor would be brilliant and forward-thinking. BART is such an asset to the Bay Area, and extending heavy rail to suburban areas would work wonders for the Cleveland area. As downtown gets revitalized and University Circle continues to boom, Lake County residents would be smart to support direct rail access to these important job centers. Traffic along MLK is only going to get worse, and millennials living in the city are going to want to raise kids sometime. Having rail access will be a huge asset for suburban communities in the coming years.

I'm sort of torn. The idealist in me thinks a red-line extension would be awesome, but the pragmatist in me thinks the BRT would give more bang for the buck. Either way, it would be cool. The plans for the red-line right now call for extending it through the southern, poorer, more depressed part of Euclid, to stop near (dead) Euclid Square Mall. The BRT would go through more vibrant areas such as Waterloo, E 185th, and Lakeshore, providing more potential to help these fledgling areas succeed. I guess, personally I'm leaning towards the BRT, but I'm probably somewhat biased because I live in the Waterloo area.

[SquareBetterThanAll]

BRT seems to be the go-to financial compromise these days.

I agree with Clevelander17 that an extension of any of the lines at this point would be highly unlikely.

The right of way has been clear for a Green Line extension just about to the county line since they built the thing back in the 20s/30s. You can see it on the map. And nobody has bothered to do anything with it.

I also think the prevailing metro attitudes lean so far towards suburban development and against anything "urban" it would be extremely hard to get support, particularly to run it through non-inner ring suburbs.

It's a real shame that Cleveland has the core infrastructure in place and has more or less let it languish since the 70s. I feel if this were an area more keen on public transportation - or more people were familiar with a really well developed rail system - at this point Cleveland would already have a line to the Lake County suburbs, a line out to Westlake, a line to at least Independence, etc.

It's a shame. And I think while BRT probably is the most cost effective tradeoff it doesn't have the permanence that to spur the next level of development that rail lines can spur.

Unfortunately the time to have done this when it probably would have helped the city maintain more density was when they were developing the Red Line in the 50s through 70s.

[Urban Peasant]

If the Red Line terminates right at the Euclid Square Mall, couldn't that be a cataclyst for developing Euclid Square Mall into a new TOD with new businesses and residences? I know, it's more of a pipe dream right now but it just sounds so great.

[Cleverfield]

Originally Posted by Urban Peasant

If the Red Line terminates right at the Euclid Square Mall, couldn't that be a cataclyst for developing Euclid Square Mall into a new TOD with new businesses and residences? I know, it's more of a pipe dream right now but it just sounds so great.

That would be great, and I'd love to see it happen, but like you said, it's a long-shot.

[SquareBetterThanAll]

I think long term an investment in the Rapid would be more beneficial than many of the other so-called quality of life money pits local government is known to throw money at, like stadiums, convention centers, etc.

[Urban Peasant]

Originally Posted by SquareBetterThanAll

I think long term an investment in the Rapid would be more beneficial than many of the other so-called quality of life money pits local government is known to throw money at, like stadiums, convention centers, etc.

Transit is usually a state or regional government responsibility. Are you sure it's not the county government that decides what transit projects to fund?

The other beneficial extension of the Red Line IMO is to Berea where it can serve the Baldwin-Wallace University students better. Feeder bus routes can then even connect Strongsville and Brunswick for a quicker ride to town. Heck, with imagination, some sort of limited feeder bus service to Oberlin College would further connect that well known higher education institution with Cleveland proper. I can't imagine every college student in the area to have a car.

[bjimmy24]

Originally Posted by Urban Peasant

Transit is usually a state or regional government responsibility. Are you sure it's not the county government that decides what transit projects to fund?

The other beneficial extension of the Red Line IMO is to Berea where it can serve the Baldwin-Wallace University students better. Feeder bus routes can then even connect Strongsville and Brunswick for a quicker ride to town. Heck, with imagination, some sort of limited feeder bus service to Oberlin College would further connect that well known higher education institution with Cleveland proper. I can't imagine every college student in the area to have a car.

Way back when, they wanted to put the red line into Berea, but Berea didn't want it. Not much you can do there. I would personally love to see it in Berea in the west and cut through North Collinwood into Euclid to the east. I really feel that those areas (Collinwood and Euclid) would benefit tremendously from the rapid and is really necessary to have a true turnaround there.

[SquareBetterThanAll]

Originally Posted by Urban Peasant

Transit is usually a state or regional government responsibility. Are you sure it's not the county government that decides what transit projects to fund?

May be, that sounds right. I was comparing to things like stadium projects, which (I think) are usually funded at the county level.

Compared to fully utilized rail systems I feel like the Rapid hasn't been utilized well, meaning that it really should be much more expansive. The benefit is to being able to get from point A to point B and not just as a necessity for those that can't afford cars, but as a community benefit to people of all economic levels.

It seems like public transportation in our area is seen of more of a liability than than a benefit, which is why you don't see Rapid lines running to any suburbs except Shaker.

As it stands it's great for getting to/from a limited number of areas, but it doesn't even extend out of the center of the county, let alone to neighboring counties like Lake or Summit.