Why Is Downtown Cleveland Building Small Buildings

[SquareBetterThanAll]

Originally Posted by goofy328

On the other hand, Cleveland already has 30 buildings that are at least 16 stories or more. Norfolk, VA, where I'm at now, only has 10 such buildings. Cleveland has taller buildings than Baltimore, MD. It does well, considering. If another high-rise was never built in Cleveland it would be okay.

To be honest, using Norfolk as a comparison isn't really fair. Norfolk's population peaked at around the size of Akron's peak. Cleveland was triple the size. For a city with less than 250k to have 10 buildings of that size is pretty good, actually.

[Minervah]

Originally Posted by SquareBetterThanAll

Isn't that generally the idea when the push is to use public transportation? Nobody expects to be able to park their car outside their door in dense areas like DC and NY and parking spaces can run $50 or $100k. Hasn't Portland been on a kick of building out their public transportation network?

Even around here large residential projects have gone up without onsite parking for all residents. Isn't that the new push? Away from car dependence?

Sorry to be going OT but to answer your question, IMHO, the "new push" to get people away from car dependency is not working very well at least in Portland and I don't suspect most places.

In Portland, there are more bicycles than ever but there are also more cars here than ever as well. Traffic is heavier than ever. There are lots of bike riders here to be sure but they also own cars; lots of cars. You can see it in my neighborhood which has exploded with cars with the new monster apartment buildings. For the first time last summer we had weather forecasters were talking about the quality of stagnant air with car pollutants advising those with respiratory problems to stay indoors.

If Cleveland is building large apartment buildings high rise or low rise without parking accommodations I hope it is doing better with its public transportation service than Portland which has allowed its public transportation service to deteriorate over the years.

I think the "kick" to which you are referring is the promise of TriMet's general manager to try to rectify the cutbacks and reinstate more routes and service times and hours with its buses. This probably has a lot to do with the call for the manager's firing because of an expose done last year on his handling of TriMet not to mention his outrageous salary which is greater than the GM's of Chicago's CTA. They are not so much in the process of improving it as much as to somewhat bring it back to what it once was which used to be wonderful.

I have been riding the system for 35 years. I don't own a car and never have so I am going by my own experience as well as what I have been following in its decline. If I ruled the world, everyone would ride the bus and the buses would run every seven minutes in rush hour and ten minutes off hours as they used to in Portland and they would go everywhere but people love their cars and the idea of pushing people out of them will never work. You will have to pry the steering wheel out of their cold dead hands first.

Instead of refusing to accommodate cars which people will not give up, let them have their parking spots and work on better alternatives they are willing to use along with the cars. So high rise, mid rise or what have you, cars are here to stay and cities that are now rebuilding their infrastructure would be wise to pay attention.