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Cleveland's Euclid Corridor BRT

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Started 3 years ago by Walker
Latest reply from News

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Walker
The KLD / Downtown / Gay Street
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Cleveland's Euclid corridor project has paved the way to economic development
By Michelle Jarboe, The Plain Dealer
November 29, 2009

In October 2008, construction finally ended along one of Cleveland's most essential avenues. The crumbling Euclid Avenue corridor had become a sparkling link between downtown and University Circle. The sleek buses, the slick stations and the smooth road offered a potential path to urban renewal.

Meanwhile, the nation's financial system was crumbling. Lehman Brothers had filed the largest bankruptcy case in the nation's history. The government had seized mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The housing market was in tatters, banks were floundering, and the country was headed into a severe recession.

Despite the challenging financial climate, the $197 million renovation of Euclid Avenue has become an economic development engine for the city. More than $3.3 billion worth of projects are in the works or recently finished along five miles of the vital artery.

READ MORE: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2009/11/clevelands_euclid_corridor_pro.html

Posted 3 years ago #
ja

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Cleveland rocks! It has always done things in a big way! It's part of its rich heritage.

Posted 3 years ago #
johnwirtz
Glenview, IL
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Praise for the Euclid Corridor on Streetsblog:
http://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/07/05/cleveland%E2%80%99s-center-running-brt-route-the-healthline-sparks-development/

Ridership is 60% higher compared to the old routes on Euclid. It would be interesting (but impossible) to know how much of this is due to improved travel times versus image. It would also be interesting to know what percent of the improved travel times (34% faster now) are from the reduced number of stops, off-board fare payment, level boarding, independent bus lanes, and signal priority.

Posted 1 year ago #
johnwirtz
Glenview, IL
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Cleveland Turns Uptown Into New Downtown
...
One of the first major projects for Uptown, completed in 2008, was the $200 million reconstruction of Euclid Avenue, which included installing a dedicated lane for an unusual bus rapid transit line. The three-year-old line has attracted 12 million riders and connects the city’s central Public Square to University Circle.

The bus service, known as the HealthLine, and the reconstructed boulevard are credited with contributing to a boom in development that The Plain Dealer reported in July had reached a total of $5 billion. Along with Uptown, where the investment so far totals $162 million, other big projects include a $560 redevelopment of University Hospitals Case Medical Center, a $350 million casino on Public Square and a $465 million, 555,000-square-foot convention center and medical mart downtown.

“There were skeptics about the HealthLine,” said David Beach, an urban design expert with the Museum of Natural History. “It’s proving that an investment in transit and improvements in streetscape do start to change real estate investment patterns over time. In a slow economy it takes a few years. But we are seeing new development up and down the Euclid corridor now.”

Posted 1 year ago #
columbusmike

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I'd like to see Columbus develop 4 or 5 BRT routes....color coded so it feels like a rail system. It would be a great way to implement/test mass transit in Columbus before we get a rail network.

Posted 1 year ago #
Walker
The KLD / Downtown / Gay Street
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Very cool to see that development filling in, and very interesting to think about the potential impact BRT could have on Cleveland Avenue in Columbus. Probably not in the same realm with a lack of medical facilities there, but at the very least that entire commercial corridor from Morse Road to Downtown could get a real shot in the arm.

Posted 1 year ago #
Walker
The KLD / Downtown / Gay Street
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columbusmike said:
I'd like to see Columbus develop 4 or 5 BRT routes....color coded so it feels like a rail system. It would be a great way to implement/test mass transit in Columbus before we get a rail network.

Agreed. After Cleveland Ave is done we could probably start next on Broad or Main/Sullivant for an East-West route.

Posted 1 year ago #
rustbelt

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I don't think Cleveland's Euclid Corridor Project is as wonderful as many believe it to be. I lived in Cleveland (and worked a block away from Euclid Ave) while it was being discussed, planned, built & completed.

Like the boondoggle medical mart issue in Cleveland, I followed this issue closely & continue to do so (admittedly less so since I moved & so much of this is from memory).

First, much of the development along Euclid Ave would have happened regardless of whether or not the project happened. Indeed, a good deal of it was in the planning stages before the project ever came about such as, if I remember correctly, all the money Cleveland State is spending/has spent.

But the Plain Dealer, big champions of the project, added up all the money being invested in that area & attributed it to the project, regardless of whether that was accurate or not.

Second, there are those (including within RTA) who will tell you all of the utility lines & whatever else running below Euclid Ave were in need of repair, replacement, whatever. However, those involved knew it would be an easier sell to get funding if the plans included something new & shiny instead of an unsexy infrastructure-only project.

Third, the time it took to complete the project decimated various small businesses along Euclid Ave who could no longer attract customers because of a lack of parking & access. They couldn't weather the storm & shut down.

Finally, Cleveland already had plenty of buses to take people back & forth between downtown & the hospitals on the east side, which was the publicly-stated goal of the project. No further public transportation was needed. I forget the exact figure, but taking the shiny new thing instead of regular buses or cars shaves only a handful of minutes off the trip. Hardly worth the millions of dollars for the stated goal.

It is for these types of reasons I've always been opposed to running something like a trolley between Broad St & OSU along High Street, as has been discussed on this board numerous times. The payoff of traffic problems, businesses losing money/customers & the millions & millions of dollars it would cost vs. whatever minor payoff nowhere near justify putting something along a route already served by numerous bus lines.

Posted 1 year ago #
Displaced Columbusite

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Just a quick comment regarding that newest Plain Dealer article. The area around University Circle that is in that picture I think is a bit misleading. The museum (the silver diamond like building) was already located on the Euclid corridor (one street removed) in an old building but wanted to move to University Circle because that is where the rest of the museums and cultural buildings are.

Second, that blue new build is actually for Case Western students and would have been built regardless of the Euclid corridor. The anchor tenant is a bookstore that is setup like the one at Ohio State, the major chain that bought Long's, and will house the new student bookstore.

Third, the new hospital cancer wing was in planning well before the Euclid corridor was a thought.

I do believe that the Euclid corridor has helped build up other areas of the route, just not at University Circle.

Posted 1 year ago #
Walker
The KLD / Downtown / Gay Street
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Are you positive that all of those developments planned prior to the BRT were actually planned before the BRT? We've seen several private investments here in Columbus that were developed along with a public infrastructure development. Gay Street & Neighborhood Launch comes to mind. The public investment in the upgrades to Gay Street were completed years ago, while Neighborhood Launch is still in the works, and will be for quite awhile longer. But the two were definitely planned in conjunction with each other.

I just wonder if the same thing doesn't happen in Cleveland, and we're just not as close to those conversations...

Posted 1 year ago #
News
Columbus Underground
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HealthLine Drives Growth in Cleveland
by Jason Hellendrung
July 13, 2012

Euclid Avenue in Cleveland connects the two largest commercial districts in northeast Ohio: downtown Cleveland and University Circle. A microcosm of the city itself, the corridor has experienced extreme highs and lows throughout its history. At the turn of the 20th century, Euclid was known as Millionaires’ Row and was home to the founders of Standard Oil and General Electric. But by the time the Great Depression ended, the avenue was devastated. During the 1950s, its streetcars were dismantled. By the 2000s, the corridor was depressed, lined with dilapidated buildings and vacant lots and evoking a sense of hopelessness.

READ MORE: http://urbanland.uli.org/Articles/2012/July/HellendrungHealthLine

Posted 9 months ago #