City Planning holds an online poll

Submitted by Jeff Schuler on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 00:55.
NorthCoast HarborPed BridgeConcepts.png

North Coast Harbor Pedestrian Bridge: Vote for your favorite bridge design

Federal funding has been secured to develop an iconic pedestrian bridge linking the finger pier from Dock 32 and the southwest corner of Voinovich Park fully connecting the existing waterside promenade around North Coast Harbor. To see concepts for a movable bridge click on the images below.

After viewing all of the presentations below take a quick survey to tell us which concept is your favorite.

The voting isn't integrated, (hooray for SurveyMonkey,) but I get a fuzzy feeling when I see a Cleveland City website being even somewhat bidirectional, (not to mention using modern javascript tools.)

Show support for your own voice by reading and voting.

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Wilbur Smith & Associates

Submitted by lmcshane on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 01:26.

 I haven't made up my mind on the concepts, but I am just glad that the project did not go to
Arcadis, because something stinks to high heaven with the bridge contracts they received in the Metroparks trail bridges and the awarding of ODOT consultant contracts to Aracadis for the noise barrier walls they are trying to shove down our throats in Brooklyn Centre and Tremont neighborhoods.

Maybe you should come to

Submitted by jerleen1 on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 08:09.

Maybe you should come to Tremont West (Catania West Development Corp.) and ask Sammy Catania?  He knows everything about everybody and everwhere and he sits at the head of the table doing his impersonation of ruler of the roost.  Only thing is, I do't think he can crow.

 

Baubles, bangles, and bridges – for waterfront entertainment

Submitted by Jeff Buster on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 10:13.

 rock and roll pedestrian bridge team design build fund stakehold

I reviewed the entire PDF, and vote against all proposals.   
A moving bridge at this location – whose only transportation purpose will be to allow foot traffic to go around the Rock and Roll and the Science Museum  in   circles – is a waste of money and a social crime.   If there is money available for a pedestrian bridge, then  the Sideway-Kingsbury Run Bridge should be rebuilt.  Alternatively, use the money for improving bicycle and pedestrian access either over the CSX tracks or the Cuyahoga River to Whiskey Island Park.
 
And there are other reasons that this circle scheme is baked. In the PDF:
1,         The proverbial “stakeholders” are, curiously,  not even identified.   This is a huge red flag.
2,         There is no discussion about how the bridge will be operated.   This is a fatal flag.
24 hour per day movement of such a pedestrian bridge would require personnel for safety.  Where does Cleveland have the money for building a bridge for circling the R$R which will require a gate-keeper?
3,       Any of the designs will cost much more than the 4 million the feds are providing.  
 
Concepts C and D would collapse in the open position, because the rear stay is not 180 degrees from the full open position. (see pdf page 66)        
Concept E in the up open position (pdf page 101) will act like a giant wing and end up on a RunWay at Burke – no way will it pass a wind load test –
Concept E “the HARP”, looks slick for which un-necessary luxury it will be twice as expensive as a straight span of the same design. Furthermore, the HARP will end up over on a RunWay for the same aerodynamic reasons as Con E
Concept F gets an “f” because it suffers the most from structural uniqueness (read un-tested)   I know of only 2 multiple jointed bridges.   The very neat short Paddington Basin pedestrian bridge in London, (see photos here of the Paddington bridge in all positions) and the Kiel Horn Bridge designed by Schlaich Bergermann .  Cleveland does not have the wrench men necessary to build or keep operational a sophisticated, hourly operating, multiple jointed bridge.  Even the mechanically apt Germans took a while to get the Kiel running smoothly.  Read about the Kiel Bridge on Wikipedia here.  
Schlaich appears to be involved in the design of the one or more of the Concepts for Circling the R$R.
  
Let’s deep six  this entire idea the way of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  
 
If a bridge really is necessary – the one design which was not considered, and which design would be the least expensive, the safest, and which would require the least operational costs, would be a simple rolling retractable bridge.
 
But because a rolling bridge looks plain Jane, and the StakeHolding Rockers want Eye Candy, Cleveland will not get practicality – but an expensive, inoperable Bauble.  I'll bet the Cleveland Foundation has their finger in this pie...

 Thanks to Wilbur Smith and Associates and their working partners for providing the PDF on line.  In Cleveland, this type of open record is much appreciated.

I agree 100%

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 10:56.

Thank you for taking the time for this thorough and enlightened response, Jeff - I didn't even bother looking at any of the proposals because the idea of wasting $1 on a bridge to nowhere anywhere in America - especially such a center of por and corrupt planning - is an insult to the intelligence of all Americans - we have real infrastructure, greenspace and environmental issues to address.

Disrupt IT

Who asked Obama to waste our federal money on this?!?!?!?!?

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 11:04.

What disgusts me here is that each community in America may only ask for a fair share of any federal money, for any purposes, and our Leaders have asked the Feds for this bridge to nowhere, making us seem as stupid as Palin.

So who exactly asked for this money - where is the application and where is the plan that says it is needed for anything?

Worse than a babble, this is triple-layer cake dangled above the starving, and saying starve motherf---erss.

How do we officially protest to Obama that all this Palinesque, big coal, big brother, Richardsonian, Whiteheaded, FFOEFy, GCP/D master planning is evil?

Where in their public inquiry and survey process are we given the option to vote no, and asked what we want funded by the Feds?

Disrupt IT

Dangling the promise

Submitted by lmcshane on Mon, 09/07/2009 - 08:40.

  Norm--

Ward 14 resident Jackie talks about the irony of our society here.  This is all too much.  Yesterday, I walked down these same streets.  There are pockets of utter despair and abandonment.  St. Procop's is closed and shuttered and St. Rocco's carries on to hold gaudy festivals, but doesn't take on St. Procop's mission to feed the hungry and clothe the poor.

Lincoln West High School from the outside is a prison with no maintenance, whatsoever.  This while we spend millions on a bridge to nowhere.  All the while, GCP has the knowledge that Eugene Sanders was brought in to completely bankrupt the Cleveland Metropolitan School District for the complete take-down by the rigged awarding of facilities contracts and burning through tax-funded facilities monies.  The lives of students in Cleveland Metropolitan School District and the community be damned.  

In a sane and rational world, summer recess would be a time for any logical community to make repairs to the important needs of the community.  Fixing streets, windows, roofs, sidewalks, water lines.  This summer, the weeds grew high around Lincoln West High School and William Rainey Harper School.  The "newly" remodelled Rhodes High School reopened only to send many students home due too a shoddy construction problem.  And, so it goes.  Like, the Diocese, watch the District close, abandon and tear down more buildings and close "new" ones due to population loss.  It's all part of someone's sick plan.

feeding the hungry

Submitted by westward on Mon, 09/07/2009 - 09:17.

 When St. Procop's closed their kitchen, they posted a sign telling people to go to St. Augustines on W. 14th. If they are walking, or riding a bike, they must walk by St. Rocco's and other churches, to get to St. Augustines. It  seems if the Diocese has the authority to close these churches, they also have the authority to order other churches to step up and feed the hungry.