Transcription from the Cleveland Urban Core Projects Advisory Committee Meeting

Transcription

1 Transcription from the Cleveland Urban Core Projects Advisory Committee Meeting NOACA Nov 17, :00 am to beyond 1:00 pm Attendance: Consultants Bruce Mansfield B&N Neil Chase B&N Mary Cierebiej - HNTB Paul Dorothy -Burgess & Niple Matt Wahl- HNTB Scott Buchanan- Burgess & Niple Cory Grayburn - URS Paul Alsenas -- Cuyahoga County Planning Commission Michael Armstrong --Federal Highway Administration David Beach -- EcoCity Cleveland William Beckenbach -- The Quadrangle Debbie Berry -- City of Cleveland Planning Commission Jamie Blackson Baker -- St. Clair/Superior Development Corporation Robert Brown -- City of Cleveland Planning Director Millie Caraballo -- Cleveland Industrial Retention Initiative David Coyle -- District 12 Deputy Director, ODOT Tim Donovan -- Ohio Canalway Ronald Eckner -- NOACA Colleen Gilson -- Tremont West Development Corporation Claire Kilbane for Timothy Hagan, Cuyahoga County Commissioner Phil Hartman -- Ohio Motorist Association James Haviland -- MidTown Cleveland Craig Hebebrand ODOT Jamal Husani -- Cuyahoga County Engineer s office Howard Maier -- Director, NOACA Joseph Mazzola -- Ohio City Near West Development Corporation John Motl-- ODOT Brian Newbacher -- Ohio Motorist Association Scott Pollock -- Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority Mark Ricchiuto -- City Cleveland Public Service Director (co-chair) Dale Schiavoni -- ODOT Michael Schipper-- GCRTA Timothy Tramble -- Burten Bell Carr Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

2 Jerome Walcott -- Commission on Catholic Community Action Thomas Starinsky -- Historic Warehouse/Historic Gateway Matt Zone -- Cleveland City Council Ward 17 Guest Sign-In Sarah J. Beimers, Preservation Programs Associate -- Cleveland Restoration Society Brian Cummings Ward 15 Cleveland Councilman Fred Findley -- Cleveland Ci t y Schools (CCS) Bob Gardin -- ADCC Ed Hauser Cleveland resident Lora Hummer -- ODOT Jonathan Holdoy -- Cuyahoga County Steve Litt -- The Plain Dealer Art & Architecture Critic Robert Mascaxer -- Financial Management Association (FMA) Laura Noble -- Downtown Cleveland Partnership Bob Parker -- Baker & Associates Jeff Pessler St. Clair/Superior Development Corporation James Pressler -- Director of physical development, Greater Cleveland Partnership Ken Sislak -- DMJM Harris, representing Cuyahoga Community College Norma Stefanik -- Cuyahoga Community College/Youngstown State University Lester Stumpe -- Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District Michael Taylor -- representing Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones Kurt Weaver -- Financial Management Association (FMA) Ned Whelan Whelan Communications Aubrey Sippola Whelan Communications Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

3 Introductions around the table Craig Hebebrand: ODOT has been focused on many parts of the transportation plan. On the Lakefront West ODOT, FHWA and the City of Cleveland met a couple of weeks ago to reach an understanding on how to proceed to negations with Michael Baker & Associates under contract to start the next phase of work around the first of the year for the Lakefront West. We have moved the start of construction from 2008 to regarding the Cuyahoga River Valley Inner Modal Connector, the study team now is gathering some additional information. We have asked them to go back and look in more detail at the material handling movements within the Valley. What comes in by what mode and what goes out by what mode, including the number of trips by each and the location that those come in and come out of. Originally we concentrated on the salts and aggregates. Now we want them to look at other materials because there are a lot of other shipments that come in from manufacturing facilities in that immediate area. They are expanding all that information and reviewing soil bores previously done, including the recent study by EDP, so we can get a better handle on the slope instability problem on the west bank of the River between Columbus and Detroit roads. The Opportunity Corridor Committee has recommended narrowing the number of Corridors from 4 to 2. This recommendation will be brought to public after the first of the year. What the committee looked at is keeping the roadway in the so-called Forgotten Triangle neighborhood, since that is the area where they are trying to activate the land, so the alignments to the north where there is existing development were dropped in favor of ones that stay within the Triangle. For the Quigley Road Connector, we have filed tracings. We will start construction in the spring 2006 and will be substantially complete by the end of the year. Yet, there will be additional work that will continue through the spring of the following year. On East 55 th street, there are two projects: 1. Replacement of the East 55 th Street Bridge over I Replacement of the railroad bridge over East 55 th immediately south of I-90. The bridge work over the highway will start in The railroad bridge work over East 55 th will begin in When we are done from north of the railroad bridge through, around, and over the interchange and around the curve toward Gordon Park, we will have 4 lanes, 2 bike lanes, and sidewalks. We will take the bike lanes and connect them to the Lakefront bikeway in that area. While I was talking, Lora Hummer of ODOT passed out a letter. I will let Mark Ricchiuto talk about the letter that he and I prepared to set the stage for the next steps. Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

4 Mark Ricchiuto: Through our discussions, most of us here are not familiar with this detailed federal process and this is the first time for a lot of people to hear about it. So this is one of the things we wanted to do at this point because there is still a lot of confusion, particularly in terms of not only steps in the process, but where when and how does the public input play a role in the process. What this letter does is simply define the rest of the process from this point forward. The letter tries to explain those buzzwords the Federal Highway Administration uses, such as Access Modification Study. This explains what those different points are along the way, again to emphasize when, where and how public input takes place. The other thing we noted, the second page of the letter along with ODOT s Web site for this, explains the various mechanisms for public input so everyone is clear about it, as well as in the following paragraph after that on the second page. We state and make sure that we want public input to basically continue throughout the process until the environmental assessment ODOT has completed gets submitted to Federal Highway. So once again, we just felt it was important to specify in detail, in writing with explanations for a lot of these terminologies the Federal Highway uses, so everyone is clear about the process and clear about public input. Lester Stumpe: Mark, are the opportunities before the Planning Commission? Is there something about how that is also public input, because that s not really a part of that process? I m trying to recall. Wasn t there something signed between ODOT and the city about the city representing this long laundry list of issues and that it should be part of the public process? I m just trying to tie this all together. Ricchiuto: That s a good point and I would like Robert Brown to comment on it and Debbie can add on too. Bob Brown: Yes, there is a document that requires presentations to the City Planning Commission with public involvement, and that meeting is tomorrow at 9 a.m. in City Hall. Now, the Commission won t be taking any action tomorrow, because it is the first time they ll have ever seen this level of detail of the plan. This will be an informational presentation to the Commission, and then we will work out a schedule for ODOT to return to the Commission for future public meeting for further input and action. Debbie (Berry) would you like to add to that? Debbie Berry: No. Stumpe: All right, so that schedule will be addressed and made known on the Web site? Stumpe: The Planning Commission actually picked out a large responsibility. There s long list of unresolved turns coming out of the Scoping Committee. Is that process systematically going through, and will the Commission be able to deal with those concerns? Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

5 Hebebrand: Sure, that would be part of the Commission s actions taken in tomorrow s meeting. Berry: Tomorrow is really the first meeting; there will be a series of meetings. The Commission hasn t seen anything in about a year. Based on information, we ll figure out where we need to go next as they address some of the issues specifically and answer questions. (Not sure who is speaking) Yeah, talking to Tony Klein, he obviously is concerned about the number and complexity of issues, and clearly there will be series of meetings with the Planning Commission. This isn t going to be a one- or two-meeting process. The focus for the City of Cleveland for the MOU was to insure the whole process came before the Planning Commission before it moved on. That was our central focus point with the whole thing. So, Lester, your point about the Planning Commission is a critical one in this whole process. Paul Alsenas: Is it possible to integrate public documents on one schedule? Hebebrand: That s not a problem. We will go ahead and do that. In fact, we should have done that, but our focus was so specific around the Federal Highway process. That s the only reason it was excluded. But you are right on target. We will do that so it will simplify things for everybody. Hebebrand: Today starts a process of about 12 months of ODOT taking what we have learned over the last five years and balancing everything that we have learned about this corridor: the needs, the constraints, and putting forth a recommendation. In the next year, we will refine that recommendation and forward to Federal Highway. This meeting begins the feedback on that recommendation. In December, we will publish a rather large document. I apologize that it wasn t available before this meeting. The document will be 400 pages. The editing has taken longer than anticipated. This document will be made available to everyone, on our Web site, and for anyone outside that would like a copy, CD s will be available at the Cleveland Public Library systems as well. With that said, Paul Dorothy will walk you through the recommendation. We have worked pretty hard with everybody since June, including lots of meetings with stakeholders so we better understood the issues that were raised in June and prior to June. We made numerous adjustments to the recommendation before bringing it to you today. Paul Dorothy: We are going to start off by talking about some things that we have worked on since we last met, specifically an update to the safety study. We focused on the area starting with I-90 coming across the Carnegie Curve to the Trench out to the Innerbelt Curve. We broke that analysis down in the Central Interchange, from Carnegie to Superior, which is the Innerbelt Trench and from Superior through the Innerbelt Curve. I want to talk to you about what we reconfirmed with that analysis. One of the nice Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

6 things: we were using two different data-sets for this update, now using Previously, we were using The data-sets were fairly consistent in what they told us. There were some variations in where there were random events like where fatalities occurred, but when we looked at overall trends, they were very consistent. In the corridor I-90 from Ontario north to the Innerbelt Curve, we have ramp structures associated with that main line. We have 787 crashes per year on average in that section. That results in about 2 crashes per day in that section of the Innerbelt just north of the River. In fact, that two-mile segment of I-90, which includes the Central Interchange and the Innerbelt Trench, ranks 1 st out of 139 freeways in the State accident hot spot list. In other words, it is the most dangerous two-mile segment of freeway facility we have in the state and the problem we need to address. Injury crashes in this section of the Innerbelt represent 31% of the freeway crashes that we have out there. The statewide average is only 25.1%, so a big concern with this section of the highway is if there is a crash, more likely it will result in an injury than other portions of the state. Let s look at the injury crashes by segments from Central Interchange, Trench and Curve. With the average 31%, we can see the biggest contributor to that is the Innerbelt Trench at 34%, again with the statewide average at 25.1%. Some things that contribute to this crash problem are what we call geometric deficiencies. Basically we looked at the existing design and compared it against our existing date design status. We classified that any place there was a differential between the design standard and what was actually constructed out there. Today we assigned that difference to one or two categories, either Primary or Other deficiency. A Primary Deficiency is something where we grossly do not meet current date design status. Example: the Innerbelt Curve, the radius of that curve is 453 feet, should be over 1,000ft. So there s a big difference between what the design specs says it should be and what it is actually. Something like that is assigned a Primary Deficiency. One where we have a minor change, i.e., a curve radius of 270 ft., we have a 200 ft. radius, in that case that would be an example of an other. Conflict point: that s where you have one ramp coming onto the freeway, another ramp downstream from that coming off the freeway and traffic from the mainline that wants to get off versus traffic from the ramp that wants to get on the mainline. And those two movements cross themselves on the freeway. Those conflict points are very strongly associated with safety problems. We identify the number of conflict points in this study as well. As you can see, we have a large number in Primary Deficiencies and awkward points associated with the existing system. Those are directly attributable to the safety problems. We will talk about each segment in more detail and look for the primary causal affects due to the high crash rates and high injury rates. Let s take a little broader view of the crashes in the Corridor and when they are typically occurring. If this is midnight through midnight, all crashes assigned to one-hour Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

7 period at the start of the a.m. peak, taper off during midday. Then we see a strong spike during the p.m. peak travel. About 34% crashes occurred in this portion of the Corridor between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Again, we can see, looking at the remainder of the hours, that it is a pretty large differential variance compared with the other hours during the day. Question: Why is that? Dorothy: A different style of problems, also, typically, p.m. travel is higher than a.m. peak travel. So the numbers of vehicles out there are basically higher. Dealing with total crashes in this area, we would expect this to be somewhat higher than a.m. peak, just based on the fact that there is more exposure. But this is much higher than we would typically expect. Hebebrand: The other contributing factor in downtown Cleveland is such a major destination that in the morning, we have many departures from the freeway which are easier to navigate than evening when people are trying to enter the freeway. Dorothy: One of the other contributors to go with that is the fact that we were only looking at crashes that were occurring either on the freeway or on one of the ramps. So crashes that maybe occurring on one of the associated arterials was not included in this count. The crash summary -- What we see when we assign a cause to the type of crash is that 43% of the crashes are rear-end and 14% sideswipe. So, with 57%, more than half of those types of crashes are associated with congestion. As we know from the previous presentations on the level of service to the Corridor, we know that congestion is a reoccurring problem and is a contributor to these types of crashes. Okay, I am going to walk through the project from the north to the south and will put all information together. We will talk about new safety information. We will talk about proposed improvements. We will talk about the traffic flow patterns. We will talk about the Historic District and residential properties. The first section that we are going to talk about is the Innerbelt Curve. At the Curve section as we looked at crash summary, one of the things we found is that despite this section of the Innerbelt s reputation, the crash rate of the Innerbelt Curve and the injury rate of the Innerbelt Curve is lower than both the Trench and the Central Interchange sections. We see the crash rate listed here for the various segments of curves. The regional crash average is 1.2 crashes per million vehicle miles of travel. The section of roadway to the east of the Curve has a significantly lower than the regional crash average rate: The section where the Lakeside and St. Clair ramps are, the crash rates jumps to 2.9 in both directions. So approaching and leaving the Curve not many problems, but it is when you get into the Curve where those interchange ramps are having problems. Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

8 How do we correct the deficiencies that we saw there? First thing we talked about before, flattening the Innerbelt Curve, reconstructing State Route 2 interchange, reconstructing all street bridges that cross the Innerbelt Corridor. Some things changed the Innerbelt Curves since we met with you. Based on public involvement and our work with St. Clair/Superior, we made modifications to the Innerbelt Curve, starting with the extension East 30 th up parallel to the alignment between St. Clair and Hamilton. That extension will allow traffic up East 30 th to continue up to Hamilton and work its way in with the removal of the St. Clair ramps, allowing better access to the St. Clair/Superior area. One of the things we heard is previously we had cut off the westbound State Route 2 access to the interchange Municipal Parking Lot, as well as, the South Marginal Road. One of the things we heard from folks is that it is a good route into the St. Clair/Superior area. So we ve added this ramp here. It maintains the connection through to this loop and allows westbound I-90 to get off and come through this loop ramp down South Marginal Road and then work your way back in. Or you can come off here still eastbound State Route 2, down and across South Marginal across the alignment. The connection is still there. South Marginal across the alignment just will go down a little bit. Are there any questions about this alignment before I move on more discussion about traffic flow in that area? Okay, we have talked about the fact that there s a direct correlation shown by safety studies between the geometric deficiency existing system and the safety problems that we have there. We had 14 Primary deficiencies, we reduced that to zero. We have 42 other deficiencies, we reduce that to one. We previously had 5 conflict points, we reduced that to 2 as a direct result impacting and improving safety in this portion of the corridor. Travel flow into and out of the neighborhood: Under the existing system, travel flows from eastbound I-90 to either the Superior access into the neighborhood or the Lakeside Avenue ramps. Coming westbound, you typically drive down East 55 th, and you re way into the neighborhood. The only change proposed is removal of the Lakeside Avenue ramps and the extension from East 30 th up to Hamilton. Actually traffic patterns from the neighborhood. It takes the existing exiting pattern despite the existence of the ramp coming off of the Lakeside and East 26 th area onto the freeway. It has a stop sign at the bottom. Despite the existence of that ramp, most of the travel flow coming off Lakeside, most travel flow out there, is continuing down East 26 th and utilizing the Superior onramp because it s easier to get onto the freeway. Under the existing condition, we are showing that as a preferential flow coming out of the St. Clair/Superior area. There is no change in outbound travel flow to this section. The reason again: these stop conditions on ramps are not preferred by drivers because of the uncomfortable nature of having to come to a complete stop at the bottom of the ramp and then having to accelerate to freeway speeds before entering the system. Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

9 Any question on the curve before I move on to the Trench? Alsenas: How would someone coming from the east have access to Burke Airport? Dorothy: Westbound on I-90 when you get off State Route 2, there are many options depending on destination access to the Muny Parking Lot via the existing Muny Lot interchange. Other than that if you want to inter this area, go down East 9 th Street get off, get on the North Marginal Road. We are not making changes to the State Route 2 Corridor. Changes to State Route 2 Corridor are being handled by the city s Lakefront Plan and several changes have been suggested for access to that area as part of that plan. As part of this study, we are only concerned with maintaining access in the interchange area itself. Again, we worked with the Lakefront Plan to ensure that our alternative that we have shown here will match with any of the alternatives that are currently being considered by that Lakefront Plan to make sure we have flexibility. The interchange is a high volume interchange, so if development does occur along the Lakefront, the interchange is able to handle it. So, this portion of the facility is designed to be able to handle both the Burke Lakefront Airport traffic and the potential future traffic. Additional changes are with the Lakefront Plan. Stumpe: When you said that you considered land usage within the Loop, did you particularly identify the spaces dealing with storm water with respect to that? Dorothy: We mainly looked at storm water requirements and our requirements for treating run-off. At this time, we have not done a detailed look at where we would site the storage facilities for that run-off -- whether it would be surface storage or most likely underground storage of some type. Again, we have not gone into any detail. The other thing we have looked at is the interior of the existing loop. It is a terrestrial habitat area. As part of an on-going study, we paid more attention to the existing Loop ramp area because of our concern with the potential impacts in that area. The Trench: Again, we did the same safety analysis for the crashes in the Trench area. We are talking about eastbound and followed by talking about westbound I % of the crashes on eastbound I-90 are associated with 3 primary areas: The Chester Avenue on-ramp with its short acceleration and short taper lights. That first loop ramp that comes on is basically forced on to the eastbound Chester Avenue and to eastbound I-90 loop ramp as it loops around and comes on. It s to merge in very quickly before the westbound Chester movement, which is using the ramp in the Northeast Quadrant, comes on entering the merge between Chester and Superior. The short weave between the Prospect Avenue on-ramp and the Chester Avenue off-ramp, we have 5.1 crashes per million-vehicle-miles in that section. The Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

10 short weave is between the Chester Avenue on-ramp and the Superior on-ramp, so essentially the two weaves in that eastbound direction are causing significant crash problems. In the Westbound direction, 74% problems are associated with two areas: 1. The short weave between the Superior on-ramp and Chester Avenue off-ramp. 2. The next weave Chester Avenue on-ramp and Prospect Avenue off-ramp. Between Chester and Prospect, we have 11.4 crashes per million vehicle miles. We all know that weave in particular causes us a lot of problems. That weave has a high safety problem, as well as a high congestion problem. It has a tendency to back vehicles around the loop ramp at Chester and back vehicles down Chester sometimes as far as East 36 th Street. Again, there is a clear casual relationship between that short weave and both safety problems and operational problems on any given day. Ricchiuto: Just to get a perspective. Obviously you would like zero crashes per million vehicle mile traveled. Is there an acceptable limit? Dorothy: We typically compare these to the regional average with a sampling of that area. The statewide average is smaller, of course. Our regional crash average of 1.2 and we are typically trying to get below the regional average. Something that is close to 5 times the regional average is an area of extreme concern. Again, things like this clearly are the reason why this 2-mile section of roadway is ranked first on the hot spot list in Ohio. We looked at two options for how to address the problems associated with this portion of the Corridor. When we came out of the last stakeholders meeting we had several, but have narrowed them down to two: First, the Minimum Alternative. We take the existing Trench System try to improve the weave areas by adding auxiliary lanes. These are lanes, where the on- ramp comes on and it stays as a dedicated lane until the next off-ramp and it goes off again. Sometimes those can help with capacity and alleviate some of those weave problems. We remove the Carnegie Avenue ramp again, making as little change as possible to the connection points while making many geometric changes as we could in a very constrained area. What that resulted in, when we looked at level of service, we have failures within the Corridor. The Carnegie Curve from Chester Avenue back into the Central Interchange failed in the a.m. peak. Essentially it backed up the inbound traffic through the Central Interchange area causing the failure in that location. The weave between and Chester and Superior, despite the auxiliary lane, was only operating a Level of Service E. In the westbound direction, the weave between Chester and Prospect, was also operating at Level of Service E. There should be no surprises here. Those are locations where under our current condition we are still having problems. In the p.m. peak, we see a failure on the mainline associated with the weave between Prospect Avenue and I-77 and the weave between Chester and Prospect backing up the Carnegie Curve area much as we see on any given day on the existing system. Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

11 On the eastbound direction, we also see failure of the weave between Chester and Superior. So this poor Level of Service for this alternative shows the inability to address any of the part of the 5 primary contributors to the safety problems in this section of the corridor. Again, this Alternative has significant difficulties. Second, the Build Alternative that we looked at re-aligns I-90 slightly, by pushing the I-90 alignment about half an alignment to the east. Access is consolidated at Superior, which does not change as how it is present day and Payne and Chester as a split diamond. Traveling corridor both east and west to explain how those work. Coming eastbound, come out of the Central Interchange into Carnegie Curve, the first thing that is encountered is an exit to Chester. At Chester we can go left and right at Chester, or we through to a one-way frontage road that parallels the alignment to Payne. Left to right on Payne or back onto facility: If you stayed on the facility eastbound I-90 after past the exit to Chester/Payne the next thing you will encounter is an exit to Superior. What we have done there is called braiding the ramps. We made it so we see the exit to Chester, followed by the exit to Superior followed by the entrance from Payne followed by the entrance from Superior. So what you see there are the two weaves that we showed causing us significant safety problems have been eliminated. By removing access at Prospect and Carnegie and by braiding access Chester/Payne and Superior we have eliminated both of those high crash locations. By reconfiguring Chester we removed the third eastbound problem that we had that was our primary contributor, contributing to our 71% of our safety problems in this corridor. Westbound, the first thing you encounter is an off-ramp to Superior. The next thing is an off-ramp to Payne. Again, down a one-way frontage road to Chester this time in order to get back on, turn to the right using the existing loop ramp coming back onto the alignment. You stay on westbound I-90; again, we see an exit to Superior, an exit to Payne, an entrance from Superior and an entrance from Chester. That removes one of the two weaves that was giving us a problem in the westbound direction in both safety and operation. By removing the Prospect ramps, we remove that second problem eliminating our primary contributing factors to both safety and operational problems. I am going to talk about access to and from Carnegie as part of my discussion about the Central Interchange. I will talk about access to and from Prospect as part of the Trench. We looked at the Midtown Connector roadway, which is a two-way roadway starting here at Chester, down to Euclid, down to Prospect, on the westside and the eastside between Prospect and Carnegie. What this allows is north/south movement between the Prospect corridor and the Interstate facility. If you are coming from the east, or desiring to go to the east, utilize this section of the connector to up into the Chester/Payne interchange area, which provides you access to I- 90 in either direction. If you are looking to head either to I-77 or to I-90, I-71 and points to the south and west, the roadway takes you down to Carnegie. This brings you into the Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

12 Central Interchange area here at East 18 th and provides you access to either I-77 or I-90, which leads you to I-71 and State Route 176. So, full access to Prospect is provided via this new Midtown Connector roadway. Question: How many lanes are those one-way connectors? Dorothy: The one-way connectors are two lanes going both the same way. Also you are looking at additional turn lanes at the intersections, but typically two lanes. Thomas Starinsky of Historic Warehouse/Gateway: Are two lanes going the same way? Curiously, is Prospect still on the table provided more access into Downtown, coming westbound getting off at Payne, do you use the Connector to get over to Prospect into downtown? How do I go home? Seems to me you are providing a way to get through there, but there isn t a clear way to get back. Usually people like to go back the way they came. What if there are multiple events? Dorothy: Return trip would be to come back up that same path. South Chester is two-way. Again, come over to this roadway, turn left drive up from Euclid to Chester, turn right, turn left onto frontage road and get onto the freeway. So pretty much a close return trip. Starinsky: What about multiple events scheduled at the same time? Dorothy: I m not sure if any facility could handle multiple events. If we look at how our exiting system operates, what s causing us problems with both congestion and safety is the large number of access points. Chester is backing up everyday because Prospect is interfering with the people trying to come on through Chester trying to get onto the Innerbelt. So by spreading these access points out and allowing cars to come on with an on-ramp or by on-ramp getting rid of the weaves, we improve operation of the mainline facility. While there are fewer points to get on or off, they operate significantly better. Ricchiuto: Although you will never have a perfect solution to handle multiple events like what Tom described, will it be improved over what it is today? Dorothy: It should be, yes. Again, if you look at how traffic control is typically done for these events, the traffic control is localized in the area of the event. Once you get out of that portion of the event and try to get onto the freeway, you are on your own. There are multiple people using those access points and this exacerbates the existing problems. We have tried to spread things out and reconfigured the freeway so you can get on and off easier. When we look at level of service in both of our peak periods, we have level services of D or better for the entire corridor for both the AM and the PM. That gives us a lot of additional capacity to handle some of these special events traffic. We have not modeled a special events or combination of special events, but there is plenty of capacity remaining in that system since it looks better under our peak conditions. Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

13 John Motl of ODOT: East 17 th street will be extended. Dorothy: There are multiple paths up to Chester at that point. Chester is a very robust arterial. The current problems associated with Chester have little to do with the design of Chester itself, but have to do with the failing weaves on the mainline freeway. So, get rid of those failing weaves on the mainline freeway and Chester, which is a very wide Boulevard with plenty of roadway capacity, gets to operate as it was intended. Starinsky: Except for when you get below East 13 th Street when Chester becomes more of a local road. When Prospect was in the mix, downtown stakeholders felt more comfortable with it. Now that you are taking it out, you are not really taking advantage of the fact that Carnegie is not providing any kind of access. I know you want to talk about this when you get to the Central interchange. It seems to be a part the idea of the mix. Dorothy: We will talk about Carnegie, if you could hold that question. Starinsky: Yeah, I only brought it up because I feel it s part of the mix and we need ways to get in and out of the area Dorothy: I would agree, but I m trying to break it up into logical pieces. Ricchiuto: One more on this point. What I heard you say, Paul, is that we haven t really modeled or looked at the scenario of multiple large events in downtown? Dorothy: But keep in mind there are few cities in this country that can handle multiple special events scheduled at the same time. You can t design your system for that. Ricchiuto: I m not asking you to do that, but since this type of scenario does exist and we plan on improving, enhancing, and increasing the vitality of downtown, multiple events only exacerbate the traffic problem, I just want to make sure that the scenario that we end with, we are doing better than today and certainly not causing it to be worse than today. I m not asking for it to be a perfect scenario -- we clearly understand that -- but there is a focus looking at that because this is a major city and a major part of a major city is for it to be convenient. It should be convenient particularly to those suburbanites that are not comfortable coming downtown because they don t do it that often. So just a point I am making: it s a component that we need to pay attention to. I m not asking to solve it to the point where people never have to wait when they leave an event; I just want to make sure, since we are investing, that we are in a better situation than we are now with the special events situation. Jim Pressler, Greater Cleveland Partnership: Quickly, I think one your challenges is working on improving the safety issues involving the mainline. In order to get to Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

14 Gateway, you have to start thinking how to get off the system at the Innerbelt Curve, that far north. Consequently, like what Tom was talking about, in order to get back on system, you have to start weaving your way over far south to get on pretty far north. That s a change in mindset the people will have to be aware of. Hebebrand: There will be adequate signage on the Interstate itself; telling people what exits are available in the downtown area. There will be adequate time for drivers to make decisions regarding the potential exits points available to them. The only parallel to this, we are building an Intelligent Transportation System for the entire Cuyahoga County and its approaches to the freeway. We will have a Traffic Management Center able to coordinate with the City of Cleveland when we have multiple special events. We will have signs; giving drivers inbound different directions, depending on their destination, and try to help them navigate into the City when we have multiple events. Claire Kilbane, County Commissioners: I have one question. On this picture of Chester Avenue, there s a street that dead-ends. Are you removing it? What street is that? Hebebrand: We are removing that portion of the street -- East 27 th. We have a number of locations such as that, like Cedar, where we have a recommendation on how to treat some of these streets. This is probably an area where we are going to spend a lot of time in this next phase, resolving those issues, and determining if these are appropriate places to adjust these roadways. I think when we were up in the Curve, there s another one there at that point. We were very close not to be able to provide that link, but as we get into detail design, we can determine how we treat those roadways. But at this point, 27 th street is shown as coming off Payne and not going through between Payne and Chester. Dorothy: It becomes local access. These properties here, in back of the Interstate, those properties are removed as part of the project. The access point is only for the properties on the east side of 27 th. Kilbane: The new road, right next to it, is it a one way? Hebebrand: One-way from Chester to Payne. Michael Taylor, representing Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones: In December, if we want Prospect back in, do you have a plan for that? Can you go back and do traffic study? And how will that work? Dorothy: Our current recommendation is that we have 4 primary needs in this corridor: Physical Condition, Safety, Operation, and Access. When we look at keeping Prospect in versus this option, which takes Prospect out, in order to fully address the needs of the Corridor -- especially the Safety and Operational needs of the Corridor -- it s not possible to keep those ramps in. We are recommending that this Alternative continue forward in the process at that Minimum Alternative that preserved the Prospect Avenue ramps be removed from the process. Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

15 Taylor: Are you saying that this is a done deal? Hebebrand: We are opening up to public comment. Dorothy: Michael, our concerns are that we cannot find a solution that fixes the problem that takes care of the congestion and the safety and maintains Prospect access where it is. We need to redirect it to adjacent interchanges. This is the only solution we found that fixes the Carnegie curve. Michael Armstrong of the Federal Highway Transportation Administration: Another way of looking at it when you look at level of service, it tells you that currently it is congested. In the future, you will see the Interstate Modification Study that not only looks at the Interstate operations, but also the local street systems ability to deal with and collect and distribute that traffic. Don t forget Levels of Service. So if you are going from an F level on a lot of these streets, the higher the level of service the better it is for those roads. If you take them up to A, that would be outstanding. But that is not really going to happen, and we know that because it is too many cars. Shooting for a D hopefully a lot of C s on some of those movements. What Craig was talking about was some of these intersections and looking at how many lanes there are and how they are configured. Those will be modified in order to obtain the highest amount of service. Always looking at where are you and where are you trying to go. So that will give you an indication of your ability to flow the traffic into the city Midtown area and everything around there and then back out. That will give you an effective measure that is quantifiable that we can all agree upon, which has been used on most other projects. Dorothy: Again, the other point is, as we have shown, the safety problem is directly attributable to those Prospect area ramps. There s no way to fix the problem without removing those ramps. The fact is, the problem the westbound condition is one of our worse problem areas in the entire Corridor. The next worst one is associated with the Carnegie Avenue ramp. Hebebrand: Michael, we understand how important access is to the businesses along there. We have no intentions of harming them. We ll do our best to build this system in such a way that it continues to serve them in the future. Again, as we get into this Access Modification Study later in the winter, we will have designed to detail every intersection flow. Every link flows so that we can get the traffic in and out of there. Jamie Blackson-Baker from Superior/St.Clair Development Corporation: We have about a thousand small businesses in our neighborhoods. One of my concerns is, How much study has been given to if someone is running errands back and forth going Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

16 across the Innerbelt to go shopping? How much travel time will be added to running those errands? Dorothy: We have not studied that in detail. Those types of trips are typically a small percentage of the peak travel period, where we did a lot of our analysis. With the exception of Cedar, we maintain all cross-arterial connections across the Innerbelt. If the connection existed today, with removal of congestions problems it won t back vehicles on to the arterials. So the system works better. We are not showing them on here, but we also looked at key intersections that run along here. They all have good Levels of Service as well. It is going to depend of a specific movement. In general, a new system will make it easier because there is no congestion associated with the Interstate travel impeding their cross-arterial movement. Blackson-Baker: There is another concern I have. Our neighborhood has housing adjacent to industry. So with the changes one of our concerns is, Are you going to create truck traffic that s spilling where it use to travel on the Interstate? Now it s traveling onto the city surface streets. Creating a situation unpleasant or difficult for people to do that little shopping because of the volume of trucks passing through the community? Dorothy: Let me give you a couple of answers on that one: First, the volume on the Lakeside Avenue ramp is low. The reason we are looking at the extension of East 30 th to Hamilton is to provide trucks to opportunity to get off the facility and get onto Hamilton. The trucks don t want to be in residential neighborhoods either. That extension allows them to get to the more industrialized sections of the neighborhood and stay away from residential. There will be no changes with the exception of improving access on East 55 th by widening the 55 th Street corridor under the now constricted railroad bridge, taking to two lanes in each direction, and improving access in and out of there. There s no change in outbound movements, just the outbound connection between Superior and Hamilton. Bill Beckenbach of the Quadrangle: What would be the EMS inbound Route from I-90 westbound to St. Vincent? Dorothy: I-77, E30th northbound to Central. Beckenbach: Why eliminate the Broadway ramp? Dorothy: Spacing. Beckenbach: Don t you want trucks to use I-77, not I-90 to East 22 nd Street? James Haviland of Midtown Cleveland: Are you going to come back to the 2 slides that are left? Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

17 Dorothy: Yes we will come back to this. Let s talk about geometric deficiencies. We have eight primary, 25 other and 4 conflict points. When we looked at the minimum, again we talked about that when we go in and make changes, sub-geometric changes, reducing that to three primary again only addressed the major problems. Many minor problems stayed in. In the built condition, we dropped that to zero, three, and one. Again, we can see the direct correlation between operation and safety and geometric deficiencies, which is why the built condition is operating at a better level. Further constraints dealing with Trench area are the existence of Historic sites. The Carnegie Curve has a clustering of both Cleveland landmark resources and national historic registrar resources. Three of the building that impact what we can do in that Corridor the most are the Walker-Weeks Building, the Mather Mansion, and the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court facility. The Juvenile Court facility is a Cleveland landmark and has been nominated to the National Registrar. Hebebrand: Stop, stop. It has not been nominated; it has been determined eligible to be on the National Registrar of Historic Places by the State Preservation Office. Dorothy: Thank you. That gives it Hebebrand: The determination of eligibility is the same as actually being on it. It has full protection. Dorothy: It has the same protection as if it was on the list. What that means when we are looking at our alternatives, if we have an alternative that potentially takes one of those buildings, we have to be able to show that no other alternative that is feasible and prudent exists in order to be permitted to take one of those historic structures. We will talk a little more about that. These are direct impacts. Again, if you visualize the Corridor in that area, we have the Walker-Weeks Building up against our existing alignment. The Juvenile Court facility has that large wall against it as well. That gives us a narrow window between those historic buildings in order to thread our improvements without impacting both of them. Haviland: Being vacated? Starinsky: What is the fate of the Juvenile Court facility? I would like to propose something coming from historic preservationists about access and the need for economic development on Carnegie, given that the Juvenile Court Detention Home is fabulously historic, but that it is being vacated. If being completely being vacated, would you consider seeing economic benefit to the county in place of the being vacated? I believe that we could go through the 106 Process, which you have to go through anyway, which could be a compelling argument and have a greater benefit to the City. Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

18 Armstrong: I can answer that question. The fact that the Juvenile Court building is historic and houses the Juvenile Court operations now but that they may move it doesn t change that it is an historic structure. Not only do you have to deal with the Historic Preservation Act, which is implemented under 36CFR800. That says your first option is to avoid, then minimize, and then mitigate. And if you have other alternatives, you do that. On top of that, you have issue 4 F of the USDOT Act that deals with the same property, but from another law. Again the process is to avoid first. You have to prove there are no other feasible alternatives. That Alternative goes through the Juvenile Courts Building, To avoid it, let s say there are other alternatives. But those alternatives result in distorting other impacts and that far outweighs that historic study. Our understanding is around $30 million to acquire and relocate that facility. The Alternative is get off at East 22 nd before it intersects at Central up one, over one, then there doesn t appear to be any impact. Certainly, it is different. What economic impact it has is currently under evaluation. But is it enough to justify going through that historic site and test the laws? I do not believe so. We have had meetings with leadership at ODOT on this issue, And Ethics WA does not believe it is an option truly available to the Department, knowing that there are other alternatives that can accomplish the same objectives without the impacts. Ricchiuto: Mike, on that point, has there ever been a situation where this exists, but you have the local community, local political leadership, and the state political leadership all-pushing to remove a structure that the law says must stay? Just asking if that scenario has ever developed before. Armstrong: Most of my career has been in Ohio. I m not aware of that situation. We have taken historic structures in the past. But there are other environmental factors that are you pushing to make that balanced decision. I actually have their regulations here, so you can see the litmus test you must pass. We do not believe that scenario exists. Starinsky: I know you guys disagreed. It means a lot when I say that this building is fabulous, but I m trying to think of the implications on economic development. I wonder if it s worth considering. Armstrong: That area is expensive, but the process is the process. We don t believe we can make the case. The 106 Process is a little easier, but we do not believe harder to make a case for the others (acts/laws). Hebebrand: When you look at that, we are talking about one-fourth of that Prospect /Carnegie interchange being restored by that acquisition of that building. That only provides one of the four ramps being restored. The alternative is for that traffic to go through two additional traffic lights. That s what you are weighing against taking a historic structure. Transcript - UCPAC Meeting

19 Armstrong: There s the perception about the impacts to the Midtown area. The issue there involves the economics of that neighborhood/community as a result of the Innerbelt. Currently, the process is evaluating that impact, which is broader and absorbs everything and what exactly that is and put in a quantifiable manner. So it s not an opinion versus my opinion. But it s a method of putting it down on paper that we can all look at it and say is this a quantifiable impact and if it is or not. Takes it out of perception and puts it in a quantifiable manner that we can deal with. We can better understand it. If that analysis shows that there is a substantial impact to the community and those impacts justify additional expenditures, then it can happen. We do not believe that s true based on what we are aware of today. I think further analysis should continue. If necessary, it should be re-opened. Again, we do not believe that is the case. Again, we talk about access, getting into and out of downtown. The Levels of Service will show you this method is commonly used to figure out what it is today, what is it in the future. And what s the difference? If it is improved, the better it is. The same thing is going to happen with your transcript. Dorothy: As part of the analysis, that acknowledges being in the Trench. Traveling Time studies also are part of that analysis and are an input that quantifies the change and access. I would like to try get to what that change and access is. Haviland: I would like make a comment to Mark, who s walking out and it s safe to say to Mike too. There s been no local discussion to set aside 22 nd and that Central is going to be the new access point. If there is a community will to address the Juvenile Detention Center, such a conversation hasn t been held yet. The County Commissioners haven t spoken with the mayor or previous mayor. There s been no discussion about it yet. I think that discussions with ODOT and the State Historic Preservation Office is not taken into consideration about the local will to do something with that building. So, I think that it is important for everyone to know that nobody locally has discounted it. And from the impact of the Community Development Corporation going back to over a year ago to maintain a new Carnegie ramp fly over or fly under, we always considered it necessary remove the Juvenile Detention Center. And nobody s ever openly had any concern over that. So, right now, it s a downstate issue that is rendering a decision based on whether or not there s a need to take it. And then 22 nd and Central will be the new Carnegie exit. That s going to be a discussion that will have to be held at the city level at some point. Armstrong: When you look at the analysis for the 106 Process, in particular the 4F Process, the local will doesn t play heavily into the discussion setup in these laws. It s more of, if you have other alternatives, what are your options to avoid? And it s not the desires on what you want to do. Try to look at it from the other direction. Avoidance is first. And then you can talk about the minimization and mitigations. That doesn t play well into saying we want to do this. This is kind of the basis for where Section 4 F built Transcript - UCPAC Meeting