Well, that is one opinion. Of course this rebuttal landed in my in-box recently and I thought I would share.
What’s with Dick Feagler? His Sunday column on the Euclid Corridor (Nov. 18, "A corridor; how exciting") begins by saying Cleveland lacks “a certain amount of creativity” suggesting the $220 million, mostly federally-funded project isn’t innovative. Doesn’t he read his own newspaper? Did he miss the numerous Plain Dealer articles over the past 30 years chronicling the project’s evolution from “Dual Hub,” a very expensive rail rapid transit line proposal ($800+ million in 1980’s dollars), to the current bus rapid transit line (BRT)? What about RTA Board Vice Chairman Ed Kelley’s excellent letter to the editor on Friday ("A catalyst for growth") noting numerous benefits from Euclid Corridor such as the $2.3 billion of investments and 10,000 new jobs already in process within the Corridor? I don’t know about Feagler, but when I travel the Corridor, I see thousands of planning, architect, engineering, and construction jobs that wouldn’t otherwise have existed!
How could Feagler not recall the countless PD articles revealing how then-Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White, Cleveland City Council, the NOACA and GCRTA boards, and Cuyahoga County Commissioners ALL agreed at the time that a Euclid Corridor rail line wasn’t the most cost-effective use of taxpayer dollars? In scaling the project back as they did, our leaders at the time promised MORE transportation and development benefits in Cleveland’s main street by proposing to fix badly deteriorated infrastructure along the City’s main drag. Their foresight with that call afforded the region THREE brand new downtown professional sports venues, major airport expansions and huge investments in ongoing highway, bridge, water and sewer projects. Euclid Corridor dollars saved also enabled RTA to open its Waterfront Line in 1996, the region’s first rapid transit expansion since the 1968 Airport line extension. Feagler must surely remember that little innovation? You know, the one that made Cleveland the first city in North America to have a direct rail link between its major airport and downtown.
Feagler also somehow fails to acknowledge PD articles, RTA and national news pronouncing Euclid Corridor as North America’s FIRST-EVER BRT line to be built from the ground up. Hint: RTA didn’t win the 2007 American Public Transportation Association’s Best Large Transit System in North America Award just by for putting pretty new trolleys in downtown Cleveland and bike racks on all its buses.
As with the Airport rapid line extension, planners, architects, engineers, developers and city officials from around the world have already begun traveling here just to see how we're building the BRT. And once the line opens, most likely with naming rights helping to offset costs (pretty innovative for a transit line!), lots more folks will come here to experience Euclid Corridor first-hand. (Can you say “tourism dollars” girls and boys?)
Because of construction woes and whatever else, many in the region like Feagler are prematurely passing judgment on Euclid Corridor. Just as it took decades to plan and build, it will takes decades to realize the full benefits of the Euclid Corridor. But quite frankly, I already enjoy bicycling the Euclid Corridor bike lanes (rode 'em today to pick up tickets for 12 Angry Men at Playhouse Square). And RTA customers have already begun taking refuge in the fancy new Euclid Corridor shelters. But who could argue that new and renewed water and sewer lines, roads, Cleveland Browns Stadium, Jacobs Field, Quicken Loans Arena and Hopkins Airport haven’t already brought countless major benefits to this region’s residents and visitors? All that should be pretty exciting to a region making a comeback like ours, and the Euclid Corridor Transportation Project and our past and present leaders can be thanked for that!
Richard McDougald Enty
(Transportation Consultant and retired RTA planner who worked on Dual Hub and Euclid Corridor studies, on and off, from 1978 thru 2007; was principal author of three versions of RTA long range plan documents from 1993 thru 2006)
You can also read more thoughts on the article (including mine) at the new ClevelandDesignCity.
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