GreenCityBlueLake - Blog

Cleveland will explore community composting, complete streets in "ecodistricts"

Marc Lefkowitz — Thu, 23 May 2013 10:00:00 EDT

Enterprise Community Partners is raising the stakes of their Green Communities investment by placing $80,000 in grants in Cleveland neighborhoods that have shown a commitment to sustainability. Enterprise is a national funder of affordable—and in the last decade, ‘green built’—homes, with a local office that has supported development such as pedestrian-friendly Tremont Pointe.

Biking to the boardroom: Cleveland's first Bike Friendly Business

Marc Lefkowitz — Tue, 21 May 2013 02:00:00 EDT

From the 49th floor of Key Tower, pedestrians look like ants and the Appalachians form a rolling backdrop to city, lake and the east suburbs.

Making the case for bikes

Marc Lefkowitz — Thu, 16 May 2013 03:00:00 EDT

On my walk in to work today I ran in to Cleveland Heights Planning Director Richard Wong who was marking out a bike lane with a yellow Crayon on a freshly asphalted Edgehill Road. As we started discussing the advantages of the bike lane widening as it approaches the intersection at the top of the hill, I asked Wong about the possibility of a bike box. He seemed interested in the idea, but later emailed for examples of bike boxes at stop signs.

What Peak Miles means for Cleveland

Marc Lefkowitz — Wed, 15 May 2013 03:00:00 EDT

“God made the automobile. For the boys to drive past the pretty girls...” —Iron and Wine

ODOT comes around to bike lanes. Will the city?

Marc Lefkowitz — Mon, 13 May 2013 10:00:00 EDT

The reaction as Cleveland attempts to build a complete street on West 65th to The Plain Dealer story revealed a gap between public understanding and expert opinion on bike lanes, still a relatively new phenomenon in cities. Readers took issue when this author re-stated findings that bike lanes create a safer space in the road since they offer predictable zones for cars and slower-moving bikes.

Transportation equity and the metrics of placemaking

Marc Lefkowitz — Fri, 10 May 2013 02:00:00 EDT

What is placemaking, and how do you measure its progress? If placemaking is a value, an ineffable coming-to being for a place like E. 4th and W. 25th streets that make it attractive, is it possible to dissect it order to replicate it? For community developers, it's a very real question. While placemaking smacks of wonkish urban planner speak, local group Neighborhood Progress, Inc. is exploring what makes it tick. Linda Warren says NPI, a funder and a planner, is interested in devising a set of metrics for placemaking, and wonders...

The high cost of free parking

Marc Lefkowitz — Thu, 09 May 2013 12:00:00 EDT

Should bicyclists pay a tax to use the road? That question is being debated in Washington State where loads of Seattle residents bike as their primary form of transportation.

While some cyclists may cheer the news—having been accused of mooching the public by using the road “without paying for it”—economist Todd Litman, in Planetizen, shows that now half of the money to pay for roads comes from “non-user fees” such as federal and state taxes, so, cyclists do pay for roads.

Building ourselves into bankruptcy

David Beach — Wed, 08 May 2013 03:00:00 EDT

The more we keep building communities like we have in the past 20 years, the poorer we will get. That’s what will happen if current trends continue, according to a recent analysis by the Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium.

Who's ready to Rust Belt Battle?

Marc Lefkowitz — Mon, 06 May 2013 03:00:00 EDT

This Wednesday is Bike to School Day, a national movement to return the bike and little-foot power to the center of the community.

Cleveland ponders smart growth and complete streets as an antidote to abandonment

Marc Lefkowitz — Thu, 02 May 2013 04:00:00 EDT

Smart Growth America president Geoffrey Anderson assured Cleveland that it can learn from other slow market cities how to reposition itself, and compete for talent, with a focused investment on complete streets.

“Market economies will move faster, and laggards will be left behind,” he told a small crowd gathered at Levin College to hear Cuyahoga County’s plans to pursue Complete Streets.

Even unexpected places like Salt Lake City and Oklahoma City are re-investing in downtown transit and mixed-use development, he adds. “They’re making complete streets elements fundamental to their economic development plays, and that changes the politics and the pressures to bear.”