Cleveland

You get a flurry of local news coverage ... but not a lot of participation. No wonder pols all have the "windshield perspective."

In most U.S. metros, renters and buyers alike pay a steep premium to live in walkable neighborhoods, a new report finds — except for a small handful of U.S. cities where they actually cost less than car-dominated ones.

Like many cities in America, Cleveland grew into its own as a streetcar city. In the early part of the last century, hundreds of miles of streetcars connected all corners of the city as well as its inner suburbs. The streets where tracks carried passengers -- Lorain, Superior, Euclid -- were the circulatory system of the city, around which neighborhood life was organized.

So far, no charges have been filed against the truck driver who earlier this month turned right across the bike lane on Folsom Street, killing 24-year-old Amelie Le Moullac. SFPD investigators are reviewing the video of the crash that SFBC staffer Marc Caswell located and handed to them -- a piece of evidence that police say will be delivered the District Attorney's office. While we await action from the city's law enforcement agencies, a similar case out of Cleveland illustrates that the justice system can, in fact, impose real consequences for lethally negligent driving.

The evolution of state and regional transportation agencies is painfully slow in places like Missouri and Ohio, where officials are plowing ahead with pricey highway projects conceived of decades ago. But plenty of Midwesterners have different ideas for the future of their communities, and they aren't shy about speaking up.

Last night was a big moment for sustainable transportation in Cleveland.

Last month the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy released its report, “Recapturing Global Leadership in Bus Rapid Transit” [PDF], which proposed a LEED-like rating system for bus rapid transit projects and laid out a strategy for American cities to build systems as good as the world’s best BRT. While more than 20 American bus projects have claimed the BRT mantle at various times, the ITDP report named just five American cities with bus corridors that made the grade and earned the title “True BRT.” Streetsblog is pleased to publish a series of case studies from ITDP examining these innovative transit projects. We started with Pittsburgh and today, we focus on Cleveland.