Clinic, city consider new Euclid Ave. traffic plan--Like a tumor, the Cleveland Clinic just continues to spread and to grow, now wanting to take out a chunk of Euclid Avenue itself. It's already been the urban renewal shill to take down a whole neighborhood, and now it wants to become a "campus" and sprawl across and overlay the existing grid of streets. ("A Clinic spokeswoman would not comment on specifics, but said the hospital wants to calm not only traffic but also the patients, employees and other pedestrians who now face an unfriendly swath of cars and concrete. "--how ghastly!)
I view this as the height of arrogance and a clear signal that they just have too much money. It's time for a redistribution. We want our money back.
The Clinic already has its own bus system (RTA's not good enough for its employees) to shuttle Clinic commuters who opt to drive to work from remote parking to their jobsite.
It already has constructed enclosed walkways from building to building (like those things we had for the kids' hamster habitat) so that Clinic commuters need never set foot on a Cleveland city street, yet alone be breathed upon by a native Clevelander, one of those quaint figures down on the sidewalk.
It's figurehead has the hyper-preppie name of Toby.
It just has too much money, and not enough sense not to press it's luck. It's grown fat on us, and now it wants to take yet more. Let's start saying "no" to any more incursions from the Clinic into our public spaces and our public purse, and let's start taking back our money, and our heritage. We've had our pockets picked long enough.
Chronic Illness Recovery-One Step At a Time
6 years ago
Posts
they would build these traffic circles with who's money? What buildings would have to go?
ReplyDeleteGood questions, susan--let's see if "they" are more forthcoming with the plans and how it's all going to get paid. Time for us to start naming the "they" people individually. Time for personal accountability.
ReplyDeleteWhen I looked at the intersections on a Google map, I wondered how the clinic plans to add traffic circles (how we love traffic circles-like Dupont Circle in DC, great place to get killed by someone who knows where they are going ramming into someone who is stopped or slowed trying to figure out what they just drove into).
ReplyDeleteHave you tried to get from 14th Street to Stealyard Commons yet? That Quigley Road connector is a real doozy. Jeffrey and I had to come at it twice to figure out where the f*@# we were supposed to go. Luckily it was an early Sunday evening and there was no traffic. When you don't know if you got it right, the only exit is back into a lovely section of neighborhood which felt like a massive relief after the BIG RAMPS of ODOT. You know the kind. They make you feel like a feedlot cow en route to the slaughter.
Every time I hear these traffic circle proposals, I think of Europeans in cars in their older -- not designed for autos cities -- punch it, hope you make it -- may the best man win sort of driving. And how does widening the area for cars make a place more pedestrian friendly?
Wanna take a walk through University Circle? I mean the actual traffic circle. Imagine trying to get from the back of the Museum, say MLK and Jeptha Drive over to the tennis courts on foot. Good luck.
I would be OK with fewer lanes of Euclid for through traffic, but folks want to turn left and right and some need to continue forward. Lee /Cedar intersection in my neighborhood is a good case in point. If a bus is stopped there, the whole thing breaks down for a cycle. Making it a circle would not help.
You gotta wonder which of the buildings they built would be razed to make room for a traffic circle. If they wanted a farm field or public park environment ultimately, they sure got the planning wrong from the getgo. You can't make buildings with that kind of massing suddenly friendly and communicative on a human scale simply by adding lawn and sidewalks.
Next thing you know they will want to hire Studio Techne to make bridges across the street like the one they made for the Heights Library. The subject of much and prolonged controversy, this over the street bridge has made it a near death experience to cross the street at ground level there.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see...