Hotel Bruce

Welcome to the Bruce blog – a weekly update on news, events and issues affecting life in Cleveland. Reporting as it happens on transit, development, planning, environment and arts & culture.

Basically, we write about creative ideas forming, talk to the people who have an inside track on the issues, and sometimes offer a commentary of our own. (For disclosure purposes, the Bruce blog should mention it works part-time with nonprofit organization EcoCity Cleveland).

This will probably come as a shock to no one, but researchers have found that people living in sprawling suburbia are likely to weigh more, walk less, and become more stressed out than people living in dense, walkable areas of the city. Smart Growth America and the Surface Transportation Policy Project, two of the largest nonprofit organizations in the nation studying the effects of urban sprawl, just released a major study that definitively links the degree of sprawl to the level of body fat. The average body mass index (BMI) of the sample of 200,000 people in the study was 26.1. Geauga County, Ohio, which was tabbed as the most sprawling county in the United States (way to go!) has a BMI of 26.23. In other words, your typical person living on a cul-de-sac in Aurora or Chesterland weighs 6.3 pounds more than your typical Manhattanite and 2.6 pounds more than a typical Cleveland resident does.

It’s not that Cleveland Heights or Ohio City has more jocks, it’s just, as the study shows, urban design and place matter. Studies indicate that walking and biking facilities such as a park, or walking/jogging paths actually encourage people to be more active. And designing streets with sidewalks and districts that mix residential and commercial uses actually encourages walking. In fact, one-third more people walk to work in compact metro areas compared to the suburbs. Now that’s something to ponder the next time a developer wants to build a 500-unit subdivision. Click to order a copy of the study.

National transportation policy groups were calling Cleveland last week to find out how Senator George Voinovich might vote on the Transportation Enhancement Act (or TEA-3), which is facing the possibility of radical changes in Congress. Transit advocates are looking at Voinovich’s record as a moderate Republican, one who may be more pragmatic on issues of transportation. Although GV has time and again demonstrated generous patronage to coal-burning power operators, the groups hope he can be a deciding vote in maintaining some semblance of the Clean Air Act’s attainment requirements (which are in danger of being gutted). One issue is whether any consideration should go into shutting down future highway building in a city such as Atlanta, with its attendant sprawl issues, if air pollution exceeds a ceiling set by the Clean Air Act. A couple of years ago, the feds determined that Atlanta would not be in attainment because of air pollution from cars and trucks, and shut down future highway building (which may have had a positive affect, spurring rail development and redevelopment in the inner city).

Bask, left, demonstrates his aerosal art technique at city xpressions, the 2nd annual graffiti arts festival hosted by Cleveland Public Art last weekend. The festival featured national artists Bask, Cope and Cleveland native Sano (on the ladder, right); break dancers, DJs, film and local artists Bob Peck and Ryan Jenky painting a mural on cig gallery. Photos: Piet van Lier.

Bruce blog was ahead of the news when it announced that Patty Stevens, principal at Cleveland planning and architecture firm Schmidt Copeland Parker Stevens is leaving her company to become Cleveland Metroparks' Chief of Planning. Now that the news is official— Stevens will begin in November—Bruce blog asked her what was the catalyst for leaving her own firm for the Metroparks job?

"One of the biggest frustrations with private practice is that your engagements are on a project by project basis—you are usually not involved on an ongoing basis," Stevens says. "So, this is an opportunity to see initiatives through to implementation and operation -- this is a growth opportunity for me. Leaving was very hard, but the more I thought about it, I began to see how my departure could be a good thing in terms of making room for others to move forward."

Stevens added that community awareness and appreciation of natural systems and open space is growing, and the Metroparks, as one of the largest owners of open space in the region, is in a unique position to contribute to this community vision.

Centerpoint Properties, the developer of Shaker Square, has a pair of pedicabs or rickshaws that are languishing in storage. The bicycle cabs are hugely popular in dense urban areas such as Toronto, where college students make a business of moving tourists from place to place. Cleveland Green Building Coalition used the Centerpoint pedicabs to give tours of Ohio City during the opening of the Cleveland Environmental Center last March. Since then, other community groups have been chompin’ at the bit to rent them out for special events, but the developer hasn’t nibbled. In 2001, bike enthusiast Dominic Libertore ran the pedicab operation for Centerpoint around Shaker Square. Around the same time, a second pedicab operation was running in downtown Cleveland, but was sold to a company in Dayton (Libertore has since stopped running the pedicabs in the Square). If there’s a market demand, maybe Centerpoint can be persuaded to sell?

One of the possible homes for the pedicabs, the Ohio City Bike CoOp, is going to be packing its boxes and emptying its basement filled with hundreds of bikes – the building that housed the non-profit organization located on Lorain Avenue next to the Cleveland Environmental Center was sold (pending approval) to Case Western Reserve University, reportedly for $100,000 by the consortium that owns the CEC, led by Cleveland Urban Properties. Apparently, the Bike CoOp refused to sign a long-term lease, choosing instead to go month to month. OCBC, whose offer to buy the building was rejected, is looking for a space in Cleveland (reportedly with the help of Joe Cimperman) that it can rent on the cheap and fix up.

Meanwhile, city of Cleveland, Century Cycles and EcoCity Cleveland are sponsoring ‘The Lakefront Ride’ a bike ride to benefit the Ohio City Bike CoOp and celebrate the completed lakefront bike route, September 21 at 9 a.m. Take your bike on the RTA Rapid, use the Waterfront Line or ride down—meet at the park in front of the Rock Hall. Explore the lakefront east or west from downtown and support OCBC. Call 216-634-2345 for info.