ODOT has to CHANGE--Critical Mass

Submitted by lmcshane on Sat, 06/19/2010 - 02:37.

This past week on WCPN--Brooklyn Centre residents Lois Moss and Tim Donovan spoke on the need to change our transportation focus.

Bike advocates like Jim Sheehan and others continue to protest ODOT's blindside to taxpayer pleas for bicycle and pedestrian thoroughfares with every new construction project--including the Innerbelt bridge.

Taxpayers want our dollars spent on bike, pedestrian, public transit and green solutions to transportation options--but ODOT refuses to listen. 

Residents want accountability. 

We know that District 12 of ODOT has been plagued with years of corruption. 

ODOT's sudden imperative to install concrete walls all along I-71 and to fell mature trees which filter air quality, especially impacting the Brooklyn Centre neighborhood--ONLY forty plus* years after... the construction of the interstate highway--deserves greater investigation. 

I, for one, am grateful that Tom Beres and WKYC are looking... walls are not a transportation priority for my tax dollar.

Photo credit--WKYC

 * amended

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ODOT are government hacks

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sat, 06/19/2010 - 07:07.

ODOT are government hacks - they do what their leaders tell them.

I've been questioning the corrupt stupidity of ODOT since Hauser brought them to my attention five years ago...

Now I'm dealing with the government hacks who help ODOT pollute and fail here - NOACA.

they all work for Mayor Hackson around here.

Disrupt IT

Strickland, Fisher et al.

Submitted by lmcshane on Sat, 06/19/2010 - 08:20.

Need to answer for ODOT...Fisher's office has been contacted... There is a community meeting at the Applewood Center on Wednesday, June 30th.  I will post more here soon.

Give names and numbers...

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sat, 06/19/2010 - 08:45.

Give names and numbers for the people you suggest calling so others may call as well... these politicians need to be hounded about pollution by citizens - driven to action or driven from office.

If you get a politician on the phone and they say the future of Ohio is clean coal, ask how much $/MWh it will cost to build clean coal plants... if they don't know tell them to shut up and read realneo - http://realneo.us/content/assessment-power-plants-meet-proposed-greenhou...

Disrupt IT

ODOT noise barrier walls

Submitted by Lizzy on Sat, 06/19/2010 - 12:36.

Nice job on channel 3 news last night Laura! AND, congrats on getting elected to BCCA leadership!

Maybe it is time to bring back discussion of burying I-71 between Fulton and W.25 (or to Steelyards!) but instead of just a walkway connecting the north and south of BC, let's create a public park for Brooklyn Center - maybe a soccer field, basketball, tennis, running track...who knows!. Now that's really repairing the neighborhood from the hideous problem that the highway has inflicted on us for so many decades! The money ODOT has budgetted for sound walls should be redirected as a downpayment for burying the highway thru our neighborhood.

What do you think?

On the War Path

Submitted by Gone Fishin on Sat, 06/19/2010 - 09:12.

I am already on the war path today, and someone I respect very much wants me to attack Cimperman and Jackson.  And I also get to tell them to "shut up." 

Piece of cake, Norm.   Let me know what else you need, especially today while I am in the "mood."

If you live near pollution point sources, protest your taxes

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sat, 06/19/2010 - 09:18.

If you live near pollution point sources, protest your taxes...

Proof why is posting here... a highlight:

the May 2010 study "The Effect of Power Plants on Local Housing Values and Rents" finds "3-7 percent decreases in housing values and rents within two miles of plants with the semiparametric estimates suggesting somewhat larger decreases within one mile. In addition, there is evidence of taste-based sorting with neighborhoods near plants experiencing statistically significant decreases in mean household income, educational attainment, and the proportion of homes that is owner occupied".

Disrupt IT

June 30th

Submitted by lmcshane on Sun, 06/20/2010 - 09:02.

 Thanks Lizzy--

Please join the neighborhood to make noise at the Applewood Center on Wednesday, June 30th.  We will not be walled in. 

As you mentioned we need linkage and ODOT came before residents years ago with the same proposal and residents requested lowered access roads and linkage--not walls. 

This tactic of coming back every five years to reinterview residents is meant to wear everyone down.  We aren't going away.  

I especially agree with everything you say about the public park options--we have WC Reed Field, Meyers Pool, the Metroparks Zoo and Brookside Park, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Riverside Cemetery and recreational access to amenities at Lincoln High School and Estabrook. WE need to bring these all together to serve residents.

ODOT vs. Trees

Submitted by lmcshane on Fri, 07/02/2010 - 02:28.

 

As more trees come down everyday in Brooklyn Centre--this is the mentality throughout the state. 

Trees must come down. 

Walls must go up.  This is a solution?

 

at times this country seems to be at war always

Submitted by bj on Fri, 07/02/2010 - 06:26.

 people vs. trees seems to be the oldest and longest war fought on this soil.

be nice if it could stop.

and - thanks for the updates.

 

Some people would welcome the noise barrier walls

Submitted by ward14resident on Tue, 06/22/2010 - 10:41.

I haven't posted for a long time here on realneo.  But now that the discussion of noise barriers in the area between W 25th and Fulton Rd. along the access road to I 71 has come up again I feel it is important to post here to let people know that my house abuts the access road in this area and I am for the noise barrier walls.  I want to post a letter here that my daughter wrote to Councilman Cummins.  It gives an alternate viewpoint about the noise barrier walls. This letter was written by my daughter.

Mr Cummins,

I do not live in your ward, however my parents do and have since 1967. I was two years old when we moved there. I moved out of the city in 2001 so I would consider myself a person from the old neighborhood. A person who has experienced living there for 34 years.

I know what it is like to live for many, many years with a freeway in my backyard. I know how noisy and at times dangerous it is. By dangerous I mean the cars that drive right into your backyard due to accidents.
I wonder if any of you that are protesting the noise barrier walls experienced this. My guess would be not many of you. I remember my parents had beautiful grape vines along the fence in the back to block the view of the freeway and those grape vines did a wonderful job blocking the view until ODOT decided to kill them. The one thing those grape vines did not do was block the noise and the car accidents. If one wanted a green alternative, then this should have been in the process many years ago. There is funding now for the barrier walls, there may not be funding after years of meetings and protesting to fund an eco-friendly wall. Don't get me wrong I am definitely pro-green. Yes that would be the better alternative if it were available now, but it is not. How long do the people have to wait?

 

 

noise barriers, walls, a good thing

Submitted by westward on Tue, 06/22/2010 - 12:08.

For people that have property ending in the freeway, and for those that want these walls, they should get them. I have been in residentinWard14's backyard, and, if I could, I would help build those walls to do anything to block out I 71. 

I do not know how close lmcshane's property is to the freeway. Is it adjacent to the freeway? or half a mile?

I would not begrudge folks that had parts of their property taken by ODOT in the 60s having a barrier to the pollution, noise, and dangers of the freeway.

noise barrier walls

Submitted by Lizzy on Tue, 06/22/2010 - 15:14.

 

Lizzy, whatever posting

Submitted by westward on Tue, 06/22/2010 - 22:17.

 Lizzy, whatever posting you were trying to put in did not make it. Please try again. The more thoughts, the better.