tedders55

Nah, its more the issue with marketability right now. If the league as a whole were more popular then you could likely move to a Fall-Spring Schedule. But they are not there yet, for every Seattle which can bring in 40K easily there is a Chivas USA who doesn't even average 10K fans. I think a time will come when there is a greater push to move to the international schedule, but not for another 10 years. Also, I was in San Antonio the night of the MLS cup and it was near freezing there. Can only imagine how cold it was in KC.

Yes there are many, many improved spots. And I was hopeful that this would be the answer, but wanted to hear it from the horses mouth. Thanks for the quick response. Looking forward to the station renovation and cant wait for renderings to be produced.

Jerry/JetDog The Brookpark station parking lot is currently 3/4 completely repaved. Is there a reason for the delay with the last 1/4? The Northwest portion is still a lunar landscape.

Last week there were officers at the top of the stairs from the platform at Puritas checking passes. I do agree that I have not encountered them often, but we likely represent a small sample of the overall operation. It also could be that those traveling during rush hour are not the most likely to be in violation.

^^ The Current version of the Cosmos are in the second tier of the American Soccer Pyramid. Unlike most other national football associations there is no promotion/relegation so there isn't going to be any real on the field rivalry between either NY Red Bulls or NYFC. They will likely play some pre-season games though. And they could meet in a CONCACAF Champions League match but that would require them winning the US Open Cup. ^ Probably still likely to happen. MLS wants to expand to 24 teams by 2020. I would say that Miami is the front runner now that Orlando has a team. Atlanta, St. Louis, Detroit, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, OKC, Sacramento, and San Antonio have been mentioned as possible candidates. I would say that Miami, Atlanta, and San Antonio are the other three. I feel iffy about Atlanta being a possible team, but Falcons owner Arthur Blank is behind the push (along with a new stadium for the Falcons). Another possibility for expanding the market is by moving/rebranding Chivas USA. They share the stadium with the Galaxy in LA, but draw lass than half what the Galaxy do. Also, there is a discrimination suit against Chivas as well. Basically that club is a train wreck and if they can find someone who will buy them but want to move them as well I don't think MLS is going to put up much of a fight.

^ Live-Work?

^Its that last pick that worries me most. Not exactly a hoping place for a city of 8 million. ^^Even connecting Egdewater-> Ohio City/West Bank -> East Bank -> Rock Hall those are for the most part very limited use destinations. The strongest link of any, I would think would be the West Bank -> East Bank connection. That would seem to be the hardest crossing for a pedestrian to make. Another thing to consider is that a gondola does not change directions in the air, only at a station (or complex mid route apparatus) once they have detached from the main transport cable. So any stations would need to be set up on a line of sight basis. This feels like a solution looking for a problem.

I think these systems tend to work well in very specific locations. Mountainous terrain being the obvious one, but I would also think it may make sense where land acquisition costs would be high. Besides the stations there is not much of a footprint for each tower. Thus why the London gondola made sense, just wasn't well executed. Like any form of transit you need to connect things, London's gondola doesn't achieve this mark. So, Cleveland doesn't really meet either of those criteria.

You've brought up some points that we've already addressed to the vendor. At this time, the data stream that is available to us for integration doesn't have any indicators for real-time versus scheduled time. This has been, by far, the highest-demand feature request we've had. As far as sorting the stops by sequence based on direction, again, a very high-demand item, but there is nothing in the data stream that allows us to do that. The only possible thought might be keying on changes in latitude/longitude, but even that would be a mess when it comes to routes that loop, double back, or in any way follow anything but a straight line, i.e., every one of our routes. We're working on various back-end improvements to make the mobile site load faster. It's a bit of a balancing act between implementing proper caching while not being so aggressive as to preclude visitors from seeing updates to the site's information in a timely fashion. Some steps have already been taken, but we're not done yet. I suspect you'll see improvement as time goes by. JD, thank you for the response. It is rather unfortunate that this information is not available, but system restraints were the exact problem I was afraid of. It would be nice to be able to bid out the work and see if other vendors offer a better solution, but from a previous conversation I believe that the current vendor is who your stuck with, mostly due to all the back end systems. And I am sure replacing those would be a problematic undertaking in itself. Good luck and godspeed, working with vendors that are entrenched can be an extremely frustrating process.

Would it be possible to denote when a time is based on real time data and when it is the scheduled departure time from the routes landing page? Also, for the stops it would be more useful (at least in my mind) if they were to follow the route of the line; ie on the Redline, once west is choosen, stops should go Airport, Brookpark, Puritas, etc. Right now they are listed alphabetically. Which isn't so bad if there aren't many stops, but on something like the Healthline everything reads Euclid and seems to scroll forever. The reason why watered down mobile sites are nice is that they load considerably faster. However the RTA site is much better than the NextConnect interface. Props to that.

I Have a feeling the apartments were placed there to maximize the views over the ravine/river/city. otherwise there would be a giant parking lot between the building and the edge of the ravine. It does give it a donut hole feeling though. Alternatively the phase two retail/residential/office building could be swaped with the central parking lot. That would make it feel denser.

^ I dont think that was built in coordination with Hilton. I believe it was a condo/vacation renal tower that Hilton took over after the economy tanked. I actually stayed there and it was pretty nice, but def did not feel like a hotel. ^^^ Keith is right, and actually also in Vegas may be the most famous of them, the Aria I believe focuses directly on their pool and was actually giving some people second degree burns or something.

This website has some information about various systems throughout the world. It is very limited as regards to useful information, but is a good starting point.

I absolutely love that the parking lot at the Brookpark station has been repaved and upgraded. I don't think I will be seeing my mechanic as often now. However I was wondering about the station replacement. Per the landing page for the project the design was to be completed by mid 2013 and construction should begin in September. Well unless I am living in a time warp I think that has come and gone. Is there a new estimate for the timeframe that should be expected now?

Kinda defeats the purpose, I would think. That might be a limitation of the vendor. RTA may have their hands tied right now. There are a couple of other issues regarding real time info. When making selections from the Live Departures screen each drop down selection causes the website to reload. With a computer and decent connection that isn't much of an issue, still annoying and could be better written, but when using it on a mobile device it can be time consuming. Hopefully whatever update that brings a better a dedicated mobile site will take into account some of these issues. Wanted to add, to keep this on topic, that running this extension as a full route from PS to Euclid on the HealthLine would be disastrous to the schedule. There is already a problem with buses bunching up, running late, that increasing the opportunity for these problems should render that a non starter. Separating the BRT portion into two routes seems like a good compromise if the DMU or Red Line extension turn out to be too expensive.

The bridge isn't about being cool. It's about getting people effectively to the Lake front. The speed is fine, but a healthline bus has a seating capacity of 47 people in one vehicle. You are moving a fraction of that amount of people in a gondola. nope. not necessarily anyway. there are two gondola systems used as transit in the usa. one in ny and a new one in portland. the nyc ri tram holds up to 110 people (i have been on it when its that crowded :-o ) and makes 115 trips a day. so there are big gondolas too. i really wish they would go with a wsm parking lot>flats>casino area starter route, that would be good to have year round and have a high transit use potential. it would also be a non-intrusive way to gauge how such a system would work in cle. Again those are completely different systems than is being proposed here. Those are Aerial Tramways; Two trams, holding between 50-100 per tram, are connected to a fixed cable, one on either side, and both run at the same time in opposite directions between two fixed end points. A gondola system, which is being proposed, is a loop with multiple cars, typically holding between 6-10 people each, on it's route, which can have multiple stops. The other large difference is that the tram will come to a complete stop to unload, whereas a gondola system will disconnect from the main travel cable and slow down, but not stop, while unloading. This allows the cars to travel around 25mph, but slow to something more conducive to loading/unloading while in each station. The only example that I am aware of in the USA, of this type of system, is in Telluride, CO. While this is in connection with the ski resort it is not run solely for the ski resort. It does continue to run once the mountain has closed and is the main form of transport from the historic town of Telluride to the manufactured village on the mountain. More info on the Telluride Gondola

There are many flaws with the next connect interface, but the biggest in my opinion is that there is no dedicated mobile interface. It works marginally well on a computer, but completely fails when used on a mobile device. The live departure times page reloads with every selection from a drop down. Basically, it is bad web programming. Additionally, I have rarely seen the live departure times deviate from the scheduled departure times. Even when I receive notifications from Commuter Alerts that a train is late. There seems to be a disconnect with the data.

It is gimmicky, but Keith your math is right there would be no problem at all running at that slope. I think one of the bigger concerns will be the cost of constructing the towers to the height of the top of the hotel. The cable line likely cannot run directly down to the Rock Hall station without at least one tower. Half way puts it right about where the train tracks are below the bluff. Plus to get the angle correct out of the upper station there would have to be a cantilevered support for the cables, to allow the cars to clear the building. I made this point on the convention center hotel thread, but it is more likely that the station will be part of the 4 story podium. There would need to be two towers then, of shorter height, to provide the ascent and decent angles. I still believe the a connection to Whiskey Island/Edgewater is more beneficial to the public, but that may not be able to generate as much ROI.

I would sincerely doubt the skylift station would be at the very top of the hotel. Likely it will be part of the 4 story podium (if it is built at all). It would be more cost effective as the support towers do not need to be as tall. Also with Burke there may be limits on the height of these towers anyway.

American Football becomes too specialized for those playing. Most players will likely only play offense or defense, unless they are a star athlete then they may play both just so the team always has their best player on the field. But a wide receiver likely only has one responsibility, catch the ball. Soccer players have to play offense and defense continuously, switching from one to the other at the drop of a hat. It takes much more discipline and awareness in order to play. Much more communication and recovery to ensure that you are in the right spots going forward or in support. Soccer is very close in style of play to Hockey, especially due to the continuous nature of play, and basketball kind of. While you can "hide" poorer players at a few positions (depending on formation, but generally one of your outside midfielders and one of the forward positions, also maybe a center back if you have strong central midfield) you could easily do the same with America Football too (Guard, Tight End, one Wide Receiver, Free or Strong Safety, and one of the D-line spots). Really in either sport, assuming you are playing a full 11 per side, you need to have 7-8 of your best players on the field.

Its better for the region if Mexico is in the WC. We have a better chance of maintaining our number of WC berths with them in. Plus they are now forever in our debt.

Well I just got back from Paris and apparently someone "married" the Eiffel Tower. So, love away my friend.

People like me, who have mail carriers that walk to your front door mail slot with your mail. I have one too, but as I am at work when the mail is delivered I never interact with them. Also I am rarely home on a Sat. so never see them then either. I can't imagine that my situation is that uncommon. This also makes us pretty bad neighbors as we have very limited interaction with those on our street. We know our immediate neighbors, but anyone else on our street is a mystery. No so good from a safety perspective.

^ who the f* knows their mail carrier??

Just an FYI on the Brookpark Station. They are completely re-doing the Parking lot, which is massive. They are also replacing the sewer infrastructure as well. Right now they are doing the far east parking lot, next to the gas station. I am sure that they will be moving west once that portion is done, and it can't be done soon enough. That parking lot is the epitome of a lunar landscape.