metrocity

Bad headline.. doing a quick skim it reads like shots were fired at an RTA station. But that is not the case.

^Not really, it exists. And the anonymity of Greyhound makes it very attractive to drug smugglers. Less of a paper trail than even Megabus Why Drug Traffickers Love Buses http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/10/why-drug-traffickers-love-buses/7433/

That's how Megabus succeeds in attracting the cream of the crop of the demographic. Drug dealers using cash, and chronic low income users with no computer or smart phone flock to Greyhound. Megabus gets the broke college kid, underemployed young professional, and the budget minded middle class for the most part. It's too bad they are so mismanaged, there may be a market for an actual higher class bus service given the popularity of megabus. Drop the $1 gimmick and go to a decent standard fare each way like the "first class" buses all over Mexico and it would probaly be successful. I've used Megabus because the fares since the United merger to Cleveland have doubled. That coupled with United cancelling short haul flights frequently at peak periods, the hassle of O'Hare, TSA rules...etc have made flying stressful and awful. Amtrak is no option at this point either.

Is that the incident that happened at Dillard's...which shortly after Dillard's finally decided to throw in the towel at RPM?

That's what bumpers are for. Welcome to any major city where parking is a premium...everyone taps the other cars bumpers when street parking. And if you can get your car in a spot, it's not too small.

^Thanks for the info JeTDoG, it's very much appreciated. The 4 pm arrival from Chicago is the regular schedule I believe, it leaves Chicago at 8:15 am and I have taken that one a few times. The other bus may have been from another destination since they have added other routes...maybe it was from Detroit since she would have come in on I90 west as well (I heard the other driver tell our driver that she was stuck on I90 due to the car pileup but I didn't see the destination sign). Or they may have added an earlier Chicago departure as you said, but I didn't see one when I purchased my ticket so it may have been sold out. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the fault of Megabus and not RTA though, Megabus does seem mismanaged sometimes and I am tiring of it. As popularity went up, it seems the service level has gone down.

Very cool

^oh that sucks! I have seen them use the Coach USA regular buses before, I had one on a return trip from Cleveland to Chicago once. That Canal St mess is always confusion, and the Megabus employee on site there is as surly as they come. The guy loading our bags (not the driver) told me mine was too heavy and I couldn't bring it. Limit is 50 pounds. So I took it back and was going to take something out...then he's like, "here I'll weigh it" with this little hand held thing he had. Ok, why didn't you just do that in the first place?? It wasn't over 50 lbs, and he allowed it...like he was doing me a favor. Is that Greyhound Express you use?

From an interview with Drew Carey in Scene, so I guess they had a ball drop at one point: Scene: So, a friend of mine said that back in 1994, New Year’s Eve going into 1995, when they had a ball drop on Public Square, when the ball came down, it said ’96, not ’95. Guess they wanted to save some money or something and have the ball all ready for 1996, which was the bicentennial. I guess people booed when it came down. Is this shindig going to be better? DC: Ha. God, I hope so. Did they drop a softball from the Terminal Tower? You have to laugh, there’s story after story like that about Cleveland. http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2013/12/26/qanda-drew-carey-on-new-years-eve-in-cleveland-the-browns-the-seattle-sounders-and-banishing-irrational-sports-hatred-from-his-heart

So the downfall of using the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Transit Center for Megabus reared its ugly head on Dec 24th at 4 pm when I arrived via Megabus from Chicago. Apparently they have one bus bay reserved for Megabus. Well, an earlier Megabus bus was delayed by the accident/pileup on I90 that day and was still sitting in that bay. As we pulled in RTA would not let our bus park and unload. They told the driver he needed to pull back out and sit on the side street until the other bus left. This resulted in us sitting idle on the bus about 25 minutes. Cars waiting to pick up passengers piled up double parked on 21st street. At least one passenger (who had no checked bag) started yelling at RTA personnel to let him off and they had no right to keep us on the bus. I heard a couple people comment with dismay as they watched the RTA bus they wanted to transfer to pull away. Everyone was pissed. The situation seemed silly, and made RTA look kind of stupid. No thinking outside the bureaucratic box they live in. The transit center had probably at least half, and maybe even 3/4 of the other bays empty. Is it really that hard for RTA management to allow an alternative unloading area for the 15 or so minutes it takes? The other Megabus was just sitting there, the passengers were long gone. I guess it was waiting on new passengers to arrive for another departure. If all of those empty bays were scheduled to suddenly fill up with RTA buses, why not just allow the Megabus to unload on a sidewalk adjacent to the transit center? To put this in perspective, the Canal St/Union Station boarding area in Chicago is a chaotic mess. Tons of people milling about waiting, multiple buses pulling in and out to jockey for space, and traffic on Canal St gridlocked. To sit on a bus in Cleveland and look out the window and see empty bus bays, and blocks of empty sidewalks surrounding the center just seems dumb, however the situation seemed to throw RTA into a conundrum that they had no idea how to handle in a logical manner at this "transit center". (cross posted in Ohio-Midwest Inter-City bus discussion)

So the downfall of using the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Transit Center for Megabus reared its ugly head on Dec 24th at 4 pm when I arrived via Megabus from Chicago. Apparently they have one bus bay reserved for Megabus. Well, an earlier Megabus bus was delayed by the accident/pileup on I90 that day and was still sitting in that bay. As we pulled in RTA would not let our bus park and unload. They told the driver he needed to pull back out and sit on the side street until the other bus left. This resulted in us sitting idle on the bus about 25 minutes. Cars waiting to pick up passengers piled up double parked on 21st street. At least one passenger (who had no checked bag) started yelling at RTA personnel to let him off and they had no right to keep us on the bus. I heard a couple people comment with dismay as they watched the RTA bus they wanted to transfer to pull away. Everyone was pissed. The situation seemed silly, and made RTA look kind of stupid. No thinking outside the bureaucratic box they live in. The transit center had probably at least half, and maybe even 3/4 of the other bays empty. Is it really that hard for RTA management to allow an alternative unloading area for the 15 or so minutes it takes? The other Megabus was just sitting there, the passengers were long gone. I guess it was waiting on new passengers to arrive for another departure. If all of those empty bays were scheduled to suddenly fill up with RTA buses, why not just allow the Megabus to unload on a sidewalk adjacent to the transit center? To put this in perspective, the Canal St/Union Station boarding area in Chicago is a chaotic mess. Tons of people milling about waiting, multiple buses pulling in and out to jockey for space, and traffic on Canal St gridlocked. To sit on a bus in Cleveland and look out the window and see empty bus bays, and blocks of empty sidewalks surrounding the center just seems dumb, however the situation seemed to throw RTA into a conundrum that they had no idea how to handle in a logical manner at this new state of the art "transit center". (cross posted in RTA General thread)

As Ohio inches up in the "fattest state" and unhealthy ratings, legislators should be making laws to encourage walking and excercise and making it as safe a possible, not making it an activity that makes it an "at your own risk" proposition. The state gives out drivers licenses to residents as a privilege, and with that privilege comes the responsibility to follow rules and laws that come with operating a large machine safely and watching for others around you. Personal responsibilty is written off for so many drivers as "Ooops, it was just an accident", and they are slapped on the hand. Laws like this continue to relieve drivers of any personal responsibility for careless actions. A child walking to school or an elderly person is not part of an "anti car" conspiracy. Lets make them more responsible for their own safety and give adult drivers another reason to believe they always have the right of way??

^That reason has been discussed upthread. However once a young person adjusts their lifestyle for that reason, a certain percentage of them will also realize it is an expense they can do without even when their income goes up and this creates a change of attitude/trend. Also, in order for any young person to have a social life that involves drinking alcohol, driving is no longer an option even if you have just one drink. Your generation did not have to adjust your driving habits in order to be social with friends, these kids do. I had a car when I moved to Chicago 15 years ago and realized it was not neccesary and have not owned one since. None of my friends have cars.

Another take on the issue. Although I'm not sure anyone expects that these types of units would really be for Parents and kids, or older people. Big houses/driving in sprawl have health risks too...so should they not be built? The Health Risks of Small Apartments New York City has a housing problem. Currently, it has 1.8 million one- and two-person households, and only one million studios and one-bedroom apartments. The obvious solution seems to be to develop more small residential units. But how small is too small? Should we allow couples to move into a space the size of a suburban closet? Can a parent and child share a place as big as a hotel room? http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/12/health-risks-small-apartments/7929/

More press/media on this trend: Micro Home Contest winner in NYC: http://nypost.com/2013/01/22/micro-home-winner-to-show-how-stuff-works/ Unfolding Origami apartment video: Proposal to make micro apartment more livable: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/05/plan-make-micro-apartments-little-more-livable/5559/ Tiny apartments from above: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/02/apartments-so-small-they-can-only-be-photographed-above/4780/ SMARTSPACE SoMa: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2012/11/micro-apartments-so-nice-youll-wish-your-place-was-small/3932/

For some comedic relief, check out this web show "Tiny Apartment" about a couple in a tiny apartment in NYC. Pretty good stuff, the writers/actors are from various backgrounds including Adult Swim, SNL and the Onion. The pic below is from an episode where they order out food...from Edible Arrangements, and wash it down with 40oz beers. http://tinyapartmentshow.com/

I agree, and would add a kind of historical jealousy in an older city like Cleveland. If you lived all your life in more of a blue collar burb...places like Cleveland Hts, University Hts and Shaker Hts were at one time the top of the heap, and maybe as a kid you were jealous of those places and that your family couldn't afford to live there. For some reason people love to try and drag down the once high and mighty. You see it when something bad happens at Beachwood Place, or when Tower City was going down, those who couldn't afford to shop there love to relish in the fact that something bad happens or that it's going downhill. The older person who grew up in Maple Heights, Euclid, Parma (etc) and bashes the wealthier Heights, but secretly wished they had grown up there is what I picture as some of the Cleveland.com posters.

The square footage seems to be relative to the market. Someone in NYC, and someone in Cleveland would definitely have different ideas about what constitutes a micro apartment or condo. In NYC, there would be a big market for a lot of people, whereas in Cleveland it might be more a niche like Case or CSU Students at this point. Although, as Hootenany said, there is no problem renting theirs, and given the old housing stock around Cleveland, there are probably many of them already scattered around. I lived in a 350 sqft place in Ohio City when I was going to CSU, and I knew another friend that lived in an tiny attic apartment in Little Italy. Shaker Square has some around there too. My condo in Chicago is 650 sqft, and I am definitely in the minority among my friends who tend to live in more like 1200 sqft condos. People here think its tiny, but my friends from NYC would kill for the space. Here it is to show how I efficiently use the space. The bedroom area is separated by a (conference room) wall system I scored from the Steelcase showroom at Merchandise Mart! If anyone else lives in a small space, I'd love to see more examples in this thread on how they make it work.

I couldn't find a thread specifically devoted to the trend of Micro Apartment living, and since it is catching on in coastal cities and recently in Cleveland I figured it would be a good urban topic. To start, here is a video that mentions Cleveland along with NYC, San Fran, and Vancouver as places where the trend is emerging. Good points in the video include the necessity of cities to offer this type of housing in order to retain young professional people, and how the need for storage has decreased as music and book collections are housed in a laptop rather than on shelves. There are also good ideas shown in the video for any of us who are space challenged. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/july-dec13/microapartment_09-22.html

The Hyatt at the Arcade is an example of a valet only Cleveland hotel. If you wish to self park, they will suggest nearby garages. Goes to show, it's not unheard of.

^^Come on now KJP, give TPH2 a break, it's clear what he/she is saying. Appreciate the feedback from real users to push for improvements...change will not happen if we pretend it's all good. I used Amtrak once from Chicago to Cleveland and it was 3 hours late. I'll fly or take Megabus until real service improvements are made. I am jealous of the new DC streetcar...it looks awesome!

Hey R&R, here's an idea for your hubby, the C.O. Bigelow Premium Shave Cream at Bath & Body Works at Tower City...it is an excellent product! They always have sales there too. C.O. Bigelow is an Apothecary in NYC, but B&BW has an agreement to sell it. http://www.bigelowchemists.com/c-o-bigelow-products.html?gclid=CK6uhN6dtrsCFY47Mgodn2IAiA They seem to always have "buy 2 get one free" on C.O. Bigelow...so I also recommend the MENTHA Body bar soap...it is exfoliating for dry winter skin and has peppermint oil that wakes you up.

I'd say...especially women (living/working downtown, tourists, convention goers), would need a place to get better cosmetics like a department store would have, maybe like a Sephora (which still doesn't cover many upscale brands). Last time I was in town I forgot something, and there is nowhere to buy Clinique Downtown. My friend came down from Detroit for work once, and complained she couldn't get MAC Downtown.

^This is in the comment section by the writer of the article:

Cleveland's Great Lakes Christmas Ale going for $13.99 +tax for a six pack at the local bodega by my house in Uptown Chicago...Damn! Of course I snagged it..it was the last one! :drunk: Typical imports, like Amstel sell for $6.99 at the same store.