WestBLVD

Banyan Tree looks to have closed their shop in Uptown. Hopefully retail will do a little better once the new apartments in the neighborhood get built. It appeared as if ground was already being broke around the corner for the Centric Project this afternoon.

All trees on Euclid from where Chapati is to Dynomite Burger were cut down. On the other side of the street all trees from Corner Alley to just before Dunkin Donuts were cut down. That sidewalk design was poorly laid out, the water would drain away from the tree planters and pool on the sidewalks and in front of the buildings. I'm sure they could have fixed this without removing the trees, but it was probably easier to just pave everything over.

Sadly, all of the new trees that were planted along the sidewalk in Uptown a few years ago were chopped down last week. These were rather large trees for being relatively new and already provided decent canopy coverage. The stumps were removed and the areas where the trees were planted are already paved over to match the existing sidewalk, so it doesn't look like any more trees will be going in. Quite sad.

That car free list is travel list for visitors not wanting to rent cars, not a list for permanent residents who are car free. There's a big difference in the needs and destinations of someone taking a 3 day weekend to visit a destination and not wanting to rent a car versus a resident who permanently lives car free. With Cleveland's airport having rail service arriving around 3:45am and having trains leave until after 1am, all visitors arriving and departing by plane can use the rapid. Many major cities that do have train service to their airports can't boast those hours. So for a traveler flying into Hopkins, staying downtown, wanting to see a sporting event or concert, visiting the Rock Hall, visit the museums in University Circle, eat in Ohio City, check out the Shaker Square farmer's market, visit Edgewater, and check out the Flats a car is completely unnecessary in Cleveland.

It hasn't seemed to hit the news outlets yet, but I'm hearing that Southwest will significantly cut service again at CAK next April. I heard that flights will be down over 70% compared to last April.

"Secondary Airports" have certainly fallen out of favor the past few years by the major airlines. Even DAY and CAK, which were seen as thriving a few years ago, have lost considerable numbers of passengers the past few years. The trend is nationwide as secondary airports in Manchester, NH; Bellingham, WA; Wilmington, DE; Islip, NY; and Newport News, VA have all declined in recent years. Trenton, NJ seems to be one of the few exceptions to the trend, but Frontier has slashed destinations there recently as well. It certainly makes it hard for TOL to compete when DTW is so close and has many nonstops and low cost carrier options. For much of the Toledo area, DTW can be accessed in under 45 minutes. For many office parks in suburban Cincinnati and Cleveland the drive time to their respective airport is the same, if not longer than Toledo is to DTW. Likewise across dozens of metro areas in the US, many downtowns, intl headquarters, and significant cities are a 45 minute drive to their respective airport.

I was walking through uptown today and noticed that Banyan Tree is opening up a shop in the space vacated by that boutique that closed shop earlier in the summer. This is the space next to Mitchell's and behind Chipotle.

Agreed. Even though the formal station name is geographically correct, ... "Mayfield" or "Mayfield Rd" is much easier on the lips... and ears. Even though I'd expect to see heavy usage of the station for this weekend's Feast of the Assumption (RTA is already trumpeting the station's use for the Feast on its website), I'm more interested to see how much it will be utilized in daily traffic, esp around rush hour... Any early reports? I got on at the new station a little after 5pm to head westbound towards downtown and there were 11 riders who boarded. I have no idea what the normal rush hour ridership was at the old station as I normally use Cedar.

Great post! So as I'm looking at the last photo here, the guard rail over the east side of the rapid tracks of the unfinished station looks almost identical to the one that exists today at University-Cedar station. So the question is, was the guard rail replaced at some point to look identical to the one put in decades before the station actually opened, or is this in fact a last remaining design element of the original station? edit: I've always thought that this "unusable" sidewalk along the guard rail was kind of bizarre too. Would original station designs have allowed for riders to exit both sides of the platform?

Here are some photos of the Think Box construction/renovation at CWRU. Two are from today and the other is a photo I snapped about 6 weeks ago when they started to punch holes into the brick walls for windows. They've already put in windows on the south side of the building and are now starting to cut out windows for the east side facing the rail lines. I really like this project because it's so incredibly close to the rapid station. If one worked here, they could get off the rapid and be in their building in 2 minutes. Now if only Case could develop the parking lot on the corner of Fairchild/Murray Hill ...

It's the cold storage building across the tracks from the Cedar University rapid station.

I've noticed that RTA has been operating 1 car trains during rush hour again. At first I thought it might have been an isolated issue, but after riding a single car train 3 times during morning rush the past week, it seems to be a more common occurrence. Does RTA not have enough operable cars to operate every ride as a 2 car train anymore? The 1 car trains just can't handle rush hour volume, people are practically spilling out the door as if it were Saint Patrick's Day. I'm hoping this is just a temporary issue while more cars are refurbished?

People are actually petitioning these new Townhomes? Unbelievable. There's an apartment building literally on the same block as this development, just a few hundred feet away. Lake Avenue is peppered with high density buildings the entire Cleveland stretch. This neighborhood desperately needs new life breathed into it with infill developments. We should be petitioning to get MORE of these developments on the numerous empty lots that scatter the neighborhood, not blocking them.

What I'm trying to say is that this situation likely never would have happened if the officer was placed in a different location than the exit to the station and RTA had a standardized process for conducting the fare checks. Like I've said multiple times, when you are checking the fare card of passengers while they board or are on the train, you aren't treating them as potential thieves as they haven't fully consumed the good they that have purchased. As with so many other non tangible services, this is industry standard. If an officer was placed at the top of the stairs and checked passengers before they boarded it achieves the exact same goal as checking passengers as they exit the station. The only difference is that it doesn't treat customers as potential thieves because they haven't yet consumed the service. Also, what if RTA had a standardized language for conducting fare checks. How different would the outcome have been if it was standard procedure to tell passengers that aren't using a monthly pass, "Please hand me your RTA pass so that I can verify the time stamp." Here, the language is clear and concise what the passenger should do. "Show me your bus pass" is a vague order and it elicited a "smart aleck" response that ended up poorly. Had the initial order been clear and concise, would the outcome have been the same? I'm just stating that this incident clearly shows the many process breakdowns of the fare checks. These are incredibly simple process fixes that RTA could implement to prevent this kind of stuff from happening again.

That is true, but those are big ticket tangible goods. If they find out you didn't pay for the merchandise, then they can still retain that merchandise and sell it to another potential buyer. With RTA, we are talking about $2.25 for a non tangible good. It's equivalent of being asked to show your concert ticket as you are leaving an arena, showing your museum stub as you are leaving the building, showing your sports ticket as you walk out the stadium, or showing your ticket stub as you leave the movie theatre - the operators of all these types of venues can all choose to do this if they wish, but most if not all choose to check to see if the fare was paid prior to admission. The random fare checks are absolutely necessary with the way Cleveland's system is designed, I'm just saying that they can be conducted in a much more customer oriented manner. For example, last month I was riding RTA to Cedar University during rush hour. There was a random fare check at the bottom of the stairs as a crowd of 100 passengers got off. There were two officers checking the fare cards. I was near the end of the line and it took about 8 minutes before I could leave the station. Sure, it's not that big of a deal, but from a customer service stand point this could have been achieved just as easily by checking the fare cards while everyone was on board the train or as they boarded at each station, saving everyone a lot of time and hassle. Plus, when the fare is checked before boarding, it's similar to the consumption of other services of non tangible goods (concert, museum, theatre, sports, etc) where it's the norm. When you're checked after the fact it makes it feel like everyone is a potential thief, and really that's not that great of a feeling. As with the stores that check receipts upon leaving, I always comply, but it does feel a bit insulting that guests leaving the cash registers are all considered potential thieves by the stores. And as the name implies, proof of payment, the same goes for RTA. Until you can prove that you've paid, you're considered to be a potential fare evader. However, when those checks are made makes a difference in the way it feels for a customer. Checking beforehand or during and it doesn't feel like you are considered a thief, check afterwards and it does.