WestBLVD

The bus shelters are growing on me. I do like that they fit into the neighborhood much better. They remind me of a smaller version of the transit shelter at the west end of Lakewood on Detroit where the road curves before heading over the bridge - albeit with a shingle versus metal roof. The shingle roof bus shelters will definitely require more maintenance in 10 years than other roofing types. They have already resurfaced the 2 eastbound most lanes of Clifton. It will be nice once the median is carved out, but I think that is at the very end of the summer.

That's not quite true. The new service to LaGuardia in New York is 6x a week (every day but Saturday). Their Denver service is twice daily and their Orlando service is daily. Frontier flys Airbus A320 aircraft that seat 168 passengers. They don't fly regional jets. By comparison, in Cleveland, United flew predominantly RJ145 aircraft that seated 50 passengers. 1 Frontier flight to Raleigh Durham has the same seats as ~3.4 daily United flights to Raleigh Durham on their regional jets. In a market the size of Cleveland, it would be very difficult to get more than daily frequencies on 168 passenger jets to other mid market destinations that UA cut, because airlines don't fly empty planes around. Frontier has definitely changed their business model this year and CLE definitely offers them huge growth potential. As it stands now with their current flight offerings, Frontier will be poised to be CLE's second largest carrier as they will be offering about 18,000 seats in and out of CLE each week and plenty more announced for later in the year. They've shown commitment to providing a wide variety of air service to Cleveland and if passengers in the area are willing to support them then Frontier can probably start to think about expanding frequencies. It's much easier for an airline to start out with a few flights and add as needed, than to start with a lot of flights and start cutting them because the demand wasn't there. I'm not trying to pick a fight, but it's not true, period. None of the routes announced are daily - as in every single day - with more than 5 frequencies. I didn't look this information up, but on the routes UA cut where they all RJ routes or Mixed, RJ/737. LGA, DCA were a mix. I'm in no way suggesting flying empty plans or that revenue managers don't know their jobs, but I don't believe F9 has enough planes to make daily service on all new routes and I can't take them as a serious competitor out of CLE until they do. It will be interesting when quarterly information is released. The vast majority of UA cuts from CLE were on RJ145 aircraft, which United is removing from their overall network. There were only about 2-3 net daily mainline reductions in total at CLE (which did include increasing mainline flights to Chicago and reducing a few mainline flights elsewhere). UA was down to 1 mainline LGA flight per day in 2013, the other 6-8 frequencies were all regional jets. DCA hasn't been flown mainline by UA/CO in several years, it's been mostly RJ145s with the occasional CR700 with 5 frequencies per day. The United CLE-DCA routing was not effected by United's hub closure at CLE, the 5 daily regional jet frequencies remain untouched. I think I may have misinterpreted what you meant about Frontier. They definitely do not run 5x daily frequencies (anywhere in their system), and with 168 passenger jets, that's never going to happen at CLE. For there to be multiple daily frequencies (on any airline) from CLE, it's going to have to be on regional jets and - if on mainline - only to very large hubs and O&D markets from CLE. The only markets where 5x daily mainline frequencies are feasible would New York, Chicago, Atlanta, DC (all 3 airports combined) and possibly Houston, Dallas or Denver. Frontier's strategy at CLE is 3-5 weekly departures to a city. However, they currently run 2 daily midweek flights to their hub in Denver. Their service to Orlando was originally announced as fitting the 3-5x weekly model, but has been successful enough that it started out at 6x weekly this month. It will be going to 1x daily beginning this fall. Their announced service to LaGuardia will depart CLE every morning except Saturday at 6:15am. I've always found this site to be useful in looking up all airlines schedules for an airport for a given month (warning, it does show codeshare flights): http://www.kayak.com/direct/CLE/2014-11

That's not quite true. The new service to LaGuardia in New York is 6x a week (every day but Saturday). Their Denver service is twice daily and their Orlando service is daily. Frontier flys Airbus A320 aircraft that seat 168 passengers. They don't fly regional jets. By comparison, in Cleveland, United flew predominantly RJ145 aircraft that seated 50 passengers. 1 Frontier flight to Raleigh Durham has the same seats as ~3.4 daily United flights to Raleigh Durham on their regional jets. In a market the size of Cleveland, it would be very difficult to get more than daily frequencies on 168 passenger jets to other mid market destinations that UA cut, because airlines don't fly empty planes around. Frontier has definitely changed their business model this year and CLE definitely offers them huge growth potential. As it stands now with their current flight offerings, Frontier will be poised to be CLE's second largest carrier as they will be offering about 18,000 seats in and out of CLE each week and plenty more announced for later in the year. They've shown commitment to providing a wide variety of air service to Cleveland and if passengers in the area are willing to support them then Frontier can probably start to think about expanding frequencies. It's much easier for an airline to start out with a few flights and add as needed, than to start with a lot of flights and start cutting them because the demand wasn't there.

Don't confuse choice with lack of choice. In many places, especially here in the midwest, no matter how much you might want to live car-free, take transit, live in an urban setting, etc., you're limited by what's actually available. It's NOT easy to go car-free around here, so many people have to own a car even if they don't want to. Because of governmental and banking policies, it's much easier and cheaper to buy a house in the suburbs than a condo or apartment in the city. Many people end up living where they do not because it's urban or suburban but because of other factors such as crime, schools, proximity to work, and other amenities. If you want to live close to work and in an urban neighborhood, but your job is in the suburbs, you have to either live in the suburbs, endure a long commute, or find a different job, none of which are easy choices to make. Also, what I find amusing about job sprawl is that it by definition reduces the pool of potential employees. Except where the metro area has geographic constraints that makes it very lopsided, like a lake or ocean, mountains, etc., downtown is pretty close to the center of the metro area. By locating in the suburbs, your pool of potential employees shifts to include more undeveloped rural area, and fewer of the suburbs on the other side of downtown. I work in Blue Ash, and while it's easier for the folks who live in Hamilton, Loveland, Indian Hill, and Wyoming, it's a bitch for those of us who live in Cincinnati proper, let alone Kentucky or the west side. We've probably missed out on getting resumes from people who live in Florence, Delhi, or Hebron, and being close to Maineville, Goshen, and Morrow isn't much of a benefit since few people live out there. Bingo. The same is true around Cleveland, with the whole East Side/West Side thing. There is insane job sprawl along I-271 on the east side and that in itself limits the job pool from the west side. I have neighbors who tell me that they would "refuse to work out there [i-271]. The commute is horrible." Having the bulk of jobs centrally located is critical in maintaining the largest possible pool to hire from. I live in an urban walkable neighborhood. I have so many transit options within a few blocks of my doorstep. But that is nearly completely wasted because I live on the west side of Cleveland and work on the east side of the 271 corridor. I want to live car free, or at least not have to depend on it for 90% of my trips. But because I don't "have the luxury" of working downtown or in a transit friendly area I have to get in the car and do the daily rat race. With young people starting off and wanting to live car free you have some choices. You can say to yourself well, "I'm only going to apply to jobs that are located downtown." But how realistic is that? In an already tough job market, you've limited yourself to a fraction of the available jobs and limiting your career potential. If you do get a job in the suburbs you can say, "well I can live downtown or in a walkable neighborhood and then drive to work." In many cases that can be a very difficult commute. Parking may be hard to come by where you live and/or expensive. Do those costs and associated time outweigh just getting an apartment a few miles away from the sprawling office park of your job? In Ohio, with so many professional jobs stuck in the suburbs with limited or no transit options, living car free is difficult even for those who want it. You have to be incredibly fortunate if you can pull off being able to land a job downtown and be able to find/afford an apartment there especially if you are a recent graduate.

I believe their first leases start this July on the second and third floors with subsequent higher floors coming to market every few weeks / every month til next spring as they work their way up.

I happened to use this station the other day. It's absolutely beautiful and the design is very unique. The open air concept works in summer, and while pictures might be deceiving there's quite a bit of protection from the elements. The new underground bus terminal also opened (very sleek!), which is immediately adjacent to these tracks via an escalator, so I suppose people could use that as a waiting area. The 23 mile east line rail extension is also expected to be completed in a few years connecting the airport with Union Station. The progress that Denver has made with regards to light rail and TOD is extraordinary. In the 90s, the are behind Union Station was a wasteland of empty weed lots, rail yards, some warehouses and factories all the way to the South Platte River. There was no street grid. The riverside has now been turned into a park. The street grid has been extended by many blocks and nearly every infill parcel has a high rise or mid rise mixed use development on it. I'd imagine in less than 2 years the new street grid will be completely filled out. To compare the size and scope to Cleveland, it would be similar to the entirety of the Scranton Peninsula being transformed from its current state to a gridded city full of mid rise mixed use buildings along a riverfront park in 15 years.

The bus shelters are taking full shape in Lakewood. This is at the corner of Bunts and Clifton. We'll see how the finished product looks once windows are installed, but right now I'm a bit underwhelmed.

That article really has some biased digs at Cleveland. The article states that the tomb is in the suburbs, but isn't it in fact in the city limits of Cleveland? I know that Lakeview Cemetery has Cleveland, East Cleveland, and Cleveland Heights portions, but I believe Garfield is in the Cleveland section.

Most cuts have been made. I believe before the announcement United (and their regional partners) were operating 170-200 daily departures depending on season. This week, that number sits just north of 100 daily departures. By June 4th, that number will be at around 65-70 daily departures. So that leaves about 30 or so flights to chop off and most of the flights left to be cut are those small turbo prop flights to Franklin, PA and Jamestown, NY that may only carry 3 to 8 people per flight. The number of flights actually operated by United Airlines won't really change after the hub closure. That number is expected to remain roughly the same at about 23-27 departures per day. I know many people hated flying on those turbo-props and 50 seat regional jets, which previously made up the bulk of flying at CLE. Come June that will no longer be the case as the bulk of available seats from United will be on their mainline jets, and especially with Frontier Airlines starting all their new destinations on non regional aircraft. Terminal D is a ghost town right now. It's a very sad sight. But once United consolidates in terminal C, it should be very busy during the morning and early evening. You'll see the vast majority of flights depart between 6 and 10am and then again from 3:30pm to 7:30pm.

More encouraging news: The newly merged US Airways and American Airlines will begin daily service from Cleveland Hopkins to Phoenix this fall.

I'm all for saving buildings and adaptive reuse, and it's hard for me say to actually say this, but this is one project in downtown that would have been better served via a demo and starting from scratch. I shake my head that buildings like the Columbia can't be renovated into a 4 star hotel, but an ugly building like this, with its prominent display of parking deck can undergo such a "makeover". However, I'm sure the rooms inside will be quite nice. What really makes me cringe is seeing the boarded up building across the street from the bottom picture in Clueless's post. Here we are, about to have a brand new 4 star hotel open up to visitors with the Urban Farmer restaurant, and *that* happens across the street. I haven't been down by that intersection in quite some time, but I hope that plywood is temporary ...

It's hard to do that when you don't have a perfect square street grid. While we tend to think of many streets as being east-west and north-south, in many cases they aren't. In this example the parcel is basically a rhombus. Clifton and Lake both are aligned southeast to northwest in this spot, with 117th and 116th almost due north-south. That means you can't parallel the street because you'll have odd angles in the walls of the units. By stair-stepping you maintain units that have walls that come together at 90 degree angles.

A more detailed project timeline is available on the enhance Clifton website: http://www.enhanceclifton.com/node/5 It appears that westbound lanes will be completed first and then it will switch to eastbound in June, with the landscaped median coming this fall (Sept and Oct). The eastbound lanes are already torn down, so I wonder if that schedule is being reversed? It's been interesting to see how traffic has adjusted to the construction. Right now the westbound traffic has been reduced to 3 lanes (two through lanes and a pseudo turn lane/through lane). This has caused back ups past the Westinghouse Curve on the Shoreway everyday this week at rush hour. I think ultimately the final design is a turn lane cut out from the median, 2 through lanes, and a rush hour bus only lane. It may be that by removing the 3 through lanes for Clifton at rush hour, it will cause reduced speeds on the Shoreway, making the proposed speed reduction once converted a moot point?

Got a source of info for that? I posted a map of this a while back, but in 1898 the name was being tossed around:

You are so wrong. I agree. More connections will increase the development in Detroit Shoreway, and, more importantly in the area of Cudell between Clifton and Detroit (which has gone rapidly downhill over the last 15 years). Cleveland's biggest problem is it's lack of connected neighborhoods. Everything is a pocket of pioneers, started with a few tax abatements. We need these neighborhoods to fully connect if we ever want viable schools, etc again. I don't think the Shoreway conversion helps Cudell too much directly. It's already connected to the lake via West Blvd and to a lesser extent the newly redone pedestrian connections across from Don's Lighthouse and then the next connection at Battery Park. I think it will be a long, painstaking process to see revitalization from the intersection of Detroit and Lake Avenues down to the West Blvd rapid stop. It's not as if the Shoreway is a barrier from connecting D/S to Cudell, just drive/walk/bike/bus down Detroit Avenue, there's no physical barrier. I think Cudell has a much better chance at revitalizing through TOD at the rapid stops at 117th and West Blvd than hoping for D/S spillover that may take decades to come, but that's another thread. But yes, indirectly, the faster D/S redevelops, the faster that can potentially spread outward. I think a lot of people are looking at the Shoreway conversion as a cure all pill. It will surely have some benefits, but I don't believe it's some magic drug that will cure all of the west side of Cleveland's problems. There's only so much demand for new housing in a city/region like Cleveland that's shrinking. If every neighborhood could be revitalized it would be. But because demand here is limited, all the other neighborhoods wait and wait.

Yeah, when they tore down that corner in late 2012 it's been a terrible eyesore ever since. That gas station was "remodeled" in 2009, IIRC. At least Enhance Clifton is finally in real progress after years and years of waiting. By fall, there will be a much needed facelift to the streetscape. Fingers crossed on the church repurposing. It seemed that it was beyond the point of economically viable repair. Kudos to the folks who searched for viable options!

I'm going to miss some of those flights, but would miss them less if we actually had properly scheduled train services to places like Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Detroit! What I'm NOT going to miss is being crammed into a RJ for 3.5 hours on the way to places like San Antonio or Denver. At that point I don't mind a connection to stretch my legs and aching back! I'm doubtful any of the destinations from CLE within 200 miles or so had any real O&D. I find it hard to believe anyone would buy a plane ticket to Flint, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Dayton, etc. Those flights were probably 95%+ feed for other United flights from CLE. Factoring in drive time to airport, parking/rental car return, security, arriving at gate at least 20 mins to departure, flight time, taxiing at both airports, waiting for gate check luggage/baggage claim, rental car, driving/public transit to final destination even the shortest flight has at minimum a 3 hour associated time with it. The loss of service to places like the following will definitely be missed: Montreal New Orleans Austin Oklahoma City Providence Manchester Richmond Kansas City Portland (both ME and OR) Burlington It's also nice that the new flights being added by Frontier aren't regional jets. People always complained about those RJ in Cleveland, and soon quite a few will be gone, with more leaving each year.

I think CAK is going through exactly what CLE went through a few years ago. AirTran is transitioning to all Southwest after their merger. CAK passengers who are familiar with AirTran will now need to familiarize themselves with Southwest. For those not familiar "LUV" is the stock ticker symbol for Southwest Airlines and Southwest likes to use it promotionally. I can't help but draw similarities (albeit minor) between #luvcak and United for the hub. Both airports had their dominant carrier taken over by another carrier through a merger with a fear that they'd take those flights elsewhere. Both campaigns were/are trying to get local passengers to fly the new dominant carrier. We all know how that worked out for CLE. For CAK, I find it interesting. I wonder if it's Southwest Airlines or the airport itself (or maybe both) that is paying for the ads? I find it odd that an airport would only want to advertise one of their carriers, when they have 3 other carriers that are paying leases and bringing in 100s of thousands of passengers a year. Seems like another regionalism problem for northeast Ohio. Do we really need two airports fighting over the same passengers? Two airports with expensive infrastructure costs to maintain year after year? Are we going to see CAK and CLE try to outdo each other offering special incentives to get new carriers in the door (or to keep them to stay)... not unlike one municipality offering a better tax break to keep or attract a new company from choosing the neighboring municipality? It will be interesting to see how this plays out. If Frontier proves to be successful in Cleveland, could Southwest choose to consolidate at CAK instead, hoping passengers will follow? Or perhaps Southwest could consolidate at CLE where there is larger demand? There will definitely be a lot to watch out for in air travel in northeast Ohio the next few years. The big plus is that air fares are dropping, which in itself stimulates more demand, which stimulates more routes to places people actually want to go. Losing hub status might not be such a bad thing after all ( who is really going to miss those turbo prop flights to Flint, Buffalo, and DuBois?)

Two things here: One, don't forget that United also cut some frequencies to the destinations that Frontier will be duplicating. So in a sense Frontier is picking up some of the slack. Two, Akron-Canton Regional Airport. The southeast US destinations added today by Frontier pretty much duplicate what AirTran/Southwest operate there. This is a pretty smart move by Frontier. We all know that CAK has grown tremendously over the past decade by "stealing" passengers that would otherwise use CLE as they've had a low cost carrier that could provide flights to Florida and the Southeast at prices significantly lower than CLE (United). The playing field has been leveled for flights to Florida for CLE vs CAK. There will no longer be any price incentive for folks from Cuyahoga County to drive down to CAK to catch a cheap flight to Tampa/Orlando/Fort Myers/Fort Lauderdale. So in terms of filling planes, I don't think Frontier will have a problem, as they can just bring in all those folks who drive to CAK. I'm curious how Akron-Canton airport will respond in terms of advertising? CLE could easily become the low cost airport for NE Ohio with Frontier rapidly expanding, in which case passenger counts at CAK would plummet. It will be interesting to see how Southwest and Frontier (and United) compete for these Florida flights in terms of prices. I can imagine a lot of northeast Ohioans will be able to take Florida vacations at much lower prices than they have been able to in the past several years. I have heard that Frontier is able to start up service much quicker than the other larger airlines, this may be a case of using that advantage to gain market share in Cleveland before other airlines can start up service.

Very good news. It's amazing how much new service has been announced since United said they were going to de hub Cleveland. A lot of naysayers said it was wishful thinking to get new service. Here we are not even 2 months after the United announcement and we've got a low cost carrier with 12 destinations! This should really bring fares down in CLE this summer.

Looks like more good news is about to be released in terms of regained flights. If you go to Delta's website, they now list non stops between Cleveland - Indianapolis as well as Cleveland - Raleigh/Durham beginning this June. These are, of course, flights United is dumping this spring.

Well that didn't take long! Frontier just announced that they'll be starting non stop Cleveland-Seattle service this summer as well as non stop Cleveland-Orlando service. Hopefully the first of many new low cost carriers expanding in Cleveland!

What an oddly worded article. This announcement was made MONTHS ago and tickets have been on sale since November. It's worded as if the de-hubbing prompted this service to begin now, when in fact this was planned long before any knowledge of hub closure. Fares for these flights last week were actually priced at $46 round trip for ANY flight through May. That "sale" price has gone up this week. But getting a nonstop flight for that price is almost unheard of these days. I wouldn't be surprised if this flight actually prompted United to pull their CLE-Philadelphia flights soon. The Philadelphia market is one of CLE's top destinations with almost 150,000 flyers per year. With United cutting this service, someone has to pick up the slack. It's almost as if United just handed over the passengers to Frontier on this one as they can't compete with those fares. I wish Frontier much success with this route so that they add a few more destinations this year.

I also would like to see what the raw total of passengers for CLE would be if you remove the people connecting. But in terms of O&D, there's something that makes the CLE hub closure unique compared to PIT, CVG, STL, and MEM ... our region essentially has two airports, CLE and CAK. And of course, CAK, has a huge low cost carrier presence. That grew out of CLE's hub and resulting one airline domination and high fares. CAK last year served about 1.7 million passengers, compared to CLE's 9 million. For many folks in northeast Ohio the difference in drive time to CAK versus CLE is nominal. The halfway point in terms of drive time lies roughly from between Richfield and Bath and then over to Hudson. So for many folks the choice of where to fly from is based solely on ticket cost. It should also be noted that CAK grew roughly a million passengers since 2000. These passengers didn't come out of thin air. What airports were they flying out of before? I wouldn't be surprised if 80% of those were previously flying from CLE. What would bring them back? A low cost carrier. I think this is why CLE stands in a good position to regain some flights back from a low cost carrier coming in. The O&D is good here as a % and when you factor in how many folks in Cuyahoga and Lake County are driving all the way down to CAK to catch a flight, they are POTENTIALLY even better. It really boils down to what Southwest will do in CAK once they fully integrate AirTran into their system by the end of the year. The airlines can easily map the addresses of their passengers and see how many actually live closer to CLE when trying to figure out what flights to move around (and how many could potentially stop driving to CAK if a different low cost carrier moved in to CLE with a similar flight). What percentage of CAK's 1.7 million passengers would refuse to fly out of CLE if the airfares at CLE were cheaper? That's the huge question. Does it make sense for Southwest to run two operations at two airports in northeast Ohio, essentially servicing 2 airports with overlapping population catch areas? I can't think of any Combined Statistical Area smaller than Cleveland-Akron-Canton that has two major airports (serving over a million passengers) that isn't a tourist mecca. Does this region really need a large operation at CAK and at CLE when passengers are pretty much willing to pick either airport? With airlines trying to save cash anywhere they can, it seems inevitable that airlines would consolidate their operations at just one airport in northeast Ohio. That's not to say CAK goes away (it could end up looking a lot similar to today's Toledo Airport). But it seems much more logical for Southwest to operate at one airport, Frontier at one airport and if JetBlue, Spirit, or Allegient ever come in, at just one airport. But which airport will they choose?

As folks in Cincy have discovered, the fares haven't come down as hoped. It really takes new low cost carriers to come into the market to bring down fares. As an example of how fares might increase, the following major markets will still have nonstop service but will not have competition from multiple carriers at CLE: Minneapolis, Atlanta, Charlotte, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Miami. Expect to see fares to these markets rise further for nonstop flights. Conversely, with no nonstops to Phoenix or Seattle coming this spring/summer, fares will probably fall as you'll have 5 different carriers trying to compete for CLE passengers through one of their other hubs. The same is true for all the mid size markets lost. With nonstops gone, you'll probably pay less with multiple carriers competing to take you there via a different hub.