WestBLVD

As a comparison for height, the Doubletree on Lakeside is 17 floors. That building's height is rather unimpressive, especially when it's next to the much taller North Point Tower, and North Point is still short compared to other towers in Cleveland.

I thought this was a pretty cool idea. Since the Midwest is such an arbitrary geographic term, here is a place to draw it on a map. Then you can toggle what people from different states think the Midwest is and by how long someone has lived in the "Midwest". http://myc.sasakistrategies.com/branches/mymidwest/

Yeah. It really does. Echoing other posters, the location does seem like an odd choice. But, these are the kind of "pioneer" developments we need to spur downtown's growth between CSU, PS, and the Avenue District. Sure, there are quite a few Euclid Avenue locations that probably could have suited this establishment well, but at least we're getting something that finally breaks the mold of Euclid having to be the entertainment Main Street. There are a ton of surface lots in this area that will now be that much more attractive to develop in the near term (~5 years or so) especially with CSU's growth.

Interesting. It seems that parking attendant booths are in their plan (and subsequent revenue pages). I've always thought this would be a good idea, however my only reservation is that you'll see large numbers of people parking on Lake Ave, West Blvd, Clifton to avoid going into the lot and paying a fee. Same for lower Edgewater. Now that the tunnel is open, you'll have the streets up there being congested with users who want to avoid paying to park at the beach. Could create a big mess for the residential areas around the park. I don't know, it's already difficult to find parking along those sections of Lake Ave, West Blvd, and Clifton nearest to Edgewater. I guess some issues might be seen with people parking in the Detroit Shoreway/Gordon Square and Battery Park neighborhoods though. Then again, a lot of residents park on those streets in that neighborhood as well, so, anyone going to Edgewater might just accept the new parking fees. It really depends on how often they collect a fee and what the cost will be. My guess is that they'd only have user parking fees during the weekends in summer. If the charge is nominal enough, let's say $3, then people most likely wouldn't bother trying to park in the surrounding neighborhoods. But if it's something closer to $8 or $10, I'm sure there'd be quite a few looking to street park and take the underpass. I just can't see them collecting a parking fee during all hours the park is open. A lot of people just come to the park for 15 minutes to take a quick jog, walk their dog, or catch the sunset and be on their way. A parking fee might turn those folks away in favor of other neighborhood parks in the area. On the other hand, I'd definitely be up for some sort of optional $50 annual family user pass. Perhaps something that gives you a bit of an extra perk at the park, without excluding any users based on a fee. They could have special closer lots for pass holders, and eventually as Cleveland Metroparks programming starts there, programs for pass holders.

Interesting. It seems that parking attendant booths are in their plan (and subsequent revenue pages). I've always thought this would be a good idea, however my only reservation is that you'll see large numbers of people parking on Lake Ave, West Blvd, Clifton to avoid going into the lot and paying a fee. Same for lower Edgewater. Now that the tunnel is open, you'll have the streets up there being congested with users who want to avoid paying to park at the beach. Could create a big mess for the residential areas around the park.

I was in Toronto earlier this summer and used their public transit system for the first time in quite a while. The one thing I would love for RTA (and other transit authorities) to mimic is the concept of a "shared day pass." For the price of 1; 2 adults and a number of children under 18 can use the same fare card when traveling together on a specific day. I thought this was a novel idea. I've always said that taking a family or group of friends to an event via mass transit can add up quickly. Think about 5 people purchasing a day pass at 25 dollars. At that price point, the lots that are $10 or $15 downtown seem much more economical. But if your family (or group of friends) can buy just one day pass and use it together, you've made taking public transit by far the most viable option.

That webpage noted 10-minute frequencies during rush hour. The current schedule has a mix of express and non-express buses running every 4-17 minutes during rush hours, including the buses that go via Edgewater/Gold Coast. http://www.riderta.com/sites/default/files/schedule-pdfs/55.pdf I'd use the 55 more often if it ran every 30 minutes off-peak, such as if every other bus originated/terminated at Winton Place or Lakewood Park. Yeah, the hourly non peak 55 just doesn't cut it. They are often over crowded, however the articulated buses should help solve this in the future. I'd also like to see the return of weekend service. This is a significant investment to Clifton Blvd, so we should at least have service comparable to 2009 levels with all the infrastructure dollars being spent. I am bummed that this project is now projected to be completed more than a year later than originally promised. I can't help but wonder though if the timeline given is a little more "generous" to give wiggle room for unanticipated problems and delays.

Wow. Lots of nuggets on that updated site. "West Shore Express" instead of the 55. They will be using an articulated bus on this route! I wonder if that means a decrease in frequency during rush hour, or just added capacity? Also, will these be brand new vehicles? Very exciting news.

You'd think with the Captain America filming that rail would have been up in June. The weekend rail disruptions must have really hurt overall ridership. On another note, it was great to be able to take the red line from the airport to Tower City again. I just purchased a quick one ride ticket at the airport and the on screen process is much more efficient than the old one!

Thanks to all the rain, the grass has all filled in around the slope near the tunnel. Looks really great. But why are there still orange construction cones everywhere? How long before ODOT removes them? Are they still doing residual work around the tunnel? Would be nice to see the project "officially" complete with no miscellaneous work type objects laying around the site.

It's naive to think this church isn't in danger of being torn down in the next few years. I applaud all PROACTIVE efforts to save this structure now. We've seen it before. Look at all the historic churches on Euclid. Their days have been numbered for some time without ever being in IMMINENT danger of facing the wrecking ball. Yet every year, one more gets checked off the demo list. Look at how quickly the Columbia building vanished downtown. It takes a lot of effort well before a legitimate demolition plan is brought forward to save an historic structure.

When I walked by it said it was closed for the season. I wonder if that area of Tremont can support two ice cream joints and perhaps prompted the sale in the first place? CHURNED, which is a new addition to tremont the past year, absolutely blew Scoops out of the water in terms of quality. Churned makes their own small batches in house which are so delicious and I think Scoops sold from a distributor. I'm curious if the new owners will be making in house ice cream or carrying a regional/national brand?

Speaking of bad kerning ... This has bothered me ever since they switched fonts on the interstates a few years back. Seriously, how could this horribly kerned sign even get put up?

Exactly! At 55 cents per mile the drive to Louisville tacks on 101 extra miles or $55.55 each way. Add in 7 days of parking at $8 dollars each and you've got added costs of $167.10. Even if you can find a friend or family member to drive you there/pick you up, you've given them a $222.20 burden in transportation costs. If you live within 15 miles of the nearest home airport and can get a friend or relative to drop you off/pick you up, that cost drops to under 33 bucks. The price point has to be huge for me to even consider to going to another airport than the one 6 miles away. There's nothing worse than having an extra connection and then having to get in the car and drive another 100 miles after you've been traveling all day just to get home. If you're a family/group of travelers then saving 100 bucks by flying elsewhere can add up, but for single or couple travelers, driving to an airport 100 miles away doesn't really save you in the end.

I think there was a span of 10 months where the pedestrian tunnel redesign wasn't even moving at all, but the equipment just lay idle along it. It does seem that this project has been ongoing for almost 2-3 years now, which is insanely long compared to other projects in the region. It also seems like there's new graffiti on this every month or so and with those huge new concrete walls, this is just begging to be tagged upon completion.

Driving by this now, with only a partial demolition, shows how critical that the new building(s) be placed along Clifton and especially at the corner with 117th. A suburban style strip would look especially horrid here.

Yep, it seems that Midwest enplanements are back to mid 1990s levels after the surge in the late 90s and early 2000s thanks to a booming economy and super cheap oil. I have noticed that fares at CLE this past year have been quite cheap. I've seen round trip nonstops to Los Angeles at $200 with Southwest offering connecting service in the $170s. Similarly nonstops to the East Coast cities have regularly been under $150. You gotta wonder how much longer this is going to last. We keep hearing that the days of cheap travel are over, but right now flights are still relatively affordable with the airlines just barely breaking even.

Sorry if I worded that poorly. CAK is the cheaper alternative to CLE. But if CLE were to lose hub status as a strong United hub, then CAK loses its appeal and marketing as the cheaper alternative. Fares at CLE would drop and you'd probably see another low cost carrier enter the market at CLE making CAK seem less attractive for travelers coming from the Cleveland area.

CLE serves what, maybe 8 million passengers per year right now? I believe Cincy was close to 25 million 10 years ago before de-hubbing began. Big difference between the two. The O&D at CLE is something like 70% so that doesn't leave much wiggle room to cut more flights because so many are full of people starting or ending their trip in Cleveland. Whatever United would cut in a de-hub, some other airline would swoop in to replace if it was a popular flight. But lets say that United drops CLE as a hub, it wouldn't be the end of the world. Yeah, good-bye nonstops to Montreal, Albany, Burlington, and Providence, but you're not going to lose all the major East Coast cities and San Francisco and Los Angeles wouldn't be out the door either. You also wouldn't lose any of the Florida tourist flights either. So unless your business/leisure takes you to the local regional feeder airports or some of the smaller cities of the Northeast, a de-hub probably won't be that catastrophic as the doomsdayers say it will be. You'd also probably see cities like Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Charlotte switch to more mainline aircraft instead of regional jets as Delta and US Airways would grab a larger piece of the CLE market. Take a look at the current Pittsburgh nonstop routes list, it's not that bad for a non-hub airport and their enplanements for a non-hub are only just a hair smaller than CLE's as a hub. I'd also imagine that a de-hubbing of CLE would be the kiss of death for Akron-Canton? Akron-Canton sort of depends on a strong CLE hub as a cheaper alternative. If United were to leave a huge hole in the CLE non-stop route network, the low cost carriers would swoop in and I could see Southwest/Airtran moving a good chunk of their flights to CLE to pick up the slack and tap into a much larger market. Are there any other two non hub airports the scale of CLE and CAK that operate so close to one another? CLE and CAK are 54 miles apart, while CVG and DAY are 78 miles apart (driving miles).

Now that the results are official, I just went to the board of elections website for each county (and the state certifications) and looked up the official info for this year and 2008: http://vote.franklincountyohio.gov/ http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/ http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/elections/Research/electResultsMain.aspx

Not sure where else to post this, but now that the official raw vote counts are in, it's kind of an interesting proxy to population trends between each census. Franklin County in 2008 had 564,971 ballots cast, in 2012 574,610 ballots were cast. That's an increase of 1.7% in terms of raw votes. Cuyahoga County in 2008 had 672,750 ballots cast and 650,387 ballots cast in 2012. That's a decrease of 3.3% in terms of raw votes. Obviously there are plenty of other factors to put into play such as voter enthusiasm, but just thought this was an interesting proxy to the obvious; Franklin County continues to grow and Cuyahoga County is still losing population. Overall the state of Ohio had a decrease of 2.2% votes cast between 2008 and 2012. It's probably a safe bet that the state as a whole hasn't gained much (if any) population the past 4 years. Conversely Colorado saw a 7% increase in raw vote between 2008 and 2012. Similarly North Carolina and Nevada also saw increases of about 4.5% and 4.9% respectively. It's a safe bet these states are still growing.

I checked the RTA website yesterday to see if the shuttle bus replacements to the airport were in effect yet but didn't see any obvious rider alert. Despite a lack of obvious notice (maybe it was buried somewhere ) the shuttles were operating. Just before Brookpark the conductor announced the shuttle bus procedure. I wish RTA would make this a smooth/seamless connection. After exiting the train (about 5:30 pm) we walked to the shuttle. We all boarded the shuttle and sat in the bus for 10 mins before it departed. All in all, it took about 20 minutes to get off Brookpark to shuttle to airport. I hope RTA can figure out how to make this faster. I understand this is a new procedure, but hopefully they can make it so that the shuttle leaves the moment all the red line riders exit the train and board. I don't see why the shuttle schedule isn't in sync with the red line schedule. I hope the airport shuttle and w 117 shuttle don't overlap. In which RTA should seriously consider express buses between Tower City/Airport for that duration.

It's got to be for parking? You could probably squeeze 25 parking spaces there if it includes the sideyard. That could make for a slightly larger development on the main parcel. It could act like an employee lot. That's just my guess. Looking on historic aerials there have been several homes demolished over the years slowly creating an ever larger parcel at this corner. I hope the mature trees on clifton stay during demo. New saplings never look as nice. I won't even take a stab when anything will go up here. We may have a rubble lot for a few years.

Something else to bear in mind: only half the parcel lies within the historic district. So does putting surface parking along Clifton and then putting the retail strip along Lake and 116th give them a loophole?

And remember this from a few years ago? http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/09/cleveland_to_spend_298000_to_k.html The city spent nearly $300,000 for repairs, looks like money well spent. Too bad this building somehow couldn't be incorporated into the enhance clifton project so it'd finally get the needed remodel. I'm sure something creative could be thought up.