clvlndr

Hallelujah! They look great. I will pass your praise along to our Graphic Artist. He's worked long and hard on this, and it is important that your appreciation is communicated to him. No question, this is a massive improvement. The old maps were so totally amaturish, not drawn to scale and difficult to follow (a bunch of numbers on thick black lines rep'ing bus lines). I middle schooler could have drafted that old map... The new map is drawn to scale and, more importantly, have easy-to-follow color coded bus routes with the numbers in large color dots on the route. And the interfacing with the Rapid lines and the Health Line is clear. And you have a nice dowtown blowup with a clear detail map of the trolleys (you did miss the new E. 9th street route -- it probably was added after the map had gone to the printer -- but this can easily be added later). ... yes JetDog, RTA's graphic artist is to be applauded; job well done.

I agree with this completely, and actually think that it might be beneficial for RTA to supplement their Airport service with bus service as well. Currently the only option is the Red Line, obviously it is better than nothing but I would have thought there would have been 1 bus line that goes to the airport. I guess the issue would be that you would want to differentiate the bus service from that of the Red Line, and besides Downtown I'm not sure where else they would go from there. I totally disagree. Many if not most people who ride rail simply will not ride city buses, so if there is a downtown bus route substitute, most will simply turn to cabs and airport limos. Buses and trains are not interchangeable. If they were, forward-thinking cities like Cleveland, Chicago, Philly and San Fran would not have spent the 10s and hundreds of $Millions to extend/build rapid rail lines to their international airports. Therefore a bus all the way downtown, either to supplement or replace the short (about 8 tenths/mile) closed section from Hopkins to Brookpark, would be a complete waste of money. RTA's plan to shuttle passengers to coordinate with Brookpark trains makes much more sense. After all, airport passengers are used to/open to short shuttle rides. LA and Boston use permanent airport bus shuttles to their rapid rail lines. Air travelers here, and elsewhere, ride shuttles to satellite parking, Rental car terminals and other services -- in fact, Cleveland's rental car terminal is significantly further from Hopkins air terminal than the .8/mile to Brookpark. So RTA has this one right. ... btw Jerry, nice to know the 15-min Red Line intervals will return in December (after this + the return of daily Waterfront Line service in March may cause me to break out the champagne!).

I know Jerry mentioned how expensive it is to replace the destination signs on the Blue and Green Line trains (although, I still think the current "sticky" system is tacky). But lately, drivers into Tower City don't even bother to put any signs up, even during rush hour. So passengers are left to guess, or ask each other. Or ask the driver (and in many instances get a surly answer in response); or simply wait until the train starts when, most times, drivers announce where the train is going -- and then, if you're on the wrong train, you can switch at any station up to Shaker Square.... ... Sound acceptable? I don't... Jerry (or JetDog), I hope you can look into this.

Showed this to some friends last night. We all agree it's very well done. Thanks MTS. p.s. Anyone remember how to locate that Asian-produced CLE/NEO promo video? That was also pretty inspiring. Nice. esp. liked the interracial aspect of it.... Good to know Kyrie Irving, one of the most eligible young bachelors, lives downtown. Wonder how many other pro athletes do?

Yeah, I know the Wiz is a bad team, that also was without it's 2 best players, but any win is good, esp for a young, new team out of the gate. And though it's only 1 game, it was nice to see the much questioned Waiters (questioned by me, esp) thoroughly out play the highly coveted Beal who was drafted ahead of Waiters. Thompson played with a ton of energy. And Andy? not much more one can add about such an amazing performance by the Wild Thing.... Nice crowd, too, despite Sandy and the blackouts all over.... ... the blemish of course was the awful play by the bench. CJ Miles, in particular, wasn't mentally there. Gibson, despite a hot start, was horrible during the 4th quarter swoon.

Even though gambling isn't everybody's cup of tea (and I, myself do it infrequently), I love what the casino has done/is doing for downtown. Even though the crazy newbie crowds have died down, the casino is always buzzing. It has brought a dead gigantic Higbee's building back to life. It is a comfortable, well decorated, secure and welcoming place right at the center of town -- no casino I'm aware of is so well located; even directly accessible to rail rapid transit indoors... Clearly, downtown has been on a roll for a number of years. But Phase I of the Horseshoe is a major, binding people magnet that, unlike no other in Cleveland history, is open 24/7 and, imho, has seriously upped the dynamic of downtown; a major element (among several, ... but the most significant) that has helped make going downtown cool for a larger swath of the populace.

^^Strap, I'm curious about "Up Tight!" as well. It was based on the Hough riots and starred Max Julien and Roscoe Lee Browne before they were well known. It's considered a pioneer of what became the black tension movies of the 70s (derisively known as blaxploitation films). I've seen the YouTube trailer.

^^Strap, I'm curious about "Up Tight!" as well. It was based on the Hough riots and starred Max Julien and Roscoe Lee Browne before they were well known. I've seen the YouTube trailer.

I tend to agree. As someone who rides both systems, transferring at Tower City, you notice the stark difference in size. Even the largest light rail cars can't come close to matching the size and comfort of our current Red Line trains... and KJP hipped us to the fact that our Red Line cars are bigger than most heavy rail cars, esp on older systems like Philly -- where ours are much larger than the Blue Line (Market Street el) cars.... ... As for the Van Sweringens, the Shaker ROW from Tower City to Shaker Square was built to railroad standards and could easily, I'm sure, handle heavy commuter rail cars... It just seems strange to me that, given this, they didn't decide to convert the Shaker system to electric commuter cars so they could run on the CUT electric system rather than creating a side-by-side separate system... Note that CUT only ran for 23 years (closed in 1953 after the advent of cleaner diesel passenger trains replacing the sooty coal-power trains which would have clouded the Union Terminal underground station and blackened the Vans new Terminal Tower. With a east-west system in place, along with the underground terminal access, we could have easily strung wires over ROWs to places like Euclid/Mentor, Rocky River and Berea (from Lindale, where CUT power ended, originally)... ... but hey, it's not a perfect world and the Vans weren't perfect. It's probably asking to much they have been master transportation experts in addition all they gave Cleveland as a legacy. I sometimes imagine what Cleveland would have been like had they not been born (or if they had and decided to go into, say, the dry cleaning business)... No model bedroom suburb (Shaker) and many other burbs that grew on their planned grid (like Beachwood, Pepper Pike and much of Gates Mills); no model TOD, dense/mixed use neighborhood along the Rapid (Shaker Square), no amazing central mixed use city-in-city office/retail/transportation complex (Tower City), that for over 4 decades, contained the tallest office tower outside Manhattan (Terminal Tower); and, of course, no Rapid system at all (including our pioneering and still pretty rare Airport rapid transit line)-- and while some medium-size cities have caught and surpassed us in recent decades, our Rapid is still the envy of a lot of cities, including larger neighbor Detroit (even though, given their egos, they never like admitting this fact). And of course, given the foundation the Vans built, transit wise, we still have an amazing capacity to create commuter rail lines (probably diesel-powered, or dual action), perhaps partially utilizing the existing Rapid tracks, and RR ROW's fanning out from our central underground transit terminal... That is, unless we let developers like Dan Gilbert seal them off and close off our opportunities forever.

If this does revert to strip retail, in such an urbanized (and desirable) high-density neighborhood, it shows once again our leaders are failing us, and that we collectively don't get the whole urban thing (as Geo. H.W. Bush might say). There's no excuse for this.

Really bad movies I suffered through b/c of Cleveland locale? "Proximity", really God/awful film -- IIRC it's about a framed/railroaded hero (Rob Lowe) who returns to Cleveland to bring down the evil politician (the late James Coburn; one of his last films). ... Lots of Cleveland shots, esp Tower City and a bizarre closing chase/shoot-out scene on the Red Line Rapid. "Light of Day" - Bad film, only noteworty because of big name leads: Michael J. and Joan Jett, as well as raising the Euclid Tavern to legendary status (where their band gigged). Movie did boost Cleveland's image as a Rock & Roll hot spot in this pre-Rock Hall era (Cleveland had won it, but it's actually construction was still iffy at this point (1987))... This movie was a huge step down from Paul Schrader's legendary screenplays like "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull". "The Oh! in Ohio"... The only "oh!" in this one was from the audience in this cornball crap; Funnyman Danny DeVito couldn't even rescue this garbage -- even the sex was lousy. Not-bad-to-pretty-good flicks: "American Splendor" (Harvey Pekar's biopic) was actually pretty good. Paul Giamatti (one of my fave actors), turned in some really good work. Minimual Cleve locales outside of the VA Hospital in Univ Circle. "Welcome to Collinwood" -- a decent satire/film noir; low budget flick with a pretty heavyweight case, including William H. Macy and Georege Clooney (in a cameo role) Still the Reigning Champ of ALL Cleve-set films: Billy Wilder's "The Fortune Cookie", the first of the Lemon-Matthau buddy-buddy, in which the late Walter Matthau won his only Oscar. TV "Hot In Cleveland" ... of course. Cute initially; lovable cast (esp. Betty White, of course) .... a few giggles but a lot of forumula cornball stuff... It was TV Land's highest rated show, but I think it's run out of gas.... None better as a feeding trough for washed-up former stars, like MTM, Don Rickles and Carl Reiner.

MTS, I'm only talking about Philly's Regional Rail, not the subways or trolleys. The Pennsylvania RR built a single unified electrified system that included intercity railroads and local commuter rail... The Shaker Rapid was built as light rail, but it didn't have to be. The Vans could have built it as a heavy-type commuter rail line much like the Chestnut Hill lines (or even more similarly Metra Electric's/IC South Chicago commuter line which goes down the middle of 71st Street like our Rapid goes down Shaker and Van Aken boulevards).... Instead the Vans built 2, nonconforming railroads -- the Shaker & East Cleveland rapid lines and the CUT electric, engine-changing system -- that shared the same ROW into Tower City. There was a lot of duplication of infrastructure that could have been avoided; not to mention the fact that a form of the east-west rapid/commuter rail would have been in operation in 1930.

^^^WestBLVD, I totally agree with you and, as Bill Clinton would say: feel your pain. It is frustrating why a neighborhood with so many pluses has basically been left to go to seed... The good news, of course, is that developers like the Marouses are nibbling at the edges; rehabbing these beautiful old row/terrace buildings in the area (including those next to the Rapid tracks on the opposite side of the lot where the demolished factory was). You've got Chicle on the other side of the RR tracks, with Edgewater, on one flank and Detroit Shoreway on the other. You'd have to believe spillover is going to positively affect Cudell at some point.

^Hard know, for sure, what the Vans plans exactly were because of their reclusive secrecy. We do know that the Vans were cash poor and had very little of their own money to invest, as they leveraged most of their RR empire which, of course, came crashing down when the banks called their notes shortly after the 1929 crash. So outside of their rail ROWs on the East and West side (along with the built/operating Shaker lines), there was little to nothing they invested in transit-wise. IIRC their interlocking companies took control of the old Cleveland Railways, the private operator of the streetcar network, but neither CR or the Vans had the kind of capital at the ready to build something as substantial as a Euclid subway. But they nevertheless planned for it while waiting to spend OPM (other people's money) to finish it once they were able to finagle it... I have no doubt that the Huron Subway connector was built because it was within the giant Union Terminals footprint in the 1920s... I also sometimes wonder why the Vans did things the way they did (like running/building 2 local separate electric passenger RRs (the CUT and the Shaker & east-west Rapids) rather than build a unified, Philly-like local/regional/inner city operation. Oh well, we'll never know for sure... ... and as they say, back to the future. I really do think that, some day, the Health Line will be converted to light rail and that the downtown portion will be dropped into a subway to connect to the existing Rapid at Tower City, probably using the Vans old Huron Connector tunnels. Chances are, I won't live to see it, but in my gut I think it's going to happen, because the popularity of the HL will outstrip it's current capacity which, even with much of the corridor still way underdeveloped , seems close to capacity now...

^Love the increasingly vertical neighborhood developing around Euclid/Mayfield... the Hazel 8 units are coming along nicely.

"The Van Swerigen brothers did a lot of brilliant things, but their routing for the east-west rapid was a head-scratcher. Building rapid transit along freight railroads through aging, heavily industrialized areas does not produce ridership, but they were ultimately trying to provide a core route for other Rapid lines to feed into." - KJP In fairness to the Vans, the east side Rapid line they started in the 1920s was not designed to be the primary rail transit line to the East Side. Their plans included a Euclid Ave. subway, and the evidence of this is the Huron Road 2-track, grade-separated turnout/connector to the current Rapid hub inside the East approach to Tower City. They no doubt started building the East Cleveland rapid route along the ROW because it was the cheapest and easiest to start up -- they owned the ROW from East Cleveland to Lakewood next to their Nickel Plate RR. The most recent attempt to revive the Euclid subway was Dual Hub in the 1990s, which would have used the Huron subway to connect to the existing Rapid at Tower City, and is evidence that the Vans wanted to divert the busy Euclid corridor traffic into their railroad palace on Public Square.

^Great idea! ^^The Coventry streetcar idea is a good one, too. I just would prefer it to be double-track throughout.

Neighborhood folks, students and visitors (like me) are really taking to Uptown. There's foot traffic up and down the strip (including to Commodore Place/Univ. Plaza East), at most hours of the day. The new clothing boutique, Anne van H, is now open on the south-side plaza (apparently it's been open a few weeks), just up front soon-to-open Accent. Looks nice... Uptown's a winner in all aspects imho...

^^Just goes to show, Jam40Jeff, when our Rapid system works, it's one of Cleveland's greatest assets.

Whether Phase 2 or Phase 3, I just hope we don't have to endure that ugly Euclid/Ford Rd. surface lot for too much longer. It's the perpetual black eye in the midst of much beauty and progress.

This is disgusting. This Bus Driver should not only be fired, but arrested for assault & battery. Some of the passengers should be implicated too for seemingly goading on a ''hot" situation. And no one stepped forward to intervene, just snap cellphone photos... This is a sad for Cleveland and our society in general. Also, it is a snapshot of what can happen when RTA's personnel can become aggressively rude and petulant. Obviously, most RTA drivers and personnel aren't as foolish and violent as this one driver. However, all too often I have seen RTA people who are hostile and unfriendly, and our transit agency has developed a reputation for unfriendliness. And I don't think it's totally unfounded. I'm not saying that there are not out-of-control people like this particular passenger, or that RTA's job is easy having often to deal with difficult passengers, but then again, RTA drivers are public ambassadors and chauffeurs and are paid to, and charged with having cool heads in hot situations like this one .... I don't know all the facts, obviously, but in situations like this, it behooves drivers to use their radios (what are they there for) to contact RTA's roving security rather than taking things into their own hands, like obviously this hot-headed driver decided to do.

Looming fund cuts endanger Amtrak's Keystone line October 08, 2012|By Paul Nussbaum, Inquirer Staff Writer The popular Keystone rail service between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Amtrak's fourth-busiest route, could face serious cutbacks next year because of reduced federal subsidies. Amtrak will end its $8 million-a-year contribution for running the service on Oct. 1, 2013, to comply with a 2008 law that requires Amtrak to shift operating costs to the states, Amtrak spokeswoman Danelle Hunter said. Pennsylvania, which already spends about $9 million a year to underwrite Keystone operations, has its own financial woes and is negotiating with Amtrak to avoid service cuts. Story http://articles.philly.com/2012-10-08/business/34306866_1_amtrak-s-keystone-northeast-corridor-keystone-line

Interesting metaphor. :-D

Absolutely. I call it Cleveland's low self esteem/beggars-can't-be-choosy mentality. Yes, Dan Gilbert has rescued a hulking, empty gem in Higbee's Building and brought it to life with future development in Phase II, which is great. But because he's writing the checks, it seems like we're ceding, on some levels, what's a key component to the City's future health and viability - mainly regional, perhaps national, rail connectivity to this compact, high-density central urban space, to the whims of a developer, who either has no clue or doesn't give a damn about it. And that's selling your city's soul in the worst possible way. Though it's prime purpose is to shuttle sightseers through our local national park, CVSR is the lone working regional, intercity passenger railroad of any kind that exists in the State. And even though CVSR is doggedly not a commuter railroad, I'm reading and hearing of more and more Cleveland area people using its trains (even in it's stunted form) as an auto-altermaitve to get to places (or, in other words, NOT to sight-see). The recent moves to upgrade its equipment and infrastructure should scream to local officials that they should be moving heaven and earth to make the 8-mile extension into Tower City a reality. And even if CVSR isn't ready to build now due to, mainly, money issues, at the very least, local officials should absolutely not let Gilbert kill off any future rail expansion into the area by blocking future station and ROW paths with his casino development. We know Ohio is simultaneously backward and indifferent to rail passenger and transit development or John (Amtrak-Killer) Kasich wouldn’t be sitting in the Statehouse. But Cleveland's the one (reasonably) shining light in this state when it comes to transit. To not stick a bug in Frank Jackson's or Ed FitzGerald’s (or heck, even hopefully reelected Sherrod Brown's) ear on this would be a civic crime. It's great to have developers like MRN who “get it” regarding maximizing the local urban landscape, in terms of such facets and mixed-use development, density, TOD and walk-ability. But we really just got lucky with MRN; we know that, in Cleveland's developers sphere, Air Maron tends to be the exception and not the rule. But it shouldn't just be about hit-or-miss luck ... We've got to start drafting carefully thought-out plans for developers to fit within the needs of our urban framework, and not the other way around. We can start by making Gilbert make provisions in Horseshoe's Phase II for passenger rail to feed it.

BTW, the recently completed Woodhill/Buckeye/E.93 station on the Blue/Green main line, with its huge steel & glass canopies, is very impressive. Let's hope all the new ones, both planned and under construction are as nice.