LifeLongClevelander

I personally felt that Stark was at the limits of his financing. Even Beacon was delayed due to financing issues. The "boldness" of the original design may have been a detracting factor in lining up backers. The various methods to try to secure public sector financial support and multiple downsizing revisions did nothing to help, either.

Perhaps the car is used to commit other crimes and gets ditched. Thrill seeking and joyrides. Any carjacking attempt can lead to this. And if the carjackers get away, it just gives them the opportunity to repeat it again and again until caught.

Personally, it pained me tremendously when I had to have six trees removed from my yard. They were attacked by the Emerald Ash Borer. They were dying and there was nothing that could be done to save them. I have planted others, but it takes many years for their stature to be replaced.

Progressive already had significant development on the property in 2000. The leaders of Progressive may not care about the development downtown. The site where the Sherwin Williams tower was available, not to mention the proposed site on Lakeside where the Progressive Tower was planned. In the end, a campus-type development is what they preferred. I once went on a tour of their IT facility. One of the things that was stressed is that they liked independence and flexibility. The campus is situated so that it has two separate power feeds with each one capable of supporting their electrical needs. They also have a significant backup power generating capacity as well. This past year they have invested in a significant number of solar power panels. They seem to always to be adding to their facilities in Mayfield Village and Highland Heights.

A teenager--any teenager--who commits an armed robbery, carjacking, flees police in a vehicle chase, shoots or kills someone, is committing adult crimes. They know exactly what they are doing. As such, their identities need to be exposed and treated as adults. It is time to remove the protection of sealed juvenile records. Stop coddling them with hand slap punishments and loosening home confinement restrictions so they can "go back to school" (don't think that in their priorities, attending classes is anywhere but the bottom of the list) so they can just commit more crimes. Right now, their only "schooling" they receive is learning how to commit crimes and hone their techniques. They are also being used as "tools" by their adult criminal counterparts to expand their activities.

At least by initiating a chase when the stolen vehicle was sighted, the individual(s) that appear to be behind the string of carjackings in Little Italy have been caught and identified. It is extremely tragic when a pursuit causes serious injury or death to innocent people. Too many people are real quick to call out and blame the police, and that needs to stop. The ones who cause the innocent victims to suffer are the ones fleeing the police. There are many numerous times when the carjackers flee at a high rate of speed and police break off pursuit immediately. There is no guarantee that those in the fleeing vehicle will slow down and there have been quite a few incidents where there is no pursuit yet the criminals still get into a crash. All too frequently, the lack of pursuit allows more carjackings and robberies to occur. They get away and do it again. In one of the incidents in Little Italy, somebody got shot during a carjacking. The perpetrators obviously don't care who they hurt. When they fire a gun, they could just as easily cause people to die. Letting them get away and giving them hand slap punishments have been the biggest contributing factors to this violent crime wave, not the police.

The loss of the theater is probably a gain for the development. That theater has been a rather poor one for many years, long before the pandemic. The final nail for the the theater was probably the pandemic itself. Agree that the storage facility does nothing to enhance the project. The one possibility is that the Belle Oaks apartment residents may be able to store their extra stuff relatively close to where they live. I am glad that Meijer's is coming to the eastern area of the county. It will provide significant competition to the dominance of Giant Eagle. I am curious to see what the final development turns out to be. It seems that every month or two there are rather significant changes to what is going to be in the final result. DPM ended up shafting themselves by announcing plans, even the initial one for just the north end of the mall property that was acquired from Sears long before securing all of the mall property. It gave massive leverage to Kohan when there was no need to do so and probably cost them significantly more in the acquisition price. DPM should have quietly made the acquisition of the Sears property, perhaps even under a different corporate entity, with no development specified. Kohan was already getting heat from the city for the neglect and decay of the mall itself and knowing that luxury apartments were coming, gave him the upper hand. That was a foolish and costly business decision by DPM.

Maybe RTA can acquire some of the San Diego Siemens SD-100 fleet of 52 units that are being retired in 2022. They are about 12 to 14 years YOUNGER than the Breda LRV's that are marginally operational. That fleet should provide more than enough units to replace all of the remaining Breda LRV's with a large supply of parts that can be obtained from units not needed by RTA. They are only slightly longer that the Breda LRV's (by about a foot) and they use the same track gauge. Previously, San Diego sold off a large portion of their first LRV's (Siemens U2) for continued service when they were retired. As Siemens built the SD-100 for other systems, the "uniqueness" of RTA's current fleet won't be a problem regarding spare parts procurement. The only issue would be to add better heating systems in the San Diego units, but as this same model was built for Denver and Salt Lake City, they are capable to operate in cold weather environments. This can help bridge the gap between now and the time that RTA gets its act together enough to get the next rail fleet operational. The way things are going, it is obvious that the current fleet won't hold up long enough to see their replacements placed into service. It may also open up the eyes of RTA's leaders to the quality of the Siemens product. As for space considerations, RTA's Central Rail Maintenance Facility was constructed to hold more than double the number of heavy and light rail vehicles (60 and 48 respectively) when those fleets were delivered. With the scrapping of significant numbers from both fleets, the rail yard is more than capable of holding any conceivable number of San Diego SD-100's if they were acquired. The Federal government has gotten involved with transferring surplus assets from one transit system to another, so there is already precedence in doing inter-agency transfers.

During World War 2, allied forces went to isolated islands in the Western Pacific. They encountered native populations of primitive people who had no previous contact with the outside world. Those people were amazed with the flying craft, lights, foods and medicines the troops brought. Things that were commonplace to the outside world had no concept in their minds. Those troops were worshiped as "godlike" or magical beings.

If it weren't for the need to be a regional printing center for national-type publications, the Plain Dealer printing facility would not be a viable facility. They also didn't help themselves when they so gutted their staff that the quality of the product went significantly downhill. They also "sold their soul" to placate certain leaders like Mayor Jackson. When Mark Naymik started pressing Jackson on uncomfortable subjects, it was not a coincidence that Naymik was forced out. Certain statistics that reflected poorly on Jackson and his administration were "omitted". The editorial board has been increasingly out-of-touch. If it weren't for the reporters linked to the sports department, they would have barely any at all on staff. It all adds up that publication being a shell of itself.

They should be embarrassed about the overall content they put out. They overly rely on syndicated columnists. The web site's main page has stale and dated content. Stories posted before an event occurs still remain up long after the event has occurred. Fewer and fewer locally based writers are contributing content. Weekend updates are minimal. If one happens to pick up their printed medium, it is a regurgitation of stuff compiled during the week. They often recycle old slideshow-type stories about shopping outlets from the past or old fast food places without any updates. Back when they still had comments, the comments would have additions from the latest re-use with a 3-4 month jump from the last group of comments. With the stale and syndication filler, Quinn will continue to push how "vital" they are as a publication and the "quality" of their material.

Not enthralled with this redevelopment either, but at least it will get rid of that dead mall sooner, much sooner, than later. When one looks at some of the other former dead malls in the area (Euclid Square, Randall Park and Rolling Acres), it did not languish as a vacant or nearly vacant mall with no anchor tenants for decades allowing it to decay posing other problems like those malls. The whole project seems to be fluid. Originally, the theater was going to remain as a part of the redevelopment, but now it won't and will be demolished. The addition of Meijer's is a welcome one as it will offer a good alternative to the Giant Eagle-dominance (as Dave's is closely linked with that chain) aside from Heinen's, Aldi's and Marc's. Some of the decisions and announcements made on this project were head-scratchers. Never understood why DealPoint Merrill came out with the announcement regarding the project for the entire site long before it ever had control of the mall property and the former JCPenney building. It put too much power in the hands of Kohan Retail Investment Group, the mall's owner at the time. As for retail redevelopment, Severance needs to be added into the mix. Aside from Home Depot, the vacancy situation has been getting worse at Severance, too.

In actuality, the changes made by RTA in 2016 regarding the 239 Euclid Park-n-Ride route in many ways mimicked the concepts of NextGen, ended out working out much better for Laketran. Prior to 2016, many northeastern Cuyahoga County residents preferred Laketran to RTA. The Euclid Transit Center was a highly undesirable place for riders to leave their cars. Security camera coverage was poor and the covers over the cameras were basically opaque due to them becoming clouded over. Cars were broken into, damaged and stolen. Homeless individuals found the station a good place to sleep. Many people were dropped off and picked up rather than risking their cars. To not deal with the poor security and safety issues, they preferred to go to the nearby Laketran park-n-ride on Lakeland Blvd near Lloyd Road. In 2016, the direct trip from the Euclid Transit Center was replaced by a new route, a branch of the 39F. That route went up Babbitt Road, down Lakeshore to E. 185th to get to I-90. That doubled the commute downtown from about 15-20 minutes to 30-35 minutes and the number of trips dropped from 5 to 3. This was the "reward" for riders complaining about the discontinuance of the 239. Most riders from the 239 switched to Laketran. After about a year, the branch of the 39F was downgraded to a branch of the 39. Instead of going down E. 185th, the route continued down Lakeshore, through Bratenahl to get on I-90 at MLK Jr Blvd. That trip now took an hour. Now there are no security issues for cars as nobody parks in the truncated version of the parking lot. The 39 no longer goes to the Euclid Transit Center. This was a rare circumstance when RTA's riders had a viable and realistic option when RTA took away service from the 239. The level of maintenance performed on Laketran's buses is noticeably better than nearly identical models on RTA. Unfortunately for the riders that used the Westlake and North Olmsted Transit Centers, they don't have viable options and those former riders have turned to their cars. Regarding the use of scarce resources, the elimination of the highway coach routes from North Olmsted and Westlake ended up wasting other resources. Four highway coaches that had a lot of service and miles remaining on them were sold for next to nothing in October and November while 2 others are currently up for sale. Six other highway coaches that were slightly newer sit idle as do many of the 12 new highway coaches purchased in 2020. Those 12 buses are too many for the one remaining highway coach route from Strongsville/Brunswick. Not much to show for buses that cost about $640k apiece new that sit mostly idle while used ones get sold for $6300 or less. Significantly enlarged parking lots will soon be sprouting weeds while sitting basically empty.

Her contract is $260k per year. Per cleveland.com on May 12, 2020: "The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority amended its employment agreement with General Manager and CEO India Birdsong on Tuesday [May 12, 2020] to allow her to take maternity leave that she would otherwise not be entitled to take. The RTA does not specifically provide for maternity leave, but Birdsong also did not qualify for leave under the Family Medical Leave Act because she had not been employed for a year nor had she accrued at least 1,250 hours on the job, said George Fields, deputy general manager for human resources at the RTA, during a meeting of the RTA board of trustees. Birdsong also did not qualify for the authority’s extended disability policy, which allows for up to 26 weeks of leave, Fields said. Birdsong took over the top spot at the RTA on Sept. 16 of last year [2019] at a salary of $260,000. Fields said Birdsong will be on leave from May 18 through Aug. 24. He said she will first use accumulated vacation, sick and personal time. After five or six weeks, maternity leave will kick in. RTA spokeswoman Linda Krecic said after the meeting that the leave amounts to 38 days"

Maternity leave number 3 is coming, if it hasn't happened already. She has been on the job less than 2 1/2 years (September 2019). With her time away from the job, there may not have been enough time to assess that leadership and/or the vacuum at the top would be significantly worse than it already is.

How does reduced trip time really factor into the equation? The only way I see it happening is the wait time for a transfer "may" be reduced due to frequency changes. If core routes are the same routes as before, than the distance from start to end will be the same and so will the travel time. A local route is still a local route with the same number of physical stops. A bus doesn't run "faster" because 5 are on the route or if their are 10. They still have to travel the same distance dealing with the same traffic and signals. The only meaningful time that could be gained is to turn local routes into express/flyer routes which did not happen, in fact there are now fewer ones now than before. Time is a huge cost and that cost should not be ignored. There is another thing that is being disregarded in the way RTA has redesigned the system. When RTA was created in 1975, Cleveland comprised about 41% of the county's population. In 2020, it was just under 31% of the county's population. RTA will eventually decide to go to the taxpayers for more money, be it from an increase to the sales tax or a property tax. When that comes to a vote (only a matter of time), suburban voters who see little to no benefit of a transit system that provides little to no service to their communities and what service is provided is sub-standard, that ballot initiative is far more likely to fail. With all of the scandals that the system faced in recent years, the board of trustees acknowledged about 2 1/2 years ago that any revenue enhancing tax would fail at the polls. The system is already on thin ice with the voting public. If RTA is seen as irrelevant, prospects of passage will be poor.

How does increased frequency help when a rider's commute time is doubled or tripled? A one-way commute that takes at least an hour when it used to take 20 minutes doesn't matter if the bus frequency is once every 10 minutes versus once every 30 minutes. It still is a much longer commute. The actual trip time is still much longer. If someone has to substantially extend their day due to increased travel times every single day, that becomes basically lost time taken away from something else. I don't know of any employers are going to reduce the time their employees are on the clock because commuting time is longer. The only thing that increased frequency does is that if somebody misses a bus, they don't have to wait as long for the next one. I also know that transfers take time. If a transfer wasn't required and then one or more get factored into a trip, there is the time spent getting off the bus, waiting for the next one (if it is even on time) and then boarding the next one. Just more time added to a commute. If RTA's management really thinks that commuting length of time and complexity is comparable to frequency, that is flat-out alarming. Nearly everything that society wants is to have things quicker, faster and easier. A leisurely long ride is something somebody might do on a weekend afternoon. They have little interest in doing that to substantially add to their everyday work routine.

NextGen implemented re-routes that took away direct routes and make them circuitous. Why would somebody who used the North Olmsted Transit Center (with a freeway routing downtown) want to take a branch of the #55 to Clifton to get downtown? The #30 which traveled Lakeshore Blvd into Lake County and ended at Windermere (Stokes) Rapid Transit Station was eliminated and replaced with an extension of the #10. To now catch the Red Line if on Lakeshore, one has to use the 105th/Quincy Station, a much longer bus ride. The #1 used to go to Babbitt & St. Clair, not far from the new Amazon facility. Now, the #1 ends at East 153rd and to continue to Babbitt & St. Clair one must transfer to the #31 bus. The #18 W. 98th-Garfield route is a winding mess. Faster flyer and express routes have been eliminated. As @GISguy stated, suburban riders have been alienated. Many one-seat routes have been eliminated. Flyer and express trips are now slower local routes. Direct routes have been replaced circuitous routes. It seems like RTA has ignored the fact that people are interested in getting things done quicker. They don't have hours to waste riding a bus or multiple buses with transfers that on top of it are uncomfortable every day. In the end, the only people who will be regular riders on RTA will be the ones that have no other option and that is no way to increase ridership.

The colors of the new HealthLine buses are better. The silver colors on the original fleet were in line with the silver/gray scheme of the day. There just seems to be no uniformity/consistency. The various bus rapid transit routes (HealthLine, CSU and MetroHealth) have their own unique schemes. The regular city buses have pretty much switched over to the red/white/blue design. There are still older city buses and articulated ones that have the older gray scheme and others in gold. The park-n-ride buses have their own scheme. The trolley-style buses have their own unique old-time green design. As the idea of a "paint shop" is basically gone from the system, so that the colors they have when delivered will be the same one they have when they are set off to scrap in 12-18 years. Bus color doesn't correct the underlying problems. As for Birdsong, the jury is still out on her. NextGen has probably made the system worse. The biggest question is what RTA will do regarding the rapid transit rail fleet replacement. The first attempt at bids was badly mishandled, ending up in wasted effort and time. In the meantime, the rail fleet gets older and less reliable. She also apparently delegates quite a bit to her subordinates and many of those are hold overs from Calabrese, the same ones who helped put RTA in the poor situation that was inherited by Birdsong.

Perfect example of what happens when the people who have the technical and mechanical background (people who learned under Ed Allen or had similar experience in other transit systems) who have been driven off by RTA's leadership. They get fed up to the point where they can no longer deal with bureaucracy from headquarters or see their roles trivialized to where they see their jobs as a waste of time. The practical knowledge departs the agency, lost due to lacking competent successors only to be replaced by paper-pushers or "yes" people.

Typical mindset in RTA's upper management. The fiasco with the wheel replacement for the heavy rail fleet was due to somebody wanting to make their budget look good and come in under projections. A replacement wheel order that would have totally eliminated the shortage before it hit was canceled. It was badly estimated how long the existing supply would last and no consideration was given by RTA that it would be loosing its place in the the supplier's processing schedule when the order was canceled. It came to not worrying about it today when they could push it off into the future. Wonder how many of the heavy rail cars that went off to scrap were sitting on good wheels. It didn't help when the general manager was perfectly content in turning RTA into a glorified shuttle bus system. Unfortunately, there has been nobody who served or currently serves on the board trustees with any sense of how a transit system operates. Many of the appointees for the slots filled by Cleveland and county are no more than political window dressing. The suburban mayor appointees have no transit insight either. Having transit knowledge isn't a requirement of serving on the board, but in lacking that knowledge of the workings of a transit system, nobody seemed to bother to ask for information and analyze it. It was all taking in whatever Calabrese served up, taking it as gospel and approving anything he wanted. They never questioned the downward spiral of the system and rewarded Calabrese with contract extensions, pay raises and bonuses.

The buses operated by Maple Heights and North Olmsted were in immaculate shape up until the end. The buses from Garfield Heights were in rough shape and worn out. That system was an early transfer of operations to RTA. Very few of the Garfield Heights buses operated after RTA had full control. Euclid had a very well maintained fleet as well. After Euclid transferred its operations to RTA, about 1/2 of its fleet was retired as those retired coaches dated to 1951 to 1958. Those buses were still operational and then a major equipment shortage hit the system in large part due to the failure of the 1978 model AM General buses that numbered 143 units. That was a horrible design that plagued all operators of that bus. RTA was forced to restore approximately 20 of those retired buses to service to help maintain operations.

I don't give a darn about his personal "brand". No guarantee if it happens if he returns. If it does, but it could have happened without him, I don't want him to take credit for it. I also want a player who is fully dedicated to their team. He has his hands in so many projects (supposedly the factor in him going to L.A. in the first place) and he is busy interjecting his thoughts on all sorts of things (Free OBJ for one). He can do that all he wants, but his focus needs to be on his current NBA team that has been having issues. If he has "checked out" already, what's to say he won't again? Based upon some of the things that happened at StVsStM, they may miss the attention and revenue that Bronny would bring, but they may not miss the whole LeBron sideshow again. Quite honestly, the whole situation involving the Hummer should have voided his amateur status in high school.

LaTourette put his staff on the slated closing of DFAS (Defense Finance and Account Service). They uncovered that the numbers used to " "justify" the closing were skewed to benefit the site in Denver that was not closing (the DFAS director was originally from Denver). Once the accurate numbers were factored into the equation, Denver dropped off the list of sites to stay open and Cleveland leapfrogged to almost the top, if not the top of the list. Kucinich was too busy formulating presidential campaigns and Tubbs-Jones did nothing. The loss of thousands of jobs to the region, if DFAS closed, would have been devastating.

Quite sure he is better than the 12th guy on the roster. What happens when he "feels" that he isn't being used in the capacity that he "thinks" he should be used in? What happens with Bickerstaff when they don't agree? How about when things don't go well? We have gone that road with James twice. At least the second time, Cleveland got a championship. Another championship would be especially delightful if it is achieved without his presence on the team.