LifeLongClevelander

Progressive, Parker Hannifin and Eaton have all decided to embrace the modern corporate campus headquarters model. In the cases of Progressive and Parker, they located on former golf course sites with land far easier to develop than what may be found in existing urban centers. I am not taking one side or another; they were decisions made that their leadership felt was best for their companies. As for Progressive, has anybody driven by the "rear" of their main campus on I-271? The installation of solar panels is far more than "a few". The number is well into the hundreds, maybe in excess of a thousand. What I don't know is what efforts were made by those companies to make their campuses more transit friendly. Did they make any efforts on their part or did RTA approach them with any ideas? Did RTA consider or off to extend the #11 Cedar beyond Montefiore, west of I-271? At one time, the #32 Cedar used to go further to the east, but that route number no longer exists. When it did exist, Parker was already at Landerhaven. To route a Cedar bus route though Landerhaven is only a minor deviation from Cedar Road. With the NextGen changes in June, RTA ended up having an excess of 45-foot 57 passenger (seated) highway coaches. They purchased 12 brand new ones in 2020 (1901-series) for about $8 million. They had another 6 from 2007 (1701-series) and 6 from 2010 (1801-series). RTA currently operates one highway coach park-n-ride route from Brunswick/Strongsville and that is due to sponsorship by those cities. The 12 new buses are far more that is needed for that one line. This month, RTA just sold 4 of the 2007 models for the price $4000 to $6500 each. They also sold 2 older 2001 highway models. The top mileage from those four 2007 models was about 313,000 miles. For a city coach, that is a low amount of miles. A highway coach is designed for at least double or triple that number of miles. Why couldn't RTA partner with these east side headquartered companies and provide express bus service from the end of the Green Line? The operation could continue along Shaker Blvd to Gates Mills Blvd. The express service could deviate from Gates Mills Blvd at Lander to north to Landerhaven, then continue to SOM Center Road to go to Progressive or there could be 2 routes, one for Parker and the second to continue on Gates Mills Blvd to SOM Center and up to the Progressive campus. Riders would have the benefits of quicker rapid transit and express bus service instead of slow and infrequent local bus service. Unfortunately, RTA basically unloaded buses with a lot of service life/mileage remaining for next to nothing. Still on the system, RTA has a vastly underutilized highway coach fleet of 20 buses that mostly sit around and it wouldn't be surprising to see more of them basically given away. By far, this is wasting capital improvement funds.

Giving out transit passes by employers is a great idea--just as long as the transit service is one that is desirable and viable alternative to driving. When RTA eliminated an express route and replaced it with a considerably longer travel time local route, it was no longer desirable. Fortunately for those riders, they had a viable and desirable alternative in Laketran. Almost all of the riders had a good alternative to continue to use mass transit on that system. For those who didn't switch to Laketran (for whatever reason) decided to drive to work. When RTA rolled out NextGen in June, those affected riders no longer had comparable transit service. For them, having free passes to use RTA wasn't worth the time "cost" they would have incurred. Parking in Cleveland is fairly inexpensive as compared to cities like D.C, Boston, Philadelphia, New York and so on. It came down to a much longer commute, extending their days either due to the time the bus would take travel or different schedules and a less comfortable ride. Even without incentives such as employer provided passes, using mass transit in many other cities is a cost-effective solution due to costs in parking, operation and tolls. Frequency and reliability of service also makes a big difference. Over time, RTA's service has gone downhill for the suburbs. Express and one-seat routes are significantly fewer. This has eroded the passenger base. Fewer riders have caused route frequencies to be reduced in frequency or completely eliminated during certain parts of a day. In Mayfield Heights and Mayfield Village, there are two Fortune 500 Companies: Parker Hannifin and Progressive. Parker Hannifin in Landerhaven has no nearby bus routes. Only a portion of Progressive's offices in Mayfield Village and Highland Heights are served by the once-per hour route 7A on Wilson Mills. The main campus in Mayfield Village on SOM Center Road has no RTA service. Progressive's "answer" was to build a new parking garage. Based upon the big solar panel farm being constructed at their main campus, Progressive sees the benefits of making environmentally friendly choices.

What has been done to install ANY confidence that putting things under the control of county leaders will make things better or quicker? There has been a long-standing history of corruption and "self enrichment" going back to the days of Porter, McFaul, Dimora and Russo. It has evolved into new scandals concerning development, projects and leadership of Budish/county executive form of government that we have today. It will be going from one mess of bureaucratic problems to another.

My employer has provided this benefit for many years. Most of my co-workers had no interest in it whatsoever and this was when service options were much better. When service was significantly degraded (slower/non-direct routes, longer travel times), it became less appealing. To continue to use this "benefit" with the downgraded service, one would have to leave earlier to have a reasonable expectation of starting at the same time and due to scheduling with work hours, then catch a later bus to go home. Adding about 1 1/2 hours to a commute/work day is simply not desirable to the vast majority of people. Having Laketran as a commuting option is fortunate for those living in northeast Cuyahoga and Lake Counties, but most aren't so lucky. With teleworking staying in place after the pandemic ends, if someone comes in the office rarely, the parking/driving cost is palatable. Having employers supply no-cost passes for employees is only desirable as the transit service provided.

Light rail operations extensively use subways as well. Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Newark are all examples of subway operations that use light rail equipment.

Where does Mr. Armlovich come up with the idea that Cleveland has a subway? The Tower City tracks aren't a subway nor is the short tunnel that leads to the Airport station. However, it is a nice ridership recovery for the rail system. Maybe the ones running the show at RTA will take the replacement of the heavy and light rail vehicles with one common rail car to handle service on all lines more seriously instead of playing games with the bidding processes.

Excellent idea. This is how BRT SHOULD be designed. Have multiple routes combine into a central busway. Have the outlying routes continue to the downtown area. Don't force riders to change buses. No matter what time is gained by the BRT, it is all lost when riders have to get off of one bus and board another.

Don't know why somebody decided to come up with cloth seats. The Breda and Tokyu rail cars were delivered with vinyl seats. The older former Shaker and CTS rapid transit cars all had vinyl-type seats as well as did all of the CTS buses (except for the one group that came in 1969). Even with the buses that were purchased after RTA was created in 1975 through the mid-1990's had vinyl seats. From what I recall, when RTA started purchasing buses in the late 1990's, the decision was made to have those fabric insert seats. Vinyl is as easy to clean as the hard plastic ones, but they have the problem of maintenance. The thin inserts offered little in the way of comfort anyways. From a historical perspective, decisions like this helped the demise of mass transit in this country. Cleveland's streetcar system operated equipment with hard rattan seats almost until the end of operations in the 1950's. CTS and RTA had problems maintaining the air conditioning systems on buses (builder-supplied winterization covers were too much of a "bother" to install/remove). If anybody purchases a car, air conditioning comes as standard equipment. Seating in cars is comparable to what somebody has in their home. It is no wonder why a certain system's ridership has been nosediving for a long time.

I understand the reasoning. A certain segment of the ridership will not respect the equipment they get to ride. It becomes a never-ending cycle to replace the damaged seats, let alone keeping them clean. As a result, everyone else suffers and it doesn't do anything towards making the riding experience pleasant. In a city where mass transit is a necessity like New York and Chicago, it won't make any difference. They are designed to haul the masses where even seating is minimized (perimeter seating) so they can transport as many a possible. When riding equipment that has poor riding qualities regardless of the kind of seat cushions are present, going the hard plastic route only makes it worse.

It doesn't take a genus to see a snake oil salesman that has parlayed past success to fool people. If you think the road to success is dumping money into the Powerball, so be it. People get fooled all the time into believing that the lottery will bring happiness based upon the luck of very few. Most end up with a big stack of losing tickets. Keep on buying your tickets. Then again, I don't need to upsetting my "sources".

If Stark does end up building something, it will go through numerous rounds of being scaled back and revisions. In the end, it could be unremarkable and disappointing. Instead of playing these games, Stark should just end up getting rid of the property and quit dragging it out.

Don't expect any help from the Dolan family. They are already on the hook for Progressive Field improvements as well as considering the garage for ballpark village.

And the presence of those retailers in Steelyard would have minimal impact on similar type retailers downtown.

That statement proves that Stark doesn't understand urban retail, at least in Cleveland. I do not believe that Home Depot, Lowes or Menards would ever consider a location in Downtown Cleveland.

Stark refuses to take the blame. He has badly mis-judged the demand for what was offered. His financial position is such that he cannot get obtain investors and financing to go forward. All the "wells" that he has gone to get some sort of local government, state government and schools (like CMSD is ever going to give up money) funding sources are dry. Tenants that he did line up have grown tired of delays and excuses, so they have gone elsewhere looking for space. However, in his mind, everyone is to blame but him. The project is forever on hold. Unless he comes up with an announcement he is seeking some other pipe dream to try to extort funding, the next real news that will be that land that was going to be used for nuCLEus has been sold.

Per Fox 8, the Gateway location for the Winking Lizard is now permanently closed. When the move is complete, the Winking Lizard will only have one location at the AECom Building. The Galleria location is shifting to the AECom building in the spring.

Atlantic City was supposed to be completely revitalized when gambling was legalized outside of Nevada. Even at the peak after gambling was legalized and Atlantic City had little competition, it didn't happen. Once outside of the Boardwalk and the string of new casinos with their garages, nothing had changed. Now with over half of the casinos out of business in Atlantic City and gambling is everywhere, it will never happen. Gambling was never going to be the saving grace, not in Atlantic City or anywhere else.

I believe that RTA started the program to replace the seats prior to COVID, but they are easier to clean. Vinyl seats are probably just as easy to clean, but regardless of fabric or vinyl, they suffer damage. Replacing damaged seat coverings is another cost and task that RTA saves by going to hard seats. Rider comfort? Not much if at all. Even when the seats were fabric covered, they weren't very comfortable to sit in for an extended period of time. In 1969, CTS purchased its last group of blue city transit coaches, the 3000-series. They were bare-bones and as inexpensive as possible. Riders hated them as they had hard fiberglass seats. Unfortunately, the hard seats are now becoming the system standard. No matter how they "re-invent" the system with different routes and increasing frequencies on some lines, a long and uncomfortable ride will not be enticing to passengers.

The real pain of property value increases sets in with the new, renewal and replacement levies. Also, with hindsight there is "associated" pain when somebody looks at their tax bill and sees those 29-year bond issues that they are being assessed. They have ended up with all the school district's buildings replaced, the ranking/performance of the schools doesn't change and the students who move into those buildings already start to trash/deface them.

What is the current space being leased by Benesch and if known, when is the lease up? What sort of space were they interested in leasing at nuCLEus and what is available for them at Key?

Another possible thought is there is strong interest in the 200 Public Square space already. Benesch may have found itself in a position where they cannot extend their lease any longer, beyond whatever terms are in place. Management knows they have stated they are moving and why should they lose out on a possible new tenant (or tenants) to accommodate one that doesn't see their current building in the future. The Huntington Building's management doesn't have any sympathy for the delays being brought on by nuCLEus's perpetual delays and project downsizings.

The family has so many problems, but the mayor did have time to visit his grandson at that temporary dirt bike track that was set up in the Muny Lot a few years ago. Guess that was important.

Maybe the firm is tired of waiting and waiting. They want to move and they don't see any real progress on nuCLEus. Another round of delays with no end in sight or the whole project is falling apart again. They have played the waiting game and are done with it.

Wondering if the lack of playing time together as a unit is a factor. Garrett and Clowney didn't even play a down in any exhibition games. Not being critical of that, especially since what happened to Baltimore's Dobbins. Sometimes it takes action live-game experience to help a unit come together, even more so when so much turnover happened on the defense.

Supposedly, at least his father is still around. In the cleveland.com story, his father showed up at the scene. What is really sad that one of the mayor's great-grandsons has already had legal issues. Not certain, but may have heard of other family members having issues too. Sounds like there are parents, but not parenting in that family.