LifeLongClevelander

Imagine what sort of totals Jim Brown would have racked up with a 17-game schedule. From 1957 to 1960, they only had 12 regular season games. His last five seasons they played 14 regular season games. I still remember prior to the implementation of the 16-game schedule, they used to play 6 preseason games. As for some teams having 9 home games, half of the league will have 9 home games and the other half will have that total next season.

Maybe Jackson is trying to find ways to fit in funding multiple dirt bike parks. West side, southwest side, southeast side, east side and northeast side to make them all conveniently available for all of the law-abiding individuals who want them. Speaking of projects, whatever happened to his grand plans that he unveiled while campaigning four years ago? Didn't he have some super community projects he wanted to implement?

Even if takes 3 months longer, it will be well worth it if the end result is a far better vehicle with a proven history of a successful manufacturer behind it. Multiple bad scenarios can result if these actions don't happen now. First, bad bids can be received resulting in a long, drawn-out process causing bids to be rejected including the project being re-bid. Second, the bid can be awarded to an unproven builder or one with a bad record. An unproven builder will take much longer to get the planning, design, building, delivery and acceptance completed (the savings of a few months will be lost multiple times over). They would have to set up a US-based production facility from nothing. Builders like Breda have such bad histories, not just in Cleveland, where they have been prohibited from bidding on future contracts with San Francisco. There have been such massive problems with Breda's equipment in San Francisco and Boston that have resulted in huge delays, poor reliability, litigation and contract re-working/cancellation. Ultimately, the new equipment has a much shorter anticipated lifespan causing premature replacement and the whole process has to start over again. Unfortunately in both San Francisco and Boston, they have gone through this twice. Both systems were the only operators of the Boeing Vertol LRV's. San Francisco had a little better success than Boston with the Boeing Vertol LRV's, but then they both acquired bad fleets from Breda. Already having gone down this path once in Cleveland, RTA should learn and not repeat the mistakes--their own and those of other systems.

RTA MUST get this rail car purchase right. To get it right, they have to abandon and run away from the same failed practices stretching over decades. If they are still blind to all of their problems (which they apparently are), then Federal authorities must get involved. As there will be Federal money used to help cover a large part of this purchase, the Federal government needs to become involved to insure the best choices are made. They have every right to insure the funding they will be supplying will be used in the best and most responsible manner. If RTA's so-called "management" (if one can call what they are doing "managing") continues to fight against using common sense and being responsible, then the system needs to be put under Federal oversight. Based upon all of the scandals (prescription drug, Dixon's getting free medical coverage and not being able to even order rapid transit wheels in timely manner to name just three), the oversight is long past overdue.

One has to wonder where the idea of rail along the I-480 and I-271 express lanes came from. It is way, way too late in the game for that to ever happen. It would be prohibitively expensive to add rail on either one of those corridors. The population density of the area would not support the ridership to justify the the cost to build either one of those routes.

The multi-purpose stadiums will not come back. They were too big for baseball and too small for football. The dimensions required to accommodate baseball fields take seats too far away for football games. The playing surface must be artificial. I recall going to Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Bossard family (groundskeepers at the stadium) always had the difficult time in getting the field in playing shape by early April. The playing field didn't really become "normal" until late-May. Damaged spots would make life difficult for fielders. For about 2 months, the field was in good shape, but would start getting torn up by football in August. The dirt portion of the baseball field,especially the infield, were problems in football games. There was also another problem with the multi-purpose "cookie cutter" stadiums that were constructed in the late-1960's to the mid-1970's. Major league baseball mandated pretty much uniform field dimensions and styles for all new ballparks. Gone were the the various traits that gave fields their own "personalities". Some of those features probably shouldn't return (extremely short foul lines at many ballparks and monuments in the playing field like were at Yankee Stadium). It is good to see that the current ballparks have gone back to having their own distinct features and angular outfield walls.

By CONTINUING to mis-manage major decisions, RTA will doom this whole process to failure, just like it has done so many other times. If they had good managers, they would be extremely accommodating to the leading manufacturer of light rail vehicles in North America. Siemens has undisputed success in the North American light rail market for over 4 decades. They have a proven, well-designed product operating in many cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico along with a long-proven history in Europe. They have a production facility established in California. The primadonnas who "know everything" about running a transit system (into the ground) cannot look for success stories in many other cities. If things don't change, RTA will find some desperate and/or unproven manufacturer will little to no experience in the LRV market like Boeing Vertol and Breda. They will do and say everything to conform to leadership demands to win RTA's contract. Production will have to be established in a facility with no history of LRV construction, extending the process and learning curve. When it comes time for delivery, it will be excessively late, drag on once started and the system will have to shake out unproven design flaws in the equipment leading to RTA's acceptance of the new rail cars taking years. The low-ball contract will end up having huge cost overruns and be years late in completion. Despite this, RTA's leaders will trumpet their so-called "state of the art" vehicles that riders (the few that will remain) will know they would be more unreliable junk. They will end up passing a proven design, well-tested and reliable LRV's so they can have another rolling "monument" to stupidity. This happened before as Siemens didn't want to play RTA's games in the late 1970's when the system ended up going with Breda. We all know how that turned out. Used Siemens LRV's go on to successful second-hand lives in some cities. Nobody will be able to say that about RTA's current junk. History repeats itself.

All this shows is more incompetence and dishonesty spewing from RTA. Saying they are "making room for our new rail fleet" is a worthless statement. RTA's Central Rail Maintenance Facility yard has a capacity for double the size of the original Breda rail fleet (48 cars) and Tokyu rail fleet (60 cars). This doesn't include the rail yard at Brook Park. A couple years ago, they already scrapped some of the current fleet rail cars. In the 1980's, RTA had far more rail cars on the property right after the delivery of the Breda and Tokyu rail cars. RTA was in no rush to dispose of the retired light rail PCC fleet. Around 60 out of 66 PCC sat after the 2 leased cars were returned to museums. They still had 28 of the 30 heavy rail Airporters and about 75 of the 88 heavy rail Bluebirds on the property. This was on top of the 108 new rail cars. The old rail cars were held on to due to unreliability issues of the new rail cars. I also cannot help but wonder how many of the rail cars they decided to scrap in this go-around were in that bad of shape. Having recently driven by the Brook Park Yard, there were a number of overhauled Breda cars in RTA's current gray/blue/red color scheme. It is not outside the realm of possibility that mishaps will occur with the remaining fleet. Collisions and fires can cause major damage that would be ruled as unrepairable. In the past, RTA was able to salvage the good sections of two damaged articulated Breda cars. The salvaged halves received the number 849. Will breakdowns and mishaps deplete the size of the operational fleet to the point where service gets cut and cars get packed? As an aside, the need to salvage parts by cannibalizing the remaining fleet is an example of what happens when a system has unique fleets. As no other systems operate them, the likelyhood that parts suppliers will produce and have them in stock becomes unlikely. Either RTA must make special, expensive small orders to meet their needs or if lucky, repair/fabricate them in house. A standard rail car design in use by many systems (and the company that builds them is still in business) will find more parts available and less expensive. In the days when systems were retiring PCC streetcars and their mechanically similar heavy rail rapid transit cars, there was extensive dealing done by transit agencies to obtain parts when other systems scrapped their cars.

Based upon what you stated concerning SARTA and Akron Metro, RTA's park-n-ride service doesn't even compare. The service from Canton and Akron can basically be considered intercity operations, connecting cities with other operations. RTA's on the other hand, is a service offered within its own "home" territory. Point-to-point, mileage doesn't differ much from an outlying park-n-ride facility, be it Strongsville, North Olmsted, Westlake and the former operation in Euclid to downtown. The one huge difference is the speed it takes to travel those points. In the time it would take to travel in one round trip from one of those facilities to downtown, 2-round trips can be taken via the highway on normal days with time left over, plus the fuel efficiency is higher. Now, one thing that I have noticed is that RTA does not offer much of a pricing disparity for local or park-n-ride service. For Laketran, a trip from its closest facility at Lloyd Road, only about 2-3 miles from RTA's Euclid facility, costs $3.75, a dollar more than what RTA charges (to be "fair", that $3.75 would get someone on one of the two trips to Madison). RTA's local/rapid transit fares are $2.50, so the their park-n-ride service is only 10% more. In earlier days for RTA, their express, flyer and rapid transit service had a larger percentage difference than today. To make it better on paper, either RTA should increase the park-n-ride service, seek out funding to offset it or both. I would also like to know how many riders, especially those using park-n-ride service, have fares paid by their employers. Has current management even reached out for assistance on the Federal level? A big factor in RTA's massive drop in ridership can be attributed to the loss of direct, one-seat express services. Decisions like the further elimination of express services will only add to the decline. I have seen nothing presented by RTA that makes longer trips desirable.

Well that is pathetic. RTA promotes itself as the largest transit system in the state (as it is so). The leadership should be innovative. The money that is being paid out to its top executives should have them either coming up with or embracing new ideas instead of rejecting them. I've seen the numbers that Calabrese pulled in for an annual salary. His results, despite all of the excuses, were terrible. What makes things worse is Frank Polivka served as RTA's head of procurement from around 2004 to 2015. From 1979 to 2003, he served as the first general manager for one of those surrounding transit agencies, Laketran. His success in starting up a transit agency from nothing and making it an excellent operation should have been a resource for RTA's leaders to get those ideas. Who knows, innovation from within could have been seen as a threat to others. As for the park-n-ride service being the second biggest money losing operation on RTA, I think that it is that is due to RTA's management of that operation. The concept must work as many other transit agencies are successful at it. Laketran's success at that operation grew out of RTA's cast offs. I also don't trust any numbers that are produced by RTA. They have shown they cannot keep track of their own finances, plus numbers can be manipulated to slant any sort of story they want to be told.

How much demand in the real estate market is there for any type of residence, either houses or apartments, for 5 or 6 bedrooms? How much would it cost in monthly rent for newly created apartments for that number of bedrooms and the number of bathrooms to go along with it?

It is also interesting to note that Laketran, a system that operates park-n-ride highway service downtown, found a way to generate more revenue and serve reverse commuters. Approximately 2 years ago, they re-routed their highway coaches on the return trip back to the Painesville garage. Instead of returning empty after the end of the trip downtown, they started providing service to Mentor's Tyler Blvd area. No extra equipment or drivers were required and it only added a little bit more time on that return trip. Long before the Tyler Blvd service started, Laketran's timetables included times on their schedules for reverse commuting stops. I'm sure that there are companies in North Olmsted, Westlake or other western suburbs where employees could benefit from reverse-commuting type service. Why is it that a much smaller transit agency in the same area can come up with innovative solutions but RTA cannot?

In the end, approximately $8 million in new buses will be a wasted purchase. The park-n-ride facilities in North Olmsted and Westlake will become practically empty parking lots with very nice layover facilities for operators. A further erosion in the ridership base as more RTA passengers will turn to their cars. Just another decision making RTA more and more irrelevant in the minds of the public. When RTA ultimately comes asking for an increase in the county's sales tax or property-type tax, the irrelevance will be reflected in the results. The board of trustees already knows it is on thin ice in the minds of the public. They backed off in seeking that tax-based revenue increase a couple of years ago as it would have gone down in flames just like its buses that caught fire due to overheating brakes. The point is quickly coming where the only people riding RTA will be the ones that have no other choice.

Birdsong being open to a possible expansion of the Blue Line is at least a glimmer of hope for the future. For that future to hold any promise, the leftovers from Calabrese's tenure must leave. Unfortunately, so many have become entrenched in positions of power and influence during Calabrese's 18 1/2 years, it will take years for them to leave the system and even more years for the damage to be corrected from the mis-management, waste, fraud, abuse, incompetence and indifference. Even now, there are questionable decisions that are in motion to further alienate the rider base. In 2020, RTA purchased 12 new 45-foot MCI highway coaches for park-n-ride service from lots in Westlake, North Olmsted and Strongsville. These coaches joined a group of 12 older 45-foot highway coaches and permitted the retirement of the remaining 2001 highway coaches, mostly 40-foot versions. The service from those suburbs was at least popular as each lot had sizable expansions over the years and RTA switched to longer buses to handle more passengers. This summer, RTA is going to implement their Next Gen plan. Only the Strongsville highway service will remain. The North Olmsted and Westlake direct, virtually non-stop service via the interstates will be discontinued. RTA will still provide service from the park-n-ride facilities, but the buses will run on city streets. Prediction: The riders using the highway service will turn away from RTA. They will not be interested in commutes that will take at least two or three times as long. When RTA decided to stop operating the highway service from the Euclid park-n-ride facility in 2016 and operate service to downtown via city streets, hardly anybody used it. The 300-car lot in Euclid has 90% of the lot closed off for use. Even before the pandemic, a "busy" day at the Euclid lot (after the service downgrade) would have 8 cars parked in it. Granted, while the Euclid park-n-ride service was not as well patronized as the 3 west side operations, but that was due to RTA's poor management. Security was severely lacking. Cars were stolen or broken into. There weren't enough security cameras and those that were in place needed new covers to replace the clouded-over ones. Patrols were infrequent and many times the homeless would use it for a place to sleep, even in good weather. It was also the first route to lose highway coaches when there were shortages. There were even times when highway coaches intended for that service were used on non-highway routes and the regular, run-down, uncomfortable city buses were used highway service. RTA says "other uses" will be found for the highway coaches. How? Where? A 45-foot highway coach is not well-suited for regular stop-and-go city service. One narrow front door does not allow for easy loading and unloading. Though they are equipped with wheelchair lifts, they are not meant for city-type service either. These buses that a cost about $630k apiece will either sit or be sold (at a discount) to other systems that will know how to properly use them. More waste of tax dollars by RTA.

I missed the date of November 1997 in the comments above. RTA, especially under the leadership of Tober, could have seriously been considering commuter rail. Before Ronald Tober, RTA operated a diesel-powered Leyland rail bus on and beyond the system out to Mentor. When the current Tokyu Red Line rapid transit cars were delivered in 1984-1985, they had "MENTOR" included in the destination signs. They had forward-thinking pro-rail management at that time. RTA's Central Rail yard was designed to be able to handle at least double the number of rapid transit cars that were purchased in 1981-1985. The original size of the Breda light rail fleet was 48 units and the Tokyu heavy rail fleet was 60 cars. There were even intentions of keeping some of the older Airporters around for the Red Line and PCC cars on the Blue/Green Lines. That facility was designed to easily handle a significant rapid transit system expansion. The jury is still out on Birdsong, however as it was mentioned previously by Mr. Prendergast a while back, she expressed a desire to have the Van Aken development to allow for provisions for a potential Blue Line extension. If Calabrese were still around, that would never happened. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear Calabrese going out of his way to make potential rail expansion more difficult. The decision to purchase one type of rapid transit car to serve all rail lines is also promising.

Extending the Blue Line to I-271 and Harvard could serve THREE major ride generators: Pinecrest, University Hospital Ahuja Medical Center (which is expanding and has room for much more growth) and a convenient park-n-ride lot with nearby freeway access. Having access like that would make it a very attractive alternative to the heavy congestion on I-480 for people who would use that route to get downtown.

Joe Calabrese dug in his heals. that's what happened. He was notoriously anti-rail. In 2009, the HealthLine was still fairly new and he was enamored with Bus Rapid Transit. Don't know exactly when planning was going on for the Clifton Blvd reconstruction, but the bus rapid transit was part of that project and it opened in 2014. In his mind, why would he bother with commuter rail when his "solution" was to just add another bus rapid transit route. Also remember that Calabrese's grand plan to extend the Blue Line was to link another bus rapid transit operation to "extend" that line. He also liked to turn through routes into glorified feeder shuttle services (like the Mayfield, Wilson Mills and Cedar lines for the HealthLine), so the BRT "extension" for the Blue Line would be another one of his feeder shuttles. The commuter rail demonstration was probably no more than a way to placate commuter rail advocates. He never had any intention of having RTA involved with it. The best thing to happen to RTA was for Joe Calabrese to leave the system. In a normal world, his record of drastic, sustained rider loses would have cost him his job. In his case, he was rewarded with contract extensions, pay raises and bonuses. He headed RTA for 18 1/2 years. If it weren't for the scandal with Dixon, he would have ran it for 20 years.

There may be "savings" where there isn't as much new material involved, but there are trade-offs. Being able to use the structure of the house in retrofits and tear-out remodels, will bring savings. However, if there are structural issues due to prior work, deterioration, decay or changing codes, it may involve lots of new wood anyways. Then there are the costs associated with remediation efforts as well. Mold, lead paint and asbestos are expensive to deal with. Old, out-dated wiring and bad plumbing must be ripped out and replaced. Cost savings in rehabbing an existing structure may be offset with costs associated with doing things correctly. Then there are times when next to nothing can be saved/re-purposed.

Appreciate the insight and feedback. A mortgage pre-approval is great, but if the the appraisal of the house comes in low, it can kill the deal. In the case of the hard money loan, personally the expense of interest is undesirable to me, but to others the risk potentially doesn't bother them.

I also have a question regarding who is considered a "cash buyer". Is a "cash buyer" somebody who has the full amount in banking and investment accounts or is it somebody who has gone out and received a pre-approved mortgage for a certain amount? I can see people being beaten out in the purchase process as their offer is contingent in selling their existing home. I can also see people losing out when they haven't been pre-approved and not having any certainty in getting easily approved for a mortgage.

If your guess of Hunter is correct, that would indeed be an excellent acquisition by the Browns. When healthy, his numbers are great and it looks like he is a better player than Clowney. Stefanski knows him from his days in Minnesota. Acquiring a player of that caliber would give the Browns a chance to narrow their focus in the draft to fill their other positions of need.

Clowney may have again overplayed his hand. Last year, he turned down good contracts as he wanted more money and/or desired to go to a team with a situation that he "perceived" to be better. He ended up having to settle for less money and a one-year deal. I feel that his decision this year is solely driven by getting the biggest contract possible. As the signings of Johnson, Hill and Walker have shown, those players want to win and could have received more money elsewhere. Some are driven by the prospects of winning while others are driven for money. It appears that Clowney is one of the latter. It is very good to see that the Browns are attractive to those in the first category. I believe that the Browns have made their "best" offer to Clowney. Barring something unforeseen, it won't get any better. They have probably moved on to other options. They will now see what is available to them in the draft. The organization has shown they will pay what they feel somebody is worth and will move on if the player wants more. I expect that other teams are taking the wait-and-see approach with Clowney as well. The "prime" signing period for free agents has passed. I predict that when Clowney does sign, it will be another one of those contracts where he signs for less, probably a one-year deal and perhaps well into the time when training camps have started.

Even though Clowney and Vernon had identical ratings, the Browns got almost a full season out of Vernon while Clowney only played 1/2 a season. The way it played out contract-wise, the Browns made out far better in the long run for 2020. When Garrett was unavailable, Vernon did his job in picking up sacks. I believe that when it comes down to it, Clowney wants too much money, otherwise he would have already signed with the Browns (or any other team that had an interest in him). This is a similar situation that played out for him in 2020. As the draft is only a few weeks away, it would be a bit surprising to see him sign a contract before the draft at this point. I don't want to see a big money deal for Clowney jeopardizing flexibility in signing Mayfield, Ward and Chubb. Regarding Vernon, the best deal for him could be signing at a veteran's minimum sweetened with performance incentives. As the recovery time for his injury is nearly 12 months, any team signing him for 2021 would be lucky to get him to be able to play for the last half of the season.

Between the various members of his family (especially the ones who share his name: grandson, great-grandson) and his advisors/friends have done plenty to harm public safety. Wonder if those individuals came up in that discussion that Cleburger posted last month.

Euclid was suffered from a convergence of many factors at the same time, all of which combined to cause a collapse in its housing market. As you mentioned, there is a huge number of 1950's bungalows. There is only so much that can be done with that style of house and it is further limited by the small lots. That city also was faced with an elderly population where their health or passing away that caused a torrent of houses to flood the market. Then the school system turned into one of the worst in the state and crime problems increased. To make matters worse, the city/school district has collectively one of the highest local income tax rates at 2.85% and high property taxes. For house-hunters, those are all things that drive away potential buyers. Then the bottom fell out during the 2007 lending crisis. In driving through cities like Lyndhurst and Mayfield Heights, it is easy to see some of the same factors coming into play. The percentage of bungalows may not be as high as is found in Euclid, but they still make up a sizable number of homes. In Mayfield Heights, the last of the big build-out in the first half of the 1960's saw a large number of small ranches constructed. In both of those cities, small lots are standard. Those cities were developed a little later, but the passage of 15 or so years is putting Lyndhurst and Mayfield Heights in the same situation that Euclid faced regarding housing stock limitations and age demographics.