LifeLongClevelander

I think it goes to the agency leadership. Laketran's CEO Ben Capelle seems to do quite well in securing assistance. He was able to get the $14.7 million for its main headquarters and bus storage/maintenance facility. He was able to line up money for the electric battery buses along with the supporting infrastructure such as charging stations. Their highway and city buses are all no more than six years old (except for perhaps 4 30-foot coaches that if still in service, would be replaced this year--haven't seen them in service in western Lake County for a while). Even when their buses are retired from service, they are in very good condition for their ages. Capelle has been able to work with Senator Brown and Representative Joyce in getting these grants.

Tiny Laketran, much smaller than RTA, has been able to secure some rather substantial, impressive and significant funding awards. Their lobbying efforts seem to have worked out quite well. Per this News Herald article: https://www.news-herald.com/2022/03/15/laketran-awarded-14-7-million-to-fund-a-renovation-of-main-hq-upgrade-facility/ $32.6 million was awarded to 5 transit agencies in the state. Laketran led the list with $14.7 million. $10.1 million went to Southwest Ohio Transit Authority, $4.0 million to RTA, $2.3 million went to Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority and $1.5 million went to Portage Area Regional Transit Authority. Seems like tiny Laketran stacks up quite well in competing against the "big-boy transit agencies".

Met with Watson for THREE HOURS and it comes out that he didn't want to play in the cold. It isn't like some sort of major climatic shift happened in the last few months or overnight that would have made Cleveland a cold-weather city with an open air stadium. Watson just wanted to be the center of attention. As for what has come out regarding his reprehensible and gross actions, some people call Mayfield immature and a "mental midget". What terms can be used to describe Watson and the actions that he did? Watson should end up on a registry and be forced to report where he lives to the police. Read the Sports Illustrated piece on him. I couldn't finish it due to the seriously twisted things mentioned.

The money for projects and equipment acquisitions is out there. Aside from four buses from 2010 (and I don't even know if they are currently in service), Laketran's entire regular and highway coach fleet is six years or younger in age. They have been able to secure funding for new buses, facility upgrades and introduce Ohio's first battery-powered bus fleet. They are able secure quite a bit in funding, especially for a small system. As for the suggestion of RTA "poaching" Laketran's talent, I hope not. It would take away the good people who know how to run an excellent transit system. The first general manager of Laketran, Frank Polivka was in charge of Laketran from its inception in 1979 to 2003. He then became RTA's Director of Procurement until 2019. With his success in starting Laketran from nothing and helping turn it into an excellent transit system, his knowledge and experience did nothing to better RTA. I don't think that RTA's leadership was ever interested in tapping into the knowledge that he could have provided.

Wherever Watson ends up next season, he will win zero games for his team for the games that he sits out suspended. Ben Roethlisberger was suspended in 2010 initially for six games, eventually reduced to four games, for his misconduct. This was during the time when the league dealt out less severe punishments and Watson is facing significantly more in allegations. It would not be surprising to see a much harsher suspension handed out in his case.

By dealing for Cooper and releasing Landry, they still took on a bigger salary cap hit than they lost by getting rid of Landry by about $3 million. When Njoku got the franchise tag, between him and Hooper, those two alone were going to earn over $24 million as tight ends. Hooper was a major disappointment in his two years here and not worth in excess of $13 million. JC Tretter was rumored to be a cap casualty for many months, going back to before the start of last season. Landry was also expected to be a cap casualty before the start of last season as well. Based upon Hooper's lack of production and the franchising of Njoku, none of these moves should come as a surprise.

For all of these fans of any team wanting to get Watson, they need to ask themselves: Did 22 women fabricate their stories? And if the stories weren't fabricated, how would they feel if what Watson did was to their wife, mother, girlfriend, sister, daughter, friend or co-worker? For those who did not fabricate their stories, they fall into one or more of those categories. Would the fans who knew somebody victimized in that way welcome him in open arms and purchase his jersey/gear? Would somebody want their child to idolize him? After Watson, who is next? Bring in Ray Rice for a tryout? For some team to go out and get Watson in a trade, it would cost 2 first round and 2 second round draft picks, perhaps 3 first round picks, other picks and players. The league can still suspend him. Lots of draft capital locked up in a player that may not be able to play for part or all of a season. Missing that many games is bound to lead to a poor record. Aside from the loss of a team's morals in acquiring Watson, at least one of those draft picks could be a lost high first round pick, too.

A healthy Baker Mayfield and an offense that took off after Beckham got hurt in 2020 got the Browns into the playoffs. They beat the Steelers and if were not for the fumble by Rashard Higgins in the Kansas City playoff game, the Browns are then playing in the AFC Championship game. There is no way the team can be honestly judged when at times they were playing with their 5th and 6th offensive tackles, a versatile back (Hunt) hurt for a large portion of the year and a beat up quarterback while having a wide receiver who was expected to be a major contributor who was more interested planning his exit strategy even before training camp began.

That is perfectly fine, but what SHOULD have happened is for Senator Brown to find out what exactly is needed to complete funding for the entire purchase. Having all the funding together and in place ahead of time will make for a better purchase right off the bat. For prospective bidders to have their bid packages together with a known quantity of 70-76 rail cars yields multiple benefits. A larger purchase up front will lower the per-unit rail car cost. Potential add-on options are never a guarantee to be exercised and usually the add-on order(s) when an option or options are exercised, the per-unit cost increases. Coming to the table knowing a bigger order up front could be more attractive to prospective bidders. A potentially small order could be a turn off for already busy reliable rail car manufacturers. This will stop this piecemeal aspect of cobbling up the funding. When options are exercised, the add-on orders then get put on the end of the production schedule. Aside from drawing out the ordering process up front, the resulting delivery could be considerably later in the future. Even though the immediate need is to get the Red Line equipment replaced, just how much longer will the Blue/Green line equipment hold out? Right now, the Breda fleet is 40 years old. Even if the complete order of replacement rail cars is made in the near future, expect delivery to be about five years from now. If the option to purchase the Breda replacements is exercised in a couple of years, that fleet will be nearing a half a century in service. Options for additional rail cars should only be written into the bidding process should an extension of the rail network are planned. The current state of affairs for RTA's rail system does not qualify. There is no debate on the state of RTA's entire rail car fleet. It is time for all parties involved to get this completed. It will resolve a huge operational problem for RTA and certainly will save them money in the long run. The new fleet will be less expensive and they won't have to waste money trying to keep ever-increasingly unreliable equipment in service. It is a sad state of affairs to continually read or hear stories that RTA has secured funding for one more rail car here and a few weeks/months later they found more money for another one. I don't want to hear stories a few years from now that RTA is forced to shut down a branch of the Blue/Green lines due to equipment shortages. Unfortunately, if this bidding and ordering process is not completed in totality SOON, the above mentioned scenario will almost certainly occur.

Brown has been in office long enough to have made more than enough of a difference. He was first elected to the Senate in 2006. He served in Congress during the time that his party had a super, unstoppable majority (2009-2010) when every piece of legislation sponsored by his party was passed and signed into law. What has he done along with Cuyahoga County's congressional delegation to secure more transit funding, especially when they had the power to do so? By the way, both Brown and David Joyce helped secure funding for Laketran's electric buses that went into service last year. He could have easily changed that amount. Quite obviously from the funding secured and the sponsors of those project, this piece of legislation did have enough support to pass. A request for $100 million (0.000067%) or even $200 million (0.000133%) of in that $1.5 trillion package. This nickel and dime approach in seeking funding for the rail car replacement only causes the riders of RTA to suffer.

The $5 million that Senator Brown included in the $1.5 trillion spending bill is about enough to cover the cost of one rail car. He should have shifted the decimal point to the right and added a multiplying factor to that amount. At this pace of securing funding, the yet-to-be-acquired replacement Red Line rail cars will be ready for retirement by the time enough funding is in place to replace the current Blue/Green line rail cars.

The major reason behind the collapse of mass transit in this country is summed up by "National City Lines". This company that was a joint venture of General Motors, Firestone, Phillips Oil and Standard Oil systematically bought up many transit systems all over the country. This company purchased the struggling transit systems in these cities to eventually dismantle the streetcar systems. The goals were to increase demand for GM's vehicles, Firestone's tires and Standard Oil's fuel. They destroyed the streetcar systems in Baltimore, Washington D.C, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Kansas City, Los Angeles and many other cities. Even for transit systems that became operations of government agencies like Cleveland's in 1942, the influence didn't stop. Various transit officials were "awarded" things like car dealerships. Eventually, the corporation was found guilty of conspiracy, but the penalty was essentially a nominal amount.

Unfortunately, how many times have there been efforts to save various old structures like churches that have gone nowhere? For years, there were efforts to save the former Fifth Church of Christ Scientist on West 117th at Lake Road. There were various efforts over many years to save all or part of it. These efforts received considerable media publicity. For whatever reasons, the groups trying to save it couldn't get enough going to continue with their efforts and they failed. Upkeep and trying to keep these buildings secure can only go so far. Far too many have seen this fate. Stunning lack of vision and tragic to see these magnificent structures get demolished, but if there isn't enough community support to save them, most will meet the same fate.

This falls directly with RTA's leadership and board of trustees. The erosion of services was drawn out over an extended period of time. The general manager was was hired in 2000 and stayed at the wheel for 18 1/2 years. During this time, RTA lost riders and service quality declined. The answer was to cut services and eliminate routes. In a normal world, that would have cost the general manager his job. At RTA, he was rewarded contract extensions, bonuses and pay raises. Unfortunately, even though Calabrese has been gone for quite a while, many of the people who were hired and/or promoted under his tenure as general manager are still in place. The trustees never held Calabrese accountable for the decline in the system. In fact, the system wasn't even able to uncover extensive fraud and theft for extended periods of time. As for the "philosophy" of operating the system, it appears that it was to "kick the problem down the road" so that the system's leaders in the future would have to deal with it. That is why the rail car replacement order that should have been placed well over a decade ago has yet to occur.

The fact that RTA is being forced to put the trolleys into service on regular routes bodes very badly for the system. Supposedly, RTA has a "contingency" fleet of buses that they could use to press into service if the need arises. The usage of the trolleys indicates that either the contingency fleet is comprised of such poor condition junk that it will take considerable effort to make road-worthy or the contingency fleet is beyond use/non-existent. The only other possible extra city buses they may have are the HealthLine buses that are in the process of being retired. Don't know how many of those were operational when their replacements entered service, but the actual number of lines that would warrant use of 60-foot articulated buses are few. In the early 1980's, RTA was in bad shape for equipment. Not long after RTA's creation, it purchased 300 new buses to replace the oldest inherited CTS and suburban system buses. Approximately half of those 300 buses were the AM General buses that were an industry-wide disaster. They were poorly designed buses made by a manufacturer with little to no bus building experience coupled with "incentives" to keep their weight down. The resulting buses had such bad frames (among other things) that were breaking. RTA managed to rebuild some, but the bulk were written off. For a while there was a huge number of them stored out-of-service near the Brook Park rail yard. As RTA had re-activated approximately 200 retired buses in 1975, many of them were worn out. To provide service, RTA pressed into service about 20 former Euclid buses dating from 1950 to 1958. Eventually, RTA leased and later purchased 50 used buses from Atlanta (the all-white "MARTA" buses). In 1982 and 1983, the next group of new buses helped to relieve the old bus fleet. Later, in the 1986-1987 time frame, there were delays in acquiring more buses (bad bids and contested specifications). RTA still was relying on many old former CTS buses that were at the end of their service lives. RTA was forced to purchase a number of former Columbus buses to maintain service. As RTA is already facing equipment shortages and a prolonged period of high gas prices forces many to use mass transit, they won't have any extra equipment to deal with a rider surge. The problems faced by RTA in the 1980's were more "local" in nature, caused by equipment shortages. This time around, transit systems everywhere are all going to see potential rider surges. Surplus buses may very well not be available this time around.

It is pretty sad that the main page for this "publication" to have 4, 5 or 6 days worth of syndicated Dear Annie columns listed. This is on top of older stories that are out-dated such as lead-ups to events that have already passed. They cannot even come up with enough fresh material to fill the web page.

Hard plastic seats on a rough riding bus as compared to hard wooden type seats on a rough riding bus--not much difference. Either way, they are not endearing to passengers and is another way RTA loses riders. At least RTA is still making use of them for service instead of getting rid of them for a fraction of their worth via surplus sales or keeping them in storage like they did with the park-n-ride highway coaches.

Maybe they like to complain, but Willard Park (E.9th & Lakeside) is $10 max a day with early bird rate of $8. Huntington Park (W.3rd & Lakeside) is $10 a day. North Point Garage has early bird rates of $5 and $7 with a $13 max. The Muny lot is $4. Check out the parking rates downtown. There are quite a few lots, most with very reasonable rates. Maybe they are griping that they cannot find a particular lot with space next door to where they want to be, so they complain. The fact is that compared to major cities where mass transit is a necessary part of commuting due to few and/or expensive parking/toll options, Cleveland's parking and driving options are quite reasonable and available.

Right now, people have become accustomed to driving their cars to work downtown. Parking rates are affordable and spots are plentiful. People have become comfortable to having those costs. To them, they would rather pay extra to have the convenience and quicker commuting times than almost anything that RTA has to offer. To get those habits to change, it would take having those costs becoming "painful" on the finances. If the change comes quickly, RTA is in no position to deal with a surge in riders.

My employer is located downtown and offers free transit passes for all employees. Even when RTA provided much better service (frequency, reduced travel time, better comfort), a large number of my co-workers refused to ride RTA, even though it was free for them. They would rather drive to work or if they had the option of using Laketran, would use that service instead. Now with the route changes and eliminations that have occurred in recent years, the downgraded services hold zero interest in luring them as riders. As some of these changes have been in place for years and alternatives to using mass transit have been in place for a long time, it is very doubtful that even improved services would lure them to use RTA for commuting. Once riders have been lost, it is extremely difficult and maybe impossible to gain them back.

Between 1995 and 2000, RTA started 9 community circulator bus services. They ran multiple community-type loops for West Park, Slavic Village, St. Clair-Superior, Lee-Harvard, Euclid, Lakewood, Tremont, Southeast and Westshore. Another 3, Southwest, Severance and Coventry-Shaker Square started operation in 2005-2006. The routes were assigned numbers in the 8xx-series. I don't recall the routes they covered, so I cannot say how much if any of Parma was served. Some of the routes served the park-n-ride/transit centers. They operated smaller than standard buses and eventually were painted red. In a round of transit route eliminations, all of the community circulator routes were eliminated in September 2009. Some of the larger circulator buses were re-purposed as additional downtown trolley-type buses, but the others saw little use afterwards. They have all been long since disposed of by RTA.

The Cavaliers have turned the corner and will be playing meaningful games after the end of the season. And they have done it without the player who left twice and is now in Los Angeles. More importantly, it took years to dig out from the mess of the roster that remained after James departed and the rebuild is basically complete. As for the Lakers, three players take up about 90% of the salary cap. They have no draft capital they could have parlayed into getting help. Concerning the highly paid players, Westbrook has been a major disappointment while Davis has been disappointing and has missed significant playing time. Father Time is starting to catch up to James, the "architect" of the roster. Last year, the Lakers were in the play-in tournament and as things stand right now, they will be a part of it again.

Officiating throughout the playoffs was poor. Blown calls that had bearings in nearly every game. It seems like the officiating has been getting worse.

As Beachwood Place is already having leasing issues, it will make it the leasing of Nordstrom's space even more difficult. I just wonder if there is any real benefit for Macy's moving a couple of miles to the east coupled with a relocation cost. Macy's also appears to be one of those retailers that desires to own its building instead of leasing space. The Nordstrom store is a leased building. A clue to when Nordstrom may consider relocation would be timed with the expiration of the lease.

Doubtful if Macy's would relocate to Beachwood Place. The UH store is 167k square feet while the Nordstrom store is 215k square feet. It would increase their square footage by around 30%. It works against the thinking of reducing size and leaner operations. The shift slightly to the east wouldn't really gain them that much if anything.