Ethan

There is, before they tiled over the stumps (definitely an improvement) you could see the irrigation system in a few of them. My guess is that it was getting clogged or otherwise not functioning. Or perhaps the water just didn't disperse enough to be useful. I couldn't tell you, but something about them clearly wasn't (isn't) working.

What exactly is GLBC overall plan in terms of customer facing experiences? According to NeoTrans ( @KJP) most recent article on GLBC Scranton plans, they plan on having a "brewpub/tasting room" on the Peninsula. I'm just curious how GLBC plans to sufficiently differentiate these two nearby drinking/dining experiences from each other so as not to cannibalize their own market. The article mentions something about food trucks which would be cool, I'm just interested to see where they end up going with it. I'll definitely check it out regardless!

Replacing the trees with anything other than a sapling would require removing quite a few pavers and some heavy machinery, so it isn't a simple operation. Certainly doable though. The issue is that the ones that died would also stand a decent chance of dying again for the same reasons. Lack of water for the ones near PS, and I'm guessing lack of sun for the two most recent deaths (they're shaded 90% of the day). I'd want them to figure out why they died and address the root cause before replanting.

New mural on PS, I personally like it better. Two more trees gone. On the plus side at least they are removing stumps and bricking over the dead trees.

Looks like they finally got the message!

Really though! If you're going to put in fake, plastic plants, why would you imitate native plants? Why imitate an environment that can easily be found right outside? If you're going to be fake, go full bore! Personally, I'd have gone for a rainforest vibe though, that would be very cool! A beach aesthetic would be cool too though.

Thanks for the presentation! I'm all for replacing the somewhat dilapidated boardwalk. And more seating is always a good idea! I also appreciate the bump outs and the bike racks. That said, I'm still not sure if this is really much of an improvement. All the tall trees will be biased towards the street, and we are replacing the current soft surface with a good amount of hard surface. I guess it seems like a wash at best. I'd rather the city had replaced the walking surface on the boardwalk, added a few benches and bike racks, kept the current trees, and called it a day. I think the end result would have been almost as good, and saved the city some money. Just my opinion though, as I said, I'm hoping to be wrong.

Thanks for the update! I don't really see how this really changes Heritage Park II, outside of cutting down existing mature trees to replace them with younger trees. This might be a significant improvement in twenty years after the newly planted trees grow in, but I'm not sure it will be much of an immediate improvement. Here's hoping I'm wrong!

THIS! That stretch of Superior drives me insane! The bike lanes appear and disappear several times within a few blocks. I'd almost prefer no bike lines than to be reasonably comfortable in a bike lane for it just disappeared forcing me to quickly move into a lane with heavier vehicles moving much faster than me who may have not expected the bike lane to just disappear. I don't see why they aren't planning to extend this to the bridge.

https://www.crainscleveland.com/jeremy-nobile-blog/northwest-territory-cider-co-reaches-kickstarter-goal-new-cidery-orchard-chagrin

Doesn't seem good. https://fox8.com/news/i-team/our-numbers-are-scary-low-more-officers-leaving-cleveland-police-department/

The Metroparks definitely do buy land for parks, they recently acquired some land in the flats. Though you are absolutely right that there are other organizations which also acquire land for conservation, and will sometimes transfer it to the Metroparks.

Responding here as it is the more appropriate thread to do so. Agreeing to disagree is fine, I'm replying to you so as to not have to reiterate the prior conversation. Don't feel any pressure to reply. The reason I cite total acreage instead of TPL's computed ranking is both because it is more objective, and more relevant to the discussion. Whether or not Cleveland needs more park space has nothing to do with investment or park equity, those are important concerns, just different concerns. The above screenshot is illustrative of my point, only 6% of Cleveland's land is used for parks, as opposed to 19%(!) for the median city in the 100 largest metro areas. Now, to your specific point about downtown, I disagree with you radically here. To move out of the realm of the subjective I did a quick measurement of the land area devoted to parks in downtown. I found it to be less than 3%, less than the citywide average, which is already far below the median for the largest metro areas. Even if I missed something or made a few mistakes, I don't see Downtown as saturated with parks. More subjectively, downtown has few parks worth walking to. The malls are nothing special, and thanks to the convention center, no longer performs one of the main functions of malls, which is to preserve sight lines. Public Square is great (poor maintenance aside, two more dead trees cut btw) but it is still bisected by a street, and it's really it's own thing more so than a park. Voinovich park is perhaps an exception (for the views alone!), and it certainly would be if you didn't have to cross a highway and railroad tracks to to get there (cough, land bridge). A fully realized Canal Basin Park would probably also qualify, but does not currently exist. Rivergate is technically downtown, but is pretty far from the downtown core, and more effectively serves the near west side. That said, Rivergate is still full of surface parking, and currently has fences where a riverfront trail should be. What I've been saying on this forum since I started posting is that Cleveland needs a destination park. Something like Chicago's Grant Park. A place worth walking to. A bit of nature accessible from downtown. The only real candidate for this is in Burke's footprint, but ignoring that, we certainly need more parks. As a downtown resident I feel this need almost daily. As far as Cleveland's overall ranking from the TPL, it's worth digging into a bit farther. A decent number of people in Cleveland are considered within a ten minute walk from a park; however, a quick look at their map shows that being within a ten minute walk of any point on the Towpath, or indeed any other trail qualifies as being within ten minutes of a park. I love trails and I love the towpath, but considering every point on the towpath a park isn't reasonable. Cleveland also gets a pretty good score on investment. I'm not sure if this includes the Metroparks, I assume it does. Either way, there are clearly two tiers of parks in Cleveland, and it shows. Sorry for the long post. I feel very strongly that Cleveland needs more parks, and in its downtown in particular!

I just talked to one of the workers painting the tall grass. He confirmed this is a temporary installation, "for the summer."

I was sort of iffy on this installation, then I walked past it and I'm pretty sure the plants are fake... I hope I'm crazy, because now I see no point in this.

Cleveland ranks 23 overall, but that is taking into things like amenities, park equity, access, and investment. If you only look at acreage (which is the relevant question to whether we need more park space) Cleveland ranks 80th. You can play with the weighting here. https://parkserve.tpl.org/customranking/?3916000 Edit: see below, our percent of land used for park is less than 1/3 of the median for the top 100 cities. Even if you assume they are missing a few parks, Cleveland is well behind by this metric.

Cleveland is 80th out of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the USA when it comes to park acreage according to the Trust For Public Land. So the answer to your question is pretty definitively yes.

As a downtown resident, I'd use this park year round. Unfortunately, you're almost certainly right in assuming most people won't. 😞 I guess I just don't accept the premise that we shouldn't have nice, bountiful outdoor spaces because we live in a cold climate. We should design these outdoor spaces for winter though. Some evergreen trees will help to block some of the winter winds.

This seems like the type of thing that would be very much improved by some water features, think fake waterfall. The plumbing is already there, so why not? Hopefully that is part of the plan, but I don't see anything to that effect.

I like the tall bridge over the flats! It's cool! I'd keep the bridge, but I'd make it start at the W6 intersection (in a cleaned up fashion). That would create room for the landbridge. I'd also eliminate the on ramps at West Blvd. They serve no purpose, and take up a lot of potential park space. Those two things aren't radically transformative, but they'd make a big difference and I think are relatively feasible. Sort of an application of the 80/20 rule to the shoreway.

Final is a bit of a funny word. Here is as far as the detailed plans go. They don't quite fill out the whole framework space, but they get most of it. https://canalwaypartners.com/towpath-trail/canal-basin-park/ https://canalwaypartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Towpath-Trailhead-Greening_11.16.20.pdf

Orange barrels have come down around the green, though this heat wave hasn't been kind to the new grass.

Interesting. I wonder what the plan is here? Is the water feature gone for good? A path through the water would be very cool, but I very much doubt that.

This will get you most of what you need. At this point all the planned trails are complete. Hopefully it's what you're looking for.

You asked, fair warning, some of these are nitpicky, and some are subjective. I'd add Nautica, I'd also add other bike/Pedestrian trains besides the towpath, don't bother naming them, just other trails in the legend. I might remove Hart Crane Memorial park, you have it on the wrong side of the Red Line anyway, it is functionally an extension of Rivergate anyway and it's cluttering the map IMO. Is Wendy Park still part of the Flats? If so I'd label it consistently with the other parks. For bonus points, remove the label for Progressive Field, it's outside of your field of focus and clutters the map for no reason. Superimposing the official boundary of the flats is also worth considering. Also does the Towpath trail on your map reflect the finished route? I don't see the loop/underpass, and it doesn't look like it ends in the right spot to me.