Old AmrapinVA

I know it's not trendy because the wrong people live there for the Hipster generation but buying in the Bronx makes the most sense now. I have a feeling those tunnels are going to have problems even after they are repaired.

I don't think it's any coincidence that Cavs has won 8 straight now that Kyrie is getting things right. I don't care if they lose to SA on the road but they need to beat GS at home once the Texas triangle trip is over.

The hub was shut down because of a lack of pilots for the regional carriers doing business as United Express. Since CLE's operation was mainly regional, it was a logical target. This couldn't be said publicly, because I believe they would have been fined under the terms of the agreement signed during the merger. Thus, the claim of lack of profitability. As a lawyer, I'm sure Smisek was well aware of the ways to accomplish what he needed. The truth of the matter is that the hub was simply not needed and it was eliminated. However, it was done in such a way that reminded me a bit of the "The Decision" and Clevelanders took it personally. Here's what I know, the horse's mouth said it was unprofitable for a long time, now others say he is liar. All I can go by is what is said. He hasn't been called out by anyone that matters and the hub is closed. Odds are it wasn't worth keeping open no matter what. Just to make clear, I'm not Cleveland bashing. I think Cleveland is an underserved market now and I know there is a way to bring back most of the dropped United service to the area with carriers that want to invest in Cleveland. For example, I know JetBlue folks have a certain fondness for the area which is why they were so quick to come in once United left. The folks running Hopkins need to court that relationship. Holding out hope that United will come back is a bad idea. I worry the master plan for the folks running Hopkins is sitting on their hands hoping they'll come back before the lease expires. I hope I'm wrong about that.

A handful of points: -- I've never seen the lease agreement so I don't know what the terms are. We can make all the educated guesses we want but we may never know why United is paying Cleveland. -- Even with the airlines dancing around Cleveland has no plans to upgrade any concourse or the Customs facility. -- Former United CEO Smisek said straight up the Cleveland hub was losing money for over a decade. I know he is a skeezebag but the hub was shut down for a reason.

Yeah, I know. There is a grand mystery of why United is still forking out cash but Cleveland doesn't care because they are getting paid. Yet Cleveland doesn't have a plan when the money runs out. Needs to be dealt with sooner than later. United blocking future expansion? From who? There are so many unused and underused gates currently without D an airline could come in and expand easily before running out of space. This also begs the question why would United re-start the hub or even make it a large focus city again. The money is in international flights and Cleveland has no plans to renovate the ancient Customs facility and the hub was losing money for years. Hoping the United hub comes back is pipe dream currently. There is probably a deal between Cleveland and United that is keeping lease payments going. Maybe the termination fee is something ridiculous.

Wasn't concourse D designed for this to happen easily? I thought it was designed for conversion to mainline jets whenever that would be needed. I heard that too but maybe the financial investment isn't worth it. That's fine, it's just that once the United lease is up Cleveland will be footing the bill to keep an abandoned concourse alive. Needs to be dealt with sooner than later, especially with the amount of debt Hopkins has. The people running the airport have stayed silent about this issue.

Concourse D is closed for a few reasons but mainly because it is designed for "regional" aircraft. With the hub gone, most of the aircraft operating at Hopkins are too large to use those gates. It needs to be realigned to handle a 737 or A320. Or it needs to be demolished once the United lease is up. Dealing with this situation should be the next Hopkins project along with a Customs upgrade. Not holding my breath on either though.

Going back to this---Scene Magazine has now picked up on what I was complaining about: http://photos.clevescene.com/16-photos-that-explain-the-hopkins-airport-experience/#1 http://photos.clevescene.com/16-photos-that-explain-the-hopkins-airport-experience/#14 I don't have a big issue with the those signs as long as they pointing people in the right direction. My only issue with hand written signs is it makes it easier for some jackss[/member] with a marker to come along and mess with it. I've seen that more than once. Yeah, that has nothing to do with the people running the airport. If your flight arrived on-time you need to complain to the airline. Agree Cleveland will be in an uphill battle during the RNC after people arrive at that bunker. Airports are bus stations...and the only thing that the RNC delegates will care about at the airport is how quickly they get in, retrieve their bags, and get on their way to the hotel....Hopkins is not a show place...all it needs is to be clean and for the most part it is Airports are bus stations? Tell that to the folks in Detroit, Denver, Washington, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Singapore, Dubai and Miami. What's sad is that most of those areas have much, much nicer airports and aren't rolling debt over year-over-year like Hopkins is. It's embarrassing. A lot of those RNC folks will be flying to Cleveland from Washington National. So they're flying from a modern, beautiful, efficient and open facility to a dark hallway from the 1950s. And this will not be a reflection of Cleveland? Really? LaGuardia is a dump but is packed to the gills with people. Hopkins is a dump and with large parts sitting empty. Which is worse? JFK T4, T5 and T8 blow the doors off anything that's in Cleveland. Even dumpy Newark has nicer sections than Hopkins. Of course NYC is an international port of entry, Cleveland seems to have given up on that since United left. If you've ever been to the Customs facilities at Hopkins you'd understand why Cleveland may never see real international air service again.

Since the service is not daily on Frontier, I'm not quite as stunned about being written off for the international flights. Although I am slightly surprised that there hasn't been any interest yet from any of the Middle East carriers, considering the Cleveland Clinic's ties to that region. I know F9 isn't daily but it's a lot of service to the west coast compared to similar regional markets. I could be wrong but I believe Pittsburgh has zero non-stops to Los Angeles. I know Cincinnati, which is still a hub, has something like 4x week service to San Francisco. I believe the only non-stop to San Francisco from Columbus is through Oakland.

Cleveland has a good amount of service to the West Coast now despite not having a hub. I believe Los Angeles will be 4x a day on certain days this summer. San Francisco will be 3x a day on certain days. Plus seasonal Seattle and Portland. Pretty stunning considering Cleveland is written off consistently for international flights.

After a brief mild spell this weekend the GFS weather model is consistently showing the coldest air of the year for the Central and Eastern US will arrive next week and hang around. Contrary to all the El Nino weather hype winter has arrived after all. :)

http://www.fbschedules.com/ncaa-16/2016-ohio-state-buckeyes-football-schedule.php It could be worse than 10-3 looking at next year's schedule if the talent doesn't pan out: Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Michigan State, Michigan are all real tests for OSU. The Buckeyes will be playing 2 current CFP teams on the road next year. In fact there aren't any real pushovers except for Tulsa, Rutgers and Maryland.

Are you suggesting we have self-cleaning runways and taxiways? My entire point was that it is the 'human' elements that are issues more so than the facility. "Running the airport" is a human thing. Not a bldg thing. In any event, I was responding to a comment above about how 'everyone' hates Hopkins and specifically the comments that were made on this board. It wasn't addressing the overall issues or non-issues at CLE. Despite many upgrades the facility is poor and way behind other similar sized markets. The concourses being used were designed for aircraft like the 707. The newest concourse sits abandoned. Nobody hates Hopkins, it's just that many know it needs some serious TLC.

Thanks, Ken. I appreciate that! I don't want people to think I'm Cleveland bashing or slamming Cleveland pols. It's not about that. It's that airport is in real financial trouble. It needs a creative solution. This would be the best thing to happen. What would it take for this to actually occur, do you think? I wish there was a simple answer to that. I think when the United lease runs out Cleveland may finally concede that it needs help. The question is, will there be a willingness of others to work together? There's also the possibility Cleveland may market Hopkins to a private company before then.

If the city is paying people for that then it's just one more reason the airport should be under some sort of regional control. Want to pump up people? Modernize the airport to actually compete with other similar size metros. I disagree. I DO NOT want the airport under "regional" control. It will end up a bargaining chip like GCRTA and residents and visitors will suffer! Yes the airport needs lots of modernization. IMO, Concourses, A & B should be torn down and rebuilt and add an international terminal. This takes money, dedicated airlines and a leader who thinks of our region and airport as international. We need to take a look at boston. It's big city with no hub but a focus city for many airlines. Massport, the agency that runs Logan airport, is a regional body. It runs Logan, the port of Boston, Worcester Regional Airport and Hanscom Field in Bedford. It's Board is selected by the Governor of Massachusetts and has an open meeting process with transparency unheard of in Cleveland. Cleveland has no money for real capital improvements at Hopkins. The city has a master plan it's administrators never follow. The amount of money to improve A&B just isn't there. Calling an international terminal at Cleveland a pipe dream would be generous. In fact the only real source of revenue for the city is leasing gate space to an airline that no longer operates as a hub. Once that lease expires there is no plan for additional revenue besides jacking landing fees to sky high status. Maybe if the city had collected fees from vendors operating in the airport earlier back in the 1990s and 2000s it wouldn't be in this bind. Now if Cleveland jacks rates through the roof for a facility that looks and operates like something out of the 1950s in the 2030s how many of the existing airlines will stay? The FAA disagrees with you. The agency fined the city for a serious reason over snow removal last winter and how the city handled a whistleblower. There haven't been minor shortcomings when it comes to running the airport. I'll let you in a little secret. Want to know why there hasn't been a replacement for Ricky Smith? I know of two reasons: 1. Experienced people aren't interested in the job because of what happened to earn an FAA fine. It exposed city administrators handling a basic safety situation poorly and then not taking responsibility for it. Nobody in their right mind wants to be associated with a situation like that, even if they are running a smaller airport. 2. There are more than one non-aviation administrators in the city who think they know how to run an airport and think they don't need an individual with experience to run it. It's a toxic mindset that hurts Hopkins. Honestly, it's amateur hour compared to how airports are run in similar sized regions and people running other airports know it. Fortunately, the airport and any of its shortcomings are not having much of an influence on the state of the city. Right now, Cleveland is about as global as its metro area dictates. As more business moves in, and the metro area experiences the same percentage of growth as downtown, then we can worry about being more global. So far, things look good, though. When May and June roll around and the traffic situation is back to normal at Hopkins, we shall see if the city looks at the next steps for improvement. There's literally no interest by international airlines to start service from Hopkins. There's more interest in Columbus or adding a second international flight from Pittsburgh. It is what it is. If you're happy with the current state of Hopkins continue to enjoy non-stop international service to Cancun while other similar sized regions gain service to Paris and London. A regional authority could combine operational control of Hopkins, Canton-Akron, Burke, Cuyahoga County and Akron Fulton airports. It could be used to market the strength of the entire region of 3.5 million people and incorporate the ideas of users from all of NE Ohio and spread revenue to improve the region's airports.

If the city is paying people for that then it's just one more reason the airport should be under some sort of regional control. Want to pump up people? Modernize the airport to actually compete with other similar size metros. It's actually organized by Destination Cleveland and the groups are made up of volunteers Cool. No issue with that.

If the city is paying people for that then it's just one more reason the airport should be under some sort of regional control. Want to pump up people? Modernize the airport to actually compete with other similar size metros.

Congrats to you folks who went to the U. of Akron. First bowl win ever. Congrats to U. of Toledo folks as well. Opened a can of whoop-ass on a ranked Temple team despite losing their head coach. Toledo should be ranked again for the final poll after beating Arkansas and Temple.

Also, Cleveland area job growth was a solid 1.8% y-o-y over the last two months. Strongest two month period in quite some time.

That's a fascinating map. I remember even in the 80s that the Parma Freeway was still proposed from I-71 to the Parma/North Royalton line. Amazing it was originally designed to connect with the Turnpike. Glad that freeway was never built. The East Side plan looks horrific. Sadly, every freeway on the west side was built on this map except for the Parma freeway. Although, I-71 south of Hopkins is basically the Parma Freeway built to the west.

It was set aside for building a rapid transit line in the median of I-90 (aka the Northwest Freeway) which was under construction in the late 1960s east of McKinley in Lakewood (and mid-1970s west of McKinley). The median widens a little more west of Bunts/West 140th for an extra track or two for extra rush-hour trains to layover between runs. And also note that the westbound lanes of I-90 go below West 65th while eastbound lanes go above West 65th. There were two reasons for this. One was to accommodate an interchange with the Parma Freeway that was to go north to the Shoreway. The other reason is this is where the rapid transit line would go over 65th and westbound I-90 to reach and connect with the 1955-built Red Line into downtown Cleveland. I have detailed maps of this plan and will post them in a couple of days. So the Parma Freeway would have connected with I-90 and the Shoreway? I wonder what the thought process was behind that? You think it would have just connected at I-71 and let the traffic flow north from there to downtown.

I've been knee deep in Parma peeps for over 40 years. I don't talk like the example and I've never heard anyone talk like this. I think many eastsiders and some westsiders have difficulty hearing others speech because their noses are constantly pointed up at a 45 degree angle. ;)

Or they want the character of their neighborhood changed as little as possible. This compromise worked for them. What neighborhood character? Cul-de-sac development off the interstate?

Weston is currently transforming downtown. Jacobs in not. I don't think Weston should change these plans for a fantasy PS building not in the works.

Sure it will get dated but, again, this is an actual reduction in retail and what is there will actually serve the community. Tell me what developer showed interest in this site? Where was Stark or Weston or Geis when Forest City let Parmatown go? And let's be honest, if IKEA planned to build their big-box strip mall store on the former Parmatown site, nobody would complain about Parma on here. The "problem" with the youth movement of Parma north of Ridgewood and Old Brooklyn is that the people moving into these areas are working-class citizens with families and not young professionals. In other words not "hipster" and seen as "suburban" despite the fact these places are getting more diverse and have higher population densities than other areas of Greater Cleveland seen as "urban".