I actually advocate the MTS approach, write this asshat a letter!

 

 

Dick Feagler: Parking in downtown Cleveland is an exercise in urban pioneering

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Dick Feagler

Plain Dealer Columnist

 

Alady called me the other day and told me a night mare story about parking downtown.

 

Lots of us have those. Downtown parking is not user-friendly. It costs a lot. And even if you pay your ticket, well, sometimes the "exit" gate is mysteriously closed. So you feel trapped. And have to scurry around for a way out.

 

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/dick_feagler/index.ssf?/base/opinion-0/1187167928257600.xml&coll=2

 

Good Lord people...  Cleveland is the only city with crime, huh  :roll:  Yeah it sucks that her car was robbed but the title of the article is hardly fitting. 

^^more genius comments.

 

1. More surface lots in the city!!!

 

2. I didn't know that they had gotten rid of speed limits in the suburbs.

 

3. Also, I try to keep $499 worth of stuff or less out in the open when I park downtown. If you go over that amount, you are really asking for it.

He should get a ticket for writing this crap!

 

I think he's senile!

 

2. I didn't know that they had gotten rid of speed limits in the suburbs.

 

 

Yeah, I'll try the "i didn't know robbery was a felony" next time a rob a bank.

Let me make sure I'm reading this correctly -- he's tell us cars get broken into downtown????

 

Holy $hit, I thought that only happened in towns like Cuyahoga Falls where I grew up or Twinsburg, where one of my friends lives -- someone took the XM Radio right out of the car in the driveway!

 

And, you know what, the parking spaces at the Heinen's in Rocky River are awful small. I know I only drive a Civic, but I need a lot space to shake my fat @ss around when I get out.

 

OK sorry.........

I don't think I can add to the excellent comments above except to share this story from one of the many police blotters I wrote for Sun:

 

Man in North Olmsted wakes up one morning to find his car missing from his driveway. He calls police to report the car stolen, adding that he left the car unlocked and the keys in the ignition (happens a lot in the suburbs, and since I began writing Cleveland first and second district police blotters two years ago, I realized it happens in the city, too).

 

So, anyway, the victim uses his wife's car to get to where he was going that morning and spots the stolen car parked on the street a couple blocks from his home. Whoever stole the car did what the owner didn't do -- locked it and took the keys. The owner didn't have a spare key with him. He gets to where he was going and calls police to report he found the car. Police go to the spot where the owner found the car and, guess what? It's gone.

 

Later that day, North Ridgeville police find the car abandoned on the side of Center Ridge Road. The police report didn't say whether the car was locked or where the keys were.

 

The moral of the story -- just because you live in the suburbs doesn't give you the right to be stupid. And while car thieves aren't usually the brightest lights in the harbor, they're smart enough to know that the easiest pickings are often in the suburbs. Believe it or not, Mr. Feagler, car thefts happen there, too, and with great frequency thanks to the kind of false sense of security the suburbs provide. And you, Mr. Feagler, helped to reinforce that by mass distributing stories about the city being the only place in Greater Cleveland where this stuff happens. It must be. You took the time to write about it. So keep writing, Dick. Keep reinforcing people's fear-based barriers between the city and the suburbs. I'm sure fostering such ignorance will do the region a world of good.

I wanted to reach through the newspaper and smack Feagler when I read this the other day.  This guy is totally worthless.

I'm serious - let's start a campaign to try and get him removed.  I don't know how, but something. 

 

Everyone write letters!!!!!!  :-P

yea i agree im gonna write and complain to him

Dear Dick,

 

For someone who waxes nostalgic about the glory days of downtown Cleveland, you have a serious disconnect from reality.

 

I challenge you to find any vibrant, desirable, and happening urban area that provides tons of easy, ample parking. Take a look at the neighborhoods of Cleveland or any other city that are often cited as "success stories" such as Little Italy, Tremont, etc. In order to provide the easy, ample parking you hope for, the very buildings and homes that make those neighborhoods great would have to be wiped out. And if you think that cars aren't broken into in the suburbs, particularly at shopping malls, your disconnect is rather unsettling. It's common sense to leave nothing in plain sight in your car, no

matter where you park.

 

Now, if you want somewhere that offers plenty of ample, user-friendly parking - try a Wal-Mart. The only thing is - you complain that downtown ain't what it used to be, but then you suggest that making it into a giant parking lot would improve it. Which is it, Dick? Go visit Chicago, go visit New York City, and tell me how easy it is to finding user-friendly parking in their most desirable areas. Something tells me you'd come back to Cleveland and realize just how easy we have it.

 

Regards,

 

Shawn Hoefler

 

ps - Maybe I and other residents of the city can drive out to Bay Village and barrel down Dover Center and the bucolic side streets like so many suburbanites feel free to do in my neighborhood. I don't think you'd be so put off by a deterrent (i.e. speed camera) if that were the case.

Rock on, MayDay!

Great letter - I've sent him three over the past week.  I just wish there were more I could do...he's really getting to me.

...and His Imperial Highness, the HBIC has spoken!

Great letter - I've sent him three over the past week.  I just wish there were more I could do...he's really getting to me.

 

What happened after you sent them? Replies? Anything?

No reply at all.

He probably gets a lot of responses. Hopefully, mostly angry people fed up with his negativity, but knowing a greater population outside of UO and possibly even the city of Cleveland, I wouldn't be surprised if most people agree with him.

^It seems like he's based his last two articles off of his supportive comments from his piece a couple weeks ago about crime in Cleveland. My general guess is a lot of people think in the same way that Feagler does.

 

A perfect example are the two guys in Phoenix today who were commenting on the recent public art installation across the street on Superior. One told the other that the city must have invested in it "so all the homeless people would have a structure to sleep in."

 

I'm beginning to think I might need to take a sabbatical from Cleveland just so I don't get arrested for assault ... the concentration of  nay-sayers in this city are really starting to take a toll on my level of restraint.

That's why you should join us next Thursday (at Great Lakes or Bier Markt, whatever) - we might not drag out the pom-poms of boosterism but any stupid remarks like that WILL be met with a beatdown! :-D

8shadesofGray...don't let those fools get you in a funk!

 

What did you say to those people?

That's why you should join us next Thursday (at Great Lakes or Bier Markt, whatever) - we might not drag out the pom-poms of boosterism but any stupid remarks like that WILL be met with a beatdown! :-D

 

MayDay is so 'hood!  lol  aiight! 

Ahem - the Phoenix coffeeshop in Cleveland. MTS, you really should try beer sometime, it'll do ya good. I drink a lot of coffee but it's the beer that keeps my blood pressure low. jamiec, check this thread for info: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=13827.msg210475#new

That's why you should join us next Thursday (at Great Lakes or Bier Markt, whatever) - we might not drag out the pom-poms of boosterism but any stupid remarks like that WILL be met with a beatdown! :-D

 

What's next Thursday??

jamiec, check this thread for info: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=13827.msg210475#new