bhallohio

If I had known they were there I would have eaten there. I never knew we had an Ethiopian restaurant on the west side.

Unpopular opinion: Blossom kinda sucks.

Wow! So I can't like where I live AND recognize its problems? In my experience the pessimists have nothing to offer. They will tell you that the RTA sucks but can't say what improvements would make them take the bus. They will complain about how the city is a mess but won't so much as have dinner in one of the neighborhoods to help it out. Meanwhile, many of the positive types are moving into the city, buying houses, maybe raising kids, spending money there, and having the ability to vote in better candidates.

As a quick reply to Joe Tompkins: boycotts are useful in pressuring capitalist enterprises into changing out of fear of losing customers and money, and would be a useless endeavor regarding a social service as there are no profits to look out for.

1. Obviously, RTA is lying about the Transit Police being used as revenue generators as being false. We could install turnstiles at every rapid station on the system and it wouldn't cost as much as a year's salary for one of these bullies.

2. I have to ask why RTA has police officers in cars. If you're not on a bus, train, or in a station / transit center, what exactly are you patrolling?

3. The suburbanites who wouldn't ride RTA even if it were on par with transit agencies in Europe in terms of riders and usability will write this off as simple mismanagement and will say things like "this is why I stopped taking the Red Line." Please do some research and find out why the nation's 15th busiest transit system is having such serious financial issues. The problem lies with state funding - Ohio is 7th in population but ~47th in transit spending per capita. Stop spouting off things about how public transportation is a waste of money while remaining completely ignorant to how much it costs to maintain a public roadway system. The whole "gas tax" argument is a silly one and it shouldn't take 25 years to realize that its a completely outdated funding structure.

Nobody will probably see this because this article is going on a year old. But I just have to gripe about people ragging on huge cities for their traffic problems. Chicago isn't Los Angeles, you don't need a car there, in fact you're the only one to blame for your problems if you do decide to drive. People often forget that cars are the enemy of urbanism. Most problems that cities experience boils down to America's car culture. The ease of driving a car in Cleveland that is so often cited as awesome by the sprawl crowd is a very real very devastating problem to this city. We have to fight just to get buses to be able to drive on roads where they were slated to go in the first place because the population is spread across the suburbs who are in turn able to strong arm the city. If you want to compare which city is easier and cheaper to live in a drab suburb with no culture then by all means write that article. But don't masquerade your quest to live a quiet life in Anytown, USA as a comparison of two historically significant, culture driven, lively urban cores.

Let's all get out of our cars once in a while and use what we have while demanding that things get better. The two should really coincide.

Ohio City residents stopped the location from becoming a McDonalds a few years ago, please stop painting MetroHealth as the hero in a battle that was won long before this deal was struck.