By now, the cries of “Sweet lord! This traffic is insane!” are well worn territory in Clevela – ZZzzz… But that doesn’t mean the Hollywood-prompted streets snafu is any less of a pain in the ass.
Beginning May 31, West Side commuters found themselves crawling along the banks of Detroit Avenue, gasping for strong drink and a peaceful place to rest their weary heads. And that was only after they had abandoned their cars at the corner of West 65th and started to walk downtown. Captain America: The Winter Soldier had brought its action-packed filming itinerary to the West Shoreway, and the working class denizens of Lakewood and Cudell and West Park, et. al., were pissed.
…For the most part, anyway. There have been lots of people – er, anonymous online commenters – championing the arrival of Hollywood and revived industry here in town. But the rah-rah crowd is generally not very interesting. Nor is the prospect of getting inordinately supportive of an also-ran blockbuster superhero sequel. For a city that claims to love its culture, heritage, museums and arts scene, the rush to blow Captain America is bizarre.
Fact: An average day sees about 37,000 vehicles traverse the stretch of State Route 2 known as the West Shoreway. According to the Ohio Department of Transportation, there hasn’t been an “official” traffic study conducted along that asphalt. Because the roadway meanders through the city of Cleveland, “home rule” lays the real responsibility at the doorsteps of City Hall.
Unsurprisingly, that responsibility was wholly misplaced. Little to no pre-planning led to a massive headache last week. To wit, reports were beginning to trickle in today that some commuters had finally arrived for their Friday morning meetings. Had the city employed its caraway seed-sized brain just a little bit, drivers of all geographic ilk may have had a more comprehensive plan to consult prior to the glint of Hollywood nickel arriving downtown. (I mean – come on – the synchronicity of shutting down the West Shoreway and the Columbus Road bridge is almost too much to bear.) Needless to say, there was no plan. Some traffic signals were changed by Monday, though, and some police officers kinda hung out and waved their arms in major intersections. The police department also posted some kind of weird parody update to the traffic issues. But that’s not really a “plan.”
The Plain Dealer’s Mark Naymik, in order to set the record straight or something, called out West Side readers and commuters yesterday, referring to them as “cry babies.” He then spent the majority of his column bitching about traffic elsewhere in town.
And bitching about Cleveland’s fairly nonexistent traffic problem any day of the week – especially this week and next – is, to be fair, plenty of fun. But the real issue is return on investment. It’s not so much the film production team’s investment in Captain America (although that’s surely a concern, too), but rather the investment of time, political capital, public safety resources and, for better or worse, local reporters sent to “cover” the filming that should piss us off.
The whole non-strategy flies in the face of Cleveland’s increasingly buzzworthy “brand” and civic vibe. Yes, we can all participate in the region’s growing sense of self-awareness, cultural intrigue and cohesive dialogue. Or we can be a Hollywood backdrop.
Doing both? Not so much.
This article appears in May 29 – Jun 4, 2013.
This is a good analysis of the situation and I find it a good counterpoint to Mark Naymik’s “Stop Complaining” (a.k.a. CLE publicity at any cost) column in the PD yesterday. Cleveland as a backdrop for movies is not quite what is happening here. We’re hosting film crews that can’t afford to film in their scenes in DC, NYC, etc. What’s more, a Cleveland-based movie, “Kill The Irishman,” didn’t even get filmed here!
I hope, in the future, City Officials have learned a lesson from shutting down the West Shoreway. I have traveled the West Shoreway every morning for 20+ years. My commute to and from work has taken me 60 minutes. I live 8 miles from downtown. There is no reason why commuters could not have access to travel the West Shoreway during rush hour. Shut it down at 9:00 a.m and reopen for the commute home between 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm. You cannot tell me that they are filming before 9:00 AM. Also I do not think that the Columbus Road bridge would have made the commute any easier. This area is congested every day without filming (St. Clair Hill to W. 25th and Scranton area). I am all for revenue into the City, but the Powers that Be need to use common sense when shutting major roads down and deciding to do construction on all of the cross streets making downtown street impassable and creating gridlock. You would like that we are having a major snow storm the way the streets are right now.
I think that Mark Naymik is missing the point. People who live close to downtown and use the Shoreway have the easiest commute? You don’t say??!! I chose to live in the close in west side for this exact reason. I don’t want to live my life commuting in the car. I want to be able to pick up my sick kid from school within 15 minutes from the call. I don’t want to live out in Avon or Strongsville. They seem like very nice places, but they are not for me. I want to live in a more vibrant inner ring suburb where I don’t have to fill up my car every week just to commute downtown. I do not reserve my pity for the ‘drivers coming up from the south.’ Really? I’m actually more pissed that my taxes go up and some of those dollars goes to widening the interstates for the poor put upon commuters ‘coming from the south’ because they have chosen to live farther out from their jobs and clog up the lanes we do have. We all make life choices here of things that are important to us, and that is what those people have chosen. It’s all about trade off.
See this for what it is kids; a GIANT !*&^%$# YOU to west-siders. Not one of the people in the decision loop in this lives on the west side. Oh and you’d better get used to it. Once they ram the 35mph-tree lined-green-space down our throats, the current traffic patttern will be the norm.
I agree that the city leadership should have had a better plan (or one at all) but I also think growing the film industry in Cleveland is a worthwhile endeavor. How Clevelanders react to this traffic issue will likely make or break the tax credit in Ohio. Kill the Irishman shot in Detroit because they had a tax credit and we didn’t at the time. In all fairness, we’ve been warned about this all spring and could plan our commutes better. And for the person asking why they can’t shoot from 9 to 4 – it doesn’t work that way. First off, yes they do shoot earlier than 9. Filmmaking is not a 9 to 5 job. Secondly, from what I understand they’re staging an elaborate action sequence with vehicles, etc. Not the type of thing you can bring in and clear out in a matter of hours. It’s closed for weeks because that’s what the production requires – just like when The Avengers had E. 9th closed. There is literally a small village of crew occupying the space.
Come on, really? Seems that your anger doesn’t fit the short term mild inconvenience. We just love to complain and then brag about how tough we are. I fully support this and future projects even while being dismissed as an anonymous online commenter.
Yours,
Ken Janssen
Cleveland
I kinda think this comment thread shows that Mark Naymik hit the nail on the head with “cry babies.” And to Bill Seaman, any west-sider who doesn’t see the value to west-siders in a tree-lined boulevard for a shoreway is really missing the big picture – that’s what west-siders should WANT!
Jessica Ferrato, anonymous west-sider
I left Case University on the East Side at 3:30pm today and got to the West Side of the Downtown on Detroit Road almost at 6pm. This is not a mere “inconvenience,” traffic through Cleveland has been crippled and it was clear how ill-prepared city officials were.
I think Cleveland has some pretty askew priorities, people must be severely delusional if they actually believe Cleveland will become a center for the film industry. The only reason Captain America is shooting in Cleveland is because no other Mayor would cripple the traffic flow through their city for half a month by completely shutting down a major point of access through their downtown area.
I’m all for the Captain America movie and what it brings to Cleveland, but I can honestly say that the way traffic was handled and allowed to back up by those “directing” it was just horrible. This traffic headache was made into a nightmare migraine because of poor planning and a lack of common sense.