CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Browns sent fans a letter with polished renderings of a $2.4 billion Brook Park domed stadium -- but not a detailed financing plan or renderings of what a possible $1 billion renovation of the existing stadium. We’re talking about the audacity of the Haslams asking for $1.
2 billion in public money on Today in Ohio. Listen online here. Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, impact editor Leila Atassi and content director Laura Johnston.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com . You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.
com/chrisquinn . You can now join the conversation. Call 833-648-6329 (833-OHTODAY) if you’d like to leave a message we can play on the podcast.
Here’s what else we’re asking about today: We have an Apple podcasts channel exclusively for this podcast. Subscribe here. Do you get your podcasts on Spotify? Find us here .
RadioPublic is another popular podcast vehicle, and we are here . On Google Podcasts, we are here. On PodParadise, find us here .
And on PlayerFM, we are here . Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris (00:01.499) Sounds like the subject of the week now is going to be the big storm and how badly the power outages are affecting people’s lives. It’s one of the subjects we’ll discuss on Today in Ohio.
It’s the news podcast from cleveland .com and the Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn.
I’m here with Leila Tassi, Lara Johnston, and Lisa Garvin. Let’s get started. Lara, a couple gets married and makes frozen embryos together with the goal of having a family.
but then the couple divorces before any babies arrive. What is the fascinating legal battle taking place with regard to those embryos? Laura (00:40.914) This is fascinating with no easy answer.
It makes you think, wow, what is the right thing to do? Kind of with Solomon vibes because you’re talking about babies or what could be babies. In step, have this modern Supreme Court instead of a biblical judge. So the ex -wife wants to have a baby using embryos she and her husband created, but the ex -husband wants the court to order that this Westerville Fertility Clinic that they use.
that they can anonymously donate the embryos to another couple because they were there, they’re there and they’ve never been used. So the ex -husband stated the new state abortion amendment in his appeal. But this has been going on for years.
The case dates back to 2019. The couple only got married in 2016. And so it’s been going on for longer than they’ve been married.
their identities are being kept anonymous in this filing, which is now at the Ohio Supreme Court. And I feel like that’s a long time to be debating this when your biological clock is ticking because that’s one of the ex -wife’s arguments that she wants to have a baby. She is nearing the age of the end of her fertility and she wants to use these embryos.
And he’s saying, I don’t want to be a dad. I don’t want to be a dad with her. Chris (01:55.
011) Except he did make a deal, right? He made the embryos to start with. That’s kind of a contract that I will have a kid with you. She can’t do it another way.
I mean, this was what her family planning was. How do you deny her the ability to bring a baby to term that they had agreed to make together? He’ll be liable for child support. That’s, that’s a big financial commitment, but he did agree to it on the front end.
mean, Laura (02:01.872) Hmm. Laura (02:15.
887) Right. Chris (02:21.743) Okay, so this is different than having sex and getting pregnant.
It’s not the same thing, but it’s still, they agreed to procreate. That’s why they made the embryos. I don’t see how you deny her this.
Laura (02:31.802) They did, but when they signed an agreement with the fertility clinic that spelled out what would happen to the embryos in an event that their marriage ended due to a separation, divorce, death, or other reasons, they checked this box on the form indicated they would present the clinic with a settlement or court order specifying how the embryos would be donated. And I think the part of that was that they would be gone.
I don’t know that the guy ever, I mean, nobody, gets married thinking I’m going to get divorced or why would you get married? But I don’t think he thought about this. I don’t know. I don’t know this guy personally, but it is a quandary.
Chris (03:10.821) I wonder if there’s some way they can make some sort of settlement where she can have the baby and he doesn’t have responsibility, but that’s..
. Laura (03:16.843) Would you want your kid to be half of this person that you’ve been fighting with for five years? I think that would be weird.
Chris (03:23.729) But if you want to have a kid and this is the only way to have your own kid and this was your plan, how do you say no to that? Laura (03:31.204) It’s not the only way though.
I don’t know what I would do in this situation. If you want to be a mom, and you need a partner, right? And this doesn’t speak well for their current relationship. Chris (03:47.
097) It’ll be interesting to see what all those Puritans on the Ohio Supreme Court ultimately rule, because they’re all about having the babies. Laura (03:52.58) Yeah, because it’s gone back and forth because originally the original court sided with the husband.
Now the Ninth Durset Court of Appeals in Akron sided with the wife. The Republican judges gave differing reasons. So yeah, this could go either way.
Chris (04:07.205) Yeah, it’s a really interesting case, not anything that I’ve really discussed before. We’ll see how it ends up.
Laura (04:14.328) and it’ll set a precedent maybe. Chris (04:17.
563) You’re listening to Today in Ohio. All right, like I said, all the people wanted to talk about Wednesday was lost power. Yet again, the wind blows in Northeast Ohio and the power goes out everywhere.
First Energy’s infrastructure could be as fragile as glass or maybe just storms are just so much more powerful. Lisa, this is bad because the power is not coming back anytime soon. Lisa (04:41.
066) Yeah, I looked at some updated figures this morning. So at the height of the storm yesterday, there were 423 ‚000 Ohioans without power after the storm passed. The lion’s share of them are still in Cuyahoga County.
The updated figures this morning across Ohio, there are just under 266 ,000 still without power this morning. Cuyahoga County was definitely the hardest hit. There are still 177 ,000 people without power in Cuyahoga County.
22 ‚000 in Geauga, 42 ,000 in Lake County and only 668 in Summit County. And as we were discussing before the podcast, First Energy is saying they’re expecting restoration to be done by August 14th. So that’s a week away.
Some people may be sitting in the dark that long, but a lot of it is like, we were pretty hard hitting Lindhurst. I have power, never lost it for more than a minute. But I have four neighbors across the street who don’t have power at all.
I think a lot of it is tree damp. So, you know, but there was, we also had two confirmed EF1 tornadoes. One of them touched down in Avon Lake and moved to Bay Village and Huntington Village.
Another one touched down in Brook Park and then moved through Parma and Parma Heights and caused a lot of damage in both places. Chris (05:58.235) Didn’t we also have one that was in Bedford? I thought there was one that traveled through Bedford.
Lisa (06:02.279) I, yeah, this one, yeah, the Brook Park one went through Parma Heights and then ended up in Bedford. Yes.
But they say it touched down in Brook Park. Chris (06:07.387) Yeah.
Wow, and Lara, you are without power still and you’re not expecting it back for another week? Laura (06:15.972) Yes, that’s what the text message from First Energy said. And I’m not alone.
Everybody’s talking on the community channel for Rocky River about how long it’s going to be. Somebody took a picture of all of these electric trucks from out of town converging on the high school. It’s a staging area to go out and fix these problems.
I sat on my porch yesterday and probably watched eight trucks barrel down my street. The thing is, it feels apocalyptic. First of all, I didn’t think I’d ever have a tornado in Rocky River.
apparently, We did, but there’s so many traffic lights out that cars are just sitting bumper to bumper. could take you a half hour to drive a block from Hilliard Boulevard up to center Ridge road. Hilliard’s been closed because it’s a major artery through our town because of a tree knocked over and low hanging power lines.
There’s so many people without power. There’s so many stores that are closed. I went to the giant Eagle yesterday to get literally marshmallows so my kids could roast them and it took me probably 40 minutes.
And it was just like that yellowish, eerie, apocalyptic light and everything was dark and it was very quiet. And so yeah, this, this isn’t just a short snap of a power outage. This is thankfully I have neighbors who can help out.
But when you’re talking about the grid, I do not have power. My next door neighbors on either side do. My across the street neighbors do.
Does that make any sense to anyone? Chris (07:39.365) Well, what this depends on, are we taking care of the infrastructure? Is First Energy going out at regular intervals and inspecting the connections? This is all stuff that’s outside, right? We know anything that’s outside weathers. It’s the way things work.
It takes the sun, it takes the snow, it takes the rain. And so screws loosen up. Things don’t stay the same when they’re outside.
That’s why maintenance is needed. You got to go out and inspect it. Laura (07:52.
496) Mm -hmm. Chris (08:07.911) tighten down your clamps, replace what needs to be replaced.
We’re going to try and get it how first energy does that compared to others. But you also have the trend that we keep talking about. The storms are more frequent and more powerful.
Nothing is going to stand up to a tornado. Let’s face it, a tornado goes through a neighborhood, powers coming down. We love our trees.
We love our trees, but big branches weigh a lot. When they come down, they take power lines with them. Laura (08:19.
568) Mm -hmm. Lisa (08:20.347) Mm -hmm.
Laura (08:25.072) Right. Lisa (08:25.
687) Right. Lisa (08:29.855) Yep.
Chris (08:36.135) We may be in a phase where a basic necessity for every home is a generator. I know that in some developments, the developers are automatically building in the electrical connections that you have to install if you use a generator to power your home.
When the power goes down, that’s becoming automatic. And it might just be that we all need that because you’re about a week without power. you’re gonna really be reminded of how much we like our creature comforts.
Not having refrigeration for a week, and I know you’ve jury -rigged something, but that’s awful. Anybody that’s lost a refrigerator for a few days knows what a nightmare it is. If it gets very hot in the next few days, you’re not gonna have your air conditioning.
And there’s just so many things you count on, computers and phone chargers. Lisa (09:06.462) Mm -hmm.
Laura (09:25.37) Yeah, my daughter was so funny because I don’t know if other people do this. When you lose power, you don’t think about it all the time.
So you go to flick on a light and you’re like, dang, it’s not working. She’s like, there’s so many things we use electricity for. And I was like, yeah, tell me about it.
And the thing is, we’re supposed to go tent camping this weekend. We’re going to go. And it’s just like, I feel like we’re just easing into the tent camping.
We’re just getting ready. But I know, I should just put it in my yard. Chris (09:35.
503) Right. Lisa (09:43.561) and it’s just like I feel like it’s easing into the tense here.
Chris (09:48.059) What’s the point of tent camping? You’re already living that life. Laura (09:52.
782) I do, you’re right about these storms, they get more severe, but shouldn’t first energy be dealing with that? Like, shouldn’t they not just be maintaining? But if we pay all this extra money that the PUCO says, yes, you can charge your customers that, and we know they’re making billion dollars annually, that they would actually be upgrading it to deal with these more frequent storms. Chris (10:11.835) Yeah.
Lisa (10:14.139) Mm -hmm. Chris (10:15.
929) Well, but we took a look at that and we what has not developed is a technology that can stand up to it. We’re not going to bury all our power lines and burning power lines has its own challenges that that’s not the cure all of everything. I’ve lived in places with underground power lines and if something goes wrong, it could be a nightmare.
But we haven’t developed. We haven’t hardened it. We haven’t come up with a way to do it.
It would be hugely expensive to fortify the entire. Laura (10:25.787) Right.
Chris (10:44.603) grid against these kinds of storms. And maybe that’s what we have to do, but we haven’t.
And that will come out of our bills. You can’t expect first energy to be doing that fortification on its own. It doesn’t have that kind of money.
So go ahead. Lisa (10:57.608) Well, no, I was just going to say that, you know, a lot of people have pointed to the lack of them trimming trees around power lines as part of the problem, that they haven’t kept up their tree trimming schedule.
And I’ll tell you in my neighborhood, all of the outages are due to fallen trees. Chris (11:14.471) You know, after we had the big outage that took out all of Ohio and what is it now 15 years ago, First Energy did start a tree trimming program.
And I can tell you in my neighborhood, they come through about every four years and they do serious trimming. I think they were through just last year again and they cut stuff back. mean, they weren’t doing it before then, but I have seen them come through multiple times.
since then, but some of our trees, the branches are way up. They get the branches that are close to the wires away, but there’s stuff above it, below it. I mean, this kind of a storm tests everything.
What I was struck by, I’ve never seen this before, and we put an image of this on our website. FirstEnergy always has this outage map, and normally you look at it and you could see multiple zones, what’s going on. But when you looked at this one, it is a bazillion zones, and every time you zoom in, Laura (12:06.
842) Mm -hmm. Lisa (12:07.774) Hmm.
Chris (12:09.243) You can see this is not one big outage, one big transformer. This is death by a thousand cuts.
And if every one of those has its own little cause, that’s a bazillion times they got to get the truck out there, go up and reconnect things. That does take time. mean, it’s pure physics.
You can’t change it. But a week without power, I do think we’re going to become more and more reliant on transformers. Talk to me next Thursday, Laura, about whether you’re thinking, Lisa (12:13.
843) Mm Chris (12:38.119) It’s worth the five or $6 ,000 to put a transformer outside your house. Laura (12:44.
166) Yeah, you get the daily play -by -play, I’m sure. Chris (12:47.431) Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio.
Cleveland blew a chance to be a hero in this latest outage. Laila, how might Cleveland public power have been prepared if it had followed through on a previous bad storm? Leila (13:02.614) Well, at the height of the outage in Cleveland, about half of CPP’s customer base was without power this week.
And here’s the thing, Cleveland had a plan in place to bring in extra help for situations just like this, and they blew it. So this goes back a little bit after a big storm last year, city council had passed legislation that allowed CPP to hire outside contractors to help after terrible storms like the one we just had. Fast forward to this year.
CPP did seek out those contractors in March, but when it came time to seal the deal in June, the city’s board of control rejected all the bids. Why? Because what we’re being told is that the bids were all too expensive. So as a result, when this storm hit, CPP wasn’t as prepared as they could have been.
By Wednesday morning, more than a quarter of CPP’s 74 ,000 customers were still without power with no clear timeline for when it would be restored. Councilman Mike Polenski, who represents one of the neighborhoods that was the hardest hit, pointed out that there’s a real cost of the situation. Businesses closed, people were unable to work, people’s food was spoiling and medical equipment was going down.
And he warned that you can either pay upfront to be prepared or you’ll end up paying a lot more later on when things fall apart. So in short, know, CPP had the chance to be better prepared. But, but now the city and its residents are paying the price.
Chris (14:31.713) And they’re paying a big price because as we said, living without power is not an easy thing to do. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.
Last week, it was Justin Bibb making his move on the chessboard that is the battle over the Cleveland Browns Stadium. Wednesday, it was Browns owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam making the move. Layla, what was it? Leila (14:52.
302) Yeah. Last week, Mayor Bibb made his offer to the Browns on a plan to renovate Brown Stadium on the lakefront. now Brown’s owners, and Jimmy Haslam, have responded.
But in a letter to fans and season ticket holders, that includes renderings and this really flashy video showcasing what their $2 .4 billion Dream Stadium in Brook Park could look like. And they say they’re still weighing their options.
But here’s the catch here. They didn’t provide any details at all and how they plan to pay for that domed stadium, neither to their fans nor us. They just wouldn’t say.
They want the public to cover half the bill. When they were asked about their financing plan, the Browns declined to share it. They also didn’t release any renderings of what a billion dollar renovation of the existing downtown stadium might look like.
Chris (15:44.971) Of course not. Leila (15:46.
026) No, said fans already know what the current stadium setup is like, so why bother with that? So the Haslums are still working through both options, renovating downtown or building new in Brook Park, and they’re calling the downtown renovation a complex and challenging proposition with significant operational limitations. They have ruled out adding a dome to the downtown stadium due to economic and FAA restrictions, while the Brook Park option, they say, Chris (15:50.672) Yeah.
Chris (16:03.569) Yeah. Leila (16:15.
522) would be more transformational because it would include development around the stadium. Chris (16:20.359) Yeah, it would be transformational for their wallets.
Look, it’s time to say it. Make it stop. This is a grift.
They are trying to get $1 .2 billion in public money for a playground for their sports team. That’s obscene by any measure.
No way the public should give $1 .2 billion to these guys for a playground. If we had $1 .
2 billion and we don’t, that’s the other issue. There are so many other ways we can use it to improve this community that would benefit way more people than the 65 ‚000 who attend the games. This is obscene and they should stop.
The whole way they’re rolling it out is obscene. They play this game where they feed it to their ticket holders to get them all excited, but they don’t release any details. No way, no how, they should not get $1 .
2 billion in public money. If they ever make the formal proposal, people are going to scream. Lisa (17:10.
73) Mm Chris (17:17.063) I hear from people about this. No way this should be a part of the discussion.
It should stop right now. Or put your plan out there right now so that people can have this debate and bring it to an end. I cannot believe that these folks are really asking for $1 .
2 billion to build a stadium of our money. How do you look yourself in the mirror looking around at the poverty of Northeast Ohio? Leila (17:45.87) Mm -hmm.
Chris (17:46.031) looking around at all of the ways we could better use that recreational dollar for so many more people. If you just invested a quarter of that in more bike paths and parks, what would that do to the health of this region? Because people use that stuff.
I just, find this whole process to be one of the most disgusting I’ve ever seen. And it needs to stop right now. Lisa (18:10.
229) And as I like to point out, they haven’t bought that land in Brook Park yet. So. Chris (18:14.
663) And they shouldn’t. And the thing is, nobody’s even talked about the planning side of it. That’s not a good location for a stadium.
It’s not. That’s going to screw up transportation all over the place. look, it’s not realistic.
There isn’t money coming from the state. I $600 million from the state. The state’s not going to do it.
And they shouldn’t do it. If Mike DeWine started to seriously entertain that, we’d be all over him. And so would many other taxpayers.
Think about that. $1 .2 billion that you’re handing over to them so they can charge more for their luxury tickets and make money on parking.
It’s obscene what we’re talking about here. Make it stop. Leila (18:54.
318) Well, you know how I feel about the entire thing, Chris. I don’t think that any city money should go into keeping it on the lakefront. I think half a billion is obscene.
In fact, if I were Justin Bieber, I would be pricing out the cost of demolition of that stadium. Do that publicly, make that your next chess move because that will really force the Haslams into making a decision here. It’s disgusting.
I hate this conversation. Laura (19:10.554) Hahaha! Lisa (19:13.
375) Hmm. Chris (19:20.679) Look, what you’re going to have if they keep pushing this is a real discussion of this region’s priorities.
know, nobody wants to see the Browns leave and that’s what they play on that sick kind of, you could lose the Browns. But if you force that issue where we talk about what do we most value as a community, you just might find we say, you know what, let them go. This is ridiculous.
It’s not worth $1 .2 billion. Lisa (19:24.
361) Hmm Laura (19:49.958) Well, I would just want to say on what you said, Chris, is the way that they’re rolling it out is really kind of gross to just send out. Here’s 12 beautiful renderings of what you could have.
And you deserve it, fans. This is for you because it is not for them. It is for the Haslams so they can make more money.
And I really to play on that emotion and just specifically for the ticket holders and not think about every other person that would be paying for it who doesn’t go to games is just It’s so myopic. Chris (20:20.967) I think the reason, you know, we’ve been talking about why did Justin Bibb put out his plan last week and there’s some problems with it we’re gonna be looking at.
The dollars are not apples to apples and we have a story coming explaining it. But we kept saying, why did he do it now? And I think he did it now for exactly what we’re talking about. It’s time to put up or shut up.
Lay your cards on the table, let the chips fall where they may. And when the chips fall, it’s not gonna be $1 .2 billion in public funding.
for these guys to have a playground for their football team. That’s not gonna happen. No way that’s gonna happen.
Leila (20:51.15) Keep in mind also that the 1 .2 billion does not even contemplate the infrastructure changes that would have to happen to support that facility down there.
The roads as they are would not be able to handle the traffic load. They haven’t even spent a second contemplating that. There have been no traffic studies done.
It’s just...
Chris (20:59.835) Yeah, it’s. Chris (21:12.
996) No. Laura (21:15.492) Right, they just put out this rendering which is miles of parking lot.
Did anybody else notice that? That like it’s a very small development and a whole lot of asphalt. Chris (21:19.867) But, and it, Lisa (21:21.
864) Yes, I did. Chris (21:23.011) Right, because they want to make all money parking and look what it does it gets all those radio sports guys who wouldn’t know a bond offering circular from their highlights magazines to go this is great.
This is going to happen and play to the football fans instead of thinking about this cogently who in their right mind, given our needs would say this is how we should spend public dollars. Nobody. The answer is nobody.
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Laura (21:28.837) Yes.
Laura (21:35.408) Yeah. Chris (21:52.
207) As Layla mentioned, the letter to fans contain not an iota information about how to pay for the stadium, which is the most important fact in this thing. But to make sure people are aware of how little money is actually available, we republished a piece we wrote a few months back showing how much of the available money is already committed to other stuff. Laura, what does that story show? Laura (22:13.
712) that basically our public sources of money are tapped dry. Everything we’ve come up with to charge people to raise money for public projects, for entertainment projects, is already there and you can’t add to it. And that’s why the city of Cleveland in that offer we were just talking about came up with parking fees at city -owned garages because they would just funnel all the money that they would be charging and making money on to this stadium and talking about extra ticket fees on the Browns tickets themselves.
So this story we did in May, Courtney and Stolfi did, because the Browns had announced that dome and the Cleveland soccer group won a $90 million. And it’s just like, well, where is this money supposed to be coming from? We already have a sales tax, a bed tax, a sin tax, cigarette taxes, and taxes for admissions, car rentals, and parking. A lot of those were created specifically to build the current lakefront stadium.
I just want people to think about that. That 8 % Chris (22:54.492) Right.
Lisa (22:59.333) And we’re missing. Laura (23:10.
694) ticket tax you’re already paying, the admission tax, it’s paying off a stadium that they still want to mothball now. We are not done. Chris (23:18.
279) Yeah, it’s that there isn’t money. That’s what we keep saying. And on top of all of the local money, they think they can get 600 million from the state, which is ridiculous.
Check out that story. It’s on cleveland .com.
It does lay out all the details. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Most days, this next story might seem like an anachronism, but given how we just discussed how the loss of power has laid so many people so low, maybe the old fashioned technology is desirable.
Lisa? How do I get a piece of this old fashioned technology? What am I talking about? Lisa (23:52.65) Yeah, the Ohio Department of Transportation is giving away 1 .4 million paper copies of the latest Ohio map.
This is the first map update in four years and it includes all new amenities and our state parks and so forth. I want to say right here, I have a whole binder full of paper maps. I love paper maps.
I love my Rand McNally Road Atlas. I mean, when you’re looking on your phone or a tablet, it is just not the same. ODOT Director Jack Marchbank says paper maps are still relevant.
I agree. He says it’s always smart to have a hard copy as a backup in your car. If your cell service drops out or your navigation goes offline, he says Ohio’s new state map will get you there.
They’re now available at any state highway rest stop or you can request it on the ODOT website. They also have a digital version available on. Chris (24:42.
243) You know, the other reason to have it as Congressman Turner, Ohio Congressman Turner keeps saying the Russians have a weapon that could pretty much wipe out GPS if they wanted to and which would wreak havoc for a whole generation of people that have never looked at a roadmap. Haven’t the roadmap in your glove box just in case isn’t a terrible idea. I don’t have any roadmaps, Lisa.
I’m the same generation as you. I haven’t looked at a roadmap, a physical roadmap in years. used to live and die by those Lisa (24:50.
507) Mm -hmm. Lisa (25:04.628) No.
Chris (25:10.919) Remember the books when you had to get to someplace in the city, the 100 page map books? Yeah, I haven’t looked at one of those in probably 15 years, but we are so reliant on technology that’s fragile. I salute the state for making it available.
Everybody ought to take them up on it. You ought to have one just in case. Lisa (25:14.
154) yeah, I have one of those for Cleveland, yep. Lisa (25:31.186) Yes.
Laura (25:32.24) I do like a paper map and I think it’s really good for kids to understand where they’re going so they’re not just like blindly following a GPS for the rest of their life and to show them how far things are from each other. And I got to say, when I go through those rest stops on the Ohio Turnpike, I’m always like, ooh, what tourism book can I pick up? I do enjoy them.
Lisa (25:37.15) Mm -hmm. Right.
Lisa (25:49.574) Yeah, me too. I do too.
Chris (25:51.303) You guys are travel geeks. think the online maps are wonderful.
I love Google Maps. I love Apple Maps. You can squeeze it in.
can stretch it out. I mean, it works the same way. You’re looking at the big picture, but I find it much more convenient digitally.
Laura (26:06.468) Right, it is more convenient, but don’t you think there’s something lost if people never learn to read a map and understand geography and spatial awareness? Lisa (26:11.313) Exactly.
Chris (26:14.577) When’s the last time you drove a stick shift, Laura? Lisa (26:14.631) and Google.
Laura (26:16.87) Every single day my 2012 accord is a stick shift. Lisa (26:20.
028) Yeah, yeah, I drive a stick too, so there you have it. Chris (26:42.171) there you go.
Ooh, touche. Okay. All right.
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Skip ahead. Cleveland launched an airport parking reservation system earlier this year, one that I took advantage of for a recent trip.
We wondered how many people are using it and how, with no specific areas set aside for people who make reservations.how the airport guarantees you will have an open spot once you have paid. Leila, what do we know? Leila (26:47.
758) So over 2 ‚000 travelers from Northeast Ohio have taken advantage of this reservation system, which guarantees them a parking spot close to the terminal, even during those really super busy travel times. And here’s how it works. You go online to the airport’s website, you choose your travel dates, and if there’s availability, you can book a spot in the Smart Parking Garage.
It’s $23 a day plus $1 .99 convenience fee. But there is a catch that the reservation doesn’t assign you a specific spot.
So you do have to hunt around for an open space once you arrive. But the good news is even if the garage is listed as full, if you’ve got that reservation, you will be allowed in and they promise that you will find a spot. The system is expected to soon expand to the Brown lot, which requires a shuttle ride to the terminal.
And that’ll be useful, especially since parking at the airport has been very scarce with the increasing number of passengers. But not everyone is happy with this new system because the smart parking garage is the only place on airport grounds that offers short -term hourly parking. So if you’re just dropping someone off or you’re picking up a passenger or you’re running in to grab a delayed suitcase and the garage is full because of all these reservations, it can be a real hassle for those folks.
One traveler pointed out that She uses the garage for quick trips to meet her elderly mom at baggage claim or to pick up her daughter after a long flight. And she’s worried that with all these reserved spots, short -term parking might become a real headache. So while the system is clearly popular, it’s not without its downsides, especially for people who rely on the convenience of short -term parking.
The airport will just have to balance that demand as they continue to refine the system. Chris (28:33.511) I know.
I used it. It worked great. You know, I had a printout.
I didn’t use it on my phone, but it scanned me in. When I was leaving, it scanned me out. I was done.
It was quick. I had no trouble. That day I went, were, I think, 1 ‚100 open spots.
So no, it was pretty easy. I was worried because you thought, you know, I’ve been to that garage. When it’s full, what do you do? But it sounds like they’re going to be limiting.
a lot of people are using it, clearly, because it’s Leila (28:43.96) Was it hard to find a spot? Chris (29:01.879) saves you the worry.
know when you get there, you’re not boxed out. I have had that happen. was one time I had a, couldn’t find parking anywhere and time was running short.
I just got on the highway and I drove to New York. So yeah, missed the flight. I was going to miss my flight because I couldn’t get parking that would get me there fast enough.
My bad. I didn’t leave enough time, but it’s, it is a peace of mind thing knowing you have a spot. Lisa (29:14.
673) Ha ha ha. Leila (29:15.51) Really? Chris (29:26.
993) You’re listening to the day in Ohio. didn’t get to a couple stories. That’s all right.
We’ll get to him tomorrow. Thanks, Leila. Thanks, Laura.
Thanks, Lisa. Thank you for listening. We’ll be back Friday to wrap up the Newsweek.
.
