Cleveland Police are anticipating close to 40,000 people gathering at two locations alone during Monday’s eclipse - the Great Lakes Science Center near Downtown Cleveland and at Edgewater Park on the city’s West Side.
The department cancelled officers’ days off Monday, with more than 100 dedicated just to handling traffic, which is expected to be at its worst immediately after the eclipse.
“Our aviation unit and our Real Time Crime Center are going to play a huge role for us during this event,” Traffic Commissioner Gordon Holmes told Cleveland City Council at its Safety Committee meeting Wednesday. “They’re going to really keep an eye on traffic for us after we get through that maximum phase.”
In addition to a few road closures downtown, the department will have as many as 12 tow trucks available to remove illegally parked cars. Several streets in Downtown Cleveland and in front of hospitals on West 25th Street and University Hospitals in University Circle will be closed to parking from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday.
“We will have tow trucks assigned to each of the command posts and quickly be able to get vehicles that we think can be a large disruption out of the area,” Holmes said.
In preparation for the larger of the two events in Cleveland – about 24,000 at the Great Lakes Science Center – the city is closing to vehicle traffic East 9th Street for a food truck area near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, part of West Third Street near the Science Center and Alfred Lerner Way, which runs in front of the Science Center and Browns Stadium.
The ramps from Interstate 90 onto the Shoreway in both directions will also be closed starting at around noon on Monday.
The focus is on those two locations – around Edgewater Park and the Science Center - but Holmes said the department will be flexible.
“We're not locked into anything. If we need to move resources to the East Side to help the people out there, we're going to do that,” Holmes said.
Metroparks Police officers will patrol within Edgewater and other parks it manages and Cleveland Police will work outside the parks. The University Circle Police Department has also told Cleveland it will not need assistance for an event at Wade Oval expected to attract around 10,000 people.
Overall, the city is expecting around 140,000 visitors for the eclipse. City buildings will be closed to the public though employees will still come to work. City-owned parking lots at Willard Park and the Muni Lots will be open to visitors. There will be no trash pickup Monday and the city’s non-emergency assistance line – 311 – will be taking calls.
