Cruise ships, caviar, cost of living. How Erie could become hub for retirement, tourism

This is a fourth in a series of columns by retired Erie engineer William R. Miller exploring possible avenues for growing the region's economy.

It would seem to make the most sense to put together a master plan for tourism and retirement living encompassing Erie and the entire, interrelated "Upper Allegheny" region. Perhaps the Upper Allegheny could earn the title "most senior-friendly region in the northern U.S."? How about nicknaming Erie "Camelot on the Lake"?

Tourism and retirement living - a combined plan

In various studies, our region scored well above the national average of other metropolitan areas in five critical areas: low cost-of-living; access to quality health care; low crime; good transportation (except, currently, air service); recreation and opportunities for higher education. Most of these critical areas are coincidently the very ones that are particularly important to retirees. A major part of the Erie economy is based on tourism and retirees. The critical areas of low crime, good transportation and recreation plus ambience are key to supporting the tourism part of the economy.

I put these two plans together because, in both cases, the region's poor rating on climate is a negative. Attention needs to be paid to ameliorating the effects of climate to the greatest extent possible. A paid regional coordinator could work part-time to administer these plans.

Make Erie tourist- and retiree-friendly with covered walkways

One obvious method to counter the effects of Erie's climate on visitors and retirees is to dramatically increase the use of covered walkways or "porte cochere" throughout the region so that people can load and unload from cars, buses and other transportation without being exposed to the weather. For instance, in Erie, East 8th Street from State to French could be covered by a roof and made an on-demand "No Parking" block when events are held. Warner Theatre-goers could be dropped off and picked up or access the parking garage without getting wet. Similarly, East 8th Street between the Erie Insurance Arena and its parking garage could also be roofed over.

Zoning could be changed to require nursing homes, hospitals, airports, stadiums, entertainment centers and hotels to also have auto/bus-accessible covered entranceways. Property tax incentives could be used to encourage building nursing homes with direct, covered access walkways to enclosed malls or shopping areas. Malls and shopping plazas that do not provide protection from the elements to go from store to store should be penalized by zoning and/or extra charges on property taxes.

For older adults, every effort should be made to reduce their need to venture out in inclement weather. Services like Meals on Wheels, Visiting Nurses and similar organizations should be encouraged and incentivized to address the weather-affected problems of older adults in this area. As noted in a previous article in this series, a single transportation hub, anchored on the airport would help make travel easier. The area's snowplowing plan should first address routes frequently used by older people.

Cultivate year-round events, commemorations to attract tourists

It would help tourism in the fall, winter and spring months if we had more events. The formation on ice in Presque Isle Bay is not reliable enough, with the current climate variations, to plan an event around it. Outdoor skating rinks, however, could be set up in the winter for sports, shows and recreational skating in parks. Think of them as small-town Rockefeller Centers.

We could come up with a number of other unusual "non-summer" attractions. One source might be to look for past events to commemorate. For 2024, the Erie Extension Canal's 180th completion anniversary, Drake Well's 165th anniversary and Chautauqua's 150th Anniversary are obvious candidates. The list also includes the April 8 total solar eclipse with Erie situated in the direct path and a D-Day reenactment on Aug. 15-17 in Conneaut, Ohio.

Other events to track for milestone commemorations include events tied to the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie; the 1832 discovery of bog iron at Presque Isle; the 1843 launch of USS Michigan, the U.S. Navy's first iron warship; the 1844 arrival of the first boat on new Erie Extension Canal; the founding of Griswold Manufacturing Company in 1865; and the launch of the Zippo lighters used by the U.S. military in WWII.

How we can become a stop for Great Lakes cruise ships

There are will be at least four cruise ship lines operating on the Great Lakes in 2024, mostly shuttling between Toronto and Milwaukee or Chicago. They operate cruises ranging from eight to16 days. Every week from the late spring to the early fall one or sometimes two of these ships, on their way through Lake Erie, sail right past Erie without stopping here. Pearl Seas Cruises and Viking Cruises both have itineraries that include a layover at Cleveland and Viking has an itinerary that stops at Pelee Island instead. Hapag-Lloyd Cruises and Ponant Cruises don't stop at all in Lake Erie but sail directly between Detroit and Toronto.

It may be difficult to get these lines to change all their sailings right away. We should concentrate initially on getting them to stop here when their itinerary coincides with some special local occasion. For instance, this year I believe several cruise ships are passing near Erie in August and September. All these would tie in with Battle of Lake Erie and Drake Well celebrations.

If we want to attract cruise ships to stop in Erie regularly, we will need to make available some optional excursions to local attractions. These might also be offered to non-passengers as space is available.

Shore excursions we could offer Great Lakes cruise lines

In Erie, a tour of the Erie Maritime Museum, a proposed aquarium and a proposed caviar hatchery (discussed below), perhaps combined with a short sail on the Niagara could be offered. Maybe we could even scare up another tall ship to visit Erie on when the Sept. 10th Battle of Lake Erie anniversary rolls around to put on a reenactment. And, depending on schedules, a coinciding performance of the Erie Philharmonic might be a possibility.

Winery tours already exist. Certain ones would have to be coordinated with the cruise ship arrivals and departures. Brewery tours are also a possibility. A tour to Chautauqua and possibly Lily Dale could be set up, perhaps coinciding with the Chautauqua Anniversary Celebration in 2024. These would have to be coordinated with the cruise ship schedules.

Other possible regional excursions might be:

Fall foliage rail trip to Drake Well, with passengers boarding the train car on the siding across the Bayfront Parkway from the Erie Cruise Terminal. This could tie into the Drake Well anniversary celebration in 2024. At least three companies — Cuyahoga Valley Scenic RR, Ozark Mountain Railcar and Railexco — lease out private passenger cars (some with catering facilities). Cuyahoga even has a self-propelled passenger car that doesn't require a locomotive.

There are also some Upper Allegheny festivals that might interest cruise passengers: Clymer, N.Y.'s Tulip Festival; Troika Russian Festival in Erie; the Punxsutawney Groundhog Festival; Pennsylvania Firefly Festival in Tionesta; North East Firemen's Cherry Festival; oil heritage festivals in Oil City and Titusville, and the Rock in River Festival and stone-skipping championship in Franklin; and PennWest Edinboro Highland Games and Scottish Festival.

In my view — with the possible exception of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — Erie and the region have more current and potential, higher quality shore excursions to offer than Cleveland. The "competition" offers excursions, for example, to Ohio Amish country, Cleveland's West Side market, Little Italy neighborhood and Cultural Gardens and the Museum of Art, as well as opportunities for birding, kayaking and hiking.

Protect local teams with local government investment

Erie has several major sports teams which both encourage tourism and are a source of civic pride. Unfortunately, such teams are at the mercy of owners and leagues who might move the team out at any time. It is proposed that the region secure these resources by following Green Bay's lead and have the public and/or the local governments buy a controlling interest in the teams.

Proposed future attractions - Great Lakes caviar, Oil Creek boat ride

• The most obvious possibility would be a freshwater aquarium featuring lake and stream fish. The bayfront is an ideal location for an aquarium because there is a waterworks plant immediately to the west and a wastewater treatment plant a few blocks to the east. The Erie Maritime Museum could be tied in to service aquarium visitors and save administrative costs.

• Why not create a "visitor-friendly" demonstration caviar hatchery as part of the aquarium? New technology now allows the eggs to be harvested from the sturgeon without having to sacrifice the fish, as was done formerly. This would be a very unusual facility to visit. Maybe we could even come up with our own brand of caviar.

• In the early days of the oil boom around Oil City and Titusville, there were few wagon roads and Oil Creek was too shallow for heavy barge traffic. To solve the problem, they would dam Oil Creek to create a lake and accumulate a fleet of boats laden with barrels of oil and manned by boatmen. When the boats were all loaded, they would breach the dam and ride the flood down Oil Creek to the more navigable Allegheny River. They could then float down the Allegheny to Pittsburgh. It occurs to me that the people who design amusement park rides, like those at Universal Studio Park, could make a ride that would simulate what had to have been a wild ride on the flood as it rushed down the creek bed. Ideally, the ride would be at Drake Well State Park.

• To commemorate the history of the Erie Extension Canal, I suggest building a replica of a passenger packet boat at either the Maritime Museum or the Hagen Historical Museum, where visitors could dine on board "canal boat style," perhaps while listening to as lecture on the canal.

• The Erie Extension Canal's tow path was one of the major routes used by enslaved people escaping to freedom. I understand that there are a few houses left along the old canal route in this area that were once on the Underground Railroad. It might be possible to arrange tours of some of these houses.

• A recent article by Darrell Owens discussed the efforts to bring a retired Oliver Perry-class Guided Missile Frigate to Erie. If we could then add the USS Wolverine, or at least a partial replica of the facade, Erie would become the only port in the U.S. displaying the whole history of naval ship construction.

Improved Air Service

Finally, good air service is so critical to the success of both tourism and retirement living plans that I am going to expand on my previous discussion of the subject in an earlier article.

I believe U.S. Congressman Mike Kelly, who represents Erie, should join with U.S. Reps. Dave Joyce (Ashtabula County, Ohio), and Nick Langworthy (Chautauqua County, N.Y.) to work on getting an Essential Air Service designation for the Erie International Airport.

The EAS program was put into place to guarantee that small communities that were served by certificated air carriers before airline deregulation maintain a minimal level of scheduled air service. The United States Department of Transportation is mandated to provide eligible EAS communities with access to the National Air Transportation System. This is generally accomplished by subsidizing two round trips a day with 30-to-50-seat aircraft, or additional frequencies with aircraft with nine seats or fewer, usually to a large- or medium-hub airport. The department currently subsidizes commuter and certificated air carriers to serve approximately115 communities in the lower 48 contiguous states that otherwise would not receive any scheduled air service.

I believe we should forget the major airlines which are downsizing and focus on the growth-oriented, non-captive regionals such as SkyWest, Republic, Mesa and Compass & GoJet, which have riderships in the millions. Frontier Airlines is expanding aggressively in our area. They already announced new routes in the next two years to add service from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dallas, Raleigh and Jamaica and from Cleveland to Jacksonville, Pittsburgh and Jamaica. It seems to me that these are the airlines we should be targeting, using EAS subsidies and other cash incentives.

William Miller: Why don't we restore commercial fishing in Erie?

This would be a long shot, but perhaps we could explore partnering with the FedEx cargo plane that travels between Erie and Cleveland each day. "Combi" aircraft have been and are used. These planes have a passenger compartment (usually in the front portion of the plane) and a freight compartment in the rear. If a deal could be made, this could give us at least a once a day round trip flight to Cleveland. If the schedule were adjusted, it could allow passengers from Chicago to get to Cleveland in time to catch the plane to Erie.

William R. Miller is the former vice president of research and development at AMSCO. He formerly co-chaired the Erie 2000 study for the Erie Conference in 1984 and has been updating and expanding that study in recent years. He has also served as a volunteer docent at the Erie Maritime Museum, published a book on the Battle of Lake Erie and written a pamphlet for the museum on the Erie Extension Canal.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: How to maximize Erie PA, Upper Allegheny assets for tourists, retirees