RTA: What's good, bad, and improvable (Cleveland, Akron: 2014, buy, costs)

[TheProf]

Originally Posted by j_ws

Maybe we'll get lucky and it's just some aggressive prep work for surface parking.

I hope you're right. It would be more than ironic if a major transit expansion option would blocked by a parking garage. Calabrese should have been fired immediately after he, essentially, green-lighted this garage. It's one of the dumbest things I've heard and, par for the course, for Cleveland which behaves incredibly backwards viz mass transit despite, somehow, having a much better than average system.

[bluebullets]

I've been taking the RTA for the last 7 or 8 years and there are endless issues with the service. Its almost a known fact in the city, that Cleveland has awful Public Transportation. One major issue is buses actually arriving on time. I cannot count how many times I've been late to something due to a bus arriving 10-15 minutes later than it was initially supposed to show up. This then is going to cause a domino effect if I'm planning on catching other buses in the process. Another issue is the nasty attitudes and reckless driving of the us drivers themselves. There have been so many fatalities caused by RTA buses that I lost count. I was on a bus downtown last year when the bus drive pulled off pretty fast while an elderly lady had just gotten on the bus, and she literally flew to the back of the bus and fell on her back. He remained in his seat and yelled to the back "Do you need an ambulance"...... One last issue I'll speak about is the increasing prices of bus fare. This didn't become an issue for me until recently because if your a high-school or college student, you typically get a card from your school which waives your bus fare. I'm an adult now and it costs around $27 a week to ride the bus for 5 days ($5.50 for an all day pass). This is a problem because obviously majority of the people taking public transit aren't very wealthy. And Cleveland in general has historically had a low cost of living, the price for bus fares are supposed to increase in 2019 (the last I heard). More than 1/3 of Clevelanders use public transportation so these issues really need to be addressed in a timely manner. Not 20 years from now like everything else usually is

[andrew61]

Originally Posted by bluebullets

I'm an adult now and it costs around $27 a week to ride the bus for 5 days ($5.50 for an all day pass).

You'd be better off buying 7-day passes even if you don't use them two days a week. They're only $25.

[Kamms]

Originally Posted by j_ws

As far as I understand it, that garage is marked as a future phase. I haven't been over there recently so I'm not sure if that changed.

It's interesting that RTA actually has a Blue Line extension included in the 2010-2025 strategic plan (Re: imagine RTA - Strategic Plan 2010 - 2020 | Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority)

Pretty sure city of shaker has pressured RTA to give up ROW to get the van aken deal going.

Do you actually think someone at RTA is going to amend this 2010-2020 wish list? Either it’s laziness or RTA is deliberately misleading folks to think its actually working to improve service knowing it gave up the blue line extension ROW at the same time, for starters, board president and otherwise social do-gooder George Dixon III rips off insurance premiums to the tune of $1 million+.

If this is not true, the 2020 window on the blue line extension is closing fast

[WRnative]

Outgoing RTA President On The Future Of Public Transit In Cleveland | Ideas | WVIZ/PBS ideastream

[j_ws]

Originally Posted by Kamms

Pretty sure city of shaker has pressured RTA to give up ROW to get the van aken deal going.

Do you actually think someone at RTA is going to amend this 2010-2020 wish list? Either it’s laziness or RTA is deliberately misleading folks to think its actually working to improve service knowing it gave up the blue line extension ROW at the same time, for starters, board president and otherwise social do-gooder George Dixon III rips off insurance premiums to the tune of $1 million+.

If this is not true, the 2020 window on the blue line extension is closing fast

I just thought it was interesting that it was included/even viewed as a potential within the past eight years.

[ferraris]

Is there solid info on this garage that would block the path? It would seem odd for a site the size of VAD to have two parking garages. It looks to me like that area might just be a staging and storage area for the other VAD construction.

[j_ws]

Originally Posted by ferraris

Is there solid info on this garage that would block the path? It would seem odd for a site the size of VAD to have two parking garages. It looks to me like that area might just be a staging and storage area for the other VAD construction.

Even if the ROW is blocked, a future light rail extension could just be integrated with the street to get the line out of the VAD. Not ideal, and likely not going to happen unless money falls out of the sky and into RTA's budget, but ya know.

[TheProf]

Originally Posted by j_ws

Even if the ROW is blocked, a future light rail extension could just be integrated with the street to get the line out of the VAD. Not ideal, and likely not going to happen unless money falls out of the sky and into RTA's budget, but ya know.

It seems the indifference toward Blue Line extension beyond the Van Aken District (VAD) is reflective of VAD's owners themselves as expressed in their website. While many people, present company included, have touted VAD as a great example of TOD, the VAD website, in its current iteration focusing on the newly opening apts and retail, doesn't even mention the Rapid at all. The slant of the online literature is that VAD is its own little self-contained village. They, of course, focus on the quality of their lifestyle and their services. But no mention of the rail line the seemingly led to VAD's high-density form and walkability, is weird and disappointing. And this is in Shaker Heights, no less, the region's, in fact, the nation's, poster-city in terms of establishment, growth and success due to rail transit access... again... weird.

... contrast VAD's approach to the TOD sprouting around the Red Line's new Little Italy station. Both Uptown and the just-opened (massive) Centric apts strongly tout their transit options, specifically mentioning the Red Line, which is similar to the current 3 apt and condo complexes rising in Little Italy (which is quite a change considering, for years, many old-time LI residents rejected and fought against RTA relocating the Rapid station there.

[Kamms]

Originally Posted by bluebullets

I've been taking the RTA for the last 7 or 8 years and there are endless issues with the service. Its almost a known fact in the city, that Cleveland has awful Public Transportation. One major issue is buses actually arriving on time. I cannot count how many times I've been late to something due to a bus arriving 10-15 minutes later than it was initially supposed to show up. This then is going to cause a domino effect if I'm planning on catching other buses in the process. Another issue is the nasty attitudes and reckless driving of the us drivers themselves. There have been so many fatalities caused by RTA buses that I lost count. I was on a bus downtown last year when the bus drive pulled off pretty fast while an elderly lady had just gotten on the bus, and she literally flew to the back of the bus and fell on her back. He remained in his seat and yelled to the back "Do you need an ambulance"...... One last issue I'll speak about is the increasing prices of bus fare. This didn't become an issue for me until recently because if your a high-school or college student, you typically get a card from your school which waives your bus fare. I'm an adult now and it costs around $27 a week to ride the bus for 5 days ($5.50 for an all day pass). This is a problem because obviously majority of the people taking public transit aren't very wealthy. And Cleveland in general has historically had a low cost of living, the price for bus fares are supposed to increase in 2019 (the last I heard). More than 1/3 of Clevelanders use public transportation so these issues really need to be addressed in a timely manner. Not 20 years from now like everything else usually is

When I relied on RTA many years ago, had the same issues, especially with the drivers. I used the red line with an occasional bus ride. The red line drivers were nasty as were the fare booth operators. Threatened with violence, nasty cursing, blaring music (inside the booth), middle of the night death threat phone call when complaint was made. Total ghetto scene.

I swore RTA job recruited out of county jail. See also Board President George Dixon III resignation this year due to getting over on the RTA for $1M.

Of course none of these issues are cited by the experts trying to figure out why RTA has lost 60% of its ridership since its 1980 peak.

The passengers are not a priority for many of these nitwit RTA hires.