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Prof, what are your thoughts on RTA lumping in BRT on the Rapid Transit System Map? I don't like that there's not a separate rail map.
I agree to an extent. I don't mind as much lumping rail with the Healthline because the HL is honest to goodness BRT (although flawed given its lack of traffic signal priority and the long-gone POP fare payment system, meaning typical slow bus farebox payment by riders)... Boston does lumps it's Silver Line BRT with its great rapid rail system on maps. But I draw the line there... The CSU line isn't horrible because at the very least, it does have stations and the 1st 3 miles of the CSU Line is grade-separated (freeway then Shoreway Blvd running) transit.
Those so-called Metro Healthline BRT is total bullschidt and should be removed from rail maps immediately. Joe Calabrese merely lured Metro-Health System to kick in a few bucks so RTA branded the system with painted-up buses and a few shelters in/around Ohio City. This does not make the Metro Health line BRT. Yet RTA emblazoned Rapid Transit maps with green routes making it seem like part of the rail network. Then, in their fold-out tourist oriented literature, they consider all these bus lines as part of Cleveland's 'family of rapid transit'... What a farce!
Speaking of Shaker Square in the Development News thread got me thinking of another issue.
When I was new to the area and living near Shaker Square I was a little frustrated that there was no guidance on how to pay posted at the RTA station. Even when I read the website I thought that I had to go to Dave's to get a pass, when in reality I could just get one downtown at Tower city after riding. This is something that even a simple sign could fix (though ticket vending machines would be ideal).
To be honest, I'm still not totally clear on how fares work on the blue and green lines. It seems like you can unintentionally ride for free (and indeed I have wound up doing this a few times without intending to), especially if your trip doesn't involve Tower City.
It's a POP system. Many cities across the globe employ this method. They don't advertise the post-payment allowance because it is preferred that you purchase your fare beforehand. However, like most POP cities, they are quite lenient. Also, there is an app you can use to prepay with. No need for a kiosk or a sales outlet.
It's a POP system. Many cities across the globe employ this method. They don't advertise the post-payment allowance because it is preferred that you purchase your fare beforehand. However, like most POP cities, they are quite lenient. Also, there is an app you can use to prepay with. No need for a kiosk or a sales outlet.
POP is just for the Healthline BRT (but not the other BRTs) and the Red Line.
Between winter and covid it's been nearly a year since I've really used RTA, but I still find the website confusing.
The How to Pay page doesn't mention anything at all about the Blue and Green line's payment system. Then there's the whole mess of dipping or swiping your pass.
The How to Ride page lists three different payment methods (and ignores the Waterfront line, adding to my earlier gripe about it not being a good idea to consider it a different line).
Inexplicably, neither page mentions the Mobile Ticketing App which I only found out about by you mentioning it here just now.
Quote:
BUS: When your bus arrives, let it come to a complete stop, and board. Pay your fare with exact change, or swipe your pass or farecard through the farebox.
PROOF OF PAYMENT: The Red Line Rapid and HealthLine BRT on Euclid Avenue use a Proof of Payment system. Be sure you pay your fare before you board. Ticket vending machines (TVMs) are located inside all Red Line Rapid Stations, and all HealthLine stations. Retain your activated farecard or pass until you exit the system.
BLUE & GREEN LINES: Traveling westbound (toward downtown), pay your fare as you leave the train. Traveling eastbound (toward Shaker Heights), pay your fare when you board.
ETA: If TheProf is correct above in post #22, then not even the Healthline is POP
Lots of good points all around, but having visited many cities worldwide with awesome public transport, here are a few observations that just make it less appealing, more difficult, and generally on the back burner, around here.
Price of gas, parking, and tolls, as well as dense housing and other factors – make private vehicle use and ownership difficult in other places. Not Cleveland, or, USA generally.
Public transit (like a train) involves lots – and lots – of walking, anyway. Annual snowfall NYC: 11 days, 25 inches. Chicago? 35”. Cleveland? 47days, 68 inches. Just as a practical matter – it’s not as user friendly here to walk to the subway station.
Lifestyle – common here for us to grab 10 or 20 or more BAGS of groceries PER TRIP. No good on a train. NYC? or London? Or Paris? Folks tend to grab what they need for today, and maybe tomorrow – and that’s it.
Lifestyle part 2 – USA – we want to be where we’re going immediately, if not sooner. I do not want to wait for a train, not for ten seconds, not ever. Not once. Sorry. I don’t. Too slow.
Lifestyle part 3 – USA – we’re spoiled here, folks, and do not like standing in the rain, the heat, the cold, the snow, whatever. Europe? Way of life. They don’t even notice. No thanks.
I can easily come up with 15 more - but don’t get me wrong. When it works – it works – I love it! This is just a list of why it doesn’t work HERE.
Meantime, your post (OP) was about lots of things, not just public transit – but the north is shrinking, the south and west are growing, it’s just the evolution of the landscape. Maybe someday the tide will turn. Or in the case of FL – come up really high.
You make some valid points, but your focus is on some parts of CLE that are mainly low on the priority list of the folks that left town – mainly confirmed by them moving to places that ALSO have no public transit.
Lots of good points all around, but having visited many cities worldwide with awesome public transport, here are a few observations that just make it less appealing, more difficult, and generally on the back burner, around here.
Price of gas, parking, and tolls, as well as dense housing and other factors – make private vehicle use and ownership difficult in other places. Not Cleveland, or, USA generally.
Public transit (like a train) involves lots – and lots – of walking, anyway. Annual snowfall NYC: 11 days, 25 inches. Chicago? 35”. Cleveland? 47days, 68 inches. Just as a practical matter – it’s not as user friendly here to walk to the subway station.
Lifestyle – common here for us to grab 10 or 20 or more BAGS of groceries PER TRIP. No good on a train. NYC? or London? Or Paris? Folks tend to grab what they need for today, and maybe tomorrow – and that’s it.
Lifestyle part 2 – USA – we want to be where we’re going immediately, if not sooner. I do not want to wait for a train, not for ten seconds, not ever. Not once. Sorry. I don’t. Too slow.
Lifestyle part 3 – USA – we’re spoiled here, folks, and do not like standing in the rain, the heat, the cold, the snow, whatever. Europe? Way of life. They don’t even notice. No thanks.
I can easily come up with 15 more - but don’t get me wrong. When it works – it works – I love it! This is just a list of why it doesn’t work HERE.
Meantime, your post (OP) was about lots of things, not just public transit – but the north is shrinking, the south and west are growing, it’s just the evolution of the landscape. Maybe someday the tide will turn. Or in the case of FL – come up really high.
You make some valid points, but your focus is on some parts of CLE that are mainly low on the priority list of the folks that left town – mainly confirmed by them moving to places that ALSO have no public transit.
I disagree with your general premise. Without going of the rails too much, I think the fundamental flaw in your thinking: that we Americans are so lazy, intellectually and otherwise, we must dumb-down our expectations and essentially throw transit, notably rail transit, under the bus as it were... This is essentially what you're saying. But let me respond to you point-by-point:
Price of gas, parking, and tolls, as well as dense housing and other factors – make private vehicle use and ownership difficult in other places. Not Cleveland, or, USA generally.
Just because driving a car may be easy, do we have to? Several Canadian towns are smaller, have easier typography and are less dense than Cleveland (Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa) and, yet, are packing in rail transit passengers... It's a mindset.
Public transit (like a train) involves lots – and lots – of walking, anyway. Annual snowfall NYC: 11 days, 25 inches. Chicago? 35”. Cleveland? 47days, 68 inches. Just as a practical matter – it’s not as user friendly here to walk to the subway station.
That's an untrue generalization. For one thing, the Cleveland Rapid directly reaches a number of areas where stations are close to people: Shaker Square, Van Aken, Ohio City, Little Italy/U. Circle among them. On top of that, Cleveland is one of the very few cities that provides substantial FREE parking at outer Rapid stations. We make it very easy to marry the automobile with our train system.
As for snow, our airport Rapid provides a direct, indoor connection. (One could board the Rapid coat-less in the dead of winter for a Florida flight and be OK -- I've done it!)... And while downtown could definitely use a subway to distribute passengers to beyond E. 9th to Playhouse Sq and CSU, Cleveland's downtown for the most part is compact and easily walkable, even in winter... and then there's Tower City, one of the largest mixed use office-train complexes in the U.S. over 2 million sq/ft of office space, 2 major hotels, an NBA arena, restaurants and more (sadly, as of last week, no more movie theaters in TC ... or anywhere downtown)... So where is all this looonggg walking in the snow your griping about?
Lifestyle – common here for us to grab 10 or 20 or more BAGS of groceries PER TRIP. No good on a train. NYC? or London? Or Paris? Folks tend to grab what they need for today, and maybe tomorrow – and that’s it.
You're creating a false narrative. People don't lug 10-20 bags of groceries in any city; including New York... places like that, Paris included, have multitudes of neighborhood markets in each area where people can walk to and/or cab/Uber home. These folks don't ride trains for heavy-duty shopping of this nature.
Lifestyle part 2 – USA – we want to be where we’re going immediately, if not sooner. I do not want to wait for a train, not for ten seconds, not ever. Not once. Sorry. I don’t. Too slow.
Change the mindset, (see above).
Lifestyle part 3 – USA – we’re spoiled here, folks, and do not like standing in the rain, the heat, the cold, the snow, whatever. Europe? Way of life. They don’t even notice. No thanks.
1. false narrative (see above)
2. Change the mindset, (see above).
Lots of good points all around, but having visited many cities worldwide with awesome public transport, here are a few observations that just make it less appealing, more difficult, and generally on the back burner, around here.
Price of gas, parking, and tolls, as well as dense housing and other factors – make private vehicle use and ownership difficult in other places. Not Cleveland, or, USA generally.
Public transit (like a train) involves lots – and lots – of walking, anyway. Annual snowfall NYC: 11 days, 25 inches. Chicago? 35”. Cleveland? 47days, 68 inches. Just as a practical matter – it’s not as user friendly here to walk to the subway station.
Lifestyle – common here for us to grab 10 or 20 or more BAGS of groceries PER TRIP. No good on a train. NYC? or London? Or Paris? Folks tend to grab what they need for today, and maybe tomorrow – and that’s it.
Lifestyle part 2 – USA – we want to be where we’re going immediately, if not sooner. I do not want to wait for a train, not for ten seconds, not ever. Not once. Sorry. I don’t. Too slow.
Lifestyle part 3 – USA – we’re spoiled here, folks, and do not like standing in the rain, the heat, the cold, the snow, whatever. Europe? Way of life. They don’t even notice. No thanks.
I can easily come up with 15 more - but don’t get me wrong. When it works – it works – I love it! This is just a list of why it doesn’t work HERE.
Meantime, your post (OP) was about lots of things, not just public transit – but the north is shrinking, the south and west are growing, it’s just the evolution of the landscape. Maybe someday the tide will turn. Or in the case of FL – come up really high.
You make some valid points, but your focus is on some parts of CLE that are mainly low on the priority list of the folks that left town – mainly confirmed by them moving to places that ALSO have no public transit.
There are a handful of US cities that counter some of these trends. For example, Minneapolis (100 days per year, avg snowfall 45.3") and Madison are huge biking and pedestrian cities. Seattle is also a big biking, pedestrian, and transit city despite the topography and very wet winters.
Cleveland is very flat, which tends to work in its favor. I think you would see a more widespread mode shift (more people walking and biking) in the winter if the city were simply better about things like clearing sidewalks and paths. Cleveland makes it very difficult to be a winter pedestrian, even if you want to be one, and it's entirely separate from the weather itself.
Things like grocery bags/shopping patterns have more to do with the built environment. People will break down their shopping trips into smaller trips if the stores are convenient and nearby, which is the case in dense neighborhoods.
This is essentially what you're saying. Absolutely not what I'm saying.
It's a mindset. That IS what I'm saying - and what's right for you is not right for the next guy. Mindsets vary.
People don't lug 10-20 bags of groceries in any city. I mean - in places with no rail or other. Using a car. 20 bags. Change the mindset, (see above). Why?
smaller trips if the stores are convenient and nearby... Why?
There's a running trend with all your responses - that if I liked something different in my life, then I would like something different in my life.
I respect your viewpoint. Why don't you respect mine?
I'll add on - I reviewed your original post, the start of all this - you're not wrong with many of your observations - but I'm not sure your conclusions follow.
This area has been shedding residents for years (at least 30). Once air travel became cheap - and it was suddenly a 2 hour trip to Daytona instead of a 24 hour drive - everything changed. People realized that Ohio-Gray doesn't have to be their destiny.
They learned there ARE places with lower taxes and less corruption and less pollution.
They began to shake the binds of family and career, and move to "greener pastures."
When the internet came along, it was possible to find a job before you moved - anxiety about moving was greatly lowered.
And many more reasons. The reasons to STAY in Cleveland were just not strong enough for some folks. Still aren't. Sports and Music and Theater and Water only go so far.
Your presumption that public transportation (and all the rest) were deal-breakers for these folks is just not borne out by the data. It's a good sentiment - and I love (good) rail systems when they work, a'la Germany, London, NYC - but they would not keep me from moving, any more than they lure me in. It's simply not a priority for me, or for many Americans.
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