cleveland1979

The ads are very good though! Very simply, but creative and interesting. Get those babies on TV!

touchy little group on here! wow... Why doesn't RTA post those short commercials on their website? A little promotion is a good thing. how are people going to see them on the ad agency's website?

Edited by moderation for trolling/content inconsistent with the constructive intent of this thread. - Robert Pence

Did RTA consider running the Trolley this weekend? I was thinking it would have been cool to shuttle people from Tower City to the Rock Hall. Maybe charge $1? Just a thought.

I have a friend in the Bay Area who sent me the link below. Their bus fleet is implementing a similar system in the name of "safety," but the only thing it seems to be doing right now is annoying everyone around a turning bus! http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/18/BAMR15TDN6.DTL If there were some evidence that this kind of system works, I'd shut up (or maybe I should just shut up anyways!) :-)

I take two bus routes per day, and I've definitely noticed the two drivers have been using their turn signals less and less, presumably because they don't want to listen to the noises their bus makes all day.

It is Rock Hall Induction week... maybe the beeping could be changed to snippets of hit music. The #45 is turning at Public Square, maybe we could hear a little Skynyrd. The #26 is cruising down Detroit and changes lanes... we hear a little REM. :-)

If the beeping makes people start craving Big Mac's, then McDonald's should start giving away earplugs as an incentive to get people to stop for lunch!

You've had to listen to them for years? My condolences... :-)

Does anyone else think that adding these incessant dinging noises will only anger a public whose image of RTA is already soured? The pedestrian accident in Public Square last week is still fresh in the minds of Clevelanders... and now RTA is forcing everyone to listen to a chorus of dinging buses around town? Sounds like a public relations nightmare.

I agree! I believe the beeping really brings our city's urban "atmosphere" down a few notches. We have a lot of people in town for the Rock 'n Roll Induction and what a bizarre way of introducing out-of-towners to our mass transit. Is there evidence this beeping buses thing has worked in another city somewhere? And I agree with the above post -- I live AND work downtown. Eventually I'll tune out this "beeping" as background noise. No rhetoric... :wink:

I am certainly not in the minority of those upset by the latest round of "innovations" coming from West 6th. They need to be challenged.

This beeping buses thing wasn't in any Rider's Alerts or literature on the website simply because -- RTA JUST CAME UP WITH IT! Jerry said this is some kind of pilot project that was in the works for a while. Uh huh! I guess it's just coincidence that a pedestrian was mowed down in Public Square last week while you were working on the "beeping buses" project. Too bad you guys hadn't finished the project a week ahead of time, I guess it could have saved the man's life. RTA's brilliant idea of equipping all buses with "beeping noises" is a knee jerk reaction to their failure to control the justifiable media outrage over the pedestrian death in Public Square.

Jerry is also not very clear on this. It doesn't start beeping simply if the bus TURNS right or left, but actually starts if the driver activates his/her blinker -- even if the bus changes lanes or merges with traffic. Amazing. This won't last... dear lord, let's hope not.

I find it stunning that all of our city buses will now be equipped with this incessant, annoying alarm whenever the blinkers are activated. That's all I heard downtown today. I didn't know which alarm was coming from which bus. Who in their right mind came up with this?

I just don't know why someone at RTA thought this would be effective long term. It's almost like they're saying, "Look, everyone, we're doing something!" in response to the accident. But pedestrians are going to run across the street and bus drivers are going to be distracted... it just comes with the territory. Making every bus beep when the blinker comes on just seems laughable to me -- especially when they're ALL doing it in Public Square.

Ok, let me begin by saying that I don't know of ANY public transportation system in the country that has ever resorted to outfitting their buses with alarms whenever the blinker is activated to avoid pedestrian collisions. I was walking through Public Square during lunch and found myself lost in a sea of bus "alarm noises." I didn't know which bus was sounding which alarm. They all had their blinkers on and all were emitting noises. I wouldn't have known if the bus was behind me, in front of me, beside me or on top of me! I can only assume that RTA is doing this as a gesture of response against a wave of media criticism regarding the pedestrian death a week ago. But, in reality, rehiring the female bus driver who had previously mowed down a pedestrian was the actual cause of the accident. Of course, I can naturally predict RTA's justification to this new "bus alarm policy," but I think there needs to be some kind of evidence that this has worked elsewhere in the country. Personally, hiring and training competent bus drivers who are fully aware of their surroundings 100% of the time (even jaywalking pedestrians) should be the first and most important step towards safety. All one will hear downtown now are bus alarm noises. How long before they become "white noise" and lose their effectiveness as much as a fire alarm that goes off in a building everyday. Soon enough, you ignore it!

You're a good man, Jerry.

Yeah, I'm wondering about those automated announcements, too. They sound REALLY bad... it would almost be better without them. The stops never change, so why isn't it a normal human voice simply recorded and then played back every time the train makes a stop? They do that in Chicago. I'm not sure why it has to be some strange computer woman voice... even when she says "RTA" it sounds really choppy and bad... yuck.