LifeLongClevelander

If this type of incident happens a few more times, it will be the beginning of the end of Pinecrest the same way it led to the end of Randall Park Mall, Euclid Square Mall, Richmond Town Square Mall and is a contributing factor in the decline of Beachwood Place Mall. Pinecrest has already been facing financial issues (ownership transferred to lender due to looming foreclosure). This will only make matters worse. Once a reputation of a problem spot is achieved, it is finished.

Jeff Johnson was #3 in the primary. Zach Reed was #2 and faced off against Jackson that November. It is just a sad state of affairs when a city of Cleveland's size ends up having such a poor slate of candidates running for mayor. The really unfortunate part of it is that it has happened for multiple mayoral elections.

You hit a lot of points. LaTourette got to the bottom of the numbers that were used, found major errors and got the decision changed. Kucinich and Tubbs-Jones did nothing. Both of those two were only good at making noise. I don't recall any legislation that Tubbs-Jones sponsored either. I also recall that LaTourette got a major defense contract changed that had to do for special coating. He pointed out that a local company made the same kind of product that was on a contract originally going to a foreign company. Not only was the supplier from this area, but it was less expensive, too. He spearheaded the move towards supporting awarding contracts to domestic companies. Nothing like that was ever accomplished by Kucinich. As for Kucinich's administration, they were all ineffective and inexperienced. He had something like FOUR police chiefs in his two year term. He fired Hongisto after six weeks on the job. The firing happened on live television and that event triggered the recall election that Kucinich nearly lost. After he lost his re-election bid to Voinovich, I happened to cross paths with someone who was one of Kucinich's major advisors. This person had no business being significant advisor to a big-city mayor. The lack of that person's relevant experience and knowledge was plain to see. Another point on the nothing that Kucinich accomplished in Congress was introducing legislation to help Cleveland. In 2009-2010, the Democratic Party held an unstoppable majority in Congress. Everything that any Democrat wanted passed and signed into law was done. He and Fudge (another one who did little after replacing Tubbs-Jones) could have easily introduced legislation to fund RTA's rail car replacement. The replacement rail cars would have already been in service for seven or eight years by now. RTA wouldn't be saddled with its worn-out fleets where they have to scrounge parts to keep fewer and fewer cars in service. The system wouldn't be forced to cobble together the funding they are seeking now.

Around 2005, a large Federal agency was going to pull out of Cleveland. Kucinich and Tubbs-Jones didn't do anything to try to stop it. LaTourette put his office to work on challenging the findings and found that incorrect numbers were used in making the original decision. That agency, at the time, employed about 1100 employees directly plus another 1300-1400 contractors. Due to LaTourette's efforts, the decision was changed and the agency stayed, in fact jobs from other cities came to Cleveland as a result. About 5 years later, that agency in-sourced many of those contractors. LaTourette knew how devastating the loss of around 2500 jobs would be for the area, let alone Cleveland. He saw the bigger picture, even though his congressional district did not include any part of Cleveland and only a small part of Cuyahoga County. When banks were pulling out their operations and headquarters in Cleveland, where was Kucinich in trying to get them to stay? How many hundreds (probably thousands) of jobs were lost? He didn't bother to do anything about those losses and this area lost more jobs. He probably didn't care due to his dislike of banks in general. Does this area and Cleveland need him and his concepts of government again? We may never know how much his "leadership" on the local level has hurt Cleveland.

There is a very easy way to see how expansion and contraction affects infrastructure. Look at utility lines. How often does one see the reverse loops in the lines? Quite frequently. It allows the line to expand and contract for heat and cold. If those loops did not exist, the lines would break. To put the hyperloop underground to minimize the expansion and contraction would cause the cost of it to skyrocket. The "Big Dig" in Boston cost way, way more than that project was ever projected. One thing is hardly ever questioned concerns the hyperloop capacity. The website claims that 164,000 passengers can be carried a day or 82,000 in each direction. Capsules carrying between 28 and 40 passengers would have to depart every 30 to 45 seconds around the clock to meet that total. For whatever reason one of those capsules comes to a complete stop, how quickly will it take for the following capsules come to a stop while travelling at around 700 mph? Will anybody want to be in the stopped capsule or one of the other ones that will be right behind it?

Then there are two politicians that dumb with sore feet, worn out shoes and nothing to show for it.

Kucinich had one issue to hang his mayoral stint in 1978-79: Muny Light. The rest of his tenure as mayor was chaos. With the ability to purchase electricity from other suppliers at rates lower than what can be purchased from either First Energy and Muny Light, the electrical supplier issue doesn't carry the impact that it did over 40 years ago. After his two years as mayor, what did he accomplish? A short stint back on city council and two years in the state senate. He decided to "walk the state" to try to become governor. In 1996, he won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. During that 16-year tenure, he was the sponsor of only 3 pieces of legislation that were no more than ceremonial, token measures. What did he introduce to Congress to help Cleveland and Northern Ohio? (hint: nothing) Oh, he did do something while in Congress as he ran for president in 2004 and 2008. For all his bluster about going after big, bad business, he was able to "play the game" and to make the most of the presidential campaign funding. He was able to "benefit" personally, until he got caught and had to pay it back. He should go back to focusing on aliens; the kind that are not of this world.

From what I have read, the revenue increase was put on hold due to the belief it would do very badly, but I got the impression that it was only on hold. At some point it will be put to a county vote. Perhaps the tactic to try to get it passed is to link the passage to the restoration of now curtailed or drastically reduced suburban services. I do believe that those managers are in denial that they are the reasons behind RTA's decline. It is far easier for them to blame everything else for their problems and not themselves.

RTA is erratic when it comes to making things easier for is riders. When the 239 was in operation, approximately half that bus route's riders got off at the Federal Building, yet that bus did not stop at the building. There were people who found that the walk across Lakeside was an issue (due to physical problems). There were some drivers who were sympathetic and made it a stop, but most didn't. There were multiple requests to make it a stop, but RTA refused. The current 39F and 39 don't stop there either. Laketran has their park-n-ride buses stop right in front of the building. On the other hand, when the management of a certain restaurant in the Galleria (that will be moving to the AECOM building next year) complained about a stop near their outdoor dining area, RTA moved it. Complaints concerning poor operators that regularly caused people to miss connections for other routes yielded no actions. As for RTA's disdain for suburban riders, they are playing a dangerous game. It is a foregone conclusion that they will be going to the county's voters in the foreseeable future for to seek either an increase to the sales tax or a new property tax. How favorably will residents who were users of the former North Olmsted, Maple Heights or Euclid bus systems think of the service they now receive? Commuters who used the park-n-ride services have lost those routes except for the Strongsville service. Some suburbs barely have any regular service at all. There are those who haven't forgotten the cutting back of Green Line service with the last trip leaving downtown at 9:00 pm for a year (except for random special events). It was useless to take the Green Line for any evening baseball, basketball, hockey, concert or other event. If suburban riders do not feel they receive any benefit by the services that RTA provides, will they be inclined to increase taxes to pay for those services, especially with the well-publicized management problems?

Maybe the FTA looking over RTA's shoulder was more than that. Maybe they were strongly "suggested" by the FTA to start over and get it right. Perhaps the delay in advertising for new proposals is getting reviewed by the FTA before it is put out. Other previous incidents have indicated that internal oversight is strongly lacking and the rail car replacement process is just another example of RTA's flawed internal review.

Traditional heavy rail rapid transit should not be considered going forward in Cleveland. The ridership on the system does not warrant it as things currently stand. Light rail is already in use and there is absolutely no reason why it cannot be adopted as the system-wide standard. Nationally, most new rapid transit construction follows the light rail model. With the proven technology for LRV's to support both high and low platforms currently in use, there isn't a valid reason why it cannot be used here. Furthermore, adopting one standard rail vehicle for system-wide use is the most prudent fiscal solution for RTA to embrace. For a system where its leaders have cried out for better funding, they need to operate the system in the best fiscal manner. Eliminating the duplication required to support multiple incompatible rail fleets will go a long way towards better financial management. Also, ordering two different small rail fleets will result in significantly higher costs per rail car, not to mention the higher ongoing operating/maintenance costs for their service lives. This system does not have the scope where supporting multiple types of rail cars is needed, especially when they already share common track and facilities.

RTA's Central Rail Maintenance Facility was designed specifically for the rail fleets they currently have. The biggest problem in the facility is the transfer table that is used to move rail cars from one side of the shop to the other. The longest rail car it can handle is not much bigger than the 77-foot long Breda LRV's. As the Tokyu HRV's are 75-foot long (uncoupled), they have no problem. I don't think going though the labor-intensive effort to disconnect two semi-permanently joined cars will be feasible. It has been quite a while since I was in the facility, but I don't know if some of the inside tracks are accessible by any method other than shifting via the transfer table. The other significant issue involves the hydraulic lifts that are set in the concrete floor. There are specific ones spaced for the jacking points of an articulated Breda LRV (3 trucks per car with the middle one under the articulation point). There are others that are set for the jacking points of the 2-truck Tokyu HRV's. Back when they still had some of the older PCC's, Bluebirds and Airporters, only one pair of jacks could be used. The other end needed to be lifted with portable jacks. As no company will accommodate RTA's limitations, it may be extremely expensive to be able to modify the building to service 150-foot long rail car pairs. It would take a huge amount of clear space to be able to operate a transfer table of over 150 feet long. There may be other restrictions where track work cannot be changed for access points and switches. Hopefully if RTA does go with an articulated LRV to serve all lines, only the hydraulic jacks need to be spaced differently in part of the shop.

Well, that is unfortunate, considering that it has been done before and in the long run, a huge labor-saving feature. It is not some sort of new, revolutionary concept. Considering labor is one of the biggest, if not the biggest on-going cost transit agencies are faced with, to take a step backward is not an improvement. Even if it is more expensive initially to build a fleet in that manner (non-permanently joined pairs), in the long run it will be a big money saver. I just hope that the whole heavy rail, high-platform only operation is essentially going to be gone in RTA's future. Pre-pandemic, RTA's Red Line's ridership was under 6 million passengers in 2019 and the last time it was over 7 million was in 2008. From its inception in the 1950's for CTS, the heavy rail line has never lived up to the projected ridership numbers. In transit operations, the Red Line's ridership is more like a light rail line. The technology is proven to have one type of rail car to serve both high and low platforms. The people who run RTA should have the knowledge and common sense should see this and stop making the same repeat mistakes. There is also something else to consider. The fact that no builders would even entertain the idea of making paired heavy rail rapid transit cars that could be coupled and uncoupled easily for RTA, shows how little the system is viewed in rail transit. Major systems that have big orders and can be expected to be making repeat orders in the not-too-distant future are "respected". Prospective builders show this respect by incorporating "special wishes" for bid packages. The builders know that the potential for major repeat business for these systems are a possibility. Rail car builders don't see this in RTA. RTA's order is small and will need to conform to unnecessary features. There are serious questions about its leadership. Add-on options will probably be exercised, but even then the complete order will be fairly small. Based upon past history, it will be decades before RTA will even contemplate its next rail car purchase. For a major builder like Siemens, this order is no more than a gap-filler.

Done right, paired heavy rail cars CAN be separated; it is one thing that RTA got correct with the current fleet of heavy rail cars on the Red Line. 181-200 are single units with full controls at both ends. 301-340 are "pairs", but those cars have full controls at one end and "hostler" controls at the other for yard/shop movements. Standard couplers are at both ends. All cars from that fleet can be mixed, just as long as full controls are at each end of a train. If one car of a "pair" has problems, all it takes is a simple uncoupling and it can be coupled with another car in minutes, be it another from the 301-series or one of the single units. "Traditional" married pairs have a draw bar to connect the pairs together. It would take many hours to separate and connect those types of pairs for service. From the original heavy rail fleet dating from the 1950's, the 201-270 fleet were of that sort of married pair configuration. Only 101-118 were single units from that fleet. The 151-180 series Airporters from 1967 and 1970 were all single units. All three heavy rail fleets could not be operated together in one train. Based upon the ridership trends on RTA, it is not practical to run 2-car consists around the clock. Each of the current heavy rail cars is 75 feet long. Unless it is a peak period, a single car is more than sufficient to carry the off-peak ridership. There is no need to run multiple-unit consists of 150 feet. A single car has 4 motors and axles. Double that for all service and that practically doubles the cost of operation, less the cost of a second operator. It doubles electrical consumption, mechanical wear-and-tear on the equipment and the labor to maintain it. At this point, it makes no sense for RTA to continue with unique heavy rail and light rail fleets. The merits of one common fleet have been mentioned many times. Hopefully the idea of separate heavy and light rail fleets is a thing of the past.

A nice option is to have near the station at E.17-Euclid is a junction (or shifting around the station/junction)with an extension of the Waterfront Line. With the possibility of dual-platform rail cars coming, the options for flexibility become even better.

People who buy into this presentation are going to be disappointed in the results. Yes, redevelopment of a dead mall, one that has been dying for many years, will be an improvement. School district impact? The state of both Richmond Heights Schools (former Sears property and to the north) and South Euclid-Lyndhurst Schools (south of the old Sears building) isn't going to be a lure for families wishing to have their children attend a top-ranked school district. Richmond Heights Schools are ranked in the bottom 5% of the state and SE-L is ranked in the bottom 10% of the state. Wouldn't be surprised for ongoing poor school district performance (and the need for school levies) to be "blamed" on the lack of money received from the project. As for the apartments, one can use the tag "luxury" however they want, but in the end it can be meaningless. In the last few years, the Richmond Park Apartments, now known as 444 Park, were re-done and that complex got the "luxury" tag applied. It is the source of quite a few police calls regularly. It was the source of many police calls before the apartments were re-done and afterwards it made no difference.

Unfortunately, Krumholz's opposition to rapid transit growth came at a key time. After he helped to kill the extension to I-271, RTA sold off the right-of-way beyond Sulgrave Road (border of Shaker Heights and Beachwood) to Beachwood. At least the right-of-way is still intact and held by local government. If, by some miracle the desire to extend the line beyond Green Road becomes more of a reality, the loss of perhaps 50 feet of width out of the 500-foot wide median would not be a massive loss of green space. A potential extension could be shifted so that the tracks would be next to the westbound lanes of Shaker Blvd to minimize the disruptions. It would still leave 450 feet of that median undisturbed.

Despite the fact that there really was no reason to continue with the two different rail car fleets in the late 1970's and and early 1980's when the Breda LRV and Tokyu HRV fleets were ordered, they did do one thing right with the heavy rail cars back then. I felt that going with paired cars that were coupled together was a better choice instead of being semi-permanently joined via draw bars. 181-200 were single cars with full controls at both ends. 301-340 were the paired cars with full controls at one end and "hostler" controls (for yard/shop movements) at the other. If something was wrong with one car of a "pair" set while the other was perfectly fine, it wouldn't take many hours to disconnect and join it with another good car. A single unit could even be coupled with one of the 301-series to comprise a two-car set in minutes (and I have seen that practice used). The problem is that RTA's rail system ridership has declined to such a point that for most of the day, multiple-unit consists aren't needed. Operating two cars around-the-clock is extremely wasteful in energy consumption and wear-and-tear on the equipment. Furthermore, continuing with the separate fleet option does cost far more in the long run with doubling up everything. If RTA's leaders (they aren't managers--that is insulting to real managers) think they are "smarter than everyone else", a tiny order of 40 or fewer units that will meet their unique needs, it will be so expensive per-unit. If they cannot gather interest in manufacturer on a larger fleet, it will be even harder to get it for smaller fleets. It is painfully obvious that the incompetence is continuing. Birdsong, even on maternity leave, shouldn't have deputies with free reign to do whatever they want if it doesn't align with her vision when she isn't in the office. If they don't follow her wishes, they should be gone. If she doesn't care, she should be gone. A real "bright spot" wouldn't let this continue. Funding stipulations come from above all the time. If RTA's leaders cannot get unified enough to go with one rail car for the entire system, money being awarded to them to replace the fleet needs to have those strings attached.

Has RTA's actions of being the "bully dwarf" backfired upon the agency once again? I heard a rumor that for whatever reason, be it the short time to review the massive specifications, a small window to view the rail shop and other constraints has led to no interest whatsoever by any rail car manufacturer in bidding on this order. Essentially, a fairly small order, even with options to expand it to include additional rail cars isn't worth the bother, nor the custom stuff included would have no marketability to other systems. RTA's so-called "management" needs to get over itself and come to the realization that in a country and world with competent leadership in operating transit systems, this system is viewed as a joke of an operation and not worth the bother. As it stands right now, any potential rail car manufacturers have ample enough in the way of orders, they can afford to walk away from this one as it won't be worth it. RTA needs to come up with the realization that off-the-shelf, tried-and-proven and successful equipment with an excellent track record is really good enough to sustain an otherwise declining operation. People want good, reliable, comfortable and safe transit service, not a bunch of unproven and expensive stuff that turns into being unreliable and failure.

By the early-mid 1990's all of North Olmsted's buses were provided by RTA. The last of their green and orange General Motors buses for the city's operation were purchased new in 1975. One of the 1975 models was retained by that city for historical purposes. Another pre-1959 bus was rescued from a junk yard and was completely rebuilt for historical purposes as well.

The North Olmsted buses had a "NOMBL" logo on them. It stood for "North Olmsted Municipal Bus Lines". When the suburban systems had operating agreements while they were separate entities, the RTA logo also had "Part of of RTA System". To provide additional service, RTA supplied each system with additional buses. Some of the buses (2 or 3 per suburban system) were part of the last CTS order of 152 buses delivered in early 1975, just before RTA started operations. These were the second group of regular transit buses acquired by CTS that had air conditioning. The other group of 100 air conditioned buses came in 1971. They differed from the earlier CTS buses by being white with blue and green stripes. Older CTS buses were blue, except for the 30 orange buses used in downtown Loop service. RTA also supplied older buses that were temporarily stored when the 152 buses entered service in 1975. 200 buses mostly dating from 1959 to 1962 were restored to service as ridership surged with the implementation of 25 cent local and 35 cent express bus fares. The reactivation of 200 buses was intended to be a temporary, stopgap measure. In 1978, 143 AM General buses arrived followed by 157 General Motors buses in 1979. Unfortunately, the AM General buses were a very poor design. In particular, the frames were very weak and broke easily. This plagued that bus model in every city that operated them. RTA stored a large number of them in a field next to the Brook Park Rail Shop while litigation was pursued. Some were rebuilt by RTA, but most were scrapped long before they should have. With the failure of such a large number of new buses that were intended to replace the older buses, it caused severe equipment shortages that forced RTA to reactivate older retired buses, then lease and purchase others.

Maple Heights operated quite a few "old look" style transit coaches (1958 and before), even into their time under an operating agreement with RTA. Calabrese did his "arm twisting" to wipe out both the Maple Heights and North Olmsted systems. If they did not agree to give up their operations to RTA, they were going to be dropped. By the time this happened, both systems had not purchased any new equipment and over the years, became totally dependent on buses that RTA provided. I recall the first "bus crisis" that RTA faced in the early 1980's. Due to the failure of the 143 AM General buses that were purchased in 1978, RTA was facing huge problems in keeping enough equipment on the streets. The AM General buses were a complete failure everywhere, not just in Cleveland. That fleet was the first order of new buses received by RTA after its creation. Due to the age of the rest of RTA's fleet, much of it was worn out. They even pressed back into service the retired "old look" buses from the Euclid system just to keep enough buses running. The problems were finally lessened when RTA first leased and then purchased 50 retired buses from Atlanta, Georgia and other new General Motors buses were purchased.

I don't have a single transit system in mind, but systems at the top of my list for the US in no particular order: Boston, Chicago, New York, San Diego and San Francisco are all top systems. Though not in the US, Toronto also has an excellent system.

When RTA was created, the Cleveland Transit System was the largest transit system, so RTA essentially became an extension of CTS and it became the dominant controlling stakeholder. The City of Shaker Heights was glad to unload its rapid transit lines. It was no longer turning a profit out of farebox revenue and the equipment was nearing the point of replacement. The cost of replacement was something that city had no appetite to be saddled with. At least the head of their maintenance operation went on to be a part of the combined rapid transit division. The five suburban transit systems had operating agreements with RTA. They maintained their own facilities and base of operations. Euclid was the first to be absorbed by RTA in 1979. About half of Euclid's bus fleet dated before 1959. Garfield Heights was the second system to give up its city transit operations in 1982. That system's bus fleet was old and run down. Brecksville was the next to give in to RTA in 1984. Brecksville's city service was mainly a commuter service to downtown and that fleet wasn't very large. Maple Heights and North Olmsted were the last hold-outs. Those cities were strong-armed by Calabrese to give up their systems. When those systems surrendered their operations to RTA, each of those cities ended up losing the excellent transit services their systems provided. In particular, North Olmsted had an extremely talented group of mechanics that regularly rebuilt buses to the frame as part of major overhauls. As for Krumholtz, his voice helped kill a proposed rapid transit extension of the Green Line to I-271. Ramps directly from that freeway would have been connected to a large parking lot at the end of the line. His "reasoning" was that nobody would use a north-south freeway to ride an east-west rapid transit line. His anti-rail bias refused to accept that people would just use a part of that north-south freeway to bypass other east-west freeways and use that rapid transit to complete their trips.

RTA's rail car purchase is one of the most significant purchases it will make in decades. It will literally be indicative of the direction that this transit system takes for many years. Birdsong is the head of this agency. She may not be involved with every minuscule and mundane day-to-day decision that is made in RTA, but she had better be involved in this. Unless she is being carted into the delivery room, she can be involved in the decision making and guidance processes for this purchase. If she "cannot be bothered" and the fallout means the rail car purchase turns into another fiasco while she passes the blame, she is just as incompetent as the rest of RTA's leadership. Most certainly then she is definitely not "a new bright spot for RTA". If it that is true, it is all an act and has people fooled. Professionally, if she bungles this, she should harbor no aspirations of leading another major, definitely not bigger, transit system in this country. She will either get years, if not decades, of bonuses, contract extensions and raises of running RTA into more years of mediocrity and declining ridership counts. Either that, or she should look up Calabrese for other career opportunities.