where's the PD article showing all that development surrounding the healthline? :)

Here it is.

 

Thank you, the PDF in the article is really cool, but I was hoping for something more recent.  Gotta keep good things fresh in the minds of the public.

I just read that the city of Euclid is getting NOACA funds for streetscape improvements along Euclid Avenue.  It got me thinking, has there been any thought on extending the Healthline east?

No addtional BRT should be built until the current system reaches the level of service we were promised.  Prove it can actually work.  And for heaven's sake replace those ridiculous fare machines.  BRT has not earned a repeat purchase.

Lets stick with the Healthline folks

Has there been any thought on extending the HealthLine east?

 

You asked about "thoughts". I have no way of knowing what others are thinking, but there has not been any discussion of extending the line, which is experiencing ridership growth every month. All the factors that make the HealthLine a success for this stretch of Euclid Avenue may not be present in other areas of Euclid Avenue. 

 

The first step would be for a suburb to invite RTA to the table. Then there would a study to see if BRT would work, and at what level. Then, funding would have to be secured.

 

As RTA has said before, it is looking at other areas where BRT might be useful. Now that we know it works -- and works well -- it is part of the mix anytime improvements are considered in a corridor.

 

Thanks for asking.

^Jerry, do you have recent ridership numbers for the HealthLine?

Now that we know it works -- and works well -- it is part of the mix anytime improvements are considered in a corridor.

 

Based on what standard?  Just scanning through the previous page of this thread, it appears that there are still major operational problems.  If this is something that "works well," I'd hate to see what's considered a failure.

Probably just to them on a ridership figure. Not on customer satifaction

No addtional BRT should be built until the current system reaches the level of service we were promised.  Prove it can actually work.  And for heaven's sake replace those ridiculous fare machines.  BRT has not earned a repeat purchase.

 

If RTA had some foresight with this plan, they would've followed Curitiba, Brazil's example for the bus stations. In Curitiba the stations are raised, enclosed, large, and riders must pay for tickets in order to enter the station. Passengers can only enter/exit the bus if they are in the station (meaning THEY PAID!). The Euclid Corridor provides hundreds of free rides every day because it cannot control whether riders paid or not.

^Clearly such a system would be cost prohibitive given the number of stations.  There has to be another solution

^Clearly such a system would be cost prohibitive given the number of stations.  There has to be another solution

 

 

It would be cost prohibitive to install such an animated system NOW, and that's the problem the RTA faces. It can't afford to remake the stations, but it also can't afford the time to make each rider pay as they get on the bus :/ The ride between UC and Downtown would surely double!

^I am talking about staffing costs....with wages and benefits it would surely run into the millions.

Glad to hear the health line is a sucesss, but have the lights-timing issues been rectified?

The big problem is when the busses appear to get backed up, You see three in a row, the first bus picks everybody up, and the next two remain mostly empty. Its annoying when you are waiting for a bus traveling west and you see 4 buses go east within a 5 minute period and you have wait 30 minutes for a bus heading west and when it finally does come its so packed you almost cant even get on.

^I wonder if RTA has considered spontaneous express service when things get really bad.  Announcing in the front bus when at CSU, for example, that it won't stop again until E55th.  Passengers looking to go to skipped stops can get off and get on the tailgaiting bus behind.  It's pretty common even on some subway lines when things get too bunched.

^I am talking about staffing costs....with wages and benefits it would surely run into the millions.

 

In Curitiba, the stations are automated, you go through turnstiles after you swipe your cards. Manning all of our stations here would be ridiculous

^I wonder if RTA has considered spontaneous express service when things get really bad.  Announcing in the front bus when at CSU, for example, that it won't stop again until E55th.  Passengers looking to go to skipped stops can get off and get on the tailgaiting bus behind.  It's pretty common even on some subway lines when things get too bunched.

 

I like that idea.  Recently someone suggested express routes from the MM/CC to the hospitals, and the response was that this would amount to an illegal "charter" operation.  I don't understand... seems similar enough to the 55F.  Is there a minimum number of stops per mile required?

I think it would only be an illegal "charter" if they only served the MM/CC visitors/employees. I think they would be allowed to have a stop over there, allow anybody to ride, and then go to the hospitals. They just cant only allow certain people to ride, it has to be open to everybody.

 

In Curitiba, the stations are animated, you go through turnstiles after you swipe your cards. Manning all of our stations here would be ridiculous

 

 

You mean "automated." And I suppose something like this is possible here. But how do you know "hundreds" of free rides are given each day? The RTA police seem pretty vigilant in checking to see if people have paid. Having ridden many proof-of-payment transit services elsewhere, RTA's is one of the most heavily policed I've seen.

^???????????????? are you serious KJP????

 

I have honestly only been checked once on the healthline and ive rode it atleast 100 times and at all times of the day.

I get checked every time I ride, and I was even checked twice. All politics truly are local. :-D

^KJP- fixed the word, lol, thanks.

 

I've rode the Healthline ten times and I've NEVER been checked. I even approached the driver my first time on and said I couldn't get the machine to work; he let me ride for free with his boss next to him!

people without tickets just pay attention to if rta officers are getting on the bus and if they are they get off at that stop.  I have seen half of a bus unload at around e. 65th in the rain when the RTA officers got on.  It actually seems to have gotten better in the past year but it still happens a fair amount.

They should have a cop stay at the station and check the people getting off too lol.

What's the fine for riding without paying?

^ $2 lol

 

nah, im not sure.

I believe the fine is in the $70-$80 range.  Somebody can correct me if i'm wrong because I am not 100% sure on that.  I don't think its less than that (but might be lower for juveniles).

vienna has a system like ours, one can easily get on their metro system (one of the best in the world) without paying a dime. I bought monthly passes while I was there, and was checked every week or so. Sometimes more sometimes less.. but I think it is much more cost effective to do it that way, than to check every single rider.

I believe the fine is in the $70-$80 range.  Somebody can correct me if i'm wrong because I am not 100% sure on that.  I don't think its less than that (but might be lower for juveniles).

It's the cost of a monthly pass.

 

I've ridden a couple dozen times and have never been checked.

^Jerry, do you have recent ridership numbers for the HealthLine?

 

Comparing Feb. 2011 to Feb. 2010:

* Ridership up 2.5 percent, or 8,100 rides

* Total rides in Feb. 2011 -- 329,700

* Total rides, year-to-date -- 670,000, a 5 percent increase over 2010

 

Ridership has shown an increase every month since service began in Oct. 2008.

Now that we know it works -- and works well -- it is part of the mix anytime improvements are considered in a corridor.

 

Based on what standard?  Just scanning through the previous page of this thread, it appears that there are still major operational problems.  If this is something that "works well," I'd hate to see what's considered a failure.

 

Ridership has increased every month since service began, and development is still WAY up over other areas of Cleveland. Is the service perfect? No. Is RTA working on continual improvement? Yes. A good person -- or a good company -- is never satisfied, but always working on improvement.

^Is there an estimate on when the fare machines will be put at an adult height?

^^Jerry, just to make sure the request didn't get lost, do you have recent HealthLine ridership info you can share?

 

Also, is there an update on the software for the fare vending machines?  My apologies if it's been changed already, but I don't think I've heard anything for a long time.  Was the machine vendor paid?

 

[Keith, you beat me to it for the fare machine update!]

 

Thanks!

^^Jerry, just to make sure the request didn't get lost, do you have recent HealthLine ridership info you can share?

He posted it on the last page.

^Oops, I totally missed that.

 

Thanks Jerry!

Re: recent HealthLine ridership info, here's more:

* Calendar Year 2009: 3.924 million

* Calendar Year 2010: 4.169 million, up 6.2 percent

any numbers from before construction began? Wasn't the 6 a similar route?

I believe the fine is in the $70-$80 range.  Somebody can correct me if i'm wrong because I am not 100% sure on that.  I don't think its less than that (but might be lower for juveniles).

 

If so, how many fare jumpers are needed to avoid the fare to exceed the lost revenue from one fare jumper who is caught?

Re: recent HealthLine ridership info, here's more:

* Calendar Year 2009: 3.924 million

* Calendar Year 2010: 4.169 million, up 6.2 percent

 

Looks like Cincinnati councilman Winburn is using the HealthLine as a model to replace the ailing streetcar project down here. The going is that a $25 million federal transportation grant would be used to purchase the buses - which he calls trolleys. In an earlier article, unrelated to the streetcar, SORTA was studying BRT routes for the city, and one of the models toted was Cleveland's.

KJP - 31 unpaid passes.

 

Looks like Cincinnati councilman Winburn is using the HealthLine as a model to replace the ailing streetcar project down here. The going is that a $25 million federal transportation grant would be used to purchase the buses - which he calls trolleys. In an earlier article, unrelated to the streetcar, SORTA was studying BRT routes for the city, and one of the models toted was Cleveland's.

 

Interesting. Is he also noting that the 6.8-mile HealthLine (of which 4 miles is a true BRT) cost $200 million vs. $128 million for the Cincinnati Streetcar (is it 4 or 5 miles? -- I see different numbers out there).

any numbers from before construction began? Wasn't the 6 a similar route?

 

In 2004, before construction on Euclid started, the #6 bus route on Euclid boarded 2,941,560 riders (vs about 4.1 million riders in 2010 on the HealthLine). Gee, I'd call that an improvement.

 

That's the only year for which I have route-specific ridership data for all RTA bus routes (although I do have ridership data for Cleveland streetcar routes -- each of the top-five streetcar routes in the 1920s carried nearly as many people as the entire RTA system of today!).

 

KJP - 31 unpaid passes.

 

So while ridership data would be even better without fare-jumpers, the overall revenue may not be.  :-P

That's the only year for which I have route-specific ridership data for all RTA bus routes ...

If anyone is curious, NOACA has the numbers on their website for average weekday ridership 2005-2008. (The closest I've thing I've found to total ridership)

• http://www.noaca.org/05transitguide.pdf
  
• http://www.noaca.org/06transitguide.pdf
  
• http://www.noaca.org/07transitguide.pdf
  
• http://www.noaca.org/08transitguide.pdf

 

any numbers from before construction began? Wasn't the 6 a similar route?

 

In 2004, before construction on Euclid started, the #6 bus route on Euclid boarded 2,941,560 riders (vs about 4.1 million riders in 2010 on the HealthLine). Gee, I'd call that an improvement.

$200 million well spent  :roll:

 

For a completely rebuilt Euclid Avenue, including pipes and sewars and sidewalks, a brand new fleet of busses (BRT mobiles), more positive press than the city has seen in decades.  Not to mention that most of money came from federal transportation sources.  YES IT WAS VERY WELL SPENT!

BRT was not sold to us as a way to increase capacity on the 6 route, or as a way to replace the 6 route's buses.  Promises were made regarding the transit time and overall efficacy of the system.  RTA still has signs up promoting 20-minute rides to the Garfield Monument.  When that's the service level you advertise, achieving it doesn't mean you've somehow perfected mass transit... it means you just barely escaped the threshold of full blown failure.  Nobody is asking for perfection.  But the time has come for BRT to perform as advertised.  Not one soul in this county agreed to pay $200 million to increase capacity on the 6 route.  That was not the deal.  RTA has no business pretending it was.  And then there's the quality problem with the "shelters" and the fareboxes...

It's hard for me to believe average route speed hasn't increased some, and certainly the waiting environments are improved, so level of transit service has definitely increased as a result of the project.  An open question though is how much of the increased ridership is really due to the fixed costs v. the increased bus frequency and capacity (which weren't strictly dependent on the overall project).

 

Anyway, I agree the project hasn't delivered on the promised route speed, but considering the source of the money and the non-transit benefits, I wouldn't ever call it waste.  Pork might be bad for the federal budget, but it's insane to unilaterally disarm and let everyone else spend that money in their city instead.

 

Of course I'd still much rather have the dual hub train system now- and for operational reasons, not simple train > bus- but way too late to dwell on that now.

I'm happy about a rebuilt Euclid, $200 million is a lot for a bus route.

 

In 2004, before construction on Euclid started, the #6 bus route on Euclid boarded 2,941,560 riders (vs about 4.1 million riders in 2010 on the HealthLine). Gee, I'd call that an improvement.

$200 million well spent  :roll:

 

 

 

I'm a rail guy and I think it was $200 million well spent. I'd prefer rail. I'd prefer traffic signals that actually keep buses moving. But the investment caused many developers to change how and where they would invest their dollars. I have no doubt that most of the projects along the Euclid Corridor would have happened, but some may not have happened in the city, and most would not have been designed/placed "on the sidewalk" including some with ground-floor mixed use.

 

And even if you don't care for the transit angle (which still caused a 30% percent ridership increase over 2004), we ripped out four miles of 19th-century street infrastructure in a very complicated urban setting and replaced it with a 21st-century street.

If you want to complain about wasted transportation money, please turn your attention to the innerbelt.

any numbers from before construction began? Wasn't the 6 a similar route?

 

I have 2007 data, during the construction:

 

2004 - 2,941,560 riders

2007 - 2,597,767

2010 - 4.1 million