Our poor dying Rapid system. What an embarrassment. 

 

3 hours ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

Our poor dying Rapid system. What an embarrassment. 

 

what the heck happened at Tri-C from 2018 to 2019?  2018 to 2020 looks like a nice increase.  Tough to read too much into just four years.

 

Speculating -- with the COVID-induced change to a preference to working from home, there's not nearly as much need to go downtown to Tower City.  Which also means that there is less travel back from downtown out to the outer stations. 

 

And while there's been a huge increase in workers at the Cleveland Clinic in the past decade, RTA rail stations are not conveniently located to get to the Clinic (plus, Opportunity Corridor opened in this time, making the drive time to this area shorter from the south and west).  The bunching buses on the Healthline that have been discussed elsewhere suggests that catching the Healthline bus from a Red Line station to the Clinic might not be helping Red line traffic either.

8 hours ago, Foraker said:

what the heck happened at Tri-C from 2018 to 2019?  2018 to 2020 looks like a nice increase.  Tough to read too much into just four years.

 

Speculating -- with the COVID-induced change to a preference to working from home, there's not nearly as much need to go downtown to Tower City.  Which also means that there is less travel back from downtown out to the outer stations. 

 

And while there's been a huge increase in workers at the Cleveland Clinic in the past decade, RTA rail stations are not conveniently located to get to the Clinic (plus, Opportunity Corridor opened in this time, making the drive time to this area shorter from the south and west).  The bunching buses on the Healthline that have been discussed elsewhere suggests that catching the Healthline bus from a Red Line station to the Clinic might not be helping Red line traffic either.

 

That station makes a good transfer point for anyone coming from the south, I used it a lot when I was going from Maple to Case.   

 

If they ever decide to lay a little more track, they really should put the western terminus of one of the Shaker lines at CC not downtown.

46 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

That station makes a good transfer point for anyone coming from the south, I used it a lot when I was going from Maple to Case.   

 

If they ever decide to lay a little more track, they really should put the western terminus of one of the Shaker lines at CC not downtown.

Which station are you talking about?

 

I fully agree that the best Rapid expansion would be Shaker Square to UC to Cleveland Clinic. I think this would be the best route, although I would reduce the number of stations from my previous proposal below. Connecting both UH and CC to all the apartments along the Blue Line in Shaker would be wonderful. 
 

26 minutes ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

Which station are you talking about?

 

 

"Tri C Campus District", which sitting on Broadway at E.34th isn't particularly close to either but  allowed one to jump on any of the Rapid lines heading east without having to go all the way downtown.

2 hours ago, E Rocc said:

 

"Tri C Campus District", which sitting on Broadway at E.34th isn't particularly close to either but  allowed one to jump on any of the Rapid lines heading east without having to go all the way downtown.

Ah yes, now I follow. I’m still surprised it made sense coming from Maple - were you taking a bus direct to Tri C station or riding the Shaker Lines? If riding Shaker Lines, why transfer at E34 instead of E55?

3 minutes ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

Ah yes, now I follow. I’m still surprised it made sense coming from Maple - were you taking a bus direct to Tri C station or riding the Shaker Lines? If riding Shaker Lines, why transfer at E34 instead of E55?

 

Maple Heights Transit (still semi-autonomous) up Broadway.  The 55th station is a bit of a hike from Broadway, it was closer to my grandparents' house on 65th off Francis.

With University Circle threatening to overtake downtown as Northeast Ohio's jobs hub, the fact that there's only one rail line through UC and doesn't serve a ridership base east of it is very unfortunate. Cleveland Clinic plans to build two more parking garages. Why not use that money for the local share of extending one of the Shaker Lines to UC? The Shaker Connector was estimated to cost $120 million in the mid-1990s. Today, it would probably be about $200 million. Save the cost of the flying junction connection with the Red Line and use the savings to extend the connector a couple of station stops into Cleveland Clinic. 

Perhaps not ideal, but if the rail cars are unified couldn't RTA run a route on the Shaker line west bound to E55 then turning East bound on the redline tracks?

22 minutes ago, freefourur said:

Perhaps not ideal, but if the rail cars are unified couldn't RTA run a route on the Shaker line west bound to E55 then turning East bound on the redline tracks?

 

Yes, and it would be about the same travel time as if you transferred to the #48 at Shaker Square -- if you were going to someplace like Uptown in UC. But if you were going to the Cleveland Clinic, it would be much faster to just transfer from the Shaker lines to the fairly frequent #10 and go up East 105th. 

 

However, here's a dream scenario including serving a redeveloped Burke Airport. The Blue & Green Lines become a single line called the Turquoise Line.... 😎

 

 

 

 

I moved the proposal conversation over to the ideas for the future thread. 

 

Since no one rides the Rapid to work at a downtown office anymore, gotta find a new use for these Cold War-era trains 

 

 

 

BTW.....

 

It looks like the Sidetrack Tavern won't be demolished after all.

 

I wrote about it last year but there seems to be some information that the bar and its building will remain.

 

Of course, lots of RTA workers from the Triskett garage visit there -- hopefully after they've clocked out from their shift.

 

Don't want to get anyone in trouble....

 

Of course!

really highlights how little there is around most redline stations

6 hours ago, Whipjacka said:

really highlights how little there is around most redline stations

 

Yep. Built in the 50s as a park-n-ride. Toronto built their subways at the same time as our Red Line but below neighborhoods rather than next to railroads and industrial areas as we did. Then they promoted new high-rises atop retail podiums next to stations. Genius or common sense?

You can't even promote RTA anymore without getting embarrassed 

 

 

19 minutes ago, KJP said:

You can't even promote RTA anymore without getting embarrassed 

 

 

One reason that I would take RTA's rapid to get to/from sporting events or concerts at RM Field House.  If that service is not going to be reliable and results in some round-about substitute replacement bus service, I won't bother using RTA.  Then again, the geniuses at RTA's scheduling department were behind having the last Green Line departure from Tower City at 9:00 pm.  So out-of-touch with reality.  No evening baseball game, basketball game, hockey game or concert ends before 9:00 pm.  It only took them a year to see the foolishness of that scheduling.  New management and equipment cannot come soon enough.  Then again, with damages inflicted over many years, it may already be too late.

On 11/3/2022 at 11:10 PM, Whipjacka said:

really highlights how little there is around most redline stations

 

At least at W. 117th you can head west into Birdtown and there's East End, Flying Rib, Winchester (.3 mi) and also LBM and Griffin Cider House (.4 mi). 

On 11/4/2022 at 9:00 AM, KJP said:

 

Yep. Built in the 50s as a park-n-ride. Toronto built their subways at the same time as our Red Line but below neighborhoods rather than next to railroads and industrial areas as we did. Then they promoted new high-rises atop retail podiums next to stations. Genius or common sense?

The original Toronto subway was built under Yonge Street.  Yonge Street was already basically at capacity traffic-wise.  The streetcars were limited to trailer-trains (a motorized unit pulling a trailer).  Due to the limitations of the city blocks, 3-unit consists could not be used or they would block intersections.  They filled the need of populace of providing the service to the area that the Yonge route operated.  They eventually extended the Yonge subway beyond downtown on University.  The same thing happened for the Bloor-Danforth streetcar line.  Surface street capacity was more than maxed out.  Again, they were limited to 2-unit consists for the same reason that limited consists on Yonge.  They originally operated motor-trailer consists and then 2-car PCC trains (TTC did test a 3-car PCC train, but it never operated in service).  In the 1960's, the original Bloor-Danforth subway section opened, with extensions eventually added to both ends.  By removing the transit vehicles from traffic, they were able to speed up service and continue to provide direct service to the areas once served by the streetcar lines.  Much more expensive, but it continued to directly serve the areas that had and needed transit service. 

 

As @KJPstated, CTS built their rapid next to the railroads "on the cheap".  It was really on the cheap after diverging from the shared Shaker Rapid tracks going out to Windermere using the right-of-way prepared by the Van Swerigens back in the late 1920's and early 1930's.  The right-of-way, bridges and even partially constructed stations from the original construction were used.  After East 120th and Euclid, they stopped serving residential areas.  At least Cedar-University Circle served an important area, but due to petty, narrow-minded thinking, they would not use the station that was started at Mayfield Road as that was being served by the competitor Redifer Bus Line.  Even though Redifer was acquired in 1964 by CTS, it took over 1/2 century to correct the mistake of 1955. 

 

The East 105th Street area of Euclid Avenue was once a second major theater district.  The Cedar-University Circle and East 105th-Quincy stations of the heavy rail line were too distant to serve any useful purpose for theater goers.  The East 79th, East 55th and East 34th stations did little else but provide stations for nearby industries (until many closed).  Imagine what could have been if the heavy rail line would have continued under Euclid Avenue that up until the end of streetcar service had heavy ridership.    

 

 

Even into the 1970s, it would take us a good 20 minutes to drive from our dentist appointments downtown to and through University Circle in heavy traffic on either Euclid or Carnegie. And the Dual Hub planning documents from the 1980s reported that the combination of all the bus lines (including expresses from the Heights) coming down Euclid and Chester were carrying about 55,000 riders per weekday. The ridership is now less than 10 percent of that and of course the street traffic was mostly gone even before OC opened. 

On 11/5/2022 at 11:56 PM, LifeLongClevelander said:

One reason that I would take RTA's rapid to get to/from sporting events or concerts at RM Field House.  If that service is not going to be reliable and results in some round-about substitute replacement bus service, I won't bother using RTA.  Then again, the geniuses at RTA's scheduling department were behind having the last Green Line departure from Tower City at 9:00 pm.  So out-of-touch with reality.  No evening baseball game, basketball game, hockey game or concert ends before 9:00 pm.  It only took them a year to see the foolishness of that scheduling.  New management and equipment cannot come soon enough.  Then again, with damages inflicted over many years, it may already be too late.

 

Regular (minimal) Sunday service:  June 19, 2016.   That’s all that needs to be said about GCRTA’s ability and/or willingness to react to special events. 

 

Almost as embarrassing as the game not being on the TVs at Hopkins because the minion who authorized channel changes was unreachable.

Did the Guv want to go into hiding? There's no one down there anymore.....

 

 

What percentage of people even recognize him? 10%? 5%?

Seeing Cinci's streetcar forum pretty much post about record number of ridership monthly and then coming on here and seeing RTA just circle the drain and make things worse for itself, is just so damn demoralizing to see in this city. 

Good lord, do you ever say anything postive?

 

An absolutely wonderful idea. Wish I could have been there.

Shaker Square junction upgrades appear to be complete, big improvements reported:

 

That's what I came here to post. Matt's a big TOD guy and an attorney who wants to get more involved in helping TOD projects. He also notes an improvement with westbound travel too: 

 

Anecdotally, things are so much better. At least for WB travel, RTA appears to have synced the Shaker/Van Aken signal with Shaker Square’s lights. So the train travels all the way through to the West side of the square center without stopping.

 

I was told several years ago when I was AAO that RTA would never spend so much money for "automating" the switches at the Blue/Green junction to save a few minutes. But that few minutes saves a lot of time and money throughout the course of an RTA work day. Now if we could just get all of the traffic signals at all of intersections along the rail lines to sync with the approach of trains, it would save a lot more time -- and bring back the "Rapid" in rapid transit!

41 minutes ago, KJP said:

That's what I came here to post. Matt's a big TOD guy and an attorney who wants to get more involved in helping TOD projects. He also notes an improvement with westbound travel too: 

 

Anecdotally, things are so much better. At least for WB travel, RTA appears to have synced the Shaker/Van Aken signal with Shaker Square’s lights. So the train travels all the way through to the West side of the square center without stopping.

 

I was told several years ago when I was AAO that RTA would never spend so much money for "automating" the switches at the Blue/Green junction to save a few minutes. But that few minutes saves a lot of time and money throughout the course of an RTA work day. Now if we could just get all of the traffic signals at all of intersections along the rail lines to sync with the approach of trains, it would save a lot more time -- and bring back the "Rapid" in rapid transit!

I was really excited to hear Ronayne talk about making signal prioritization work on the HealthLine. I hope he pushes for it on the Shaker lines as well. Maybe showing improvements with the former helps build the case for the latter. 

Matt posts some news again

 

 

5 hours ago, KJP said:

That's what I came here to post. Matt's a big TOD guy and an attorney who wants to get more involved in helping TOD projects. He also notes an improvement with westbound travel too: 

 

Anecdotally, things are so much better. At least for WB travel, RTA appears to have synced the Shaker/Van Aken signal with Shaker Square’s lights. So the train travels all the way through to the West side of the square center without stopping.

 

I was told several years ago when I was AAO that RTA would never spend so much money for "automating" the switches at the Blue/Green junction to save a few minutes. But that few minutes saves a lot of time and money throughout the course of an RTA work day. Now if we could just get all of the traffic signals at all of intersections along the rail lines to sync with the approach of trains, it would save a lot more time -- and bring back the "Rapid" in rapid transit!

If the changes stop collisions from happening, all the better.  RTA doesn't need any more bad publicity if a collision and injuries occur. Furthermore, the "fragile" condition of the ancient LRV fleet doesn't need more of them out-of-service due to accident damage.  Besides, any cost savings they were trying to obtain would be more than evaporated in spending time and money to repair damages and bad publicity. 

6 minutes ago, LifeLongClevelander said:

If the changes stop collisions from happening, all the better.  RTA doesn't need any more bad publicity if a collision and injuries occur. Furthermore, the "fragile" condition of the ancient LRV fleet doesn't need more of them out-of-service due to accident damage.  Besides, any cost savings they were trying to obtain would be more than evaporated in spending time and money to repair damages and bad publicity. 

 

"Rapid Transit", bus or train, without signal prioritization is an oxymoron.

45 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

"Rapid Transit", bus or train, without signal prioritization is an oxymoron.

This bears repeating, over and over until we get signal prioritization on all "rapid" lines, bus AND train.

So I had to take my car to the shop in Cle Hts and took the 9 into town. I saw the Healthline was right behind us so I hopped off around UH thinking that'd be faster and more efficient...yeah, no. 

 

I do wonder if/when Bibb will prioritize HL signals. And sidenote, ambassadors got on around CCF and just hung out they weren't checking anything.

Question from the woefully uninformed.  How much authority does the county executive have over the RTA compared to someone like Bibb. Ronayne seemed keenly interested in reforming RTA - is that even within his purview

6 minutes ago, Whipjacka said:

Question from the woefully uninformed.  How much authority does the county executive have over the RTA compared to someone like Bibb. Ronayne seemed keenly interested in reforming RTA - is that even within his purview

 

If they would work together and with RTA it could be transformative. 

On 11/18/2022 at 11:51 AM, Whipjacka said:

Question from the woefully uninformed.  How much authority does the county executive have over the RTA compared to someone like Bibb. Ronayne seemed keenly interested in reforming RTA - is that even within his purview

 

Absolutely. He can appoint reformers to the RTA board. Look for him to do that. And he has the power of the bully pulpit. RTA says it cares about it customers. That's debatable. What isn't debatable is that RTA cares about the countywide sales tax. He can threaten RTA with putting a measure before the county council to place on the ballot a measure to rescind that transit tax. While I think Ronayne is too much of a gentleman to be a bully and make threats, that is an arrow he has in his quiver. 

20 hours ago, KJP said:

 

Absolutely. He can appoint reformers to the RTA board. Look for him to do that. And he has the power of the bully pulpit. RTA says it cares about it customers. That's debatable. What isn't debatable is that RTA cares about the countywide sales tax. He can threaten RTA with putting a measure before the county council to place on the ballot a measure to rescind that transit tax. While I think Ronayne is too much of a gentleman to be a bully and make threats, that is an arrow he has in his quiver. 

Both Bibb and Ronayne do have the power to appoint board members (4 by the mayor and 3 for the county out of the 10 total) that hopefully have a "vision" towards the improvement of RTA, but that could take time.  Bibb named one new member and wanted to remove McCall, but the removal didn't happen.  Maybe between the two of them, either via board member appointments and persuasion of existing board members, they can correct the serious mistake of hiring Birdsong to be general manager.  It would be extremely unlikely to see her removed from her position before her contract ends, but they don't have to offer her an extension, pay raise and bonus for a performance that didn't warrant any of those "rewards".  Then the board can undertake a serious search to find a competent general manager to do the job.  Between the leaders of the city and county, the message can be made that they will back a new general manager that will transform the system.  If they make that unified signal, the RTA's general manager post will be attractive to finding the leadership that the system badly needs.

18 minutes ago, KJP said:

 

Slavic Village’s Broadway in transit
By Ken Prendergast / November 21, 2022

 

The beleaguered Broadway Avenue corridor in Cleveland’s Slavic Village could soon see new signs of life thanks to a federal grant that was awarded last week to the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA). The $432,000 grant will allow the transit agency to develop plans to redesign the Broadway corridor from the Turney-Ella bus loop near Calvary Cemetery to downtown as a bus rapid transit (BRT) route with enhanced pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. Once those plans are complete, it can then apply for federal funds to build that infrastructure.

 

MORE:

https://neo-trans.blog/2022/11/21/slavic-villages-broadway-in-transit/

 

Not to derail the Slavic Village thread; Ken, I saw you touch on the W25 BRT line that's planned but it's been a while since I've heard anything, any updates on that?

1 hour ago, Luke_S said:

 

Not to derail the Slavic Village thread; Ken, I saw you touch on the W25 BRT line that's planned but it's been a while since I've heard anything, any updates on that?

 

I haven't heard any updates on it since I wrote that article a year ago. I may have a chance to look around for info tomorrow.

@KJPthis might be a loaded question but does anybody know where things stand with the railcar procurement? It seems like that effort has gone largely silent after the last RFP debacle. 

 

3 hours ago, KJP said:

 

I love the @GCRTA response to the tweet..."please DM us more information so we can address".   Uhm...he told you in the tweet!  

 

I'm afraid the rank and file at RTA have gone the way of City of Cleveland employees.   They show up to work and do as little as possible, only worrying about quitting time and their early retirements at 50 years old.  

15 minutes ago, Cleburger said:

I love the @GCRTA response to the tweet..."please DM us more information so we can address".   Uhm...he told you in the tweet!  

 

I'm afraid the rank and file at RTA have gone the way of City of Cleveland employees.   They show up to work and do as little as possible, only worrying about quitting time and their early retirements at 50 years old.  

Sounds like nothing more than an automated message.  Another example of nobody minding the business which has been typical with RTA for a long time.

Would ridership bonuses help? Maybe they already have them, but if a large portion of employees' (or at least top execs') pay was based on actual ridership numbers that seems like it would help to re-align incentives 

On 11/21/2022 at 6:02 PM, Ethan said:

Would ridership bonuses help? Maybe they already have them, but if a large portion of employees' (or at least top execs') pay was based on actual ridership numbers that seems like it would help to re-align incentives 

Calabrese was "rewarded" in the form of bonuses, contract extensions and pay raises.  In theory that should work, but what was the result for the 18 1/2 years he was leading RTA?  

On 11/22/2022 at 9:32 PM, LifeLongClevelander said:

Calabrese was "rewarded" in the form of bonuses, contract extensions and pay raises.  In theory that should work, but what was the result for the 18 1/2 years he was leading RTA?  

I was suggesting something like they have at Lincoln Electric (though maybe not quite that extreme). Give every single employee a bonus based on the official ridership numbers. A significant amount too, like 10-30% of their pay. This would never happen, as the city would have to reduce their base pay to afford it, but I bet it would have an impact. 

^ Maybe someone there should read Gordon Bethune's turnaround story Worst to First.

 

 At first, Continental Airlines gave small bonuses for things like ontime performance and luggage delivery accuracy.  The bonuses were not large, but they seemed to help.  I suspect RTA could identify areas of improvement here and there.

Edited November 25, 20222 yr by urb-a-saurus
Typo

1 hour ago, urb-a-saurus said:

^ Maybe someone there should read Gordon Bethune's turnaround story Worst to First.

 

 At first, Continental Airlines gave small bonuses for things like ontime performance and luggage delivery accuracy.  The bonuses were not large, but they seemed to help.  I suspect RTA could identify areas of improvement here and there.

If RTA is anything like the city of Cleveland, most of the management is not what they know, rather who they know.   So they are not very effective managers.   I fear any kind of bonus system would turn into a kickback system.