March 22, 20241 yr 27 minutes ago, Oxford19 said: RTA let a Cleveland Municipal Court judge's misplaced 4th Amendment decision stand; no appeal so it has ''Ambassadors'' checking fares. Ruined the whole concept of the HealthLine and now has infected the rapid lines. The rapid is basically free provided you're not entering or exiting at Tower City and homeless are allowed on it open-ended as described in Justice's article...because RTA cops can't do fare checks? RTA could have easily challenged the erroneous Muni Court judge ruling but didn't want the racial backlash and bad PR...so now we have what we have on the diminished HealthLine and basically a free Red Line ride. The correct solution was laid out by the judge - use Fare Ambassadors. They need to ramp that program up. It’s wasteful to have expensive police officers checking fares. When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
March 22, 20241 yr 1 hour ago, Boomerang_Brian said: The correct solution was laid out by the judge - use Fare Ambassadors. They need to ramp that program up. It’s wasteful to have expensive police officers checking fares. The judge's ''logic'' wasn't premised on being wasteful to have expensive officers checking fares. Ramp up the Fare Ambassadors? It's been about 6 1/2 years since this erroneous court ruling. Per Justice's article, the fare ambassadors are not the correct solution. Edited March 22, 20241 yr by Oxford19
April 5, 20241 yr Nothing new in the article but to say that RTA has launched a new website to track the railcar replacement project: https://www.riderta.com/rcrp Greater Cleveland RTA launches new site to track railcar replacement Apr. 04, 2024 By Lucas Daprile, cleveland.com CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority is launching a new website to help the public track its $393 million investment in new railcars. The website,www.riderta.com/rcrp, is already live and includes information on RTA’s pursuit of new railcars, future and past milestones, the latest project news and more. When the program is complete in fall 2027, RTA will have replaced the system’s 34 light rail cars and 40 heavy rail cars with 60 “common” railcars. Unlike the old cars, the new ones will be able to run on all of RTA’s rail lines, including the heavy rail Red Line, and light rail Blue and Green lines, according to a news release. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2024/04/greater-cleveland-rta-launches-new-site-to-track-railcar-replacement.html
April 5, 20241 yr Are there any pictures available of the Rail car besides the stock photo? Also what is the significance of the 24th Car being built? I see it is listed on the timeline.
April 5, 20241 yr maybe that's the first order? a little uneasy about the amount of cars they ordered. I'm sure they know better than me, but I don't see how they can ever expand service in the future with 60 cars
April 5, 20241 yr Check out RTA's new tv studio (lol) PS there must've been some VIP's on this HL or something to merit the police escort yesterday...
April 5, 20241 yr 46 minutes ago, GISguy said: Check out RTA's new tv studio (lol) PS there must've been some VIP's on this HL or something to merit the police escort yesterday... I was thinking NCAA athletes but they have their own coach busses.
April 6, 20241 yr Author 11 hours ago, Whipjacka said: maybe that's the first order? a little uneasy about the amount of cars they ordered. I'm sure they know better than me, but I don't see how they can ever expand service in the future with 60 cars Expansion of the rail system is the last thing on the minds of anyone at RTA. They had to be shamed into saving the existing rail system and its fleet. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
April 6, 20241 yr 10 hours ago, KJP said: Expansion of the rail system is the last thing on the minds of anyone at RTA. They had to be shamed into saving the existing rail system and its fleet. Is anything on the minds of anyone at RTA? Besides waiting for their next paycheck to show up and doing as little as possible while they wait?
April 6, 20241 yr 1 hour ago, Whipjacka said: Good news, would have been nice to know: When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
April 6, 20241 yr 9:30-5:30 - biggest week of the year - parties on the lakefront and they can manage 8 hrs a day
April 6, 20241 yr 4 hours ago, Whipjacka said: Is the WFL running just for this busy few days in CLE? Update: just read the above post, only for big long weekend WFL is running...for 8 hour days...lol. Hope they have competent drivers given its the busiest weekend of the year and ''trained'' drivers won't work weekends, especially a busy one...too much work. Edited April 6, 20241 yr by Oxford19
April 6, 20241 yr Good lord, just gut the organization and start new. It shouldn’t be this hard to utilize assets.
April 6, 20241 yr Author I just found out at 5 pm today April 6 that the Waterfront Line was running. And I thought I had a good idea of what's going on... "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
April 9, 20241 yr Why won't RTA run the WFL on a normal schedule? It makes no Sense. If they only run it partially, it should at least be a late night train for the Flats.
April 9, 20241 yr On 4/6/2024 at 5:05 PM, KJP said: I just found out at 5 pm today April 6 that the Waterfront Line was running. And I thought I had a good idea of what's going on... I'm surprised they didn't throw another party for themselves after opening it for the weekend.
April 9, 20241 yr 17 hours ago, MyPhoneDead said: Why won't RTA run the WFL on a normal schedule? It makes no Sense. If they only run it partially, it should at least be a late night train for the Flats. There's no ridership for a normal schedule. The whole WFL is re-opening story last year was limited to Browns games; now we see that the WFL looks to be a ''special occasion'' line. The late night train may have worked somewhat in the late '90s+, but the new Flats is more upscale and competes with, among other things, uber/lyft etc. Can't think of many folks today leaving the Flats at 1:30am to Tower City for a transfer (east or west) on the Red Line. Maybe summer weekend hours (a.m.-early p.m) but downtown Cleveland is so walkable and with a potential land bridge/ped bridge to the lakefront, the WFL appeal will be even more limited to lakefront special events for people coming into downtown for the day.
April 9, 20241 yr On 4/6/2024 at 5:05 PM, KJP said: I just found out at 5 pm today April 6 that the Waterfront Line was running. And I thought I had a good idea of what's going on... While I honesty don't see the point of congregating for an event that is equally visible from everywhere, even I knew it was going to be a busy day. GCRTA not reacting to such was entirely predictable.
April 9, 20241 yr On 3/22/2024 at 5:12 PM, Boomerang_Brian said: The correct solution was laid out by the judge - use Fare Ambassadors. They need to ramp that program up. It’s wasteful to have expensive police officers checking fares. Manning the turnstiles is a far better solution. "Ambassadors" often aren't equipped to deal with the belligerent and/or mentally disturbed.
April 9, 20241 yr 1 hour ago, E Rocc said: Manning the turnstiles is a far better solution. "Ambassadors" often aren't equipped to deal with the belligerent and/or mentally disturbed. I don’t get how these aren’t manned. Every other city I’ve been to and used the public transit had turnstiles with people working at each location.
April 10, 20241 yr 23 hours ago, MyPhoneDead said: Why won't RTA run the WFL on a normal schedule? It makes no Sense. If they only run it partially, it should at least be a late night train for the Flats. I like the idea of running the WFL as a weekend evening line as a temporary solution. It only makes sense if it runs late. Get people to/from the Rapid, but also utilize the muni-lots as an inexpensive alternate parking, just to build some ridership. People always complain about traffic and parking in the Flats. 3 hours ago, E Rocc said: While I honesty don't see the point of congregating for an event that is equally visible from everywhere, even I knew it was going to be a busy day. GCRTA not reacting to such was entirely predictable. GCRTA did react - they ran the WFL, which otherwise had not been running. It was primarily serving the Eclipse Fest, which was a daytime event. 3 hours ago, E Rocc said: Manning the turnstiles is a far better solution. "Ambassadors" often aren't equipped to deal with the belligerent and/or mentally disturbed. 1 hour ago, JB said: I don’t get how these aren’t manned. Every other city I’ve been to and used the public transit had turnstiles with people working at each location. The Red Line has the lowest ridership of any Heavy Rail line in the country. Staffing fare gates would be expensive and would do very little, and perhaps nothing, to increase ridership. Fare Ambassadors are a best practice for ensuring fares are paid and providing customer service - this is how good transit systems do fare collection. When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
April 10, 20241 yr 7 hours ago, Oxford19 said: There's no ridership for a normal schedule. The whole WFL is re-opening story last year was limited to Browns games; now we see that the WFL looks to be a ''special occasion'' line. The late night train may have worked somewhat in the late '90s+, but the new Flats is more upscale and competes with, among other things, uber/lyft etc. Can't think of many folks today leaving the Flats at 1:30am to Tower City for a transfer (east or west) on the Red Line. Maybe summer weekend hours (a.m.-early p.m) but downtown Cleveland is so walkable and with a potential land bridge/ped bridge to the lakefront, the WFL appeal will be even more limited to lakefront special events for people coming into downtown for the day. All the more reason to extend the WFL to form a downtown loop or run it out to Euclid. If RTA would announce a plan, and get the city and county on board they could do some TOD along the route in advance to provide ridership and destinations for riders once the extension is built.
April 11, 20241 yr On 4/9/2024 at 8:54 PM, Boomerang_Brian said: GCRTA did react - they ran the WFL, which otherwise had not been running. It was primarily serving the Eclipse Fest, which was a daytime event. I took the WFL to E 9th immediately before the start of the eclipse—this was the absolute busiest I have ever seen any RTA vehicles to date. They had to run a second train *directly* behind the one that was scheduled, and both were completely full shoulder-to-shoulder with riders quite literally having to shove themselves into the train to get on. Edit: RTA staff were present and made sure every single person had paid before they left the waterfront stations. I've noticed they often do this for huge events, and hopefully it's effective at bringing in a little extra revenue Edited April 11, 20241 yr by sonisharri
April 11, 20241 yr On 4/9/2024 at 5:54 PM, Boomerang_Brian said: The Red Line has the lowest ridership of any Heavy Rail line in the country. Staffing fare gates would be expensive and would do very little, and perhaps nothing, to increase ridership. Fare Ambassadors are a best practice for ensuring fares are paid and providing customer service - this is how good transit systems do fare collection. Honest question: will emulating how good transit systems do fare collection make RTA a good transit system? I'm nowhere near an authority on the subject like a lot of you guys here, but from my vantage point this whole thing is looking like a death spiral needing drastic overhaul for survival. I'm currently involved with a commercial product that is essentially given away, with the idea to encourage consumer reliance on the usefulness of product & its connected services. So far today more than 70M Americans own this product. The company is now going to monetize by 1. starting to charge consumers for services and 2. utilizing the products popularity and usage to profit in other areas e.g. advertising, retail sales and various commercial partnerships. I'm convinced this or a very similar approach is needed to save public transit here. But it obviously can't work if RTA is pushed to the limits financially; this kind of it requires a rich parent to endure phase one. In other words there needs to be a "corporate" restructuring for funding to allow for more outside of the "fare" box solutions.
April 11, 20241 yr Fare collection improvements probably won't make much a difference, though I certainly wouldn't mind seeing freeloaders pay their share. Perhaps austerity even needs consideration with reallocation of green line funding and materials to blue and red. I thought there was some green line shutdown conversations 7 or 8 years ago on this site before the world went nuts. Blue has visible momentum, and green and blue are pretty duplicative as it is. Leadership - city, county, RTA - should be consulting with top business leaders and rich families, creating unique incentives for RTA use. Fully subsidized passes, tax holidays, booze allowances, vendors, performance artists, visible proactive security, quiet and leisure cars, bar/attraction hopping events, singles events, s**t, anything to get people's butt on seats. And visible security at the some of the major RTA lots. You leave your car at some of those stops, you never know what you'll find when you return. Really, we just need more bodies on the trains to save public transit. That comes before added funding.
April 11, 20241 yr The main reason I'd like to see fare collection and enforcement on RTA trains is to restrict usage as much as possible to people actually using the trains for transit. The mentally unwell deserve compassion, but also do a lot to depress demand. People need to feel safe and comfortable to use transit. Safety isn't the same as the perception of safety, and It's also a good reminder that almost everyone on this forum is male, but half of the general population is female. There's a lot of people who won't use transit again (unless they have to) if their first experience involves a crazy person.
April 11, 20241 yr Fare collection couldn't hurt, but we need a combination of visible security - cops, RTA security, "city ambassadors", guard dogs - along with proactive civilians within the trains themselves. Women being harassed, menaced and abused on trains is a microcosm of how society has long permitted this conduct to fester -- it's way bigger than RTA.
April 11, 20241 yr Beats some guy masturbating in front of a woman just trying to get home or calling her the c-word or a racist for trying to ignore his catcalls.
April 11, 20241 yr Quick reminder that the next BaRTA crawl is this Saturday, and this time on the east side. I hope to see many of you there! Maybe we’ll see some of @TBideon’s friends on the trains. When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
April 11, 20241 yr On 4/9/2024 at 9:58 PM, Foraker said: All the more reason to extend the WFL to form a downtown loop or run it out to Euclid. If RTA would announce a plan, and get the city and county on board they could do some TOD along the route in advance to provide ridership and destinations for riders once the extension is built. At a minimum, there needs to be a loop into downtown without that there's no ''or'' to Euclid, for some reason this extension idea is mentioned. If there's downtown loop, any extension should be west out Detroit Avenue. Regardless, extensions east or west aren't happening; maybe a loop through downtown could happen.
April 11, 20241 yr 3 hours ago, TBideon said: Beats some guy masturbating in front of a woman just trying to get home or calling her the c-word or a racist for trying to ignore his catcalls. And folks still promote late night WFL service...lol
April 11, 20241 yr 5 hours ago, Ethan said: The main reason I'd like to see fare collection and enforcement on RTA trains is to restrict usage as much as possible to people actually using the trains for transit. The mentally unwell deserve compassion, but also do a lot to depress demand. People need to feel safe and comfortable to use transit. Safety isn't the same as the perception of safety, and It's also a good reminder that almost everyone on this forum is male, but half of the general population is female. There's a lot of people who won't use transit again (unless they have to) if their first experience involves a crazy person. We had a regular female poster address this a few years before, and a lot of posters pretty much dismissed her concerns.
April 11, 20241 yr 3 hours ago, Boomerang_Brian said: Quick reminder that the next BaRTA crawl is this Saturday, and this time on the east side. I hope to see many of you there! Maybe we’ll see some of @TBideon’s friends on the trains. The Scholar is UC not Little Italy, though I suppose it is closer to the LI stop.
April 11, 20241 yr 4 hours ago, Clefan14 said: Guard dogs on public transit? What in the Eric Adams is this. Adams is the exact opposite, he's okay with the prosecution of a proactive civilian.
April 12, 20241 yr 7 hours ago, Clefan14 said: Guard dogs on public transit? What in the Eric Adams is this. They have done this in Chicago from time to time. Not sure why this would be contentious? CTA signs $30 million contract to bring K-9 units back to rail system
April 12, 20241 yr 22 hours ago, E Rocc said: Adams is the exact opposite, he's okay with the prosecution of a proactive civilian. None of us ever questioned your support for stand your ground laws. We are aware of the views, but thank you for the reminder
April 16, 20241 yr Author The City of Lakewood, in partnership with Iteris, Inc., is conducting a feasibility study on providing additional local public transit service(s) in Lakewood. To provide your input, complete the following transit needs survey. Thank you! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/lakewood-transit-2024 "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
April 19, 20241 yr https://www.riderta.com/news/new-gcrta-board-president-and-vice-president-announcements New GCRTA Board President and Vice President Announcements Apr 19, 2024 Cleveland, OH – The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) announces the new appointments of Mayor Paul A. Koomar as President, and Lauren R. Welch as Vice President of the GCRTA Board of Trustees. The appointments follow Board elections held at the annual meeting in March 2024. More about Mayor Paul A. Koomar Mayor Paul A. Koomar was sworn in as Mayor of Bay Village on January 1, 2017. He joined the GCRTA Board in March 2021, and continues to serve as Chair of the Audit, Safety Compliance and Real Estate Committee. Mayor Koomar also served as GCRTA Board Vice President from September 2023 to March 2024. "I’m looking forward to working with the leadership team to strategically position GCRTA as an innovative transit authority focused on enhancing public transit operations across all aspects of the system," said Board President Paul A. Koomar. More about Lauren R. Welch Lauren R. Welch brings more than 15 years of experience in communications and marketing. She is currently the Interim Director of Communications at Say Yes Cleveland. Ms. Welch joined the GCRTA Board in May 2022, and continues to Chair the Operational Planning and Infrastructure Committee. "I look forward to continuing to elevate the importance of customer experience and community value within GCRTA. As an anchor institution for so many residents, the work the GCRTA team is undertaking now is pivotal to our region’s ambitions of becoming a 15-minute city," said Board Vice President Lauren R. Welch. When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
April 19, 20241 yr Am I missing something? Bay Village’s mayor seems like the last person who should be guiding our transit decisions.
April 20, 20241 yr 14 hours ago, Whipjacka said: it's a county agency I think they're saying Bay Village is not very transit friendly so their Mayor should be the last person in this role.
April 23, 20241 yr No matter what, everyone in Bay Village will drive everywhere all the time. But I predict this exurbanite will suggest chasing riders in Avon.
April 23, 20241 yr 3 hours ago, MVH said: No matter what, everyone in Bay Village will drive everywhere all the time. But I predict this exurbanite will suggest chasing riders in Avon. RTA only serves Cuyahoga county so no Avon. Plenty of stupid things they can try to do within the county. When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
April 24, 20241 yr 55F used to go into Avon Lake but the city stopped subsidizing it about 15 years ago.
April 24, 20241 yr Author Hope a train doesn't catch on fire again! "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
April 24, 20241 yr 23 minutes ago, KJP said: Hope a train doesn't catch on fire again! They should come back in 2027 or 2028 and see the new railcars!
April 25, 20241 yr 12 hours ago, KJP said: Hope a train doesn't catch on fire again! This promo video is great! I hope they commit to having the Waterfront Line full time by then. When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
April 25, 20241 yr 17 hours ago, KJP said: Hope a train doesn't catch on fire again! We're literally the complete opposite of ideal to host this conference. I love taking the train when it makes sense but there are 3, maybe 4 rail stops that are useful and are in the "heart of the action." The rest are after thought stops that requires an uber or additional bus ride to get to where you need to go. I honestly don't even trust it to take to the airport. Waterfront line has to be one of the most underutilized rail lines in the country. The promo video is amazing though, could be used for more than rail. Edited April 25, 20241 yr by MyPhoneDead
Create an account or sign in to comment