^But that's the point; if there was more strategically expanded rail, the system would be more structurally and  cost effective over time.  Most major capital costs, like the station rebuilds, are heavily subsidized by the Feds; 50% match at last check. I would just like to see at least as much concern about future operating funding, principally from by the stingy state, as there is about the monies purportedly lost by closing Superior through Public Square...a move I agree with btw. ...and according to today's PD editorial, Joe C has quieted his initial opposition and is looking for bus routing alternatives... Good for Joe.

^Right, despite people's complaints here, Calabrese has been a huge investor in RTA's rail system, which is why it's pretty tedious to keep hearing how "anti rail" he is. His quotes about rail capital costs aren't at all in tension with what KJP wrote about operating costs. That's the whole rub with rail: it can carry a ton of riders at a low cost/trip (even lower per trip mile), but it costs a crap ton to build and maintain.

 

Joe Calabrese is not sufficiently supportive of the rail system here even though, I would agree, the term "anti-rail" may be too strong.  But just spending largely federal monies to keep the system in federal compliance and to fix decades of deferred maintenance, like the S curve, the Airport tunnel and the Tower City tracks shouldn't prove to anyone that Calabrese is a champion of rail.  What's his alternative, let the rail system die?  Hell it's struggling to stay alive as it is because of the lack of adequate public operational funding and not enough immediate capital project funding -- we've gotten some, but go back and review KJP's line-item budget of spending needed for rail to keep it viable over the next several (really next few) years...

 

As has been pointed out time and again, not by me but by AAO and others more knowledgeable than me, that RTA under Joe C has failed to present a cogent, workable comprehensive plan for rail and other future transit expansion.  Just saying that RTA is in a financial crisis is not, nor should not be a sufficient excuse for not planning for growth, especially in a city that has seen, is seeing, substantial urbanized growth of its own that should be supported by its transit system.  Other older metro cities have their transit systems plan for rail growth, why not Cleveland? 

 

This idea of a referendum on Joseph Calabrese -- whether your for 'em or agin' em, is superfluous... It's not a matter of being too hard or too soft on Joe, it's about what's in the best interest of the transit system which should be a critical element of our city. 

That's the whole rub with rail: it can carry a ton of riders at a low cost/trip (even lower per trip mile), but it costs a crap ton to build and maintain.

 

Not to nitpick, but I'll repeat that while it costs GCRTA a ton to capitalize it's rail system, it doesn’t GCRTA a ton to capitalize the road network it uses because they don't pay anything to use it. But that doesn't mean that it's not costing someone a ton to capitalize the infrastructure for GCRTA buses.

Red Line is down again today. I gave away my pass and I'm hesitant to buy another.  Leadership needed to get in front of this a while ago, at this point we just need new leadership.

Red Line is down again today. I gave away my pass and I'm hesitant to buy another.  Leadership needed to get in front of this a while ago, at this point we just need new leadership.

 

EDIT: Never mind.  I see it was this morning.

They had a sign in the W 117 station saying it's closed, so both directions.  Take the replacement bus it said.  This was around 11.

Interesting.  Their Twitter feed said everything was open by 9:22 am, but then someone replied to that tweet saying the closed signs were still in place.  Sounds about right.

Proposed GCRTA budget for 2017 includes a 3% service reduction based on the assumption of no state assistance to fill loss of Medicaid sales tax revenues. So GCRTA's death spiral continues. Yes, GCRTA is faced with big challenges but it's time to stop the "woe is me, I'm a victim" crap. Leadership refuses to consider seeking new non-fare revenues and/or creative solutions (such as the Siemens rail proposal). All they seek is more cuts. And their budget language about choice riders leaving the system claims the loss was unavoidable due a decline in gas prices (FYI Amtrak's ridership just broke a new record). Stop developing excuses and start developing a new vision as the economic growth engine for Northeast Ohio. We need a new vision and to get a new vision we need new leaders at GCRTA....

 

 

 

KJP,

 

Although the wording is poor, I believe that the budget means to say that the 3% service cuts from 2016 are annualized in 2017, meaning the savings are being applied to the whole year. They have used this term in the past, such as saying the managed medicaid tax loss won't be annualized until 2018 because the cut goes into effect mid-17. See at the top where it mentions the 2017 budget has an annualized increase in base fare from $2.25 to $2.50, meaning the increase happened in 2016, is annualized in 17.

 

Discussions about service cuts won't occur until after the fate of the sales tax is certain.

Also note that while revenues are declining and service is being cut, salaries and benefits are still going up.    If they are getting rid of service, wouldn't they be trimming payroll along with it?    Certainly with drivers, and hopefully in their management ranks as well?

http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2016/12/07/pedestrian-struck-by-rta-bus-turning-left-around-public-square

Pedestrian Struck by RTA Bus Turning Left Around Public Square

Posted By Sam Allard on Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 11:49 am

 

At roughly 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, an RTA bus struck a female pedestrian at the intersection of East Roadway and Rockwell Avenue.

 

An RTA spokesperson reported that the #39F bus was traveling northbound on East Roadway, and made a left-hand turn on Rockwell (right in front of Key Tower), and that the injured pedestrian was transported to Metro Hospital.

 

RTA said the accident is under active investigation. Cleveland 19 reports that the 69-year-old woman is in critical condition. The TV station characterized her injuries as "head injuries."

 

The collision comes during a heated ongoing debate about buses through Public Square. One argument for buses on Superior Avenue is the consequent reduction in dangerous left-hand turns on the perimeter. Due to re-routing around the Square, RTA buses will take more than 1.1 million more turns per year, about half of which are left turns.

 

 

 

 

 

^That's just terrible.  I sure hope the lady survives.

I hope they don't try and push this off as being the pedestrians fault. They already try doing that every time by having the bus yell at you that they're turning. Some of these drivers are just reckless in their driving. I've had multiple close calls in the cross walk across Detroit at 25th. We'll have the walk signal and the buses won't even stop when turning right, just try to plow right through people.

^I don't want to cast aspersions at this point because we've seen both irresponsible pedestrians and RTA drivers (remember the cellphone chatting driver who killed the man leading to those annoying, but probably necessary, audible bus turn announcements).  Apparently this accident occurred in from of Key Center which is the lighter side of the Square in terms of foot traffic crossing the PS roadway.  Again, I just hope this lady pulls through.

Public Square keeps getting more expensive for GCRTA. The city and the major corporations on Public Square who want to get rid of RTA customers aren't paying a nickel for this study. BTW, if better spent, that $60,000 could allow GCRTA to triple service on its overcrowded 27F Solon Flyer bus between the Blue Line's Warrensville Station and the industries in Solon.

 

Ginger Christ

‏@GChristCLE

.@GCRTA alone is paying $60k for engineering firm helping to find efficiencies re: Public Square for FTA plan.

Commuters with disabilities battling new problems with busing ban on Public Square

http://fox8.com/2016/12/09/commuters-with-disabilities-battling-new-problems-with-busing-ban-on-public-square/

Commuters with disabilities battling new problems with busing ban on Public Square

http://fox8.com/2016/12/09/commuters-with-disabilities-battling-new-problems-with-busing-ban-on-public-square/

 

All theseissues should have been heard by Mayor Jackson and RTA prior to the assumption that a road be permanently closed without any input by the actual people it affects on a daily basis, Daily photos of Public Square show pedestrians use the crosswalks as designed.  And if the lights actually worked I am sure the pedestrians and buses would follow as directed

The Ontario crossing south of the square sees a lot of jaywalking.  But it almost always says Don't Walk, regardless of what the other lights are doing.  This is the direct crossing from Tower City to Euclid Avenue, so it's fairly busy.  More buses are coming around the square now-- and more are turning there-- since they can't turn at Superior anymore. Opening Superior won't fix that because they would still have to drive through a statue. 

 

So, what we need is a monorail.

What was the offer from Siemens?

 

This information is second-hand from two people and comes from under a couple of years of dust in my brain, but I believe that Bombardier would accept an amount roughly equivalent to what GCRTA was paying to operate the rail system. In 2014, that total was $44.24 million ($31.14M for heavy rail, $13.1M for light rail) for vehicle operations, vehicle maintenance, non-vehicle maintenance, and general administration (that's about 17 percent of GCRTA's annual operating budget). Those costs were offset with little or no surplus or deficit by sales taxes, fares and other revenues. This does not include capital costs such as renewing track, replacing stations or modernizing electrical systems. GCRTA's capital budget in the coming five years ranges from $65 million to $75 million per year with roughly 50 percent going to the rail system. IIRC, new capital improvements (those not already under contract) would be undertaken by Bombardier or subcontracted by Bombardier. This also includes a new Bombardier rail fleet that would be leased by GCRTA. It was to be a long-term contract but I don't remember how long. It would have to be for a decade or two for it to be worth Bombardier's effort. In addition to hiring/firing staff being a deal-killer for GCRTA, a contract of that length would also probably make GCRTA nervous because its operating and capital resources are diminishing. Getting locked into a long-term contract means having to diminish the bus system if sales tax revenues and federal capital funds continue to fall. Then again, I would think there would have to out-clauses to protect GCRTA and the community.

 

CORRECTION: the company was Bombardier, not Siemens

 

Note that the company was Bombardier, not Siemens. However this past week Siemens made a presentation to a GCRTA committee on new rail cars. Siemens has proposed a lease-purchase arrangement, however I'm told this week's meeting didn't get into that. It was more about vehicle specifications. The vehicle Siemens proposes is more like their Edmonton SD-160 light-rail trains than the San Francisco Muni S-200 trains. These are high-floor cars yet have step wells at each doorway and can be retrofitted so that only one doorway has a stepwell. The rest of the doorways on the train can be used at Red Line stations. The Edmonton cars are wider than San Fran's, so they fit the Cleveland system better and can meet ADA requirements on doorway-platform gap requirements (2 inches).

I learned more about RTA's Red Line shutdown on Dec. 6 which was officially cited as a pantograph problem. Turns out it was many pantographs. Like dozens. (ICYDK: pantographs are the metal arms that extend upward from the top of trains to make contact with the overhead wire to collect electricity for the train's electric motors)

 

So RTA's new Rail Division Director Sean Thompson, the "safety expert" who came from FTA, was informed there was a problem with the overhead wire near East 79th Street. It was recommended that the rail line be single-tracked past that location until repairs could be made. Instead he said the wire problem wasn't that big of a deal and ordered trains to continue running under the damaged wire. The result was that up to two dozen of Red Line train pantographs were damaged and each had to be repaired at $2,500 a pop -- or more than $50,000. I presume Mr. Thompson still has his job.

 

The next day, Dec. 7, RTA shut down the Green Line east of Shaker Square due to "deer being on the tracks." Yep, you read that right. Shuttle buses were ordered to replace the trains. So the next Blue Line train to arrive Shaker Square found the switch still lined for the Green Line. The train operator called the dispatcher who kept pressing a button to realign the switch for the Blue Line but to no avail. This was a new remote control switch mechanism, installed in April 2015 so that trains wouldn't have to stop for the train operator to lean out the window and press a button to align the switch for the Blue or Green line as needed. The Blue Line train was ordered to pull forward on the Green Line, unload its roughly 100 passengers at the Coventry station, force them to walk back to the Shaker Square station where they would wait out in the cold and then squeeze on to the next Blue Line train after repairs were made to the switch.

 

Yet, for some reason, Calabrese still doesn't want to contract out operation and state-of-good-repair of the rail system because he doesn't want to lose the power to hire/hire workers running it.

 

Transportation Planning Open Meeting

 

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) are providing an opportunity for you to express your views on the transportation planning process in the Cleveland area in an open public meeting.

 

Date: Wednesday, Dec. 14

Time: 5:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Place: NOACA, 1299 Superior Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44114

 

This meeting is part of a review that will assess compliance with Federal regulations pertaining to the transportation planning process conducted by NOACA, the Ohio Department of Transportation, public transit operators, and local units of government in the Cleveland area. If you are unable to attend in person, comments will be accepted until December 30 to either:

 

Mr. Noel Mehlo, Jr., FHWA, [email protected]

200 North High Street, Suite 328, Columbus, OH 43215

 

Ms. Krishina Welch, FTA, [email protected]

200 West Adams Street, Suite 320, Chicago, IL 60606

 

Persons with disabilities needing assistance are asked to contact NOACA in advance by calling (216) 241-2414 or emailing [email protected].

^Yep, another blue-ribbon committee where our voices will supposedly be heard. I'm sure officials will sing the platitudes of transit growth planning and higher quality service ... then disappear into the night where those plans will never be seen nor heard again...  Meanwhile public officials are talking with no concrete plan -- if they are even talking at all -- about how to fill the gap when RTA suffers a huge ($17M?) shortfall due to the loss of the  sales and use tax revenues from Medicaid managed care organizations -- $4.5M next year; $18M in 2018.  The Clock is ticking; just 18 more days till 2017, the year when these massive RTA funding losses begin and, still, no serious public conversation about what to due.

 

Meanwhile, meanwhile, Armond Budish and Frank Jackson have just dusted off plans for Cuyahoga County taxpayers to largely fund $140M in renovations to The Q... I love my sports, especially our championship Cavs, but come on, where are the priorities?  So we're prepared to allow the transit system just die a slow financial death -- without seriously pressing the state or local corporate stakeholders, while reaching into the pockets of taxpayers -- taxpayers of a broke county -- to fund the rehab of sports facilities? ... where Dan Gilbert, alone, is worth $5B (as in a B for billion(s)) ... I guess $30M for the Browns rehab last year was a bargain ... oh wait, Browns stadium only hosts 10 Browns Games (including 2 useless exhibition games) per year -- 9 next year, as it was just announced that one of the Browns home games will be played in London, Eng.

 

Meanwhile KJP is telling us RTA is wasting money when some "consultant" refuses to fix Red Line wires which, in turn damages train pantograhs and wires that must now be repaired to the tune of $50K...

 

... all this makes perfect sense ... to someone; somewhere.

Great photo essay of a day spent riding @GCRTA via reddit.

https://t.co/mYvkC4J7Ui

From the Twitter feed today, apparently RTA is still hiring even with looming budget cuts.  Maybe they need extra drivers to complete the laps around Public Square!  :-P :?

 

http://www.riderta.com/careers

 

 

Great photo essay of a day spent riding @GCRTA via reddit.

https://t.co/mYvkC4J7Ui

 

I thought this looked familiar...

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,30938.msg824433.html#msg824433

From the Twitter feed today, apparently RTA is still hiring even with looming budget cuts.  Maybe they need extra drivers to complete the laps around Public Square!  :-P :?

 

http://www.riderta.com/careers

 

 

 

A large organization is always losing employees to retirement or quitting. That means large organizations are always hiring.

From the Twitter feed today, apparently RTA is still hiring even with looming budget cuts.  Maybe they need extra drivers to complete the laps around Public Square!  :-P :?

 

http://www.riderta.com/careers

 

 

 

A large organization is always losing employees to retirement or quitting. That means large organizations are always hiring.

 

During this finals week, I'm tempted to drop out of grad school and apply for my boyhood dream job -- an RTA Rapid driver.

From the Twitter feed today, apparently RTA is still hiring even with looming budget cuts.  Maybe they need extra drivers to complete the laps around Public Square!  :-P :?

 

http://www.riderta.com/careers

 

 

 

A large organization is always losing employees to retirement or quitting. That means large organizations are always hiring.

 

During this finals week, I'm tempted to drop out of grad school and apply for my boyhood dream job -- an RTA Rapid driver.

 

Better have a backup plan.....stay in school son!

From the Twitter feed today, apparently RTA is still hiring even with looming budget cuts.  Maybe they need extra drivers to complete the laps around Public Square!  :-P :?

 

http://www.riderta.com/careers

 

 

 

A large organization is always losing employees to retirement or quitting. That means large organizations are always hiring.

 

True...but they also shrink due to the attrition of retirement and not filling positions.    I would think with the looming crisis next year, that would already be happening.

My wife and 3 year old stepson walked 10 minutes to catch the #26 bus at 8:30 a.m., to board it at Detroit Avenue and Fry Avenue and take it to her job and his daycare downtown Lakewood. The #26 is scheduled to run every 15 minutes. One hour later in the 13-degree air and 30 mph winds -- no bus. She called me and asked "where's the bus? We are freezing." I could hear my stepson crying in the background. Both walked 10 minutes back home to dig the car out of the snow and drive to work through unplowed streets.

 

EDIT: I now hear that the rear half of an articulated #26 bus skidded and hit a utility pole at Detroit Avenue and West 110th Street.

Why was nothing plowed this morning?  That goes beyond RTA.  We were talking about this storm at the office last week, everybody knew it was coming.

A friend just sent this to me at 9:50am... My wife caught the #55 at Clifton and Summit shortly after 7am, and the bus finally moved off Clifton to Detroit over 2-1/2 hours later. The bus is at W.45th and Detroit now, creeping east.

Why was nothing plowed this morning?  That goes beyond RTA.  We were talking about this storm at the office last week, everybody knew it was coming.

 

Because the City of Cleveland management and employees are flawed.  From Mayor Jackson on down the entire organization are anything but proactive.    I've lived here my entire adult life and services just keep getting worse. 

This doesn't seem to be as much of an RTA issue as a localized snow issue. Buses were running this morning in Shaker Square, although I'm not sure what the timetables were (#16). Our roads were okay in Shaker - plowed and better towards University Circle where there was less snow, but the inches became intense just south and west. Half of our office hasn't come in yet because they live west of downtown and drive in. One just reported he has been on I-90 and various roads for 2.5 hours when his commute takes just 30 minutes.

 

Forecasts called for less than 3 inches with up to 18" in favored locations east of the city and along the I-90 NE corridor. Instead, snow hit Shaker and points east overnight and points west and south this morning.

The sidestreets next to my building on Clifton haven't been plowed yet either. That's Lakewood, not Cleveland. So no excuse there either. The forecast on the Weather Channel last night was for 3-5 inches overnight for Cleveland proper, with another 1-3 inches today. They should have been prepared.

 

Update -- As many of you know, the #55 bus on Clifton runs every 10 minutes during rush hour, and every 30 minutes thereafter. Except rush hour ended an hour ago, yet I can still see three buses on Clifton from the 7th Floor party room of my condo building in Lakewood. That means these buses are delayed at least 1 hour, and probably twice as much based on what a friend just wrote to me (posted above). Turns out the West Shoreway is closed past Edgewater Park due to severe drifting. I can also see the sun shining over Lake Erie, just beyond the Gold Coast high rises...

 

 

 

 

Waited close to 45mins this morning for the 22 (west 40's). Not sure what could have been done differently by RTA in this instance though... short of rail running down (or under) Lorain :0 

 

The roads were just bad

Wind gusts are over 40 MPH. That's surprising the Shoreway is closed - is it piling up that significantly? Should there be snow barriers in place along the roadway to prevent or slow the rate of snow piling up? (The same slat barriers you see elsewhere.)

I was watching the radar during insomniatic moments last night. At 2:30 a.m. I saw a 10-mile-wide snow streak originating on Lake Michigan, coming across the state of Michigan and Lake Erie, and coming back over land at Rocky River, Lakewood and downtown, heading southeast toward Solon. Radar history showed this snow streak stayed over the same areas from 1 a.m. to 7 a.m., dumping about 8 inches of snow.

 

A friend shot this while stopped on the Shoreway for more than 90 minutes. It's not snowing, but that doesn't mean it's not still accumulating! RTA detoured its #55 buses off the Shoreway to Detroit Avenue which wasn't moving much faster...

 

I got stuck in my parking lot, so that took care of that.  But even if I got out, every street out of Lakewood was backed up as far as I could see this morning.

Yeah, I'll chime in say that there's certainly plenty to criticize the City of Cleveland and the RTA for. However, this situation was not one of them IMO.

 

As a teacher in a far west suburb, I was up this morning at 5 AM shoveling snow knowing I would probably have school no matter what it was like where I live in Lakewood. I went to bed at 11:30 without a flake of snow to be seen. I watched the forecasts last night. No one predicted a lake effect squall like this hitting at the time it did on the West side no less. It had the absolute perfect timing and was much more intense than the predictions I saw. I shoveled at least 8 inches of snow out of my driveway in Lakewood. Show me a forecast that predicted that kind of snow. And even if they did...is ANY city or transportation organization around here equipped to handle that amount of snow falling in less than 6 hours (I don't know when it actually started) and peaking during the morning rush hour? I think any criticism here is a little overblown.

 

Now if we had better rail transit to get us around this city...maybe we'd have a lot less to complain about. Are you listening state of Ohio???

Looks like it was a good day to live near the rapid.

Yeah, I'll chime in say that there's certainly plenty to criticize the City of Cleveland and the RTA for. However, this situation was not one of them IMO.

 

As a teacher in a far west suburb, I was up this morning at 5 AM shoveling snow knowing I would probably have school no matter what it was like where I live in Lakewood. I went to bed at 11:30 without a flake of snow to be seen. I watched the forecasts last night. No one predicted a lake effect squall like this hitting at the time it did on the West side no less. It had the absolute perfect timing and was much more intense than the predictions I saw. I shoveled at least 8 inches of snow out of my driveway in Lakewood. Show me a forecast that predicted that kind of snow. And even if they did...is ANY city or transportation organization around here equipped to handle that amount of snow falling in less than 6 hours (I don't know when it actually started) and peaking during the morning rush hour? I think any criticism here is a little overblown.

 

Now if we had better rail transit to get us around this city...maybe we'd have a lot less to complain about. Are you listening state of Ohio???

 

I'm not sure what forecast you watched, but channel 3 (who doesn't love Betsy Cling) absolutely forecasted probable heavy lake effect snow bands for the near west side.    Still lots to chance, but we were warned somewhat! 

 

I am glad to see Lakewood's plowing is currently the same as Cleveland's.  Over the next couple days we'll see the difference however, as Lakewood completely clears all their sidestreets and Cleveland's go untouched.....

And like I posted upthread, the Weather Channel forecast (which is actually the official National Weather Service forecast), predicted 3-5" overnight and 1-3" today. That prompted NWS to issue a lake snow advisory for Cuyahoga County at 7 p.m. Wednesday. It was upgraded to a lake snow warning overnight. But when it comes to forecasting lake-effect snow, that turned out to be a pretty accurate forecast.

At some point it doesnt matter if you know the snow is coming or not. When we get to 1, 2  and 3 inches per hour...there's nothing you can do about it.

My street wasn't plowed and all the cars were snowed on this morning. Waited from 8:15 am for the 26 bus to come at W. 49 going west, none came until after 9 am.

 

Got off the bus at W. 78 for work, probably could have walked faster (it's a 30 minute walk on a nice day)

 

I was one of three people who were at the office before 10 am.

 

I think the bus I was on was the one that later got caught up at W. 110 -- or soon thereafter

 

My wife and 3 year old stepson walked 10 minutes to catch the #26 bus at 8:30 a.m., to board it at Detroit Avenue and Fry Avenue and take it to her job and his daycare downtown Lakewood. The #26 is scheduled to run every 15 minutes. One hour later in the 13-degree air and 30 mph winds -- no bus. She called me and asked "where's the bus? We are freezing." I could hear my stepson crying in the background. Both walked 10 minutes back home to dig the car out of the snow and drive to work through unplowed streets.

 

EDIT: I now hear that the rear half of an articulated #26 bus skidded and hit a utility pole at Detroit Avenue and West 110th Street.

 

Any clue if it was an EB or WB bus?

At some point it doesnt matter if you know the snow is coming or not. When we get to 1, 2  and 3 inches per hour...there's nothing you can do about it.

 

And with 30+ mph gusts and temps below 20 degrees which reduces the effectiveness of road salt.

 

Any clue if it was an EB or WB bus?

 

No, but there are GCRTA reps who visit this thread. Perhaps one of them can clarify?

Looks like it was a good day to live near the rapid.

 

You're right! I rode the Green line in today from Green Rd. The roads were actually pretty well plowed, but I saw a forecast for another band this afternoon and figured why fight it? Clear sailing all the way down to TC.

 

I did have to walk to PHS after that, and I lost my hat so my ears were numb by the time I got there  :x

Looks like it was a EB #55 bus that jackknifed on the Shoreway/OH 2 at the new West 73th Street/Edgewater Park (corrected KJP[/member]) interchange.

What interchange??

West 73rd I'm guessing.