It's...It's a Major Award!
Even though the American Public Transportation Association has named RTA the best public transit system in North America, I've got some doubts.
I want to be happy about this, but it takes more than increased ridership and good fiscal management to make a transit system really work.
Here are three basic things that are important to me, as a straphanger:
1. Schedules? What schedules? I want to ride buses and trains that don't require carrying around a wad of paper schedules. I want to walk to the bus stop or train station and know that something will be coming within five minutes. I have no use for buses that run twice an hour or three times a day.
2. Attitude. RTA will be an outstanding public transit system when the average Clevelander stops thinking that public transit is for poor people. When your friends don't offer to pick you up "so you don't have to take the bus."
3. Transit-oriented development. Too many rapid transit stations in Cleveland just function as sad little park-and-rides. Tear up the vast parking lot at Triskett and put in some apartments and street-level retail.
I want to be happy about this, but it takes more than increased ridership and good fiscal management to make a transit system really work.
Here are three basic things that are important to me, as a straphanger:
1. Schedules? What schedules? I want to ride buses and trains that don't require carrying around a wad of paper schedules. I want to walk to the bus stop or train station and know that something will be coming within five minutes. I have no use for buses that run twice an hour or three times a day.
2. Attitude. RTA will be an outstanding public transit system when the average Clevelander stops thinking that public transit is for poor people. When your friends don't offer to pick you up "so you don't have to take the bus."
3. Transit-oriented development. Too many rapid transit stations in Cleveland just function as sad little park-and-rides. Tear up the vast parking lot at Triskett and put in some apartments and street-level retail.
posted by Christine at 10:14 PM
8 Comments:
Christine,
This has nothing to do with your post but I wanted to try to contact you and I don't have an email address for you.
-jen
Christine -
You've got to meet the Cleveland Tech Czar and his friends:
http://techczar.blog.com/
Louise
i enjoyed your post and generally agree with you, though when you state, "I have no use for buses that run twice an hour or three times a day." you must understand that a primary reason for infrequent service is a sprawling population. mass transit does not work without population density. as the neo population has spread out over the past 50 years, RTA has attempted to offer service, resulting in infrequent routes that serve only those that depend on them, but not the casual rider.
compounding the problem of sprawl is that the population in cuyahoga county is decreasing, which means less revenue from the sales tax which funds RTA.
perhaps RTA is thinking on a regional scale and considering levying the same sales tax on surrounding counties as a means of sustaining revenue and offering service to areas with job growth. it seems odd to me that projects with regional impact, like the medical mart, are not funded region wide.
all in all i enjoyed your post and agree that RTA needs to begin responding and even catering to higher income riders. i've heard councilman argue that RTA is trying to do just that with projects like the dwntwn trolleys and the euclid corridor.
more dialogue on RTA is certainly a good thing for the community.
fyi,
check out this nifty front-end for RTA scheduling. apparently it works well on mobile devices too.
http://blog.case.edu/bmb12/2007/04/quicker_cleveland_rta_schedule_with_django
Hi Guv- thanks for commenting. The study of population density is actually somewhat of a geeky pastime in our household. We're going to make as big of commitment as we can to only go places where the population *is* dense enough to warrant useful public transit. So, I personally really do have no use for buses that run infrequently!
Thanks for pointing out that alternative RTA schedule thingie as well - always good to see how people adapt to the uselessness of others!
Christine,
1) You have Ronald Reagan to thank for that one. He is behind the federal government's cutting of operating funds for mass transit. RTA gets its operating dough from sales tax, the state and farebox revenues. We don't pay the whole cost of the ride when we plunk down our $1.50 or $1.75.
Guv also made some points on population density of Cuyahoga County. Sprawl is the enemy of efficient mass transit. Look at the most travelled line in Cleveland, the number 6. The 6 is on about a 10 minute headway at peak times but look where it goes. It runs right by Cuyahoga County's biggest employer (CCF) and runs through the heart of Cuyahoga County's second most dense incorporation (East Cleveland ~ 8500 people/mi^2). So RTA can afford to run that many trips. The 6 is also based at a garage very close to its terminus so there's not a whole lot of deadheading which creates a little more savings (it adds up over 365 days a year).
I wish RTA was "super-regional" because I would LOVE to see all night service in Akron, even on one line. Akron METRO doesn't even run on holidays (good for employees, bad for travellers).
We won't even get into interurban service between Cleveland and Akron (I HATE Silver Lake Village here's why.)
2) The mass transit - poverty connection ends at American borders. For once, it's not just Cleveland. In places with the (here's that term again) population density.
Guv, RTA already has initiatives that cater to the more well-to-do. They are called Flyer service.
3) One thing we must remember, especially about the Red Line is that it was designed and planned extremely well...for the late 1940's and 1950's. That's where people lived. Rail is really hard to move. One idea that should be considered is the concept of busways, like Pittsburgh has. We could yank up all of the Red Line track and create bus only right of ways. This means normal buses could get to the southwestern suburbs and eastern suburbs in a fraction of the time with traffic having no bearing.
TOD around rapid stations would be cool. EcoVillage is kind of like that...turning the forgettable W.65th and Madison Station into a little more a neighborhood landmark with some green housing right there. Now, if it were affordable, we'd be good to go!
The Van Sweringens were well ahead of their time with one of the best TOD projects ever...they call it Shaker Heights. There's a reason Shaker Heights is a mofo to drive through...
While RTA isn't the greatest public transportation system I've used, it's still pretty good. A couple of major problems I have with RTA are 1. The buses don't always smell good. When I relied on the bus to get me to work in Warrensville Heights, I arrived to work with that musty bus funk on my clothes, which was really embarrassing. 2. Some of the bus shelters double as urinals for people. Yuck! 3. Once an hour weekend schedules in the suburbs or no service at all is an inconvenience.
Nothing like having a car.
What i don't understand is why you'll get two or three buses go by at the same time, the other day I saw THREE #79A at the same bus stop, at the same time.
Post a Comment
<< Home