RTA Gets $130 Million From Feds for New Rail Cars

On Friday, in a surprise announcement in the center of the RTA’s rail equipment building in Kinsman, state and federal officials announced that Cleveland’s transit system would receive a $130 million grant to help pay for more than 60 new rail cars set to hit tracks in the next decade. RTA now needs just $38 million more to fund the entire fleet.

The news was delivered by Nuria Fernandez of the FTA, who told the crowd of RTA staff, city officials, Mayor Bibb, County Executive Chris Ronayne, Sen. Sherrod Brown and Congresswoman Shontel Brown that Cleveland’s system was the first of six cities set to receive transit-boosting funds from a pool of $700 million.

“This is a big, big deal,” Fernandez said. “Some of [these cars] are almost a half century old, running from way back in the Reagan administration.”

The $130 million check, which Fernandez would hand to RTA CEO India Birdsong-Terry after her speech, would help, she added, “get the assembly line running, and start rolling out these cars.”

The grant is a Biden-era spending initiative and part of the FTA’s Rail Vehicle Replacement Program, which aims to do just that: update the country’s aged-out fleet of light or heavy rail cars. And Cleveland’s are the oldest: It was in October 1981 that Cleveland’s transit operation welcomed 48 Italian-made Breda rail cars to its fleet. Four years later, 60 Japanese cars hit the Red Line.

The new cars, which will cost $393 million for the eventual fleet of 60, will carry, members of RTA’s procurement team said April 5th, a feature list one might expect after decades in technological advancements, from bike racks to state-of-the-art camera systems, easy-to-clean seats and pre-equipped WiFi.

The initial 24 cars will be based on the Siemens S200, which already runs in similar form in San Francisco and Calgary, Canada.

It was obvious to those present that such a gift from the Feds may have not occurred without collaboration amongst city, county, state and federal leaders.

Bolstering public transit as a whole, Sen. Sherrod Brown noted in his speech, is a long overdue step in U.S. infrastructure improvements. Those underway are owed to the passing of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill in November, which President Biden sold as a salve for the rusted, outdated roads, bridges, and tracks of cities.

Brown, who was eager to link today’s trend towards the goal of walkable cities, positioned the $130 million grant—the largest from the FTA of its kind—in clear terms of investing in a car-free future.

“People being able to walk to work, like in [the past], is behind us,” he said. “Plenty of people [today], want to live downtown, not own a car and be able to walk and get around. That’s what we’re doing. that’s the importance.”

He added, nodding to the massive heavy rail trains out-of-commission behind him, “These rail cars are all forty years old. They’re all older than the mayor of Cleveland—almost older than the mayor and [Congresswoman Brown] put together.”

When asked how the new RTA cars could bolster his vision of a changing downtown, one welcoming hundreds, if not thousands, of new housing units and a potentially revamped lakefront and North Coast Connector, Mayor Bibb said a new fleet automatically ramps up the livability of the core.

And, with the heavy-light rail potentiality of the new Siemens fleet allowing the possibility of four new lines, Bibb sees maybe even more improvements.

“[RTA will] be able to have faster routes, more stops, more efficient routes to get people to work, to football, baseball or basketball games, to get into a play,” Bibb said shortly after the announcement. “Which is going to certainly increase the connectivity for all of our residents to really enjoy all the amenities we have.”

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This article appears in May 3-17, 2023.