RTA Cuts: Public Reaction to Service Reductions

As RTA deliberates on service cuts to save $2.5 million against a strapped budget, it’s welcoming the public to feedback sesions before any final decisions are made. At a meeting this week, Clevelanders showed up to voice their displeasure.

More than half of the two dozen Clevelanders who showed up at RTA’s headquarters Monday evening targeted their comments at the planned end of the free B-Line trolley downtown, as six other lines face reduced frequency or other cuts.

That trolley line, which loops around the Warehouse District to the edge of Erieview, was the subject of many a passionate rants despite data showing that it’s hardly used.

But several commenters on Monday framed the B-Line as a key part in both Downtown’s residential renaissance and Cleveland’s struggle to make itself known as a beacon for tourists.

“For people coming to Cleveland, they have know way of knowing our city or our intricate transit system immediately,” Loh, an activist based in Asiatown, told the RTA board. “If they want to go to most of the attractions around Downtown, a trolley is a big, big help.”

Many cities throughout the U.S. regularly offer fare-free people movers as easy transportation for out-of-towners or city center residents. Cincinnati has its Connector streetcars. Grand Rapids has its King Street Trolley. Miami, its Metromover.

The B-Line runs from Downtown’s Warehouse District to the edge of Erieview. Credit: Mark Oprea

But, like in six other cities, the responsibility of Cleveland’s downtown trolley falls on the transit agency. And this year, after a post-pandemic, revenue stabilization fund ran dry, the RTA decided it could very well free itself of the responsibility to fund the oft-used but beloved B-Line.

Its ridership, after all, was scant. Your average one-way loop around town last winter carried just three or four riders per trip.

Riders that could, RTA ascertained, be absorbed by nearby lines: those on Euclid, on Superior, or on St. Clair.

“Because of its proximity to lots of other transit service,” Jeffrey Macklin, RTA’s manager of service planning, said, “we believe that, in our analysis, no rider would need to walk more than a fourth of a mile to an alternative bus route.”

A trek that three commenters on Monday argued was downright unrealistic.

“I’ll be 69 at the beginning of June,” Karen, who uses transit to commute to her job at City Hall, said. “A quarter mile walking is something I cannot do.”

RTA’s cuts would slash roughly 39,000 vehicle hours per year, at about $64 an hour traveled. At 6,741 hours, the B-Line costs the agency some $431,000 a year to run.

Money that, a handful of activists argued on Monday, could be made up by renewing a countywide transit tax—one that hasn’t been approved by the RTA board or seen by voters since November 2014.

A tax levy could be the fix for keeping the Waterfront Line, which also faces a cut to only event days, fully operating.

“Columbus has done a transit levy. Cincinnati has done a transit levy. Toledo has done a transit levy. Lake County has done a transit levy,” Chris Martin, a member of Clevelanders for Public Transit, said at the podium. “When is RTA going to fund itself?”

In an interview after the meeting, Joel Frielich, RTA’s director of service management, told Scene he was “very pleased” at Clevelanders’ willingness to share personal stories, those he said will shape the board’s final decision come May 7.

But Frielich leaned on the hard data when it came to Downtown’s trolley. A line disappearing for good—not merely being reduced—seemed to scare many into protest, he argued.

And if the board decides to cut the B-Line? Limit the Waterfront Line for special events? Even when Cleveland finally builds up its lakefront and riverfront?

“Well, we’re going to maintain the lines,” he said. “So, when all of a sudden [the lakefront] becomes a whole new city instead of a stadium that’s empty on most days? That’s a whole different story for transit.”

Subscribe to Cleveland Scene newsletters.