Clevelanders for Public Transit Say RTA HealthLine is Falling Short of Promise

The HealthLine near Public Square. Clevelanders for Public Transit claimed recently that the bus rapid transit line’s falling short of its potential. Credit: Mark Oprea

In 2008, RTA debuted its new bus rapid transit line connecting Downtown with East Cleveland. The HealthLine would run every five minutes during rush hour. You could enter through any door. And with dedicated lanes and traffic signals, it would get you from Public Square to University Circle in “20 minutes flat,” its website said at the time. “To make good on the name, the HealthLine is helping lead (okay, ‘drive’) the rebirth of Euclid Avenue.”

Activists from Clevelanders for Public Transit say, more than 16 years later, that’s no longer the case.

Over the weekend, about a dozen members of the advocacy group protested what has been a gradual slump in service that’s mirrored a downturn in ridership. Their signs read, “We Want Real BRT.” They urged RTA to, another one read, “Heal the HealthLine.”

And the complaints were numerous: HealthLine buses come every 15 minutes at best—rarely 10 minutes, as 2008’s benchmarks stated, and rarely every five minutes during rush hour. Riders can’t board through every door after a judge ruled in 2017 that RTA’s armed proof of payment system was illegal. And not all ticket machines work.

Today “you will find that the buses run on 15-minute headways at best, you must pay your fare or scan your pass on-board, cars regularly travel in the bus lanes,” CPT Vice Chair Jenna Thomas wrote before the protest in a statement, “delays are caused by frequent red lights, and there are no real-time departure updates.”

Thomas joined CPT Chair Chris Martin, along with other protestors, as the group walked around Public Square handing out flyers or informing riders that the bus they were paying for was not as good as it used to be. “Having transit that’s fast and reliable—it’s incredibly important,” Thomas told Scene, as others held up signs around her. “It ties to all these other things: employment and health, getting to your doctors appointment on time.”

“Twenty-five percent of Clevelanders don’t have a car,” she added. “So we especially need reliable transit for those people.”

Though RTA ridership system-wide plummeted during the pandemic years, it’s climbed steadily since 2020. In 2023, RTA saw roughly 23 million riders, up from 17 million three years prior.

But even with a new fleet of HealthLine buses that arrived in 2022, its ridership has plummeted, from 5.1 million in 2014 to 1.7 million in 2023.

“It’s just not enough service,” Laqueta Worley, 52, told Scene on Public Square, holding a sign that read, “Better Buses Now.” “It’s not enough drivers. Buses are dirty. They don’t have time to clean them. They don’t want to clean them. They just want to drive the bus.”

An RTA spokesperson said that the HealthLine aims for an all-around “15-minute” frequency, “like rail.” The experience is much like 2008, they said.

As for complaints about the one-door entrance. “We open more than one door when doing so will speed up the service,” the spokesperson said.

On Monday afternoon, Scene counted bus intervals outside of the HealthLine stop near Euclid Avenue and East 9th. It took roughly 14 minutes and 30 seconds for each eastbound bus to make it to that station.

Which wasn’t the case on Saturday in Public Square. Twice during the protest an eastbound HealthLine bus made it to the Public Square stop in less than five minutes.

Thomas was admittedly caught off guard. “That’s crazy—it is working,” she said, as the bus approached. “That’s just strange.”

“It might sit here for 15 minutes, though,” she said, checking the Transit app on her phone. “And it’s not super predictable. I mean, I checked Transit: this wasn’t supposed to come for 14 minutes.”