In a letter to the RTA board of trustees, CEO Joe Calabrese proposed fare increases and a “slight service reduction” in the 2016 budget to react to what he characterized as downward financial trends.
The proposed budget includes an increase in base fare from $2.25 to $2.50 and an increase in Paratransit fare — the service for riders with disabilities — from $2.25 to $3.50. Also, due to overcapacity at RTA garages, Calabrese has proposed a 1.3 percent reduction in the number of buses in service.
The board deliberated at its meeting Tuesday morning, and will do so again, said Calabrese, at its meetings on December 1 and December 15. Public comments will be welcomed on those dates. (The meetings take place in the board room at RTA headquarters downtown, 1240 W. 6th St.).
Calabrese said the fare increase was necessary due to increased expenses in 2014 — including a 27th pay period for hourly employees — and 2015, not to mention smaller projected growth in revenues due to a shrinking available pool of grant funding. Expenses are budgeted to increase once again in 2016, this time by $20 million.
RTA has not increased its base fare for seven years, and during that time, Calabrese said, inflation alone has increased the transit authority’s costs by 12 percent.
The letter to the board also featured highlights from 2015 which included: seeing “safety for our customers and our employees improve significantly, thanks to better training, more cameras and the effectiveness of Transit Police.” (A line-item which conveniently overlooked the shit storm the transit police exacerbated, via pepper spray, in July).
In more jubilant news, Calabrese was just named one of Governing Magazine’s Public Officials of the Year, in large part for his exemplary stewardship of Bus Rapid Transit, i.e., The Health Line. Locally, though, he’s been fending off public transit advocates who claim that RTA’s financial outlook is bleak, and that without a more holistic, regional approach to public transit issues (not the least of which is funding), RTA might be forced to close its rapid lines on the east side in a few short years.
Calabrese has acknowledged the challenges, but says RTA continues to explore solutions to fleet upgrades, even if replacing all 108 rapid cars proves to be financially impossible.
Meanwhile, Mayor Frank Jackson issued an effusive, congratulatory statement Thursday morning about Calabrese and his leadership.
“This award [from Governing Magazine], together with the appointment of Valarie McCall as the chair of the American Public Transportation Association, shows the nation that Cleveland is leading the conversation on public transportation,” Jackson said.
And we certainly might be — who can say? The Plain Dealer, in its latest round of moves, said farewell to its transportation beat writer Alison Grant, who, along with four others, volunteered to depart — and all of these important developments and conversation topics have been ignored by our region’s major news outlet.
This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2015.
Cleveland is certainly not leading on public transit — Calabrese’s good performance aside. Cleveland has cut more bus service hours in the last decade than any other major city in the U.S. http://www.tcf.org/blog/detail/magic-disap…
$60 million for the RNC, but RTA’s got to nickel and dime its largely low income riders for want of $1.8 million. This is part of the reason why we consistently top poorest cities lists.
Alison Grant had a number of beats during her tenure with the PD….and was one of the last professional reporters for this dying newspaper.
Handing McCall another nothing position. It is great to be connected…
Is charging disabled people more even legal?? or is this for a different service than regular RTA?
Raising rates is shameful. Public transportation serves primarily those with lower incomes.Where is county government? It should provide revenue for public transportation. The County is spending millions on unnecessary improvements in public sports facilities while turning its back on real needs. County executive Armond Budish and Council President Dan Brady and his council should step up and see that RTA keeps fares, already a burden on its users, where they are.
Typical, screw over the disabled riders the most! The riders that have the hardest time affording to survive.
If you’re going to raise rates, have a plan that shows us increases over the next decade and how we get to 24 x 7 trains and newer train cars.
Cuts in service leads to decreased ridership, which leads to further cuts in service, which leads to even fewer riders, which leads to…do I have to keep spelling it out for you, or can I skip the extra keystrokes/
If you still don’t get it, just read up on the history of rail transit…meaning streetcars. and regional interurbans…in any big city you like…Philly, Pissburgh, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, the Bay Area…or any of dozens of other large and mid-sized urban areas. INCLUDING CLEVELAND.
It’s always the same sad story, beginning as far back as the 1920s…those who could afford it bought cars, so there were fewer riders, and less service, followed by fewer riders, which led to…yeah, you guessed it…no more street railways…either by attritrion or by design ( GM and the oil companies and the rubber companies conspired to replace the fast, quiet, non-polluting, electric trolleys with slow, noisy, stinking diesel buses) by the 1940s and ’50s.
And now cities like Minneapolis and Los Angeles and Portland and Seattle have spent BILLIONS in taxpayer dollars to recreate that which they so needlessly and shortsightedly destroyed in the last half of the last century.
The Shaker lines are 90 years old, but the original Red Line only dates to 1955. We should be talking EXPANSION, not contraction…by any means necessary, as other cities have done.
But those cities are also expanding. Greater Cleveland, unfortunately, is not.
Stories like these…about Cleveland’s slow decline and disintegration…make me want to puke. And then to cry.
And do we really need the Transit Thugs…er…Cops? Cut THAT.
Chuckles the Clown
The mayor should be a vocal champion of the $15/hour minimum wage. Give the people a raise, Mister Mayor. Help them with the cost of living.
The increase for disabled service is because they use a different service. They have special bus-like vans that pick them up from their homes and take them where they are going.