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Weighing a costly vs. lighter commute

Submitted by Marc Lefkowitz  |  Last edited May 28, 2008 - 1:10pm
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  • All RTA buses are outfitted with bike racksGas prices have Clevelanders thinking for the first time about the cost of their commute. Scooter sales are up, but what changes need to happen before you feel comfortable commuting by bike? Can cars and bikes coexist on the roads in Northeast Ohio? Would a bike lane on your route to work make you feel safe?
  • Meanwhile, after a dip in March, RTA is bracing for an upswing in riders. The transit agency ordered more extra-long buses for Euclid corridor and for its most heavily used routes. How do we prepare the region and RTA for rising demand and higher ridership? Can we retrofit our communities to be more transit accessible?
  • We hear reports about suburbanites who are now "stuck". Stuck with gas guzzling cars and large homes located far away from the city. Many live in low density areas that are not easily served by transit. What are their options? Can they combine modes of transportation?
  • Hybrid cars are disappearing off dealer lots as buyers looking for relief from $4-a-gallon gasoline endure waiting lists, price markups and paltry trade-ins in their quest for better fuel economy, the LA Times reports. I saw a report on WKYC Channel 3 that Motorcars in Cleveland Heights sold 15 hybrid cars over the weekend. I wonder if this trend will drill down very far, though, at a time when people are feeling the pinch of this economic recession, and with gas and food prices expected to rise even more?
  • How far are you willing to go to keep your car running? Fox 8 News reports: "People Giving Blood to Pay for Gas".
  • If your kids can do it, so can you. An average of 200 Bay High School students rode their bicycles to school every day during May. The students set out to prove that bikes are real transportation. It's estimated they collectively rode 15,566 miles and offset 14,350 pounds of carbon dioxide.


May 29, 2008 - 2:12pm

RTA ridership projections?

Marc Lefkowitz Says:

Interesting info from the CNN poll. I've heard pundits saying once the shock of $4/gal wears off, people will adjust their budgets and keep driving. Does anyone know how much RTA is projecting transit ridership numbers to change in NEO? What should RTA focus on to capture more 'choice' riders?

Most discussions about attracting 'choice' riders—those who choose to leave their car at home—center on improving the quality (design, information, lighting) of transit stops. Back in 2004, RTA did a massive rider survey to prioritize improvements, called the Transit Waiting Environments project. In a report, RTA's Citizen's Advisory Board wrote:

The CAB has worked closely with RTA staff and others in the community on this project for many months...A massive amount of work has been completed on this project, and a very detailed workbook of ideas and guidelines has been prepared. The workbook has worked its way through drafts, and it should actually be available to the Board of Trustees for examination very shortly.

Neither RTA nor its CAB has rushed this project unnecessarily, and has instead concentrated on the creation of a quality project. RTA’s customers and the general public have been surveyed about what they would like to see as amenities at transit stops, and there are significant findings from this survey about the priorities that Cuyahoga County residents have on this issue. RTA staff has provided a considerable amount of data on RTA’s ridership by neighborhood, and several tiers of bus stops have been identified, stratified by the volume of passengers that use each stop in the RTA system. This detailed idea workbook is a quality product that will probably serve as a model for other public transit systems around the USA.

But, it is only the beginning of the Transit Waiting Environments project. Significant collaborations between RTA and both the public and private sectors will be needed to properly implement the concepts of this project. Thus, while much preliminary analytic work and strategic thinking has now been completed, an additional substantial amount of implementation work will have to be done in the future. That work will of course have to include consideration of fiscal implications. The CAB and RTA staff and management have indicated that they will be cooperating in this future work. All of this is promising. It is exciting to see this project move forward, but it is by no means finished yet.

In the intervening four years, the TWE project languished on the shelf. The simplest explanation may be that the collaborations between RTA and both the public and private sectors were not significant. In fact, they've been closer to non-existent. Cleveland Public Art and Ohio City Near West did initiate a design for the TWE at W. 25th and Lorain (at Market Square), but funding stalled for the project. The hope is now that transit is, at least in the rearview mirror for most Clevelanders because of gas prices, that we can start a serious dialogue in the region about how to "properly implement the concepts of this project."


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