RTA Finds The Money

[Bill Call]

The RTA is looking to spend $150 million do extend the Blue Line and add new improvements and bus service along Northfield Road:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/02 ... _busr.html

The idea is to extend the service form Shaker Heights to the abandoned Randal Park Mall and along Northfield Road to help revitalize vacant and deterorating store fronts.

I realize I am not a disinterested observer but this seems a bit strange.

The RTA has closed its profitable circulator in Lakewood, reduced service on the near Westside and Shoreway and replaced the rights sized buses with articulated monsters that block traffic and obstruct views.

I think even a disinterested observer would suspect that the Westside has no place in RTA's plans.

I mean, 100,000 people live and work in Lakewood and the Edgewater Park/West Park area of Cleveland, the area is prime for development because of its proximity to downtown and the lakefront and RTA is doing everything possible to obstruct transit and development along Clifton and other areas.

Is it just stupidity or are darker motives at work?

[Richard Cole]

The RTA is looking to spend $150 million do extend the Blue Line and add new improvements and bus service along Northfield Road:

snip

Is it just stupidity or are darker motives at work?

I'd go for a 50/50 split.

Transportation planning is not a strongpoint; developable land encourages speculation - or is that not the "darker motives" you're alluding too?

I agree, it does seem odd, very odd.

[Stan Austin]

Bill--- If you have kept up with my posts on RTA on other threads I think you will find that (gulp) you and I are in agreement as to the bizarre ideas that this agency produces. The only difference between this and the Euclid Corridor is that on Northfield and Randall Park Mall, those are already dead. On Euclid, RTA killed the remaining stragglers.
As to any ulterior motives - I would think that that would require a modicum of intelligence and ability, two quantities lacking in this instance.
Stan

[ryan costa]

we're going to have to get Bay Village to secede into Lorain county. Then Rocky River, then Lakewood, then the West Side. Then just start a new LCT.

[Rhonda loje]

Secession??

[Bill Call]

Bill--- If you have kept up with my posts on RTA on other threads I think you will find that (gulp) you and I are in agreement as to the bizarre ideas that this agency produces. The only difference between this and the Euclid Corridor is that on Northfield and Randall Park Mall, those are already dead. On Euclid, RTA killed the remaining stragglers.

As to any ulterior motives - I would think that that would require a modicum of intelligence and ability, two quantities lacking in this instance.
Stan

We agree on more than you might think.

If RTA wants to become an economic development organization then it should leave the transportation business or start a separate economic development division.
Maybe I'm being overly critical but I just don't get it.

Everything they say that want to encourage in a City exists right now along the Lakeshore from West 25th to the Western Border of Lakewood. A little bit of support would have immense synergies.

You would think that if $150 million Federal dollars were available RTA might want to combine their efforts with those of the City of Cleveland and the State of Ohio to repurpose the shoreway and support the West shore community and its 100,000 residents. Instead they are working behind the scenes to sabotage that development. Instead they want to spend $150 million on an improved public transportation system to improve access to an abandoned shopping mall.