Posts Tagged Euclid Corridor
RTA Takes Us For The Wrong Ride
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development on July 18, 2009
July 18, 2009… Is the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA, bkna as RTA) taking us on another ride? As a transit system, it seems more like a servant of the same old special interests when it should be taking care of transit-dependent citizens.
Yes, I believe RTA does have a money problem with sales taxes and ridership down. Raising fares hardly seems the solution.
However, I also know that RTA hasn’t paid enough attention in the past to its spending. If it did RTA wouldn’t have to be cutting crucial services now.
We’re being told that there is a $5.5 million problem. The solution for RTA’s management is to cut services and raise the price by 25 cents.
That appears to be not a palatable solution.
If CEO and General Manager Joe Calabrese and his RTA board can’t find $5 million in his more than $240 million (2008) budget, then we need to get someone who can do the job.
RTA has become too accustomed to providing services that aren’t really necessary. Too comfy saying yes to the downtown scrounges.
The Euclid Corridor Improvement Project (Health Line) was a perfect example of spending transit money for non-transit purposes. The road was plenty wide for RTA buses. I’d like to know the annual upkeep costs of this Euclid Avenue beautification program.
If you’ve got a lot of extra money to spend, fine, beautify. However, RTA’s primary task is to move people from where they are to where they need to go, especially people who can’t afford to own vehicles.
RTA spent $69 million of OUR dollars for the Waterfront Line, rushing it to please Mayor George Voinovich and his buddy Dick Pogue. They wanted it up for the opening of the Rock Hall of Fame and their parties. To get it done, RTA had to forget about federal subsidy, which probably would have covered 80 percent of the cost. The Waterfront Line was ill-planned and now it ill-serves.
The Waterfront Line service has been cutback. It’s important that RTA tell us just how much it costs to keep this line operating at any level. Maybe it should be mothballed totally.
Equally unnecessary for RTA was the walkway from Tower City to Gateway, a cost of some $11-13 million. I’ve never been able to get an undisputed figure. RTA has to “reimburse” Tower City for utility charges on the walkway.
It’s time RTA got tough and told the Gateway Economic Development Corp., which operates the Gateway facilities, that it has to pick up the cost of the walkway and pay to have its fans delivered to its doors. Why should RTA’s riders pay for this?
Despite the fact that these RTA facilities help Tower City, RTA pays some $1 million a year to Forest City Enterprises, owner of Tower City. It’s annual fee for RTA’s use of space into Tower City. RTA pays an addition $32,000 to “reimburse” Tower City for central plant operations. It even pays a utility charge for use of the escalators! There’s room for negotiations here to lower costs.
Isn’t it time to renegotiate these fees lower since there’s less use and Tower City seems to always get reductions of its property taxes?
The County or the State needs to provide more funding to RTA, too. Why shouldn’t there be subsidies for mass transit? It’s a method of lowering pollution and reducing traffic. We build enough roads for cars.
A small surcharge on every car in the County each year should produce the kind of revenue needed for mass transit.
Plain Dealer Publisher Egger Driving “Opportunity Corridor”
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media, Politicians on June 3, 2009
June 2, 2009… Steve Litt had to swerve and swivel in writing about the Opportunity Corridor – the road Cleveland’s Establishment now finds irresistible. The reason: His boss.
Litt, The Plain Dealer’s architectural critic, did well in being honest about a touchy issue for a Plain Dealer writer. However, he had to tread lightly in Sunday’s article.
After all, Terry Egger, his boss, is co-chairing the panel put together by the Greater Cleveland Partnership to push the “Opportunity Corridor.” Egger is publisher of the PD.
Why he would put himself into this situation can only be read as a need for power. Don’t see it any other way.
Co-chairman Egger had the public panel’s first meeting held incommunicado from the public, which will pay for it. Where? In his Plain Dealer’s offices. Weeks ago.
There is nothing like guarded secrecy from the same people who demand transparency of others. That’s the Plain Dealer.
Litt is a big booster of the road but he outlined some of the problems of a panel chosen to tell us that “We need this!” It’s the cry for another big project.
As someone mentioned to me today, I thought the Euclid Corridor was the highway from downtown and the interstate roads to University Circle. Didn’t we just spend more than $200 million for that? Yes, we did.
For that matter shouldn’t we be moving away from encouraging private transportation? Should we not be improving public transportation, doing everything we can to encourage people to use mass transit rather than getting in their auto. Shouldn’t we be moving people away from trying to save two or ten minutes by constructing multi-million dollar roadways?
I think the answer is YES.
As usual our leadership – the Greater Cleveland Partnership, the Plain Dealer, Cleveland Foundation and Gund Foundation, prime funders of the panel – moves us in the wrong direction. Very expensive wrong direction. The foundations anted up $100,000 each for a phony public show. Just give us slogans.
The less than three mile road – from East 55th & I-490 to E. 105th – will cost an estimated $350 million.
Litt correctly gives us citations from the Federal Highway Administration Web site about requirements that the public be involved in such decision-making.
That’s like saying children should behave or be quiet.
Not going to happen.
He quotes Egger saying that his “point of view is that the public’s business needs to be done in public.” Publicly? In his office. Are you kidding?
Egger says that even as he holds the panel meeting in his own offices at the Plain Dealer. In private. No press allowed.
What utter nonsense. None of this “planning” is going to be done with any real public input.
Litt and Chris Warren, Mayor Frank Jackson’s director of regional development, credit the panel with being more diverse. Litt cites membership by three Cleveland City Council members. Pleeeze!
We have another stacked deck, citizens. They could change the name of the city to Rigged Ohio. Nobody would notice and the foundations would pay for it.