Today at 1 p.m. Clevelanders for Public Transit will convene a Community Roundtable on Transit at Old Stone Church (91 Public Square, Cleveland). This event is being held in partnership with NOBLE, LEAP and Policy Matters Ohio.
Elected officials and local civic leaders including State Senator Michael Skindell, County Council Representative Dale Miller, and City Council Representative Phyllis Cleveland will participate in a discussion concerning the future of transit. Riders will also testify about the need for affordable, frequent transit in our community.
Transit provides access to jobs, education, healthcare and many other destinations for thousands of members of our community. Unfortunately, transit in our region is in a death spiral: an endless cycle of service cuts, fare increases and ridership decline. A new vision is needed.
In 2006, a single trip on RTA cost only $1.25. Since that time, fares have doubled while service has declined over 25 percent. A recent study by McGill University has shown that transit service and fares impact ridership much more than the cost of gas or the availability of rideshare services. Ongoing reductions to service and fare increases have reduced RTA’s ridership to a record low.
Waiting to address declining transit is a luxury that residents of Cuyahoga County do not have. RTA is losing over $20 million per year due to a change in state sales tax collection policy while state funding for transit has plummeted from $45 million in 2001 to less than $7 million today. Ohio’s level of funding for transit falls below Nebraska, Arkansas and most states in the country.
Since the state of Ohio has failed to adequately address the need to connect taxpayers to jobs and opportunities, local leadership must act to solve the death spiral that RTA riders are currently facing.
This Community Roundtable will be essential for engaging riders and stakeholders in a productive dialogue about how best to move transit in our region forward.