Last night, Clevelanders for Public Transit (CPT) hosted a bus rider Q&A with Cleveland mayoral candidates Justin Bibb and Kevin Kelley. Both candidates discussed their ideas and plans to improve transit in Cleveland. Nearly 50 riders packed into Forest City Brewery, near the West 25 – Ohio City Rapid station.
Earlier, at yesterday’s Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) Board Meeting it was announced that GCRTA will consider implementing a transit ambassador program in 2022. This comes after a court ruling 4 years ago declaring fare enforcement by GCRTA transit police unconstitutional.
Hearing this news, Justin Bibb commented “I was frustrated that after my time on the RTA board I hadn’t seen enough action from leadership. I believe that the transit ambassador program is a fantastic step in the right direction. If we can get some real movement there we will see some change.”
Despite GCRTA’s 2021 budget listing 30 transit police fare enforcement officers, RTA claims they will need new funding to implement the transit ambassador program. CPT suggested that RTA transit police should reconsider spending funds on unconstitutional fare enforcement. Instead, an independent audit and time study of the transit police department should be conducted. The transit ambassador program should be funded by redirecting limited taxpayer funds away from unconstitutional fare enforcement.
When asked about an independent audit of GCRTA Police, Kevin Kelley stated “I’m not sure why this hasn’t happened already, when you look at the numerous police departments you have in the city of Cleveland. In addition to the Cleveland Division of Police, you have RTA Police, the Cleveland Clinic Division of Police, University Circle Police. Why are we spending so much money, so many resources, on policing while we are raising [transit] rates? I think this is something that should have been done a long-time ago. I don’t know why it took this long to raise the question. This is something that needs to be done immediately.”
CPT recently released a new policy platform, Ending the Transit Death Spiral. In the past 15 years, GCRTA fares have doubled while service has been slashed over 25% — this is the death spiral. Candidates discussed how to make transit better and end the transit death spiral in Cleveland.
The full video of the event is available here.
Ending the Death Spiral follows up on CPT’s initial platform, Fair Fares, released in early 2018. Since Fair Fares was published CPT has won significant improvements including fare reductions of nearly $3 million and doubling the amount of people near frequent transit lines by implementing a transit system redesign. Ending the Transit Death Spiral continues to advocate for a transit ambassador program, new local funding sources to expand transit service, equitable transit-oriented development, and systemwide all-door boarding to decrease trip times by up to 20%.