Reflections on the Award-Winning RTA
Smile and Ride Free on the Trolley

Many people have been surprised that the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority was named the Best Public Transportation System in North America for 2007. As a loyal customer, I was not. The cheerful and professional drivers give me time to read during my half-hour trip from the Westlake Park-N-Ride to downtown Cleveland, and at $3.50 round trip, it’s a bargain. My own journey over the last 25 years started with hour long rides down Lorain Road on a local 75 bus that was rerouted away from Franklin and onto the Shoreway when it was decided Franklin could not handle the traffic.

Suburb dwellers have been taking express buses, rather than local buses, for years. But the express bus routes are being supplanted by luxury coaches running from Park-N-Ride lots from Solon to North Olmsted. Local routes, trains, and the rapid transit remain for city folks requiring stops between downtown and their starting point. The Transit Authority changes with the times.

RTA’s history begins with the stagecoach route between Cleveland and Painesville, which began in 1818 and stopped at places like the Rider Inn along the way. Euclid Street was an unpaved path through the woods lined by log cabins. Women in long dresses and men in high collars packed their trunks and satchels into stagecoaches to make the long journey east, perhaps stopping at the frame house at 55th Street or Doan’s Corners at 105th Street. In the 1940s large horse-drawn carriages traveled between downtown hotels like the Forest City House and railroad stations.

From 1834-42, the first rail line ran along from Public Square to Wade Park along Euclid Avenue. In 1940, the train would have traveled past the homes of Samuel Cowles at 622 Euclid, Thomas Kelley at 1723 Euclid, and William Williams’ home at 723 Euclid, fronted by iron gates on a tree-lined street. In 1859, a horse-drawn streetcar pulled on rails became the first street railway, and it ran from downtown to E. 55th Street. In the 1860s and 1870s three suburban steam lines were operated. By that time country estates spread east on Euclid Avenue and included the Alonzo Winslow home at 7102 Euclid complete with pond and a bridge over a creek and a carriage house in the back; an 1860 pictures of the house shows a horse-drawn carriage driving outside the fenced estate.

Cleveland had the first commercial electric railway in the United States from 1884-1901. By late 1800s, we had 425 miles of streetcar lines and in 1913-20, a rapid transit system started when the Van Sweringen brothers developed the City of Shaker Heights. Buses began when the Motor Coach Division of Cleveland Railway began a downtown loop. When the Terminal Tower opened in 1930, Cleveland Union Terminal became part of Cleveland’s transportation system. Ridership increased to 299 million during the Depression, and rose to 446 million by 1946.

The Cuyahoga County Engineer resides on the Superior Viaduct with its Trolleyville, USA museum. Twice a year, the County Engineer hosts self-guided tours back in time to the early 20th century when crowds waited on platforms in front of the Terminal Tower to catch cable cars. The cable cars traveled across the Cuyahoga River on the lower level of the Veterans Memorial (formerly the Detroit-Superior) Bridge. The Bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

This past Labor Day, my family looked at pictures of the old cable cars and buses and downtown Cleveland during the self-guided tour of the old subway route under the bridge. The tour included a film of some of the cable cars, people waiting, Public Square packed with people waiting to board. It was a window to a long-ago world. We walked first underground going west in the vast cavern with Roman arches and brick-tiled walls, walking on the cable car tracks. It felt deserted. We walked east over the River on steel grating and could see the water below that, and I felt suspended. The air show was going on and when we were somewhere near the middle of the bridge, a plane bellowed above us, the phantom noise echoing to unbearable decibels. The tour ended with a visit to the Trolley Car Museum, which we came upon after climbing the stairs to street level. It was hard to imagine Cleveland during the 1940s, even though many of the buildings are the same as those standing today because there were train stations and cable tracks then.

RTA embraces Cleveland’s public transportation history, even though it was not established until 1974 when the Cuyahoga County Commissioners and Cleveland City Council established Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority funded by a countywide sales tax. Today, RTA connects people with places to allow growth and preserve natural resources and makes 57.2 passenger trips a year. It has over 700 buses, circulators and trolleys, and operates rail service and rapid transit systems. The new downtown trolley car service was made possible by a contribution from the Convention & Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland and has been continued through private sponsorship. The E-Line travels Euclid to the Warehouse District and out to Cleveland State, while the B-Line circles Superior and Lakeside between E. 12th and the Warehouse District, at 10-minute intervals.

Find your way around the Cleveland area on their upgraded website: http://www.riderta.com. Or take a chance and have a fling on the E-line at lunch time.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Claudia J. Taller ctallerwritesATwowway.com
(:divend:)