OH: End of an era downtown: Empty seats drive RTA plan to cut trolley loop & most Waterfront Line service

Two once-heralded downtown public transit services launched decades ago are on a short list of things to cut as RTA chips away at budget concerns.

The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Agency is proposing to remove all non-event day service on its Waterfront rail line, plus do away with the downtown loop trolley bus route.

Use of both these services is very low.

Less than one passenger per trip boards the Waterfront Line from Tower City to the lakefront on days when there isn’t a special event, and just 3.3 people on average step on the trolley per each trip through downtown, staff told board members during a recent presentation.

These changes and adjustments to some other routes would add up to $2.5 million of annual savings, enough to solidify the budget without having to make the $10 million in service cuts initially discussed in December, officials said.

The public can weigh in during hearings on April 13, 15 and 16, and during a public comment period through April 27. Absent any changes based on the feedback, these and some other route adjustments will occur Aug. 16, said Joel Freilich, the transit agency’s director of service management.

It was in 2006 that the RTA launched two downtown trolley routes - using buses on wheels designed to look like old-fashioned trolleys - ballyhooed at the time by the Downtown Cleveland Partnership as a way to boost shopping and tourism in the city.

Drivers received special training to share tourist information, such as what was playing at Playhouse Square or where to find a place to dine. Nine trolleys initially were placed into service, in some cases replacing what were then loop bus routes.

The single trolley route left now runs every 15 minutes on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

As for the Waterfront Line, its history goes back to 1996 when the $70 million, 2.2-mile route from Public Square, through the Flats and to the lakefront launched during the city’s bicentennial celebration.

Some 785,000 riders boarded the Waterfront Line in its first full year of operation in 1997, with the popularity of the Flats as a regional attraction at or near its peak. Ridership slipped to 426,000 by 2001.

Former RTA General Manager Joe Calabrese in 2002 called the line a “transportation manager’s nightmare. ... Either the service is being underutilized, or - before a Browns game, the rib cook-off and tall ships - we are overwhelmed with passengers.”

More recent annual data specific to the Waterfront Line was not immediately available, but RTA’s entire light rail system that also includes the Blue and Green lines carried 757,854 passengers last year. The Waterfront service, which already had been cut back to just weekend service, has been on pause this year because of track work at the Tower City station.

It still runs for big events like Browns games; there are no plans to change that.

Yet even with the elimination of regular service, Freilich said the Waterfront Line remains an asset as the city mulls developing the 50 acres at and around the current football stadium into a place more people would visit on a regular basis.

“The Waterfront Line will be there to serve it when it happens,” Freilich said. “But there is no need for us to spend money every day right now while that area is still largely not occupied and ridership is very low.”

RTA also plans to eliminate the 19B Fargo spur from the 19 Broadway line, freeing up more regular service to the Cuyahoga Community College Eastern Campus. And routing is to change for the southern end of the No. 77 Brecksville bus route aimed at serving more passengers.

RTA has blamed its budget issues mainly on rapidly increasing costs for employee medical insurance, rising from $34 million in 2024 to a budgeted $56 million in 2026.

RTA’s 2026 budget relies on transferring $44 million from its reserve fund.

RTA has eliminated pay raises for non-union workers, let vacant positions go unfilled and is negotiating a new contract for paratransit services aimed at savings, said Rajan Gautam, deputy general manager of finance.

Gautam said no decision has been made yet on whether to seek an increase in the 1% countywide sales tax that serves as the transit agency’s chief source of local money.

RTA CEO India Birdsong Terry, responding to trustees questions in December about a possible tax request, said her staff was in the “research mode” on the topic.

”We’ve had several conversations about it, but I think it’s becoming more of a realistic option," Birdsong Terry said.

Counties and transit agencies in Ohio are permitted to add sales taxes on top of the state’s rate of 5.75%, but the total rate cannot exceed 8.75%, according to the Ohio Department of Taxation. Cuyahoga County’s current rate is 8%.

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