Feb 14, 2020
The second week of February is always Ohio Loves Transit week, which means we here at RTA get to celebrate our riders by surprising them with small tokens of our appreciation for taking transit. This year, we decided it would be fun to pop up at stations and stops around the county sharing small goodie bags with Valentine's Day candy and a 2-trip pass to those waiting for the bus or train. This was also a great opportunity to encourage people to join the GOhio Commute challenge for the month of February for which riders are able to win additional prizes. The Northeast Ohio Loves Transit Challenge is open to all transit riders in Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain and
Medina counties. If you take the bus or train to work, or for any trip, during the month of February, you'll be eligible for weekly raffle drawings!
You’d be surprised at the amazing things that transit can do for your community. By taking transit you can decrease your carbon admissions and save your gas by grabbing a pass for any of our rapid or bus lines. With the ability to park your car at some our major stations you can get right to the heart of downtown, the airport or Shaker Square by taking RTA and saving you the cost or frustration related to parking.
As part of Ohio Loves Transit week, transit organizations from all over Ohio; Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, Cincinnati and many more all meet in Columbus to talk with legislators and constituents about transit and funding.
As a result of last year’s meeting, RTA was able to receive $15 million of a $70 million total budget which went towards RTA major projects. Some of those projects included the heavy rail car replacement, light rail track project (which will begin later this year), bus replacements, and the purchase of some land to aid in the reconstruction project of the East 79th St. Red Line station.
This also allowed us a greater opportunity to share our collective efforts to improve our system with the System Redesign Study and the upcoming Strategic Plan meetings.
General Manager and CEO India Birdsong was introduced to fellow CEOs from transit agencies around Ohio, and our legislators were able meet her and hear about the things she has done for Cleveland in her time here thus far.
We thank everyone for riding RTA on a daily basis, and especially today on "Ohio Loves Transit Day"!
