Envision walking out of Tower City Center, ascending an escalator, and boarding a driverless train that whisks you around downtown fifteen feet above the streets below. The monorail, dubbed the Downtown People Mover, represented progress and modernity. In 1976, Mayor Ralph Perk submitted Cleveland’s Downtown People Mover proposal to the federal government. The DPM proposal portrayed Cleveland as the ideal city for a monorail.
The various attempts at developing an effective system to circulate people through downtown led to the development of the Downtown People Mover. In 1969, the Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA), created five years earlier amid a flurry of Great Society legislation, funded a People Mover project for Morgantown, West Virginia. The people mover successfully transported students and faculty throughout the West Virginia University campus, avoiding the traffic congestion in the city, but the concept was slow to progress to the next level. Accordingly, the federal government set aside $220 million to test the abilities of People Movers as downtown transportation in the spring of 1976 and held a national competition in which a number of cities submitted proposals.
The Plain Dealer characterized the unveiling of the winning cities as being as “suspenseful as an Academy Award show.” U.S. Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman announced the grant recipients at a news conference by revealing downtown maps of the winners. Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles and St. Paul won portions of the federal grant, while Detroit won a portion of funds from an earlier people mover grant.
Downtown transit circulation was an important concern in Cleveland as in other U.S. cities, particularly in the second half of the twentieth century. In the 1950s the Cleveland Transit System (predecessor of today’s RTA) had twice failed to achieve a downtown circulator subway to serve as the hub for a revamped rapid transit system serving the metropolitan area. Cleveland;s downtown consisted of dispersed retail locations, government centers, and office buildings, which the DPM planned to connect with its 2.2 mile loop, elevated fifteen feet above Cleveland’s streets.
Many opposed the construction of the DPM, including Thomas E. Bier, then an assistant professor at the Institute of Urban Studies at Cleveland State University. The proposed route would have run along Euclid Avenue, stopping at East 6th, East 9th, and East 13th Streets. At lunchtime, the area of Euclid Avenue between Public Square and East 9th brought together a variety of people in regard to class, race, and age. Bier reasoned that building the DPM fifteen feet above street level would further promote separation of the affluent, largely white pedestrians from less affluent, particularly African Americans. The lower-income shoppers of Euclid Avenue between Public Square and East 9th would have had little use for the DPM, therefore separating them from the higher income shoppers traveling further down Euclid Avenue to reach Halle’s and other upscale retailers.
Norman Krumholz, the City Planning Director in Cleveland at the time, also opposed the DPM. Krumholz concluded that the DPM conflicted with the transportation needs of 87 percent of RTA bus riders. The DPM’s free fare would undermine the twenty-five-cent fare that RTA had promised to uphold for three years. Armed with the information from Krumholz, Cuyahoga County Commissioners Robert Sweeny and George Voinovich also opposed the building of the DPM calling it “unnecessary . . . and the potential ruination of downtown.” Sweeney and Voinovich requested that Secretary of Transportation Brock Adams take back Cleveland’s Downtown People Mover grant, a premonition of what the future held.
Much like the failed Cleveland subway system, Cleveland did not build a DPM. Elected mayor in 1977, Dennis Kucinich requested that U.S. Transportation Secretary Brock Adams withdraw Cleveland’s application for the federal DPM grant. Richard Page, the director of UMTA, expressed his surprise. The UMTA had never been turned down for a federal grant by a mayor or city government before. Kucinich stated three objections to the DPM. First, the DPM violated an agreement with the RTA against such systems. Second, Kucinich expected the cost of the DPM to exceed its estimate. Finally, Cleveland’s existing transit system would be negatively impacted by the DPM.
Both Detroit’s DPM and the Morgantown People Mover exceeded their initial budgets by millions, legitimizing Kucinich’s fear of cost overruns. Cleveland’s DPM was expected to serve 46,500 riders per day. Morgantown’s People Mover transports 10,000 people per day. Detroit’s DPM transports the same number, even though it was estimated to move 55,000 passengers per day. Would the Downtown People Mover have proved popular enough to move 46,500 Clevelanders per day through downtown? Cleveland will never know, but if Detroit’s DPM is any indication, the answer is unlikely.
]]>In 1970 the future of public transportation in Cleveland looked bleak. The city was millions of dollars in debt and its transit system crumbling. Ridership had dwindled in the wake of World War II and large groups were moving into the suburbs, outside the current busing system's range. The road to recovery began in 1971; with the election of a new mayor the city was able to institute a regional public transportation system.
In 1971 Ralph J. Perk became Cleveland's first Republican mayor in more than three decades and, after establishing the Cleveland Regional Sewer District, he set his sights on the transit problem. At the time of Perk's inauguration as mayor, the busing system in place was Cleveland Transit System (CTS). In the late 1960s, CTS ridership suffered a dramatic drop from which it was unable to recover. To combat the drop in ridership, CTS resorted to cutting service programs, employee layoffs, and selective fare hikes. In 1968, under the mayoralty of Carl Stokes, an attempt to revitalize the transportation system in the city resulted in a four-mile rail extension to Hopkins International Airport. This made Cleveland the first city in the Western Hemisphere with direct rapid transit service to its major airport, but that was not enough to overcome the financial problems of the system. In its last full year of operation, CTS operated with a net loss of $6.9 million. The city council, working under the recommendation of Perk, approved a bill to allow the city to purchase $9.5 million in CTS bonds and temporarily solved the money problems. While this relieved the immediate pressure of the transit issue, Perk knew he needed a more concrete solution and developed a plan for modernizing the transit system.
A variety of circumstances delayed the implementation of Perk's plan. First, it was necessary to assess the fair market value of CTS and arrange a way to pay the remaining debt after it was no longer in existence. The city obtained a federal grant by the Urban Mass Transportation Administration in the amount of $582,000 to conduct the survey. Recognizing it was not within the power of a single municipality to solve CTS's problems, the study called for the regionalization of transit and proposed that public ownership should rest in a transit authority. This push for regional transportation was not limited to the Cleveland area; it was a concern evident throughout the nation in the late 1960s and 1970s. Cities such as St. Louis, San Francisco, and Chicago were conducting similar studies, all of which concluded the best solution for the economic well being and suburban development of each city was to develop a regional transportation system.
Next, Perk had to determine a way to finance the new transit system long term. To combat this Perk proposed a one-cent tax increase. The proposal was overwhelmingly approved by the voters and on September 5, 1975, the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) was given control of all CTS assets. During its first year, the RTA was averaging a ridership of 356,000 riders a week - a 65% increase from the final years of the CTS. RTA also made a profit of $260,000 its first year that was allotted to paying the debt of CTS and other capital expenses. By the end of 1975, RTA had added bus service to Euclid, Maple Heights, North Olmsted, Brecksville, Garfield Heights, and Bedford. In 1976, RTA added six additional service areas.
Perk had to overcome problems of debt and corruption, poor sewage and water pollution, and a crumbling transportation system. Under his leadership and belief that a city is meant to function in the best interest of the people, the Regional Sewer District and Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority were established. During his four years as mayor, Perk laid the groundwork for the RTA. Perk did not sit by idly while city council and the transit board made all the decisions but actively campaigned for the implementation of the RTA program by attending meetings, encouraging the support of the plan, and appointing the board that would oversee the day-to-day functioning of the RTA. Perk gave the city a transportation system it could be proud of, one that would prove to be profitable and a model that other cities could emulate. Forty years later the Regional Transit Authority is not only still operating, but continues to flourish and receive recognition.
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