When Cleveland’s bus era began in 1925, a lot would change over the past 100 years of operation, from the buses themselves to who operates them. It also started with one of Cleveland’s first buses running late. A simple measuring tape could have made the Cleveland Railway Co.'s Vice President, Joseph Alexander's, life a lot easier, and helped riders get the bus on time.
The Motor Coach Division of Cleveland Railway Co., which started the first Downtown loop, forgot to measure the height of its first double-decker bus for the score of overhead crossings it would face being shipped by freight from Philadelphia.
The decision to send it by freight was made because they knew the bus was already too tall to avoid the low bridges on the National Highway and other thoroughfares. Alexander, fed up that his buses weren't here, told The Plain Dealer that they would start to “drive the rest through and figure our own clearances.”
Once up and running, the bus line faced mixed reactions. In October 1925, one Clevelander wrote to The Plain Dealer, "those in charge of the empty bus line running in the loop in the downtown district require a telescope to see that no passengers are riding in these buses.”
While another Clevelander wrote next month that “one thing is certain. Motor bus service (if it is good service and helps get the people to and from work) will get patronage and be a boon to hundreds of motorists who would much rather leave their cars in the garage than drive them downtown and back.”
The latter has proven to be true after 100 years of buses operating in Cleveland.
Cleveland Transit System Bus (CTS) Era
One of the first big changes to Cleveland’s bus system came on April 28, 1942, when the Railway Co. was bought by the city for a little over $14 million, taking the ownership public and officially becoming the Cleveland Transit System (CTS) under the city's utilities department.
When doing so, Cleveland joined Detroit and New York as the only three major cities that owned their transportation system. However, all eyes were on Cleveland because no other city had its system being financed by revenue bonds in the hands of the public.
The city looked instantly to remove the metal fare boxes from the 425 buses it had in its fleet as the metal could be used in the war effort to manufacture planes.
With World War II raging, it would also soon bring crises to the CTS as young bus motormen would join the war effort, and senior officials would leave for higher-paying jobs in the war industry.
CTS also had to follow the Office of Defense transportation policy that tires must be saved wherever possible, leading to the abandonment of part-time use of buses, and to get replacement parts, the city had to prove to the bus manufacturers that the bus was entirely out of commission.
In January 1943, the CTS would no longer operate under the utilities department, instead becoming its own department that a three-man commission would operate.
During the war, ridership of buses would hit record highs and would continue to see growth over the next 20 years.
By 1974, the CTS would expand and have a fleet of 706 buses and 116 rapid cars that traveled almost 22 million miles annually. However, CTS was operating at a net loss of $6.9 million dollars.
Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) Era
While Cleveland was the first major city to support itself through revenue bonds, it was the last major city to fund its system through the farebox revenue, leading to facilities and equipment to decline.
This led to the City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County officials forming the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA), which began full operations in 1975, taking over the CTS bus routes.
To get funding to improve facilities and buses, voters passed a one-percent countywide sales tax increase to fund the RTA and lower fares from 55 cents to 25 cents, passing with 71% of the vote, the largest ever in the nation for a transit issue.
“It did pass by a very hefty margin, which is consistent with the trends of Cuyahoga County voters,” GCRTA Service Management Director Joel Freilich told Cleveland Magazine. “Even when the nation goes through trends of being anti-tax and the nation does that, sometimes Cuyahoga County voters don't seem to vote on that and jump on that bandwagon.”
Ridership increased 71 percent over pre-RTA levels in 1978, and the RTA added 143 new buses, bringing the overall fleet total to 1,020 in 1979.
Between 1982 and 1985, the RTA ordered 105 new Metro buses from Grumman Flxible as these buses proved reliable and were already a huge part of the Greater Cleveland fleet with 152 of the 1,000 buses they operated.
“Each has logged more than 500,000 miles. They are the backbones of our morning and afternoon pullouts,” Joseph Bartkiewicz, supervisor of bus equipment for the RTA, said at the time.
Clevelanders would face warmer rides as the RTA looked to phase out air conditioning on buses in 1984 but had a change of heart four years later in 1988, proposing to have 400 buses installed with it.
“If next summer is anywhere near as hot as this one, the public would surely warm to cool buses,” said an August editorial in The Plain Dealer in 1988.
Accessibility would be one of the biggest improvements to buses, first coming in 1988 when buses were fitted with wheelchair lifts.
“{Ronald Tober said we are} not buying any bus that's not accessible. Therefore, as our buses get old and they get replaced, at least they will be accessible. So he wanted to go for a hundred percent accessibility,” Freilich said.
By the late 1990s and early 2000s, a new style of buses would start to be used in major cities. Young people view them as our normal buses today, but older Clevelanders will know that they were once called low-floor buses because they are about the same level as the sidewalk, making accessibility even easier.
Fuel changes would also come to buses over the years:
Cleveland would be one of the first cities to use compressed natural gas buses in 1991.
Clean diesel buses in 2001.
Hydrogen-fueled buses in 2013.
The first editorial in 1925 would not come anywhere close to becoming true with the RTA operating 20.3 million rides between its standard bus service and the bus rapid transit in 2024 alone.
“"We're really making a lot of things possible by giving people that mobility so they can access the jobs, the education, the healthcare, the social connection that it exists for,” Freilich said as the RTA looks to celebrate 50 years of operations this year. “A purpose that transportation means is not the end in itself, but transportation is the means to connect the community and really build community."
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