Cleveland’s Rapid Transit Authority has been voted the “Best in the Country”; obviously by someone who doesn’t ride public transportation in New York, Boston, Washington DC, Portland Oregon, San Francisco, etc.
Today was one of the most exasperating times I’ve had in Cleveland. Some friends invited me to see the “Tall Ships” which are moored at Cleveland’s Port. Being equally green-minded we all decided to take the Rapid Transit and save the gas and the $10.00 event parking. Not familiar with how our system works, but having extensively travelled all over the world and ridden subway and train systems, we purchased one-trip tickets and boarded the train at the first green station in the country, the 65th street station. The machine was confusing, listing all kinds of possible tickets that the little screen refused to explain. We finally settled on three adult one-trip tickets for $2.50 each. In most cities if you are riding around all day, switching to different trains, busses and stations it is a better deal to buy the all day pass, but we were only going to the waterfront and back so thought it would work out cheaper to just get the one-trip tickets. Of course, we were mistaken.
In nearly every city we’ve been in, once you have a ticket and are “underground” you can continue to take any train without leaving the station, re-entering and buying new tickets. Not so in Cleveland. After going just a couple of miles and a couple of stops, we got off at the underground Tower City station and headed for the Waterfront line. However, our tickets were now invalid. We had to puchase new tickets. Now we’d already spent the same amount as an all-day pass and still haven’t made the return trip home.
Once new tickets were purchased we placed them in the card-slider only to have the machine read “ticket misread”. The policewoman on duty informed us we’d have to insert the ticket in the separate reader instead of using the same slider we’d just used at the first station. No signs stated this, so obviously RTA is paying this police officer to do the work of a sign. We inserted our tickets into the reader and this time the machine read “Incorrect RTE”. The office ended up letting us through the handicap-gate, along with every single other person in the station since the reader apparently couldn’t read the tickets at all. Frustrating and expensive so far.
We boarded the Waterfront line and rockily jostled our way to the 3rd street station where we disboarded. Walking up the switchback ramps we were stopped at a booth by another policewoman. This one said we’d have to pay our tickets for riding the rapid. We explained that we’d already paid, but she continued to argue that we’d have to pay again. The man in the booth looked at our tickets and waved us on but this final insult was really aggravating us.
One friend thought he’d be clever and purchased our return home tickets now so we wouldn’t have to wait in line later once the event was over. However, when we did return to the station we discovered that RTA tickets are only good for 30 minutes and so were now invalid.
Really RTA? All total we spent $30 to ride the rapid when it would have cost us $10.00 to just drive there and park. Okay, maybe throw in an extra $1.00 for gas.
The ones I really feel sorry for are foreigners and visitors to the city. Having been confused by the metro of Paris, stymied by the trains of Frankfurt, and nauseated by the smells of the New York Subway, I would still not vote Cleveland’s RTA the “best” of anything unless it was “best of confusing, expensive, and broke-down transit systems”.
If you read the actual press release from APTA, it lists very specific improvements that RTA made in 2007 that warrant giving the award. The idea that the award could be used to label the RTA system as inherently ‘best’ was, in my opinion, a botched attempt by RTA’s PR department, not the intent of APTA.
Thanks for that! I wondered where they got this designation. This was my partner’s only second attempt at using RTA, and likely his last. I have ridden many times, but find that the entire system is broken, inefficient, and in need of a make over. I have ridden many times and ranted about the lack of ability to figure it out, how expensive it is, and how frustratiing to ride. In the meantime, routes are cut, rates have risen, and the less able to deal with rate hikes are the tho only people riding it. It is a system in dire straits.
Thank you for voicing the frustration of riding the RTA….the worst is those silly ticket machines. So confusing! Whoever designed that user interface should be fired. What a waste of money.