It is the late 1960s or early 1970s in Cleveland. Shaker Heights Rapid Transit car 72 and other PCC cars are sitting inside the Van Aken loop in Shaker Heights. Soon these cars will be called for rush hour service to downtown Cleveland. Today this is the Blue Line of Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority.
Photograph by Robert Farkas.
The governing board of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority this week approved moving ahead with the purchase of 24 new railcars.
The board agreed to award a $164 million contract to Siemens Mobility for the purchase of the Model S200 railcars with an option to purchase up to 60 cars in the future.
The 52-seat cars will be modeled after a similar car type used by a transit agency in Calgary, Alberta.
RTA is hoping up to 60 new cars to its fleet over a seven-year period.
The new cars will be ADA accessible and come with two two wheelchair-accessible seats and capacity for four bicycles per car.
They will have high floors and plastic seating. The current cars used by RTA have 72 fabric seats per car.
The age of the existing fleet ranges from 39 to 42 years. RTA officials have said those cars have become prone to rust and corrosion.
The cost of replacing all of RTA’s railcars has been put at $393 million, which includes the cost of the cars, infrastructure and railroad changes, and spare parts.
Nine escalators are being replaced at three downtown stations on the light rail lines of Pittsburgh Regional Transit.
The agency said work on the $13.5 million project will begin on April 24.
Three of three of four escalators will be replaced at Steel Plaza Station followed by the replacement of escalators at Wood Street Station in fall, First Avenue Station in early 2024 and Steel Plaza Station in summer 2024.
In a news release, agency officials said the escalators will be out of service while work is being completed.
If it can find the money to buy them, Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority is leaning toward purchasing 24 new rail transit cars from Siemens Mobility.
The Cleveland RTA governing board heard a report this week about plans to buy up t o 60 high floor car over a seven-year period. The projected cost of that is $393 million.
Although the RTA board voted to move ahead on spending $164 million to purchase 24 cars, it acknowledged it is $7 million short of being able to cover that cost with its existing funds.
The initial 24-car order would be assigned to the Red Line between Cleveland Hopkins Airport and East Cleveland via downtown Cleveland.
The new cars would be ADA accessible, including two wheelchair-accessible seats. Capacity of the cars would be 52 seats and space for four bicycles.
Other features of the new cars include plastic seats, heated windshields, and ice cutting technology.
What was presented to the RTA board this week was a concept. The actual design of the rail cars will be done over a 15-month period once the agency signs a contract with Siemens.
The new cars would replace 69 of the agency’s existing cars.
The new cars, though, would come with fewer seats than the existing cars, which can seat 84. RTA officials said the loss of seating will be offset somewhat by having more standing room.
In a statement, RTA General Manager and Chief Executive Officer India Birdsong Terry said the Siemens Model S200 cars would come with lower maintenance cost, provide more flexibility in their operation and improve the passenger riding experience.
RTA Chief Operating Officer Floun’say Caver said the new cars would provide increased rail route flexibility by making possible trips the current infrastructure cannot support.
He cited as an example having a one seat ride from Hopkins Airport to the Green Road Station in Shaker Heights.
Currently, making that trip requires a change of trains at Tower City Station in downtown Cleveland.
The existing RTA rail car fleet is of two different models with one model confined to the Red Line and the other model confined to the Blue, Green and Waterfront lines.
Caver said that although the current fleet of RTA rail cars is safe to operate, they are prone to rust and corrosion.
The agency conducted a study that concluded it was more cost effective to replace those cars than continue to repair them.
The car replacement process has been four years in the making and suffered a setback in 2021 when vendor response to an RTA request for proposals proved to be inadequate.
The RTA board plans to discuss the rail car replacement program at an April 10 committee meeting with the full board expected to consider the plan on April 18.
As for funding of the new rail cars, officials told the board that RTA has $157 million on hand with another $67 million committed to the project that will become available over the next several years.
RTA hopes to land a $130 grant from funds provided by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Grants from that pot of money. Those grant winners are expected to be named next month.
If RTA fails to win that grant or receives less than the $130 million it is seeking, officials said the rail replacement project will need to be scaled back.
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