CLEVELAND, Ohio – Mayor Frank Jackson’s decision to ban buses in Public Square has caught the attention of a national public transit planning consultant.
Jarrett Walker, who has designed transit networks all over the world, today wrote a blog post entitled, “How (Not) to Wreck Your Transit System” highlighting the local debate.
“Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has announced that new bus lanes that were designed into city’s main square will be closed to buses, thus choking the bus system’s circulation at its very heart,” Walker writes.
Please share this with the downtown business leaders in your life. https://t.co/JYY5v9AV4t
— Jarrett Walker (@humantransit) February 3, 2017
He was alerted to the Public Square debate by a story this week in Citylab detailing the unresolved situation in the square.
The Cleveland situation represents a theme he sees repeated across the world as cities struggle to support public transit.
“This is an instance of a general problem, which is the tendency of the decisions about the functions of transit to be based on how the transit looks rather than the rights and needs of the citizens who use it,” Walker said during a phone interview Friday. “I think that’s a problem that runs across a range of different civic interests.”
In his piece, Walker discusses how cities often try to remove transit from the public eye in order to serve the aesthetics of a planned space like Public Square, which recently underwent a major renovation.
In closing Public Square, people say Mayor Jackson forgot about them
“Downtown business leaders, you have a critical role in shaping your transportation future,” Walker writes. “The most critical decision you make is whether to risk letting downtown succeed as a city, a place where everyone has a right to be, and move and be safe, as opposed to trying to replicate the controlled experience of a shopping mall, where unwanted people can be easily removed.”
The Plain Dealer sent a copy of Walker’s article to City Hall but Jackson’s administration declined to comment on it.
Dan Williams, media relations director for the city, said the administration had not seen the article and did not want to comment.
The city, which first closed Public Square to buses on Aug. 1, currently has the bus lanes through the square blocked by traffic signs. That closure of the stretch of Superior Avenue that runs through the square has caused debates among the local community about the importance of transit in the city.
RTA completing safety analysis on Public Square
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