Interesting!!!!
Chicago's path to municipalization of mass transit was remarkably similar to that of Cleveland. Consolidation of street railways into four underlying companies with unified operations and management by Chicago Surface Lines occurred by 1914 with a similar consolidation of the four rapid transit companies into Chicago Rapid Transit Company in 1924. Both were municipalized as the Chicago Transit Authority in 1947. CTA added Chicago Motor Coach (the Boulevard Route) in 1953.
The history of the Cleveland transit system dates back to the 1880 with the formation of the Cleveland electric railway, a merger of various street car and interurban lines. This system continued until 1910 when financial and labor issue forced the city to form the Cleveland railway co a municipal franchise that took over many of the city street car and bus system. The CRC operated until 1942 when again issues raised and the city issued 17.5 million dollars in bonds to buy the company's share and the municipally owned Cleveland transit system took over.
Thanks for the explanation. Remember many of us foreigners read these posts and don't have Cleveland knowledge anywhere approaching that of Drew Carey.
Did the name CTS apply to all of Cleveland's transit, except of course Shaker Heights Rapid Transit, which from your writing seems to have kept its corporate identity separate until it joined the Regional Transit Authority?
Patrick Boylan
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Yes indeed the CTS was the Cleveland transit system,t running from Windermere to union terminal and on to I think don't quote me to west 6 th. Street. It was extended to Cleveland international in 1967. It is a heavy rail line. It was the first rapid transit sytem in the northern hemisphere to offer a direct line to a international airport. The shaker heights ran on two east side lines from green road and van Allen down to union terminal and was a light rail system. It was originally the Cleveland interurban railroad. In 1920 it was swallowed up van sweringen brothers and extended to Cleveland union terminal in 1930. In 1944 the city of shaker heights bought the line. In 1975 the RTA regional transit authority took over both the cts and shrt and is primarily a greater Cleveland and cuyhoga county operation. It also took over 5 bus companies operated by local cities such as the maple heights transit system. Sorry if I caused confusion.
Shrt was the shaker heights rapid transit
CTS is Cleveland Transit System, RTA is Regional Transit Authority. The last acronym can cause confusion for a Chicagoan talking on the phone with someone from Cleveland, especially due to some similar street names and addresses.
Overmod, that's quite a typo, and he did it twice in this thread. He also put RTA in the title. I appreciate your guess, but only Robert Willison's reply will help me acheive the pleasure of my life.
gardendance What does CTS mean?
What does CTS mean?
I'm pretty sure he means RTA.
[Edit: yes, this qualifies as a 'WHOOOOOSH'. Even more so because I did know that the pre-RTA acronym was CTS... no excuse.]
sure---- remember doing that, both sides.
Not advocating either to close or retain the stations. Just putting it out thier. The picture brought back memories of the CTS rapids and cut right of way. Often the rapids would pace an inbound or out bound passenger train.
do the stations have minimal usage? what alternative transportation is availabe?
An article in today Cleveland plain dealer about closing two east side stations , east 34 the and east 79th. The station require nearly 25 million dollar in renovation. In the picture of the station you can still catanary that held the power lines for the original Cleveland union terminals big electrics built in 1929. The CTS ran parallel and under them both on the east and west side.
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