On Sundays and Mondays, Amazon delivery station employees can take a shuttle from the Southgate Transit Center to the Amazon DCM3 warehouse in Solon, using an app to choose between two available dropoff time options.
That wasn’t an option for the employees until recently. Rebekah Ham, the station manager for the Amazon DCM3 warehouse in Solon, said that on Sundays and Mondays, employees commuting to the warehouse by bus were arriving hours early or hours late. The 41 bus serving the area makes its final stop near the warehouse at 12:06 a.m., over an hour before the employees’ 1:20 a.m. start time on those two days.
“One of the most stressful things for the associates (employees) is worrying how they’re going to get to work,” Ham said. “I want to make sure that I remove as many barriers for them as I can.”
The shuttle service is part of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s ConnectWorks microtransit program, supported by funding from the Ohio Department of Transportation. The transit authority launched two short-term microtransit pilot projects in 2022 and 2023, an effort to get workers to job centers that lack access to frequent transit. This includes reducing “last-mile issues,” when riders have to walk a long distance from their bus stop to their destination.
A few participating employers and individual workers who take microtransit told The Land the service has been a major help, shortening commutes and getting employees to work on time. But ridership is low, and only a few companies have signed up. Both pilot projects end on June 14. If RTA decides to continue the service after that, it will work with the local transit union and determine how to build it into its current system, agency leaders said.
How is the program funded, and how does it work?
RTA is using $400,000 from ODOT’s Ohio Transit Partnership Program and $200,000 of its own funds on the two pilots. The transit agency will pay half the cost of the microtransit service, and the employers who participate in the program will pay the other half, up to a total of $300,000 for each pilot. They’re paying for microtransit rides on an as-needed basis rather than paying for a set number of rides or hours upfront, so they might not use the full $300,000 each by the end of the contracts, Shawn Becker, an RTA program contract manager, said at a July 18 committee meeting. “If we only use a little bit of service, we only pay for that amount of service,” he said.
SHARE Mobility vans that hold up to 14 passengers pick up riders from two designated RTA transit stations and take them directly to their workplaces. The microtransit ride from the transit station to work is free for employees, who schedule rides through an app. Each month, participating employers pay $3 per employee at the company.
In April 2022, RTA awarded a contract to SHARE Mobility, a Columbus-based ride-sharing company, to provide microtransit services in the Solon area. RTA also gave a contract to Mayfield Village and Highland Heights to offer microtransit services through SP Plus Corporation, a parking and transportation company.
Mayfield Village and Highland Heights later withdrew their proposal because many employees at Progressive, a main employer in the area, are working remotely, RTA’s director of planning Maribeth Feke said at a Jan. 20, 2023 board working session.
At its July 25, 2023 board meeting, RTA awarded a second contract to SHARE Mobility to provide microtransit services in the Aerozone region, an area near the airport that includes parts of Cleveland and several suburbs like Brook Park, Middleburg Heights, and Fairview Park. (See a map of the area from RTA’s presentation here.) The Aerozone contract replaces the initial Mayfield Village and Highland Heights contract, Feke said at the July 18 committee meeting.
The Solon program has 20 riders among five companies, and the Aerozone program has 29 riders, including individual riders who can get rides to and from work for a limited time even if their employers haven’t signed on, SHARE Mobility president Aaron Shocket said via email.
When did the pilot projects start, and which employers participate?
The Solon microtransit pilot program launched on Dec. 14, 2022. The microtransit vehicles pick riders up from the Southgate Transit Center in Maple Heights and drop them off there after work. Five Solon-based employers — Primrose School of Solon, Birdigo, Wrap Tite, Pile Dynamics, and the Amazon DCM3 warehouse — participate, according to RTA.
The Solon program delayed its original November 2022 start date because no companies had signed up, Lexi Petrella, SHARE Mobility’s government affairs and business development manager at the time, said at an RTA committee meeting on Nov. 1, 2022.
Wrap Tite president Sunil Daga said his company signed up for the microtransit program to help with recruiting more employees.
Wrap Tite shared the phone numbers of 10 employees who currently use the microtransit program. A few declined interviews, and the rest were unavailable or did not respond to The Land’s phone calls or text messages.
Preston Holcomb, the head chef at Birdigo, used the microtransit service before he moved and got his driver’s license. He said it shortened his commute, which previously required catching two buses with an hour wait in between.
Amazon delivery station associate Oscar Johnson said he no longer has to worry about getting to work on time on Sundays and Mondays, when the Amazon DCM3 warehouse offers microtransit services, but he wants the warehouse to add more days of the shuttle service. Ham, the Amazon DCM3 station manager, said she and senior regional leader Shaun Walls will need to gather data to show the need for additional days.
The Amazon DCM3 warehouse has 10–15 regular microtransit riders, and up to 50 riders have used the service on occasion, Ham said.
The Aerozone microtransit pilot program, which launched on Oct. 16, 2023, has two employers signed up: Victory Packaging and Polaris Career Center, RTA spokesperson Robert Fleig said in an email. The vehicles pick up and drop off workers at the Brookpark Rapid Transit Station.
Doug Miller, director of community outreach at Polaris, said via email that he doesn’t know of any employees who take public transit to Polaris.
Victory Packaging did not respond to The Land’s requests for an interview.
Measuring success
In the summer, the Solon microtransit program had 12 daily riders and four participating companies, and it had provided about 1,000 total rides, Feke, RTA’s director of planning, said at a July 18 committee meeting.
At RTA’s July 25, 2023 Board of Trustees meeting, SHARE Mobility CEO and founder Ryan McManus said he hoped the Aerozone microtransit program would have hundreds of riders by the end of 2023.
“What’s our measure of success?” said Karen Gabriel Moss, an RTA board member at the time.
When Moss asked for a specific estimate of riders or rides, McManus requested to “come back to the board with a target.”
Before the program had “an expected decline” in ridership during the holidays, it increased from 75 rides per week in October to around 85–95 rides per week in November and mid-December, Shocket, the SHARE Mobility president, said in an email.
To measure the program’s success, RTA will look at ridership and costs, and it will gather feedback from workers and employers, said Feke, RTA’s director of planning.
The transit agency will ask employers and workers how the microtransit program affected productivity, commutes, pay, and employee recruitment and retention. Another question will be, “What would happen if the service was cut?” Fleig, the RTA spokesperson, said in an email.
“This is about connecting the community. It’s more than numbers; it’s about people and jobs,” Feke said.
What happens when the pilot program ends?
Both the Solon and Aerozone microtransit pilot projects end in June. In committee meetings, RTA has said it will build the microtransit program into its system if the pilots are successful. How RTA would do this “is unclear,” Fleig said in an email.
“There is no bigger success than being able to hand over one of our routes to a large bus that RTA is operating,” SHARE Mobility’s McManus said by phone at a July 18 RTA committee meeting.
RTA has a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 268 (ATU Local 268), dated Aug. 12, 2021, that says the microtransit pilot program would not exceed 18 months or replace RTA’s existing service. View the MOU here.
If RTA decides to continue the service after the contract ends, the vehicle operators will become part of ATU Local 268’s bargaining unit, said outgoing ATU Local 268 president William H. Nix, Sr. That means the transit union can represent those workers. (Clarence King became the union’s new president this month, Nix said.)
Feke, RTA’s director of planning, said the microtransit program adds to the transit agency’s current system.
Chris Martin of Clevelanders for Public Transit told The Land via text that RTA has cut about 30% of its service since 2000, and the microtransit services cannot make up for that.
“RTA’s microtransit pilot projects are like putting a bandaid on the deep cuts the agency has made to fixed route service,” Martin said.
Community members can make public comments at RTA’s board meetings in person or by calling 440-276-4600. The meetings take place at 9 a.m. on the third Tuesday of each month at RTA’s main office board room at 1240 W. 6th St. The next one is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 23.
Keep our local journalism accessible to all
Reader support is crucial as we continue to shed light on underreported neighborhoods in Cleveland. Will you become a monthly member to help us continue to produce news by, for, and with the community?
P.S. Did you like this story? Take our reader survey!
