Red Line Realignment: 
A New Subway Plan for Downtown Cleveland

June 2021

A short, 1.7-mile realignment of the RTA Red Line between Tower City and East 34 St. to provide three Downtown subway stations—at E. 9-Prospect, E. 17-Euclid, and E. 22-Community College Ave—would transform Cleveland—not just Downtown, but the entire City and Region. With infrastructure a key priority of the Biden administration and with over $4 trillion aimed at economic recovery, the opportunity for construction of the subway is more achievable now than at any time in decades. The project would help the City resume its trajectory of economic and population growth and regain its global significance.

The benefits are profound and far reaching—well beyond simply improved transportation, equity, and air quality. The subway will not only enable, but also induce economic activity and growth. The subway will allow for increased density, enable better uses of constrained land, increase property values, result in stronger demand for real estate near stations, attract a deeper talent pool for companies region-wide, increase local economic competitiveness, produce higher income and property tax revenues for local governments and school districts, and enable a higher quality of life for residents.

Continual rejection since the 1950s of a Downtown Cleveland subway—despite Cuyahoga voters passing a bond issue for one in 1953—has limited development and contributed to continual population decline, reduction of the city’s economic relevancy and global stature, and decrease of the region’s economic competitiveness. There is certainly a cost of not building the subway.

View or download the full report (5MB).

Benefits to the City and Region

The new subway line will have profound benefits to the City, many of which are compounded off each other:

1. Savings for commuters who can save on fuel, parking, and car usage/ownership costs and savings for businesses who build or offer paid parking to employees. 

2. Decreased demand for parking, meaning land can be better utilized for other uses, such as parks, hotels, offices, and residences; better designed, utilized, and revenue-efficient projects will be built as the city could loosen regulations around parking minimums for real estate projects.

3. Improved air quality due to lower levels of car-borne carbon emissions, and thus greater public health and lower public health expenses; also, direct benefits to employers from greater productivity and fewer employee sick days used by staff for themselves or for their dependents.

4. Lower traffic congestion. Though congestion levels in Cleveland are lighter compared to many other cities, any time lost sitting in traffic is lost for other purposes.

5. The city will be more economically competitive; the current trend amongst young people reveals car ownership rates and intentions lower than previous generations as they want to be free of the hassle and expense of car ownership. High-density cities with good rail transit attract younger, skilled workers which therefore attracts employers and new companies to a city, increasing wealth and opportunities for all; hence, Cleveland will be a far more economically competitive city and able to attract a broader range of people and firms, which benefits everyone—residents and businesses alike.

6. In addition to attracting new workers to the city, the subway will allow for increased density across uses, making areas more dynamic and more compelling to investors, businesses, tenants, residents, etc., thereby increasing quality of life.

7. Higher density in the core of Downtown will support the community’s desire for development in the other parts of Downtown, such as the lakefront. The density will be driven by demand that the subway will create. Otherwise, jobs, retail, and residents on the lakefront may cannibalize other parts of Downtown, which without the subway, face growth challenges as witnessed over the past 60 or so years.

8. Increased property values as rail transit investments result in higher values for existing buildings and land and increased demand for developable properties within walking distance of stations. These increases would be systemwide, not just Downtown, as stations outside of the city’s central business district would benefit from Downtown residents using the system.

9. Greater productivity and quality of life as residents could read or do other work on the Rapid instead of sitting in their cars and driving in traffic.

10. Greater quality of life and greater equity as door-to-door commuting times can be reduced by having more stations closer to jobs. With greater passenger loads, service frequencies can be increased, enabling even shorter wait times between trains. Greater equity will result as those dependent upon public transit spend a larger portion of their day commuting, thereby reducing time to be spent with family or friends or pursuing other activities.

11. Increased tax revenues to the City of Cleveland, suburbs, counties, and library and school districts throughout the region, as a result of new companies moving to the region, existing businesses growing, new employees relocating to the area, and higher property values. 

12. Improved safety with fewer traffic fatalities, which have trended upward in recent years. Despite all the advances in vehicle safety and warning systems, the increase in fatalities from vehicle accidents is likely resulting from distracted driving, including cellphone usage. In the 2010-2014 period, there was an average of 54.8 fatalities from vehicle crashes per year in Cuyahoga County, of a vehicle occupant or pedestrian/bicyclist/bystander. In the 2015-2019 period, Cuyahoga County averaged 80.2 fatalities per year—a 46% increase. 

See the full report for greater details.

View or download the full report (5MB).

Have a comment? We’d love to hear from you about this critical project!

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Report Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Context

3. Route Description and System Benefits

4. Operations on the New and Old Alignments, System Flexibility, and RTA’s New Car Procurement

5. Capital Costs, Operating Costs, and Funding Sources

6. Alternatives

7. Project Development:  The City, not RTA, Should be Lead Agency for Concept Development and Planning

8. Time to Stop Making the Same Mistake

9. Conclusion