Absent bus shelters create tension in Ravenna

[rpavideo caption=”Ravenna’s downtown bus system serves many residents on a daily basis, but a recent influx of urban dwellers caused local business owners to take action. TV2-KSU’s Sean Barie reports on the removal of bus shelters and the backlash in the city.”]RPA_BarieShook_BusShelter_PKG[/rpavideo]

By Nick Shook

On a rainy afternoon in downtown Ravenna, citizens can be seen waiting for the bus under storefront doorways, often in groups of three or more.

This wasn’t always the case along West Main Street, but after more than 60 people requested the relocation of bus shelters in early August, riders are now forced to brave the elements.

“I think it’s a lot of BS in that,” John Serafin, a frequent bus rider, said Thursday. “There’s a lot of senior citizens across the street that use [the bus shelters] during the wintertime, and even during the summertime.”

Fashioned to resemble old trolley cars, shelters stood on the north and south sides of West Main Street in front of The Kidz Shop and the Portage County courthouse. These shelters offered cover from the temperamental Northeast Ohio weather year round, but a select portion of the downtown population began using the shelters as loitering hotspots, sometimes spending all day in and around these structures.

Ted Manfrass owns the building situated directly in front of where one shelter was located, and operates his architecture firm in a second-floor suite in the building. Manfrass wouldn’t speak on record, but did say loiterers would often bring boomboxes with them and lie down on benches inside the shelters, causing a public disturbance to businesses operating downtown and keeping elderly bus riders from sitting down. He also said that the shelters were damaged routinely by these same people, who drove away customers, and eventually the tenant himself inside the first-floor storefront.

The current tenant operates The Kidz Shop, and since the bus shelters were removed, there has been a negative effect on business, Manfrass said. Bus riders often stand in her doorway to stay out of inclement weather while waiting for the next bus to arrive, deterring potential customers from attempting to enter the store. The tenant, Rebekah Faupel, once sold just one can of pop for 60 cents for an entire day’s worth of business, Manfrass said.

Manfrass started a petition to the city of Ravenna to relocate the stops — preferably at the other end of the block in front of a city park, he said — due to six main reasons:

• Property owners have lost tenants, deeming it necessary to accept lower rent or have lost all potential rental income due to transients.
• Property owners have been faced with additional expenses to enclose open stairwells to keep out undesirables and their habits.
• Recessed front business doors, in cooler weather, are not accessible to patrons of those businesses due to transients hanging out in that recess and blocking access.
• Harrassment of property owners, business owners, their employees, patrons and other passerbys.
• Panhandling, badgering, obscene language, loud music and a general feeling of uneasiness and a lack of feeling safe.
• Defacing of property, and litter.

64 combined patrons, business owners and property owners willingly signed the petition. As Manfrass characterized it, responses to the request were simply “where do I sign?”

The issue was brought up during a city council meeting four days after the petition was signed, and the next day, the bus shelters were removed.

Now, the missing shelters are one of the hottest topics in downtown Ravenna.

Patrons are upset with the removal, and the blame has often fallen on downtown business owners. But most concerned with the shelters leave out two important members involved in the issue: the city of Ravenna, and the Portage Area Regional Transportation Authority.

Ravenna mayor Joe Bica said that after some internal meetings, he and his office members decided that it would be best to move the shelters two blocks west, in spaces free of downtown business, thus removing the distraction and activity detrimental to business. Bica’s administration recommended the move at the city council meeting, which many of the business owners also attended.

“There was a lot of discussion and the administration made their recommendation to move the bus shelters two blocks,” Bica said. “The consensus of the city council was that they felt that moving the bus stops two blocks would just be moving the problem. It would not be eliminating the problem. The consensus was to remove the bus stops.”

Bryan Smith, PARTA director of planning, said his organization recommended against removing the shelters, stating that they “were a valuable commodity.”

“They were heavily used,” Smith said. “It’s a popular destination, a pick-up point for PARTA’s passengers, and in an urban core, the recommendations, the standards for planning would be that you would have bus stops every 600 feet and bus shelters at those stops that were widely used.”

But in the face of public opposition, the city went ahead and removed the shelters.

Bica said the city, which owned the now-departed shelters, is open and willing to discuss potential replacements. Smith said he and his staff have offered both short-term and long-term options for Ravenna, as part of a “comprehensive, downtown plan for transit.”

“We’ve sat down with the mayor and some members of his staff and talked about the kind of shelters we have available, what we would use as a standard shelter, trying to address some of the issues,” Smith said. … “They’ve had concerns since they took them down from people saying ‘hey, I use that shelter or my mom or brother or somebody I know uses that shelter, they were nice, we’d like them back.’ ”

Smith said his organization is ready to put in new shelters immediately.

“If it was a standard [type of shelter], we have some in stock, ready to install today,” Smith said.

With PARTA ready to collaborate in order to erect new shelters, it seems as though the onus falls on the city to take action. But after recently removing the structures due to the request of citizens in the area, it is likely that much discussion and planning will be needed before any action is taken. Above all, though, Smith acknowledged that from his point of view, shelters are needed in that area.

“From the transit perspective, a shelter might be called for down the road,” Smith said. “But there’s certainly one called for there.”