GCRTA wins $130m for new trains

In 2014, then-Vice President Joseph Biden got a tour of the Greater
Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s already aging rail car fleet
at the Central Rail Facility near East 55th Street. Giving the tour was
former GCRTA General Manager and CEO Joe Calabrese along with
Cleveland’s previous Mayor Frank Jackson. Calabrese  informed
Biden that GCRTA needed more federal funding to replace its old trains.
The biggest chunk of that federal funding was awarded today (GCRTA).
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In 2021, as chair of the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over public transportation, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) championed the creation of a new federal program to fund the replacement of aging rail transit cars. Today, he shared the news that the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) was awarded $130 million from this program to narrow a funding gap in its $393 million effort to replace its four-decade-old rail car fleet. The award represents the largest single grant to the GCRTA in its 48-year history.

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