CINCINNATI — A proposed ordinance would target loitering at incoming rapid transit zones throughout the city and provide law enforcement with a means of enforcing the issue.
Council member Mark Jeffreys introduced the ordinance at the city's Public Safety and Governance Committee on Tuesday.
The Southwest Regional Transit Authority supports the ordinance.
"I really appreciate your efforts here," SORTA Chief Operations Officer John Ravasio said. "Covered areas, imagine level boarding and the access that grants to all members of our community, so this ordinance would go a long way towards the quality of that transit experience for the riders using the bus rapid transit system."
The city is working with SORTA to establish a bus rapid transit (BRT) system in the city."Metro Rapid" will contain corridors with lanes solely for Metro buses. The buses will also have signal priority, meaning traffic lights will know when a Metro Rapid bus is approaching, allowing the buses priority to get through the corridors.
Because those bus shelters will have a platform design similar to those for the streetcar, Jeffreys is proposing his ordinance apply to designated BRT zones. There is already an ordinance allowing enforcement against loitering at streetcar zones to ensure public safety and Jeffreys wants to ensure it will also apply to BRT zones once they're up an running.
Jeffreys said should the ordinance pass, enforcement should not prove difficult for police officers at rapid transit zones. Because enforcement would pose a challenge for officers at Metro bus shelters, he said those zones are not included under the proposal's current language.
"CPD says it's just impossible to enforce anything so right now there is, in effect, no enforcement," Jeffreys said. "And we do hear from residents that folks, especially older people. go to the bus stop with the intent of taking the bus and there's no place for them to sit, so it does impact the quality of the experience and it's something that I think we need to figure out. But it is, legally, a lot more challenging."
Council member Scotty Johnson, who heads the Public Safety and Governance Committee and is a former CPD officer, said there needs to be more discussion with CPD on what enforcement would look like.
"Enforcement would look like, first and foremost, move along. Number one. Number two is if that's not adhered to, a citation. Repeat offenders — I think those citations could increase. But more than anything else, Cincinnati police need cooperation. Metro needs cooperation before we start issuing citations," Johnson said. "We do know our numbers with law enforcement officers in the city is down, so the opportunity to enforce that may be something that is balanced out, but then we don't want people loitering and making our citizens uncomfortable to ride the (transit systems) too so we've got some balancing out to do to be quite frank."
