The State of Laketran - What’s New?
By: Andy Davis
Updated Fare Collection, New Painesville Transfer Center On The Way
With the summer turning to autumn, both major educational institutions served by Laketran opening back up (Lakeland Community College and Lake Erie College, for those unfamiliar), and plenty of new material to discuss, we figured now is a great time to give a rundown of what’s happening in the local transit agency of Lake County.
Laketran has just held their monthly Board of Trustees meeting for the month of August. Between new infrastructure pieces, route alterations (and an unfortunate discontinuation), and updates on fare collection, Laketran is taking the necessary steps to catch up to the times in public transit technology and trends. With these steps, Laketran continues to successfully cement their footprint in Northeast Ohio.
In this article, we’ll go into detail about route changes, a new transfer center, and changes in Laketran fare collection. However, there are plenty of honorable mentions to discuss at a future date:
Laketran is continuing to work towards starting the Airport Express Service, which would operate as a branch of the Dial-a-Ride division. The service would help seniors/disabled persons better access the airport with door-to-door service to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
The Vine Street Corridor Project is almost underway, which aims to connect downtown Willoughby, Eastlake, and Willowick via a multimodal streetscape. Vine Street is currently served by the 6 Local Route (Great Lakes Mall-Willoughby Hills) and the 12 Park-N-Ride Route (Painesville Twp.-Mentor-Willowick-Cleveland). These two routes will most likely be affected by the looming construction, however the improvements will prove to be worthwhile.
The Mentor Park-n-Ride lot on Market Street is set to receive a rehabilitation project of the asphalt and concrete surface, as well as new-and-improved bus shelters.
Route Discontinuations/Alterations
Laketran has discontinued Local Route 7, which was the loop around Lakeland Community College’s campus. The route ran during the school year on Monday thru Thursday, from 8:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m, with service every 10 minutes. Although this route was useful for many Lakeland Students with disabilities and those in a hurry, the route’s diameter didn’t exceed 0.5 miles between its furthest stops.
Although we at LCPT push back against any route discontinuations, we would love to see the vehicles used for this route re-allocated to other routes, and help contribute to an increased frequency somewhere in the local route system.
We also encourage for better communication from both Laketran and Lakeland Community College about the discontinuation about the route. We could not find any sort of news article, press release, or any official documentation about this discontinuation. All we could find were Google results about the route that led to “404 - page not found“ pages on the official Laketran website.
Other than the Route 7 Discontinuation, Laketran has downgraded the Route 5 fleet (Painesville-Fairport Circulator) from the New Flyer Transit Buses to the Paratransit/Shuttle buses. All this does is lower the capacity on these routes, and, to our understanding, this does not signify any other major alterations to the route. Again, we pushback against any sort of downgrades/cuts, however we do understand the sentiment behind this fleet alteration. We hope that more housing and business developments in Fairport Harbor and Painesville city can help boost ridership again.
New Laketran Painesville Transit Center (image via Laketran and R. L. Bowen)
For the past few months, the Laketran Board of Trustees has been discussing the possibility of a new Downtown Painesville Transit Center. With the completion of the new Lake County Sheriff’s Office across the street of the old one, Laketran plans to build this new center at the site of the old Sheriff’s office 104 E Erie Street. This new building will serve Local Routes 1, 4, 5, and 9, and, presumably, will also host the Painesville station in the GO Intercity Bus network.
The center will feature restrooms, an indoor waiting area, four bus parking spots, and a community room that can act as a shelter area when Code Blue is in effect. As of the August Board Meeting, Laketran has officially entered a contract with architectural firm R. L. Bowen that is work just north of $1.4 Million. Bowen will handle the architectural, engineering, and design services for the center.
Fare Collection Updates
At the August 2026 Board meeting, Laketran approved two changes to fare collection: Removing onboard cash collection as a method of fare payment, and implementing open payment infrastructure onboard buses.
Open payment means that people are able to simply tap a credit/debit card at validators to pay their fare. There’s no app involved, and no ticketing involved. This is great news, as open payment is both equitable and useful. (CONTEXT: There will not be any new "validators” installed. The open payment software will be integrated through the current EZFare validators that are already in place.)
On the contrary, we strongly urge against Laketran discontinuing cash collection aboard Local Route buses. Not everyone who uses Local Routes has access to a nearby Laketran transit center for a ticketing machine.
The goal behind Laketran removing this method is to “speed up buses.“ However, the trade-off between equity and speed is not worth it, in this case. Going cashless could discourage ridership from those who don’t have a credit card/phone/etc.
Equitable access is one of the pillars of public transit. It’s why many use public transit in the first place. It’s no secret that society, as a whole, is moving to digital and credit-based services. Public Transit has followed suit, as well, however it is senseless to abandon cash payment options.
If Laketran wants to expand service, ridership, and overall impact on Lake County, keeping onboard cash payments is necessary to ensure that EVERYONE has an equitable way to pay their fare.
What’s Next (What Should Be Next)?
With all this exciting news on the horizon, there is still plenty of work for Laketran to do to transform Lake County to its former transit glory. Cleveland’s transit history dates all the way back to 1818, where a stagecoach ran connecting Cleveland and Painesville. Despite the fact that the Painesville-Cleveland connection was the first example of public transit in the area, there is no direct public transit service connecting the collar county’s seat, or the collar county to the city center, outside of a few Park-n-Ride routes for the 9-to-5 commuter.
Laketran needs to establish a consistent connection between the downtowns of Lake County to Downtown Cleveland/University Circle. Something as simple as a bus that connects Painesville/Mentor/Willoughby to the Stokes-Windermere RTA station on the Red Line via Route 20 can prove to be useful. It would connect Lake County to all that Downtown Cleveland has to offer, as well as Ohio City, Little Italy-University Circle, Cleveland Hopkins Intl. Airport, and even the new Huntington Bank Field in Brook Park.
Laketran has seen immense success with the Sports Express for Browns games and select Cavs and Guardians games. The people of Lake County truly yearn for a consistent connection to the metropolitan center, while Cleveland starves for more foot traffic within the city limits. Transit connections are beneficial symbiotic relationships for all municipalities and citizens involved.
