RTA, laid-off drivers pushing for ‘flexible spending’ law
WKYC – CLEVELAND — Five-year RTA bus driver Gregory Davidson has been laid off from autoworker and bank jobs.
He thought his RTA job was secure. But on April 4, Davidson will be one of 185 RTA workers out of a job.
"Who would ever imagine public transportation would lay off? I put all my eggs in this basket. Now they are cracking," he said.
Davidson and other cities' transit systems' drivers just went to Washington to push for a new law proposed by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown that might save their jobs.
Right now, federal funding for brick and mortar projects and equipment purchases can only be used for those purposes.
Brown is proposing a measure that would give bus systems flexibility to use some capital improvement dollars to run buses and pay drivers for the next five years.
"I get a lot of letters from people who rely on the bus. If we're going to get the economy on track, it means people in neighborhoods have to be able to get to work," Brown said.
