Laketran right to mark pair of milestones

July 29, 2021, deserves to be recorded as an important day in the history of Laketran. Two milestones were achieved by the publictransit agency that day at Lakeland Community College.

Laketran debuted its new battery-operated electric bus and dedicated the Frank J. Polivka Transit Center — named after the agency’s first employee — outside the transit center on Lakeland’s campus in Kirtland.

“If you told me yesterday we’d be debuting electric buses and electric charging infrastructure right after, or possibly during, a thunderstorm, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Laketran Board President Brian Falkowski said.

Laketran is deploying 10 35-foot New Flyer Xcelsior CHARGE electric transit buses in the fall, which the agency stated will transition 60 percent of its local route bus fleet to zero emission vehicles. The battery-operated bus is Ohio’s first, according to Laketran.

In addition to reducing air pollution, the buses also will cut down on noise and fuel and maintenance costs, Laketran CEO Ben Capelle said.

“These buses are equipped with some of the most modern safety and accessibility features you can get in a bus,” Capelle said.

“There’s a device on this that allows a person in a wheelchair to enter the bus and press a button and get secured without the driver having to help them, which is a pretty big deal to folks who are using a mobility device.”

He said it also has a system that knows how high the bus is and when it needs to lower itself to help someone get on.

“There’s a whole bunch of computers that tell it what the right height is for the environment, which is a pretty important thing out on the road,” he said.

Among the funding sources for the electric bus program was the Ohio EPA. It awarded Laketran more than $1.5 million to replace six aging diesel buses.

Carolyn Watkins, administrator of Ohio EPA’s Diesel Emission Reduction Grant Program, said the replacement will reduce more than 1 ½ tons of air pollution annually. That money comes from the $75 million awarded to Ohio from the Volkswagen Mitigation Trust Fund.

The charging infrastructure for the buses will be housed at the Frank J. Polivka Transit Center. The transit center opened to the public March 15 and also provides an indoor waiting area, Wi-Fi and public restrooms. The center sits adjacent to Route 306.

It serves as the central transfer point for six local bus routes, Park-n-Ride service to Cleveland, and Lakeland Community College’s Campus Loop shuttle service.

Polivka served as general manager of Laketran from 1979 to 2003. In his time at Laketran, he helped get the agency’s first levy passed in 1988 and launched the Dial-aRide and Park-n-Ride services.

“There’s probably not another person who has shaped transportation in Lake County as much as Frank Polivka,” Capelle said. “It’s not every day you can say ‘I started a transit system.’ ”

Capelle said that Polivka has been dedicated to alternate fuels “for a long time,” having bought some of the state’s first natural gas buses in 1997.

“I couldn’t think of a more fitting person to name this facility after,” Capelle said.

Polivka said that although the building has his name on it, it’s a culmination of “a tremendous community effort that I got to be a part of.” “Those who know me and know me really, really well know that I can screw up a sandbox,” he said.

“This is a great culmination of a career, but that career was really put together on the hard work of thousands of people who offered advice over all this time period. I’m really buoyed by their effort in guiding me.”

The News-Herald hopes that whoever is responsible for tracking the history of Laketran will catalog the ceremony hosted by the organization on July 29, 2021.

Because that event marked two major achievements by Laketran that deserve to be shared with future generations.

The NewsHerald hopes that whoever is responsible for tracking the history of Laketran will catalog the ceremony hosted by the organization on July 29, 2021.