For a business that does best when calorie counts are not at the front of customers' minds, baker Traci Morrison at Campbell's Sweets Factory says they do well when people are out and about.
"The whole facade of our stores is windows and we have a cotton candy tree so people say they have to come in and check that out," said Morrison.
Morrison said Campbell's Sweets Factory would welcome a bus that shuttles people around their community. Not far away, former circulator rider Britton Ramsey says there are people who have trouble getting around and who can't make it to Lakewood's main business district on Detroit Avenue.
"Lakewood has grown," said Ramsey. "There's a lot of great shops on the other side of town."
RTA ran a program like the one Britton remembers until 2009, when they said low ridership across about a dozen communities couldn't justify the program.
Ramsey's already drummed up plenty of support for bringing a shuttle system back after posting about it on Lakewood's community Facebook page.
"With the circulator, it was not only nice to have, but people were depending on it," said Ramsey.
Lakewood Mayor Mike Summers says the circulator in Lakewood was almost breaking even, but running it comes down to money that RTA doesn't have.
"This is a state, Ohio, that ranks about 36th of the 50 states in terms of our funding for mass transit," said Mayor Summers. "This state does not fund mass transit."
One potential solution is buses without drivers, and Summers says he'd be willing to be apart of the city where developers could test the driverless vehicle technology.
"The advent of a driverless vehicle, bus, a small van, without the cost of a driver and reliability that hiring has, in terms of showing up or being sick, all that goes away," said Summers.
For now, RTA needs to pay human drivers to operate its buses, and they've tried to accommodate riders with duplicative routes.
One big concern for riders is figuring out where to go - using a route map can be confusing.
Morrison says she loves public transportation, but she understands how it can stop some people before they've even gotten started.
"It's something that would require very little research I think would be important to the community," said Morrison. "It wouldn't be daunting or scary in any way."
