The state of Ohio is an easy — and appropriate — punching bag when it comes to dissecting the problems facing the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority.

At this point, our knuckles are raw.

State funding for transit has slid from roughly $40 million at the turn of the 21st century to about $7 million, or less than 1% of the total cost, today. That's a figure far lower than other states and a problem that's been deepened with the recent cutoff of Medicaid managed-care organization sales tax revenue.

In a refrain that's become all too familiar for RTA in recent years, last week the agency's board agreed to reduce service on 15 routes starting March 11. The funding woes are expected to lead to additional service cuts and the layoffs of as many 200 employees later this year.

It's clear our leaders in Columbus aren't interested in a fix and, at least so far, discussion over the perils facing public transit has been virtually nonexistent in the governor's race.

RTA is on life support, and its CEO, Joseph Calabrese, can only pump so much morphine into the agency to ease the pain for riders and his staff. Local intervention is needed, and it must happen now.

"When you go down to Columbus, they see us as a different animal — almost like a different state. The attitude has been, 'We'll fund highways out of Columbus, but if you want public transit, it needs to be funded locally,' " Calabrese told Crain's late last year.

Our elected leaders — namely, Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson — and the corporate community (looking at you, Greater Cleveland Partnership) need to put transit in the upper echelon of their economic development priorities. It should be more than a talking point.

Of course, what that fix might be is a thorny issue, and we certainly aren't claiming to have the answer.

Some transit advocates have floated the idea of a county sales tax hike — likely a difficult pill to swallow politically given that Cuyahoga County already boasts the highest sales tax in the state. A 1% Cuyahoga County sales tax enacted in 1975 provides the lion's share of RTA's revenue.

That said, ballot issues concerning transit have been relatively well received nationwide.

RTA also is authorized under state law to levy property taxes, and one study notes that 1 mill would be sufficient to replace the lost revenue, with some leftover for service improvements.

Another creative idea being floated in transit circles would be asking the region's largest hospital systems — Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and MetroHealth — to underwrite public transit as part of their community benefit strategies. With the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals have been looking for creative ways to justify their tax-exempt status beyond caring for those without coverage.

Support from Greater Cleveland's other corporate citizens — not just the hospitals — should be on the table, too.

RTA, of course, cannot sit idly by and wait for a handout. The agency, for several years, has understandably put the bulk of its energy toward avoiding fiscal chaos.

However, it also needs to think creatively about what a modern version of itself looks like and sell that idea to the riders, employers and taxpayers. Positioning one's self as the neglected kid in the corner is only palatable for so long.

So who is going to take the lead on this necessary community conversation? The mayor? The county executive? GCP? Whomever, it just needs to happen now.

For too many, public transit is viewed as a government handout — and extension of welfare, more or less — and not a necessary ingredient for workforce and economic development.

The absence of Cleveland (or Detroit, for that matter) on Amazon's latest target list for its coveted HQ2 and the 50,000 jobs the company claims come along with it should be a stinging realization that public transit matters in a modern economy.