Allegheny County Pork(t) Authority or the death of Mass Transit in Pennsylvania

[adelheid_p]

The state of Pennsylvania has been historically, grudgingly financially supportive of mass transit. Now, faced with a drastically reduced budget, the Port Authority of Allegheny County which runs the county-wide mass transit system consisting of mostly buses and a "T" line to the South of Pittsburgh is planning on cutting over half of its routes. Included in the cuts are many routes to the East of the city where I live. As it is, my bus service is mostly non-existent. I work in the Oakland section at a university. My choices of buses involve either a one mile walk on busy roads with no or spotty sidewalks or to ride a downtown commuter express bus to the East Busway and transfer onto a bus going to Oakland. Did I mention that the downtown commuter express bus runs twice in the morning at 6:30 am and at 7:30 am? Trying to get home on this "express" bus is nearly impossible as there is one evening run at 5:30 pm that is filled by the time it gets to the stop where I would be getting on (two buses into town in the morning, remember?). The alternative is to walk at least a mile on busy roads with no mostly no sidewalk to the "local" bus. Imagine trudging through ploughed snow! Not to mention that this local route is notoriously unreliable with late/no show buses! So, I rarely ride the bus --usually when my car is in the shop. And when I do ride the bus, I get a ride home with my husband who swings by Oakland to pick me up. (He works in downtown, parks at a trail entrance and bikes into town on the trail.)
I'm fortunate, I have a car. There are many people who don't and rely on mass transit to get to and from work, stores, etc. I think it's time the Pennsylvania legislature get some sense in to their heads and created a standing budget item to fund mass transit in Pennsylvania instead of making it part of the PennDOT budget.

Comments

[mewsrissicat.livejournal.com]

You have my sympathies... they're cutting out *every* line that runs by our house. Every damned one. PG, 77B, 77U (which runs but now excludes any route within a walkable distance.

Rat-bastards.

[adelheid-p.livejournal.com]

Wow! That's really bad. :-( The Klingon thinks the Port Authority should just fold and let independents move in and take up the slack. I'm doubtful that would actually happen.