Transit Advocates Urge Pittsburgh Regional Transit to Shelve Bus Redesign and Fix Existing Service
With its funding crisis postponed for two years, Pittsburgh Regional Transit plans to resume its bus route overhaul, but an advocacy group says the agency should first address falling ridership and poor on-time performance.
By Priya Sharma ·
Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) intends to move forward early next year with the next phase of its bus line redesign, now that its funding crisis has been put off for at least two years. A leading advocacy group, however, is asking the agency to stop and concentrate on improving the service it already runs.
Pittsburghers for Public Transit argues that PRT should make smaller fixes to existing routes instead of reviewing and altering the whole system. The group doubts the agency can achieve its aim of sweeping changes across 95 routes without a significant rise in costs.
PRT started the redesign more than two years ago. The effort is meant to adapt bus service to shifting growth patterns of the past three decades and to decentralize service after the pandemic. Planners want to add midday and late-night service and let riders travel between neighborhoods and suburbs without going Downtown to transfer.
Following an initial round of public meetings, the agency released a preliminary plan that would alter 60% of routes and cut the total from 95 to 77. It would also create 19 new routes and 20 regional hubs designed to make travel between local communities easier.
The comment period on those proposals ended early last year. Because the agency then faced a projected $100 million deficit that threatened deep service cuts absent more state money, it paused the redesign while the budget dispute unfolded. The state Legislature ultimately did not approve new subsidies. Instead, it let major transit agencies, including PRT, use money set aside for large construction projects to keep operating for two years without cutting service. Lawmakers have said they expect to address transportation funding in that period.
PRT now plans to return to the public early next year with adjustments to its original recommendations, drawing on rider feedback. Derek Dauphin, the agency's director of planning and service development, said in January that he expected "major changes" from the first proposals.
At the agency's monthly board meeting on Friday, Laura Wiens, executive director of Pittsburghers for Public Transit, urged PRT to wait on the redesign. She pointed to the annual service report released earlier this month, which showed ridership down 1.7% and buses running on time just 66% of the time. "What would give anyone confidence this agency can do both of those things when it hasn't been able to improve on-time service and grow ridership?" Wiens said in an interview. "To implement route redesign now is a really poor idea."
Wiens said she worries PRT will finish the administrative groundwork and then lack the money to carry out the changes. She added that major changes would initially depress ridership and that current problems could be fixed without altering routes that are working well.
CEO Katharine Kelleman disagreed in an interview after the meeting. She said finishing the redesign is imperative and is something Republicans in the state Legislature want to see before committing more money to the agency. "We can walk and chew gum at the same time," she said. "We've heard for years that people want changes. How long do they have to wait? Folks deserve the changes they have been asking for."
Originally published by News Media House · Source: Pittsburgh Union Progress
