Published March 14, 2012
Link
Written with Kalea Hall
Cheers and applause filled the heated meeting room of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center as one 17-year-old girl called Gov. Tom Corbett a coward for not attending the Port Authority Public Forum.
Hundreds of other Port Authority riders faced with the possibility of losing their jobs, not being able to make appointments or to live a life of independence shared their stories with a panel of Port Authority Board members at the public forum held on Wednesday, Feb. 29, where over 350 speakers were scheduled to present their testimonies.
“It just doesn’t make any sense. There isn’t a designated funding stream for public transit,” said Anne Nalepa, Access rider from Shaler Township, at Wednesday’s forum.
The Port Authority of Allegheny County scheduled a period of public comment from Feb. 5 through March 9 following the proposal they made to eliminate nearly 50 routes, reduce others and increase fares due to its $64 million deficit. During the past month, Port Authority received over 2,300 online comments, 300 letters from postal mail and eight petitions with nearly 890 signatures.
The Port Authority Board of Directors will be voting on Friday, April 27 on whether the service reductions, cuts and fare increases will be implemented this summer. Another board meeting is schedule for June, when it will reevaluate the operating budget. However, Heather Pharo, communications contact for the Pittsburgh Port Authority, said funding could come at the last minute and change these plans.
“If something were to happen between now and April 27 that would enable us to avoid these cuts, then certainly the plans would change accordingly,” Pharo said in a phone conversation Monday afternoon. “But as it is right now, we are proceeding with the worst-case scenario.”
In February, Corbett failed to address the hardships facing Pennsylvania Public Transit. At this point, Port Authority officials claim the only way they will be able to compensate for their deficit and prevent the cuts is if they receive state funding, which has yet to be granted by the governor.
Many Pittsburgh residents who spoke at the public forum were not happy with Corbett, who was not present to hear their stories.
Nalepa was brought up to the podium with yells of thanks and praise. Nalepa, who uses Access paratransit, a public transportation system for the disabled, to get to work and back, spoke out for those disabled and in need of the transit system that provides a life of independence.
“For me as a single mom, [service elimination] means is I would lose my job and I wouldn’t be able to provide for my kids so that they can finish their education,” Nalepa said outside of the meeting room.
Nalepa works as a peer counselor for Three Rivers Center for Independent Living. There, she teaches and trains the disabled how to live independently. Unfortunately, if the bus cuts go through, she will not only lose her job, but also the majority of her clients she teaches.
“If the proposed service cuts take effect, then every consumer that has a disability who has to rely on Access Paratransit if there is no bus stop within three-fourths of a mile from their house, then legally Access is not required to provide service,” Nalepa explained.
Mother and daughter Anita and Ashely Brown were both at the forum to voice their opinion about the bus cuts.
Ashley uses the 61A and other routes to make it to her job in the Waterfront from her home in Wikinsburg.
"Since the cuts, I’ve had to give up hours. If you cut more bus services, I might as well give up my job up. Jobs are hard enough to find as it is, I want to keep mine,” Ashley Brown said when addressing the board.
Although her mother, Anita Brown, will not be forced to quit since she drives to and from her job, she still went to the forum to speak up for those she passes every day waiting patiently for their bus.
“I’ve seen people so grateful to catch a bus close to them, which is actually two or three miles away. They’ll get off that bus and walk the rest of the way. I just have to pick them up as I see them walking,” Anita said outside of the meeting room on Wednesday, Feb. 29. “They’re sad, cold and have a long walk. With these cuts, that’s only going to get worse.”
Nalepa sees the same fate for not only Access users, but all public transit users in the Pittsburgh area.
“For people who can’t drive, for whatever reason ... there’s no other option. So, you are stuck in the house, then how do you pay your bills? How do you have a house?” Nalepa said. “There is no other system to fall back on, and Access goes to the minimum service, then people just can’t get out and can’t do anything at all.”
Monday, February 27, 2012
The Globe: Port Authority opens public comment, lobbies for state funding
Published Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012
Link
Written with Kalea Hall
As a result of recently proposed service cuts and reductions, the Port Authority is urging residents of Pittsburgh to voice their opinion on its website and to join them in its efforts to seek state funding at a public comment hearing on Feb. 29.
The public comment period, which is required by state law when public transportation services are proposing any level of service reductions, will continue until March 9.
"The Feb. 29 hearing is for us to hear people's comments and their feedback and their stories," Heather Pharo, communications contact for the Port Authority, said Thursday afternoon. "The hearing is a good chance for our funders to hear what people have to say."
In order to legally balance its operating budget, which funds day-to-day expenses such as employee wages, cost of fuel, revenue for advertising and more, Port Authority proposed reducing services by 35 percent, including an elimination of 47 of the current 102 routes and reduced hours of operation for all remaining services. Additionally, fare rates in Zone 1 will be increased by 25 cents and Zone 2 will increase by 50 cents, effective July 1. Service reductions are scheduled to begin Sept. 2.
Pittsburgh Port Authority is currently facing a $64 million budget deficit for the 2012 fiscal year.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett did not include state funding of transportation services in the 2012-2013 Pennsylvania state budget, presented on Feb. 7, despite urgings from the transportation funding advisory commission (TFAC). Therefore, Port Authority is left with no other option to relieve the $64 million budget deficit it is currently facing. The commission, which was formed last spring by the governor, is comprised of "experts of transportation finance and local government" according to the committee's final report in August 2011.
The committee's final report focused on funding of the transportation system, including roads, bridges, public transit, aviation, rails and ports. According to this final report, the cities found "new sources of transportation funding" and emphasized the need for "efficiency and moderation."
"We the public have been waiting for the governor to make a public statement about what funding solutions he supports, and that has not happened, and that didn't happen in his annual budget address either," Lucinda Beattie, vice president of transportation for the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, said Monday afternoon. "So we are encouraging people to contact the governor to lobby support for the commission's recommendation."
State Representatives Daniel Frankel and Mike Hanna have introduced a bill in Harrisburg to generate funding for state mass transit. Frankel is supporting a proposal that would provide money from the Pennsylvania turnpike tolls to fund mass transit statewide. According to Pharo, bills like these would help alleviate Port Authority's deficit.
"We obviously would like to prevent [the cuts] from happening, be able to scale them back," Pharo said. "But I know that certainly there are a lot of people out there that want something to happen. We have seen in the state legislature the introduction of bills with measures to fund transportation. So it's our hope that one of those bills could become law."
If there is no action at the state level providing the Port Authority with funding, the effects of cut and eliminated transit routes will be felt throughout the Downtown area, where roughly 70,000 people use public transportation to make it to work each day, according to Beattie.
Sarah George, director of commuter affairs for Point Park University, is in agreement with Beattie and Pharo that action needs to take place at the state level.
"They're facing this cut because they're not getting the funding from the state and they don't have the funding on their own essentially to support their cost of business," George said.
Members of the transit user community can leave public comments on the Port Authority's website under the Company Info and Projects tab and the Budget and Finances link. The public hearing, hosted by the Port Authority board of directors, will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 29 from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
"That's a good way for the people who want us to see who it would affect … in their own words, in their own voices, telling their own stories about how they rely on transit to get to work, or to get to the doctor's office, or to do anything," Pharo said. "And basically that's a really good opportunity to come out and add their voice to speak up for transit."
Link
Written with Kalea Hall
As a result of recently proposed service cuts and reductions, the Port Authority is urging residents of Pittsburgh to voice their opinion on its website and to join them in its efforts to seek state funding at a public comment hearing on Feb. 29.
The public comment period, which is required by state law when public transportation services are proposing any level of service reductions, will continue until March 9.
"The Feb. 29 hearing is for us to hear people's comments and their feedback and their stories," Heather Pharo, communications contact for the Port Authority, said Thursday afternoon. "The hearing is a good chance for our funders to hear what people have to say."
In order to legally balance its operating budget, which funds day-to-day expenses such as employee wages, cost of fuel, revenue for advertising and more, Port Authority proposed reducing services by 35 percent, including an elimination of 47 of the current 102 routes and reduced hours of operation for all remaining services. Additionally, fare rates in Zone 1 will be increased by 25 cents and Zone 2 will increase by 50 cents, effective July 1. Service reductions are scheduled to begin Sept. 2.
Pittsburgh Port Authority is currently facing a $64 million budget deficit for the 2012 fiscal year.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett did not include state funding of transportation services in the 2012-2013 Pennsylvania state budget, presented on Feb. 7, despite urgings from the transportation funding advisory commission (TFAC). Therefore, Port Authority is left with no other option to relieve the $64 million budget deficit it is currently facing. The commission, which was formed last spring by the governor, is comprised of "experts of transportation finance and local government" according to the committee's final report in August 2011.
The committee's final report focused on funding of the transportation system, including roads, bridges, public transit, aviation, rails and ports. According to this final report, the cities found "new sources of transportation funding" and emphasized the need for "efficiency and moderation."
"We the public have been waiting for the governor to make a public statement about what funding solutions he supports, and that has not happened, and that didn't happen in his annual budget address either," Lucinda Beattie, vice president of transportation for the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, said Monday afternoon. "So we are encouraging people to contact the governor to lobby support for the commission's recommendation."
State Representatives Daniel Frankel and Mike Hanna have introduced a bill in Harrisburg to generate funding for state mass transit. Frankel is supporting a proposal that would provide money from the Pennsylvania turnpike tolls to fund mass transit statewide. According to Pharo, bills like these would help alleviate Port Authority's deficit.
"We obviously would like to prevent [the cuts] from happening, be able to scale them back," Pharo said. "But I know that certainly there are a lot of people out there that want something to happen. We have seen in the state legislature the introduction of bills with measures to fund transportation. So it's our hope that one of those bills could become law."
If there is no action at the state level providing the Port Authority with funding, the effects of cut and eliminated transit routes will be felt throughout the Downtown area, where roughly 70,000 people use public transportation to make it to work each day, according to Beattie.
Sarah George, director of commuter affairs for Point Park University, is in agreement with Beattie and Pharo that action needs to take place at the state level.
"They're facing this cut because they're not getting the funding from the state and they don't have the funding on their own essentially to support their cost of business," George said.
Members of the transit user community can leave public comments on the Port Authority's website under the Company Info and Projects tab and the Budget and Finances link. The public hearing, hosted by the Port Authority board of directors, will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 29 from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
"That's a good way for the people who want us to see who it would affect … in their own words, in their own voices, telling their own stories about how they rely on transit to get to work, or to get to the doctor's office, or to do anything," Pharo said. "And basically that's a really good opportunity to come out and add their voice to speak up for transit."
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
The Globe: Port Authority proposes fare increase, 35 percent service reduction
Published Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012
Link
The Port Authority of Pittsburgh is currently proposing a 35 percent service reduction, effective in September, should it not receive adequate state funding to support the cost of continued service. Other service changes would include a fare raise in July and reduced service for all remaining bus and light-rail routes.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett presented the state budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal year yesterday. Details of this and how it will affect these proposed Port Authority service cuts will be featured in next week's issue of The Globe.
Situated in the hub of Downtown's transportation routes, Point Park University will not directly feel the effects of these changes, but students and faculty traveling from nearby neighborhoods to the university will inevitably be forced to adjust their routine commute should the changes and cuts occur.
Additionally, resident students who frequently use Port Authority transit to part-time jobs or other activities in surrounding neighborhoods will be equally impacted, said Sarah George, director of commuter of affairs at Point Park. She believed the hardest adjustment will be for students who work on the weekend or live out of town.
"It would be really annoying," Meghan Higgins, a senior psychology major and resident at Point Park, said Monday night in the Point Cafe. "I work in Oakland, and I'm pressed for time as it is."
One such proposed cut is the elimination of service on Saturdays and Sundays for buses traveling to Ross Park Mall, as well as a reduction of service on the 28X Airport Flyer.
"They are looking at service reductions and potential elimination [of 28X] beyond Robinson Towne Center for weekday, Saturday and Sunday," George said in her office last Thursday. "We have many students who are not from here, who go to the airport, whether it's for spring break or another weekend away, and they would certainly have to look into other sources of transportation."
Additionally, George is concerned for the parking problem to increase in Pittsburgh should these routes be reduced.
"An example that I heard, if you look at a bus, say there are 40 people on the bus. Imagine that all 40 people are capable of driving and have a car – that's 40 more cars for that one bus that's trying to get Downtown, so traffic is going to be worse, rush hour is going to be worse, parking is going to be worse," George said. "It is larger than just who rides the bus. This bus on the Boulevard is usually full by 7:30; that's going to be full much earlier. … It's definitely going to impact our students, but we're not the only ones affected. How many other major businesses are in Downtown – PNC, BNY Mellon – all have people from the suburbs coming into the core. They need to get here; they need somewhere to park."
Gabriella Corcos, a freshman dance major who has had her route reduced in the past, had to adjust to a slower schedule of only two buses an hour at her stop.
"It's really upsetting that they're always looking to cut routes first," she said Monday in the Lawrence Hall lobby. "It's especially upsetting because our Port Authority isn't the greatest to begin with."
George said the only way for the situation to be resolved is for students and Pittsburgh transit users to tell Corbett of their concerns for the city's transportation should funding not be provided for the Port Authority. George encouraged all members of the Point Park community to send a message to Corbett via www.keeppghmoving.com, saying how these service cuts would affect them.
"It's letting Harrisburg know that we need this, something needs to be done, it's important to us," George said. "It's not a commuter problem, it's not a resident problem, it's a much larger issue that Point Park needs to be aware of. Ultimately, it's going to affect Pittsburgh in the future, if it happens and these routes are cut and parking becomes a problem, businesses may leave Downtown. It's a chain reaction."
Link
The Port Authority of Pittsburgh is currently proposing a 35 percent service reduction, effective in September, should it not receive adequate state funding to support the cost of continued service. Other service changes would include a fare raise in July and reduced service for all remaining bus and light-rail routes.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett presented the state budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal year yesterday. Details of this and how it will affect these proposed Port Authority service cuts will be featured in next week's issue of The Globe.
Situated in the hub of Downtown's transportation routes, Point Park University will not directly feel the effects of these changes, but students and faculty traveling from nearby neighborhoods to the university will inevitably be forced to adjust their routine commute should the changes and cuts occur.
Additionally, resident students who frequently use Port Authority transit to part-time jobs or other activities in surrounding neighborhoods will be equally impacted, said Sarah George, director of commuter of affairs at Point Park. She believed the hardest adjustment will be for students who work on the weekend or live out of town.
"It would be really annoying," Meghan Higgins, a senior psychology major and resident at Point Park, said Monday night in the Point Cafe. "I work in Oakland, and I'm pressed for time as it is."
One such proposed cut is the elimination of service on Saturdays and Sundays for buses traveling to Ross Park Mall, as well as a reduction of service on the 28X Airport Flyer.
"They are looking at service reductions and potential elimination [of 28X] beyond Robinson Towne Center for weekday, Saturday and Sunday," George said in her office last Thursday. "We have many students who are not from here, who go to the airport, whether it's for spring break or another weekend away, and they would certainly have to look into other sources of transportation."
Additionally, George is concerned for the parking problem to increase in Pittsburgh should these routes be reduced.
"An example that I heard, if you look at a bus, say there are 40 people on the bus. Imagine that all 40 people are capable of driving and have a car – that's 40 more cars for that one bus that's trying to get Downtown, so traffic is going to be worse, rush hour is going to be worse, parking is going to be worse," George said. "It is larger than just who rides the bus. This bus on the Boulevard is usually full by 7:30; that's going to be full much earlier. … It's definitely going to impact our students, but we're not the only ones affected. How many other major businesses are in Downtown – PNC, BNY Mellon – all have people from the suburbs coming into the core. They need to get here; they need somewhere to park."
Gabriella Corcos, a freshman dance major who has had her route reduced in the past, had to adjust to a slower schedule of only two buses an hour at her stop.
"It's really upsetting that they're always looking to cut routes first," she said Monday in the Lawrence Hall lobby. "It's especially upsetting because our Port Authority isn't the greatest to begin with."
George said the only way for the situation to be resolved is for students and Pittsburgh transit users to tell Corbett of their concerns for the city's transportation should funding not be provided for the Port Authority. George encouraged all members of the Point Park community to send a message to Corbett via www.keeppghmoving.com, saying how these service cuts would affect them.
"It's letting Harrisburg know that we need this, something needs to be done, it's important to us," George said. "It's not a commuter problem, it's not a resident problem, it's a much larger issue that Point Park needs to be aware of. Ultimately, it's going to affect Pittsburgh in the future, if it happens and these routes are cut and parking becomes a problem, businesses may leave Downtown. It's a chain reaction."
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