Published Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012
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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."
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