PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Save our transit!
by Steve Donahue Sunday, Sep. 01, 2002 at 1:37 PM

A new coalition has formed to keep fare hikes and service cuts from hitting customers of the Port Authority of Allegheny County.

There is nothing but bad news these days for those who rely on public transit in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. On June 16 the Port Authority Transit (PAT) will initiate the first of two cuts in bus service. Major cuts in service and a fare hike to perhaps $2.00 will take effect in the fall. The culprit for all this bad news is in Harrisburg and his name is Governor Mark Schweiker. It was just one year ago that PAT raised fares to $1.60 and this was due to shortfalls in the Governor Ridge budget.

Funding for public transit is extremely complex. There are several streams of revenue that feed public transit and all of them are presently drying up. Funds for public transit consist of money for operating the system on a day to day basis and money for capital improvements, for example like buying more buses. It is the money for operations that is always running short and the Governor refuses to increase spending for this. His budget for the next fiscal year (FY 02-03) has $270,019,000 for statewide public transit operating money. PAT will get around 25% of this. In the state budget for both FY 00-01 and FY 01-02 the exact same amount was provided. In other words state spending for operating public transit in Pennsylvania is staying the same for the third year in a row. Remember though that this is just one of the funding streams for running public transit. So while the budget line from the governor stays the same year after year the other funding streams are going dry. The result is a big loss in revenue for public transit but the governor's office refuses to acknowledge this. As a matter of fact the governor's boot licks will lie to you and say that public transit revenues are increasing all the time!

Wading into the muddy waters of public transit funding is so confusing that few citizens feel confident enough to jump in. The big shot bureaucrats at PENNDOT and the Department of Revenue like it that way. The bad news for the big shots however is that nobody has to be able to run the PAT or know how to prepare the Pennsylvania State budget to demand that we have excellent public transit at a fair cost. The coalition to SAVE OUR TRANSIT is mobilizing to tell our elected officials that we demand that PAT receive the necessary state funding so that there will be make no cuts in transit service and no fare increase. We want Governor Schweiker to provide a net increase of $10 million over what he has in his budget right now for the PAT during this next fiscal year.

The Governor Schweiker is bragging that his FY 02-03 budget requires no tax increase. He is wrong! A fare hike is a tax hike and it is a terribly regressive tax hike as well since it is not based in any way on ones ability to pay but only on ones need of a public service. The Ridge-Schweiker administration has spent billions highways and airports while public transit has continued to take hits. Just imagine what could be done for the PAT with just a fraction of the $4 billion that the state is spending on the Mon-Fayette Expressway.

Time is short and we must act now to save our public transit system. The coalition to Save Our Transit needs the help of all those who ride the bus and the T. We need the help of those who care about air quality, traffic congestion and sound economic development for our city and county. Working groups have been set up to: conduct a post card campaign for public transit funding, start an email the governor campaign, write letters to state legislators, establish a speakers bureau, write letters to the editor, get resolutions from local councils of government, municipalities, boroughs and cities in support of increased funding for public transit, organize demonstrations for public transit and more.

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