Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s Board Meeting is scheduled for Friday, 7/25 at 9:30 am, and we want to make sure they hear our voices loud and clear. Register with us by Tuesday, 7/22 and we will make sure you’re signed up and prepared to speak online or in-person at the PRT Board Meeting.
Pittsburgh Regional Transit and ACCESS Riders are facing catastrophic service cuts and fare increases starting Feb 2026, and our state legislature has still not passed a budget that includes transit funding.
And so, while we continue to put pressure on our state legislature to do their job, we are demanding the following actions from Pittsburgh Regional Transit now:
- DELAY THE SERVICE CUTS. Pittsburgh Regional Transit has the ability to use some of their reserves to delay the proposed February 2026 service cuts until October 2026. Although using PRT’s limited reserve funding is not a long-term or sustainable solution, it is currently necessary to give the agency, PA legislators and riders the time to ensure that the Governor’s budget proposal for transit passes, and to give us the ability to fight for more transit funding next year. The harms of the proposed 35% fixed route transit and 62% ACCESS service cuts will be catastrophic to our communities and very hard or impossible to reverse.
- STOP FARE INCREASES. There seems to be some push from the state legislature to increase transit fare costs even if state funding comes through. Pittsburgh Regional Transit currently has the 10th highest fares in the country, and increasing from $2.75 to $3 fares would make our transit more expensive than the MTA in New York City. The cost of living is already going through the roof for working and low-income people, and this would be an additional hardship. We also know that increasing fares decreases ridership, and so any revenue benefit from increased fare costs will likely be offset by having fewer riders.
- MAKE ALLEGHENY GO A ZERO FARE PROGRAM. Now is the time for transit cost relief for low-income families. For the last 8 years, we have been clear that we are organizing for a fully zero fare low-income fare program that is funded by the County Department of Human Services (DHS). The County Executive and DHS have publicly supported this goal. The permanent low-income fare program we won last year, Allegheny Go, is currently only a half-fare program. Now is the time to transition Allegheny Go from a half-fare to fully zero fare program (particularly if fares are proposed to be raised further), and utilizing DHS funding will help us do this even if we do not win additional funding from Harrisburg. We are calling on PRT to provide the cost estimate and implementation plan for the County Department of Human Services to transition Allegheny Go to a fully zero fare program.
RSVP to join us and give testimonhy on 7/25. Read on Below to Understand the Latest and For Talking Points for the PRT Board Meeting.
What’s Going On with the State Budget and Proposed PRT Cuts
Pittsburgh Regional Transit projects that in coming years their expenses will be higher than their income, because the level of state funding for transit has not increased in over a decade. They- like other transit agencies across the state including Philadelphia’s SEPTA system and Allentown’s LANTA system– are projecting the need for big service cuts next year to account for that. The service cuts PRT are proposing to implement starting February next year are huge and terrible- 35% service cuts to fixed route transit (the complete elimination of 40 bus lines and the Silver line), 62% cuts to ACCESS services (severely limiting where people can take ACCESS to and from), no transit after 11 pm, and significant fare increases to $3.00 for fixed route transit and increases of between 14-24% for ACCESS fares.
Our Pennsylvania state legislators were supposed to pass a budget by the deadline of June 30th. However, they have missed their deadline and to date have not passed a budget.
There is a proposal that Pennsylvania legislators are considering based on Governor Shapiro’s budget proposal. The Governor’s proposal would increase the allocation of the existing sales tax to transit by 1.75% – and while that is better than nothing, it would only provide Pittsburgh Regional Transit $40 million of the anticipated $100 million they need next year to maintain existing levels of service. We also know that existing levels of service are themselves not meeting our needs.
So although the Governor’s proposal is important to pass right now – as a band aid solution – we (as Transit for All PA!) will continue to organize for a bigger, dedicated pot of money in the coming year that allows PRT (and all PA transit agencies) to not just maintain existing levels of service but restore the 20% of service that has been cut over the last 5 years of the pandemic.
Our organizing is working! Pennsylvania legislators have been hearing our demands loud and clear that they cannot pass a budget without transit funding, AND that maintaining our transit service status quo is not enough. That is why there are proposals at the negotiating table – including our Transit for All PA funding package – that would enable agencies all around the Commonwealth to restore and expand transit to fully meet our needs.
Need help writing your testimony for the PRT Board? Use these talking points below to help uplift the demands listed at the start of this blog:
- Talk about the impacts of the proposed Pittsburgh Regional Transit fixed bus/rail service cuts and ACCESS cuts to you/your community. You can find a summary here (scroll to bottom to see eliminated bus lines. It is useful to say how your life would be impacted even if the cuts were temporary.
- Talk about all the advocacy you have done to fight for state funding – signing petitions, meeting with legislators, rallying in Harrisburg, canvassing/petitioning, phonebanking riders in other communities, speaking up at the PRT service hearings, or developing transit funding solutions and transit communications in the PPT research or comms committees. We want to highlight how we are doing our part, and will continue to fight for funding, but PRT needs to do theirs by providing PA legislators and riders with more time to negotiate a full transit funding solution.
- Talk about the impacts of proposed fare increases on you/your community. Share stories about the high cost of living and the high cost of transit fares, and why we both need to prevent further fare increases AND transition Allegheny GO into a fare free program for low-income riders. Talk about the benefit of that to you and your communities.