Image Description: A group of advocates stands with Pittsburgh City Councilmembers inside council chambers. They smile and hold Transit for All PA! and Week Without Driving PGH signs, as well as a large proclamation bearing the City seal. Black and yellow text reads “VICTORY: FREE transit passes won for City Employees!”

UPDATE: The PRTner Pass discounted bulk fare program has officially passed the City budgeting process! That means all Downtown employees at the City of Pittsburgh will now receive FREE transit passes as an employment benefit, and that PRT will receive this steady source of funding. We would like to thank everyone who sent a letter of support, Councilperson Barb Warwick, and the City of Pittsburgh for becoming a leader among our local employers and institutions in demonstrating the value of this program.

If you are a Downtown City of Pittsburgh employee, stay tuned here and to your HR representatives to learn more about how to enroll in the program.

This year, the Pittsburgh City budget proposed for the first time to include funding for the purchase of transit passes of all downtown City employees through Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s PRTner pass. This is a huge deal, enabling 750 municipal workers to be given free transit passes as an employment benefit, and making the City of Pittsburgh a leader in modeling the benefits of the program for other regional employers and institutions.

What is the PRTner Pass?

At the end of last year, Pittsburgh Regional Transit rolled out the new PRTner pass program after receiving overwhelming support through its public comment period. It enables the bulk purchase of transit fares for employers, developers and school districts to pay for passes for their constituencies at the deeply discounted rate of $28/per person monthly. 

The PRTner pass has the potential to provide low-income and working class people (renters, students, employees) across Allegheny County unlimited transit access—freedom of movement—that will both save money on their existing transit trips and incentivize more travel by transit. Moreover, it will increase the amount of dedicated operating revenue for PRT, through new transit fare payments by corporations and developers, large non-profits, school systems and now municipalities like the City of Pittsburgh.

 In our challenging political climate, it’s hard to win new revenue for restoring and expanding transit service, particularly through progressive means. The PRTner pass is a unicorn funding opportunity- growing transit equity, transit ridership, transit revenue, and sourced from corporations and major institutions! Win win win win!

And there’s massive potential for growth – at SOUND transit in Seattle, where a similar program has existed for years, more than half of the transit agency’s total revenue is generated from a bulk discount fare program like the PRTner pass.

To affordable fares—and beyond!

Now, the PRTner pass purchase for City employees is only the first step. It’s important that more employers and developers are incentivized to participate. That is one piece of why we have been organizing in support of the Mayor’s Housing and Zoning Code Package, which include incentives for developers and employers to mitigate their commuter impacts through PRTner pass purchases. 

This program has long been an organizing goal of riders! There is a big demand by employers, schools and developers to provide a benefit similar to the student pass programs at CMU, Pitt and Pittsburgh Public Schools. Since 2019 and the launch of our Fair Fares Platform, PPT has called for Pittsburgh Regional Transit to offer common-sense fare products (we called them “fare incentive programs”) that would increase both revenue and ridership for the agency. 

We have envisioned opportunities for large employers like UPMC to purchase passes for their workers, helping ease some of the transportation costs on our region’s healthcare staff and reducing the need for shuttles and parking lots that increase congestion and disallow more housing or commercial developments in the city. For service employees like those at Giant Eagle or janitors in the downtown office buildings, monthly transit passes could be a substantial commuter benefit, but it could also be used for all sorts of necessary trips outside of the workplace- for recreation and childcare, for grocery shopping and healthcare appointments. 

At the Giant Eagle Shakespeare site at Shady and Penn, we have organized since 2018 for bulk passes to be purchased for all renters in the future housing development, to reduce the demand for structured parking, and to increase transit usage in one of the most transit-rich corridors in the County. This demand was included in our 100 Days Transit Platform for Mayor Gainey in 2021 and our Riders Demands for the Next County Executive in 2023. And in February 2024, we made bulk discount employer fares- like this PRTner Pass proposal- a cornerstone of our goal to have elected officials play their part to fund transit at all levels, by calling on the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County to purchase passes for their employees. 

We’re now seeing the fruits of that organizing- and we’re just getting started.

Image Description: An illustration of an orange and yellow bus, decked out with smiling passengers, and with its destination sign reading “future”. To its right, in front of starbursts and cartoon stripes, is black and white text reading “The Future of Transit Justice: PPT’s 2026 Strategic Plan”.

Every year, our grassroots union engages in a collaborative planning process to chart a path for our growth in the coming year. PPT’s members help us brainstorm ideas for our internal organizational development, creating goals for how we support our members and build up the PPT family. We also brainstorm ideas for campaigns we can take on to win improvements for transit riders and communities–things like making fares more affordable, improving service, or building better sidewalks and more affordable housing. 

This is an ongoing collaborative process between our membership, committees, board, and staff. This is what makes our work so special: every PPT member, whether they’ve paid dues or shown up to support us at rallies and events, has a voice in our strategic plan.

I’m a PPT member, how can I give feedback?

Below are 6 target areas we want to focus on in 2025, and some ideas for specific goals within each area. We want to hear your input on them, so please share your opinions and wisdom below.

For each of the 5 campaign topics (Fares, Service, Infrastructure, Funding, #VoteTransit), consider these questions as you give your feedback:

• What needs to be changed or added to this plan? 
• What parts feel particularly aligned with PPT? What parts get you fired up for the year to come?
• What seems most important to prioritize over the coming year? 
• How will we measure success?

All feedback is welcome–after all, you’re the expert on your own experience riding local transit!

For each step, share any thoughts you have about the listed target area and goals. If you don’t have anything to write, just write “n/a”.

Fill out this form to help us brainstorm PPT’s 2026 Strategic Plan:

Image Description: a grainy image of a bus stop outside the Target at the Waterfront development. Overlaid is black and yellow text reading “ACTION ALERT: Bus stops removed at the Waterfront”.

Update as of September 29th, 2025

Update: On September 20th, 2025, Waterfront owners reached an agreement in principle with Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato to find a long-term solution that would keep PRT service inside the Waterfront.

While no details on the deal are available, Innamorato has said that the stops outside Target and Giant Eagle will remain in service until a more specific deal is struck.

This is a short-term win generated by the advocacy of over a thousand transit riders, Waterfront shoppers, Waterfront employees, and transit operators. In just 13 days, over 1,300 people signed our petition; we also received support from from U.S. Representative Summer Lee, City Councilmember Barb Warwick, State Senator Nick Pisciottano, and ATU Local 85 President Ross Nicotero. 50 Waterfront employees signed the petition, sending a clear message that the Waterfront needs public transit in order to function.

As the County and Waterfront management work out the details of their deal, advocates need to send a strong message: The Waterfront needs transit riders, and transit riders won’t tolerate harm. Keep the bus stops where they are. Please continue to circulate this petition to your networks, and help us keep the pressure up.

Waterfront management forces major bus stop removal

There are major changes planned that will impact riders taking the 53/53L, 57, 59, 64, and 61D to and from the Waterfront in Homestead, PA. The stops they use to shop at Target and Giant Eagle will be removed.

In the next round of schedule changes on October 19, 2025, riders who rely on buses to pick them up and drop them off at stops by Target or Giant Eagle, will no longer be able to use those stops. These stops, which serve over 2,500 rider boardings per week, will be removed entirely. This change was triggered by M&J Wilkow Properties, LLC, which manages the shopping center. 

Instead, riders will have to walk or from Target, Giant Eagle, and other nearby shops, to existing stops on Amity Way (see map below). Depending on location, this could mean distance of a thousand feet, beside a sprawling parking lot and requiring riders to cross major roadways. The stops at this new location currently see less than half the weekly ridership as the existing stops at Target and Giant Eagle.

PRT previously considered relocating the stops to East Waterfront Drive (which currently see less than 1 rider a day on average), but opted for the Amity locations due to a lack of accessible drop off areas on East Waterfront. This change will likely cause some of the buses that service the Waterfront to be rerouted entirely for that portion of their journey.

Image Description: a screenshot from Google Maps of the Waterfront development. Target and Giant Eagle are marked on the map. The current bus stops, which are slated for removal, are marked in yellow. In red, across 20-30 rows of cars in a parking lot, are the new stop locations on Amity Street.

What This Could Mean For Riders?

Eliminating these stops will have a huge impact on riders and businesses both.

These bus stop changes will harm already marginalized community members: People using mobility devices like wheelchairs, walkers, and canes; other disabled folks; caregivers with kids; hourly retail workers; and shoppers carrying heavy groceries will all face a more arduous journey between their grocery stores and the bus. Riders will have to budget additional time into their trips, traveling long distances between the sidewalk or crossing through a sprawling parking lot to get to and from a stop quickly.

This will harm stores as well: shoppers may decide to make fewer trips to stores because they are physically not able to make it to and from the new stops easily.

Finally, this will add confusion to routing patterns that riders rely on to plan their trips. Adjustment to routes takes time and many riders will experience delays, confusion, and pass-ups due to not understanding changes patterns for the new inbound and outbound routes. While some buses already use the Amity stop, others will need to be rerouted entirely for their Waterfront journeys to make room for this change.

What Can You Do? 

We need your help to spread the word! Do you take any of these routes to the Waterfront? Are you an employee who takes the bus to work, a shopper, or anyone whose rider will be impacted? Take action by signing the petition asking Waterfront Management (M&J Wilkow Properties, LLC), the Boroughs of Homestead and West Homestead, and Pittsburgh Regional Transit to stop these cuts and ensure that transit riders are not displaced to the margins. 

Help us protect accessible transit at the Waterfront by signing our petition now!

Image Description: PPT members on a Bus Stop Audit stand in front of a pink, green, yellow and red mural of two women’s faces with the word “Allentown” above them, on Beltzhoover Ave.

DEADLINE: September 22, 2025 11:59pm EST
No matter what place you call home, everyone in Allegheny County deserves safe, accessible, affordable, and reliable public transportation. However, a lack of investment in our public transit, environmental crises, increases in the costs of housing, and social inequity have led to many of our friends, families, and neighbors struggling to get to the places they want to go and disconnecting our communities rather than bringing them together. 

But we can take action to reverse it! That is why Pittsburghers for Public Transit (PPT) will launch a paid fellowship program for transit riders who live in communities located in the South Hilltop October 2025-March 2026. 

About the Fellowship

Fellows will explore public transit access, infrastructure, financial barriers, and equitable development. Examples of these topics include: the opportunities and need for more bus shelters and safe, accessible sidewalks to transit, improved service through Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT’s) Bus Line redesign process, winning and enrolling South Hilltop residents into Allegheny Go, and the zoning/land use relationship connecting access to housing and quality transit. 

The fellowship will consist of weekly modules based on current PPT transit justice campaigns, within classroom learning and field work. The fellowship will begin in October 2025 and end in early March 2026.

Fellows will receive compensation for participating in the program for five hours per week for 12-15 weeks until completion in March 2026, with breaks for Thanksgiving and winter holiday periods. 

The Hilltop region this fellowship will work with includes all of Mt. Oliver Borough and the City of PIttsburgh neighborhoods of South Side Slopes, Mt. Washington, Beltzhoover, Bon Air, Carrick, Knoxville, Mt. Oliver, Allentown, Arlington, Arlington Heights, and Hays.

Timeline Overview of the South Hilltop Organizing Fellowship 

• September 22nd: Application deadline
• September 29th: Fellows are confirmed
• Week of October 6th: Program begins
• Classes 1-2: Transit Service
• Classes 3-4: Bus Stops and Shelters
• Classes 5-6: Allegheny Go
• Classes 7-8: Land Use and Development
• Class 9: State Funding
• Share-out Meetings with Government Reps
• Graduation Party

Classes will include a break for the Thanksgiving Holiday November 23–30 and a winter holiday break December 14 – January 4.

How to Apply

Do you live in the South Hilltop and want to improve public transit for your community? 

Apply today!

DEADLINE: September 22, 2025 11:59pm EST

Questions? Contact Nicole Gallagher at nicole@pittsburghforpublictransit.org

Image Description: 3 PPT members smile at the camera on a Bus Stop Audit in Beltzhoover. In the background there is a trolley passing by and a colorful mural.

Image Description: PPT member and staff, one in a pink shirt and one in yellow, high five while smiling at the annual PPT summer party.

Last Wednesday, 100 PPT members and friends gathered at the lovely Olympia park to enjoy yummy food, excellent music, and–most importantly–the company of some of the best organizers, friends, and neighbors Pittsburgh has to offer. 

Our annual summer party is always a chance to pause and affirm the things that make our movement sweet. This year, the party had a special meaning, coming in the middle of a long, critical organizing fight for transit funding at the state level. (In fact, the day before, the PA Senate passed a bill that claimed to fund transit while actually diverting funds from the Public Transit Trust Fund to highways, roads, and bridges! While that bill has since been voted down by the House, it still meant that we were in extra need of a moment of positivity and connection.) 

Lucky for us, that’s exactly what PPT does best. 

We’ve always felt that organizing for our community’s rights and dignity is easiest when we bake in opportunities for joy and authentic reconnection. Our party was a night of dancing, laughter, and taking stock of the incredible progress we’ve made over the last year. 

Progress like: 

• Hosting two paid organizing fellowships focusing on Mon Valley residents and transit workers (like the amazing Kristen Greene and Tom Conroy, who both shared a bit about their experience) 
• Launching a new paid organizing fellowship in the Hilltop community (stay tuned for the application, and please apply if you’re a Hilltop community member!) 
• Incredible growth in our statewide campaign, to the tune of over 25,000 new supporters (yes, our statewide campaign manager Amtrak-ed in from Philly to party with us!) 
• A new membership definition that aligns better with our values and brings our total number of members to a stunning 1,500
• And much more!

Here’s an awesome video our member Joe Coniff made recapping the event:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Pittsburghers 4 Public Transit (@pgh4publictransit)

Check out our gallery of pictures below, and our Flickr album if you want to see more pictures from the event. Major thanks to member Marcelese Cooper for documenting the event!

This year, PPT has grown and changed in ways we are thrilled and challenged by: we’ve conducted multiple paid organizing fellowships developing talent in our community, we’ve hired new staff, and we’ve brought over 25,000 new contacts into our universe (!!!), partially through the massive upscaling of our statewide campaign. 

When we take stock of all these changes, we feel humbled and awestruck by the strength of our community. What we’ve accomplished in such a short time is stunning. In the course of doing this work, we’ve cultivated connections across Pittsburgh and beyond: old friends we’ve deepened relationships with, new friends we’ve brought into the fold, and organizations we’ve come to partner with. 

It’s not an overstatement to say that none of this would be possible without our members. PPT members volunteer at phone banks, they chant and cheer with us at rallies, they tell us the needs of their communities, and they steer our organizations in crucial ways.

What is a PPT member?

PPT members hold the crucial privilege and responsibility of co-drafting our Strategic Plan and electing our Board of Directors. Members are also the only ones who are able to run for positions on our Board. These are vitally important functions, helping guide our organization into the future, shaping our campaigns and the way we do our work.

Until now, the official definition of a PPT “member” has been anyone who supports the Transit Bill of Rights, and contributes $2.75 or more–the cost of a PRT standard bus fare–to PPT in a given year. We intentionally kept this financial cost low to minimize barriers to participation. 

But there are many folks in our community who play crucial roles in shaping our work, who don’t have the ability to contribute financially. PPT is a community, it’s a union, and it’s a democratic movement–and we never want to exclude people based on their financial situation.

That’s why we’ve decided to enact a change to the way we define membership at PPT. 

New PPT membership definition

Beginning now, there are two ways someone could be considered a member of PPT: 

1. Someone could contribute $2.75 or more in a given year. Membership dues are a critical way we fuel our work, so we wanted to maintain this option. Folks who make this contribution will be called dues-paying members. Dues-paying members help us pay staff, run campaigns, throw events and direct actions, and generally keep the lights on with their financial contributions.
2. Someone who supports our work by taking action with us in a given year–filling out an advocacy form, volunteering, attending a rally–AND attending at least one event (virtual or in person) will now be considered a member as well. This allows our membership count to more accurately reflect the many, many people who build our movement without contributing financially. Folks in this group will be simply called members. 

Both groups of members will still need to sign on to the Transit Bill of Rights, our guiding statement that affirms our beliefs and theory of change. 

So, how many members does PPT have?!

When we add up the number of people who have taken action with us and attended a meeting OR donated $2.75+ in the last year, we get the big, shiny, inspiring, fabulous new membership number:

Image Description: A sparkly black, white, and gold handmade sign reads “We are 1500 PPT members strong!”, as photographed through a fisheye lens. Sign lovingly made by Dan Yablonsky and Jess Cox, and photographed by Marcelese Cooper.

1,500! 

If you’re a member, thank you for being part of this movement. When we started making good trouble for transit back in 2010, a movement this big and strong was our wildest dream. 

If you’re not yet a member, it’s never been easier to join! Check out our events calendar for upcoming ways to plug in, and scroll through our campaign updates blog for opportunities to take action. (We’d recommend starting by taking action to support statewide transit funding!) 

With solidarity and appreciation–

Pittsburghers for Public Transit staff and board

Image Description: “Press Statement” in black text above logos of Transit for All PA!, Transit Forward Philadelphia, and Pittsburghers for Public Transit. Below is a picture of transit advocates and legislators holding colorful “Transit for All PA!” signs.

Note: This was also posted on the Transit for All PA! Campaign Updates page.

Transit Riders Denounce Senate Republicans for Passing a Bill that Would Deepen Transit Crisis

This week, the PA Senate leadership approved a bill that raids the capital budget of the Public Transportation Trust Fund – which is already woefully underfunded for current transit maintenance and capital needs – and diverts that funding to both roads and bridges and transit operations. 

The Transit for All PA coalition denounces this transparent, rushed and cynical effort by Senate Republicans to feign action and run down the clock to service cuts. Today marks 43 days since the budget deadline and only 2 days before SEPTA’s cuts are locked in; we see how the Senate majority party has failed to act in good faith and instead remained in recess until this 11th hour, only now producing this appalling legislation. 

Rather than solving the transit funding crisis through the many reasonable funding proposals passed through the PA House, Senate Republicans instead passed a bill today that would make public transit substantially worse. Their bill would not generate new state revenue to ensure that our agencies maintain the service that riders rely on, but would make our transit systems more insolvent by taking $419 million over two years from the existing Public Transportation Trust Fund to fund roads and bridges instead. 

We need transit capital funding as much as we need transit operating funding; that is why the Public Transportation Trust Fund provides both. By cannibalizing transit capital funding for transit operations, riders will face unreliable service from equipment malfunction, lack of available vehicles, and accessibility outages. SEPTA, Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) and other agencies across the Commonwealth already have billions of dollars worth of deferred maintenance needs, and this funding theft will put further out of reach station accessibility upgrades, SEPTA Trolley Modernization, the new bus networks, and the very fare gate improvements PA Senate Republican leadership claims to desire. 

The Senate bill additionally requires an increased local government 5% match for state transit funding without enabling local capital or operating revenue options to raise those funds. This strains the ability of municipalities to even access the funds that the state should provide to support transit. 

Finally, this bill mandates a fare increase every two years tied to inflation, regardless of the current fare pricing structure of each agency or the capacity of riders to afford those fare increases. Increasing fares decreases ridership, so any revenue benefit from increased fare costs could likely be offset by having fewer riders.

We demand our state senators pass real transit funding solutions, and will be mobilizing riders at the ballot box to ensure that all PA communities have the transit service – and the elected representation – that they deserve. Transit riders can take action now by calling and sending a letter to their state senator, and following Transit for All PA for upcoming actions in their communities.

—

Transit for All PA is a statewide coalition representing more than 20,000 transit riders, transit workers and stakeholders in big cities and small communities across the Commonwealth. Together, we are organizing to expand Pennsylvania’s public transit systems to grow our economy and connect more Pennsylvanians to jobs, healthcare, and essential needs. 

Transit Forward Philadelphia is a coalition of Philadelphia-based organizations fighting to improve public transit in Southeast Pennsylvania.

Pittsburghers for Public Transit is a grassroots union of transit riders, workers and neighbors. Together we organize for an expanded, affordable and accessible public transit system that meets all needs, with no communities left behind.

Multi-talented PPT member Marcelese Cooper, a film professor and artist, recently made an informative–and gorgeous–animated video describing what the transit crisis means for Pittsburgh and the state. They also include important action steps to take to prevent these cuts from happening.

Check out the video below to learn more about the state of transit funding in PA, and what you can do about it (plus, enjoy some beautiful animation and music)!

En el contexto actual de intensificación de los ataques contra las personas marginadas y los bienes públicos, Pittsburghers for Public Transit se solidariza con nuestras comunidades de inmigrantes y refugiados, muchos de los cuales dependen del transporte público como medio principal para ir al trabajo, asistir a la escuela, comprar alimentos, acceder a la atención médica y asistir a sus lugares de culto. Nos organizamos para oponernos a la intimidación, las detenciones crueles e ilegales, las desapariciones y las acciones discriminatorias contra nuestros amigos y vecinos que buscan, y merecen, seguridad y refugio.

Para fortalecer el conocimiento y la comunidad, compartimos un recurso de una de nuestras organizaciones asociadas, la Campaña Nacional por la Justicia en el Transporte, sobre qué hacer si se encuentra con agentes de inmigración al usar el transporte público. Por favor, comparta ampliamente estos recursos. El texto a continuación también está disponible como PDF descargable.

Si agentes de inmigración abordan su tren o autobús, usted tiene el derecho a: 

• Guardar silencio
• Rehusarse a que revisen sus pertenencias, diciendo “No les doy permiso de revisar mis cosas”, o en inglés, “I do not consent to a search”.
• Preguntarle a los agentes de inmigración por qué lo están parando
• Grabar video
• Informar a otros sobre sus derechos
• Si tiene documentos de inmigración válidos, puede enseñarlos. Pero nunca enseñe documentos falsos. 

NO es necesario:

• Contestar preguntas sobre su ciudadanía o su estatus migratorio, y no firme ningún papel, sin hablar con un abogado.

Toda información que le dé a los agentes de inmigración puede ser utilizada en su contra para deportarlo.

In our current climate of intensifying attacks on marginalized people and public goods, Pittsburghers for Public Transit stands in solidarity with our immigrant and refugee communities, many of whom rely on public transit as a primary means to go to work, attend schools, buy groceries, access healthcare and attend places of worship. We are organized in opposition to intimidation, cruel and unlawful detainment and disappearances, and the discriminatory actions taken against our friends and neighbors who are seeking – and deserve – safety and refuge. 

To build community knowledge and strength, we are sharing a resource from one of our partner organizations, the National Campaign for Transit Justice, on what to do if you encounter immigration agents while using public transit services. Please share these resources widely. The below text is also available as a downloadable PDF.

If immigration agents board your bus or train or are patrolling a transit station, you have the right to:

• Remain silent
• Refuse a search of your belongings by saying, “I do not consent to a search”. 
• Ask agents why they are stopping you
• Record video
• Inform others of their rights
• Provide valid immigration papers if you have them (never provide false documents)

You do NOT need to:

• Answer any questions about your citizenship or immigration status, or sign any documents, without the advice of a lawyer

Any information you volunteer to immigration agents can and will be used against you to deport you.