image description: a photo of the back of a rider sitting on a bus. The rider is wearing a pink and gold head scarf and pink jacket with a hood.
The quality of our transit service has been changing in Allegheny County, and it hasn’t necessarily been for the better…
Has your bus not come? Have you been waiting for ages? Have the recent service cuts impacted you?
Share your story and advocate for change:
Canceled buses. Late arrivals. Crowding. Transit shutoffs. Since the start of the pandemic, Port Authority transit has hit a new low. What’s worse, PRT has continued to make service reductions and changes to our routes and bus stops. Riders won’t take it any longer. We need transit expansion, not cuts, and it’s time we speak up for change.
Help advocate with Pittsburghers for Public Transit for improvements to public transit by sharing your story about how bad service is affecting your life.
Did you miss an interview? Were you late for school, work or childcare? Was it impossible to get home because buses had stopped running?
Now is the time. Use the form below to share your story and help advocate for better public transit. All comments will be kept anonymous until an organizer connects with you.
Share your story about how you are affected by bad transit service and help riders advocate for change.
La calidad de nuestro servicio de tránsito ha estado cambiando en el condado de Allegheny, y no necesariamente ha sido para lo mejor…
¿No ha llegado su autobús? ¿Has estado esperando por mucho tiempo? ¿Le han afectado los recientes cortes de servicio?
Comparta su historia y abogue por mejoras:
Autobuses cancelados o llenos. Llegadas tardías. Desconexión de tránsito. Cambios de servicio. Desde el comienzo de la pandemia, el tránsito del condado de Allegheny ha alcanzado un nuevo mínimo. Lo que es peor, PRT ha continuado haciendo reducciones a nuestras rutas y paradas de autobús sin participación pública. Los pasajeros no lo aguantarán más. Necesitamos expansión del tránsito, no recortes, y es hora de que hablemos por el tránsito que merecemos.
Ahora es el momento. Ayude a reformar el transporte público compartiendo una historia de cómo el servicio malo está afectando su vida. Utilice el siguiente formulario para compartir su historia y las soluciones que desea ver. Todos los comentarios permanecerán anónimos hasta que un organizador se conecte contigo.
¿Perdiste una entrevista? ¿Llegaste tarde a la escuela, al trabajo o a la guardería? ¿Era imposible llegar a casa porque los autobuses habían dejado de funcionar? Comparta su historia sobre cómo le ha impactado el servicio malo de tránsito y ayude a los pasajeros a abogar por el cambio.
Feel free to reach out to Pittsburghers for Public Transit with any questions stories: 412-626-733 or info@pittsburghforpublictransit.org
Puede comunicarse con Pittsburghers en Defensa del Transporte Público con cualquier pregunta o historia: 412-626-7353 o info@pittsburghforpublictransit.org
The collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge on January 28, 2022 has fueled discussions at the city, state, and federal level about investing more in critical infrastructure. One outcome of these discussions is that PennDOT will provide funding to rebuild the city-owned Fern Hollow Bridge.
This is good news. PennDOT recently released a rendering of the Fern Hollow bridge design and has stated they plan to begin construction in April. This rendering and the quick timeline has fueled concerns from local officials like City Controller Michael Lamb that there has not been enough community input and that the needs of non-motorized bridge users haven’t been adequately assessed.
While not mentioned on PennDOT’s Fern Hollow page, we recently learned that the impetus for this quick timeline along with the depiction of tractor trailers on the new bridge is due to another pending PennDOT project that predates the bridge collapse: replacing the Commercial Street Bridge. Beginning in summer 2023, PennDOT plans to close the Commercial Street Bridge and detour I-376 traffic between Regents Square and Squirrel Hill via the Fern Hollow Bridge. This detour explains both PennDOT’s urgency to repair the Fern Hollow Bridge and why the rendering resembles a highway and prioritizes car and truck traffic.
While the current design for the Fern Hollow Bridge makes sense as a short-term solution given the upcoming replacement of the Commercial Street Bridge, these constraints do not eliminate the need for consulting with communities around both short- and long-term opportunities that these bridge replacements present.
In the short-term, Port Authority should work with residents to strategize how their public transit needs can be better served with the current detours on the 61A and 61B buses due to the Fern Hollow Bridge closure. Residents have already proposed a few ways that the 61A and 61B detours can better meet their needs:
These long-term detours should be incorporated into the regular schedule with appropriate running times and established bus stops to better serve residents (e.g., between Forbes and Wilkins on S Dallas Avenue and between Forbes and Penn on S Braddock Ave)
Port Authority/Pittsburgh/PennDOT should evaluate the possibility of transit signal priority for buses along Penn Ave or bus only lanes during rush hours.
On-street parking along Penn Ave from Dallas to Braddock should be prohibited.
In addition, the future 3-week closure of the Commercial Street Bridge also presents an opportunity for Port Authority to capture new riders as drivers seek to avoid high congestion and increased travel times by car. However, this will require Port Authority to establish more efficient connections from Regents Square and Squirrel Hill to popular destinations like Oakland and Downtown during the Commercial Street Bridge closure/I-376 detours. Improved P3, P7 and P71 service along with a targeted advertising campaign could encourage residents of Wilkinsburg, Edgewood, Regent Square, Swissvale and Rankin who drive to try the bus. Using the bus will help residents avoid causing and sitting in congestion, and help them to realize the benefit of the East Busway to their communities The campaign could also showcase the East Busway as the only route with excess capacity for more users. Penn Avenue and the Parkway East barely had enough capacity prior to the bridge collapse. This is a chance for the East Busway to shine and prove its worth to the communities it serves.
In looking towards long-term solutions, the City needs to work with residents to create a design plan for the Fern Hollow Bridge once PennDOT relinquishes it (post Commercial Street Bridge reconstruction). The goal of the Fern Hollow redesign should be to address shortcomings with the prior bridge, including:
pedestrian walkways that were too narrow for wheelchair and stroller access
bicyclists being funneled into traffic
the high speeds of cars and related safety concerns
outbound congestion that slows transit during rush hour
There have already been a few proposals to address these problems. For example, having one inbound lane and two outbound lanes could lessen congestion, while also creating more space for bike lanes and sidewalks.
While we support PennDOT in moving swiftly to replace the Fern Hollow Bridge, we do not have to trade off speed and efficiency at the expense of community input. In fact, the replacement of the Fern Hollow and Commercial Street Bridges creates opportunities for The Port Authority to capture new riders and for the future Fern Hollow Bridge to better meet community needs. Now is the time for residents to come together to determine how our public infrastructure will look and function for decades to come.
PennDOT has released their comment form for the public to give input into the bridge design. Take 2 minutes to give your input today:
image description: A Port Authority Transit worker cleans the driver’s console of a red Port Authority Bus. Steph Chambers/Post Gazette Next to the image is a logo that says “PAAC Transit Workers Appreciation Day” with two golden ferns and two red emoji buses.
Because transit workers rock, we roll. Help PPT to celebrate Transit Worker Appreciation Day, 2022
Transit workers are the muscle in our county. Each year they carry hundreds of thousands of riders to the places they need to go. They have been on the front lines through this whole pandemic working to keep our county moving and it’s about time they get some appreciation.
The pandemic has been hard on everyone, but especially transit workers. 7 Port Authority transit workers have passed away from COVID. But still, their brave colleagues continue to show up to keep the county moving.
March 18th marks Transit Worker Appreciation Day, a national celebration of transit workers and the heroic effort that these workers put in. Help us make it special by sharing your story and volunteering to help the effort.
Thank and celebrate transit workers by sharing a story about a time that transit workers have made a difference in your life.
Use our form below to share a personal story about the importance of transit workers and send your thanks. PPT will be collecting stories and thank-you notes from 250 riders and delivering them directly to transit workers at their workplace.
Volunteer with us to canvass riders and collect their stories and thanks to transit riders
Sign up below to volunteer with PPT to help our efforts on Transit Worker Appreciation Day the week of March 14th. We’ll be holding a number of canvasses where we’ll be talking to riders at bus stops and collecting their stories about how transit workers have made an impact on their lives. We’ll also be handing out thank-you cards for riders to hand to their bus drivers.
Image Description: PPT logo foregrounded over an image of bus riders waiting at the Wood Street Station
Pittsburghers for Public Transit (PPT) is a grassroots union organizing for a more equitable, affordable and accessible transit system that meets all needs, with no communities left behind.
We stand with transit riders and transit workers. To that end, we urge the Port Authority and ATU Local 85 to negotiate a quick and amenable resolution to the vaccine mandate issue, and one that doesn’t result in the loss of experienced transit workers that keep our system running. There are no winners if we continue down this path, because we cannot afford to trade service for safety, or safety for service: we need both.
We are facing devastating transit service cuts – both in the immediate future from missed trips with transit workers out on disciplinary leave and from those who are out sick, and longer term. The Port Authority is already planning for significant service cuts in June, to mirror the capacity of a depleted workforce. That creates a downward spiral of reduced transit service and fewer riders, which justifies further cuts. This will be harmful in the long run to both the transit riders that rely on the service, and to the size and years of experience within the transit workforce. It would also be an enormous loss to our region, which depends on public transit to ease congestion and support our workforce needs, and benefits from having a robust unionized workforce in public transit with living wages and family-supporting benefits.
There are also ways to address the existing 100+ transit worker shortage so that our region could see transit service expansion rather than contraction. The agency could offer hazard pay for workers, have an employee recruitment and retention incentive for existing workers, and collaborate with Port Authority’s 70+ stakeholder organizations to get the word out about their open positions and quality compensation.
We say unequivocally that public transit needs to be safe for all users. We support vaccinations, and encourage everyone to get them. But vaccinations are one tool in a list of many others that need to be part of this discussion, including extending the masking requirements beyond the CDC’s current deadline of April 18th, making masks available for riders on every bus, providing free and regular COVID testing to workers, and reinstituting rear-door boarding and suspending fare payment, to allow a safe distance between riders and drivers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on public transit and its riders and workers over the past several years. The pandemic has made planning difficult, because conditions change so rapidly– we recognize that it takes courage and flexibility for the Port Authority to pivot to address evolving needs to achieve good outcomes. We have seen and appreciate the agency’s ability to respond to shifting ridership and service patterns, and the installation of higher quality air ventilation systems on buses. We also honor all of the sacrifices transit workers have made in the face of this devastating pandemic; to date, hundreds of Port Authority workers have contracted COVID-19 and seven of them have died. Transit workers continue to have an important stake in conversations around pandemic safety. Now is the time for a solution that keeps riders and workers safe while avoiding terminations and further service cuts.
Bus lines are lifelines, and transit workers are on the frontlines of keeping our critical services going, moving our economy, and connecting riders with our destinations. Join us in supporting Transit Worker Appreciation Day this Friday, March 18th, by sharing stories about how transit workers have impacted your life and volunteering with us to canvass riders and collect their stories. Share your story here. Volunteer information can be found here.
image description: text reads “Thank you, Mayor Gainey! Its time for Our Money, Our Solutions, not the Mon Oakland Connector.” overlaid on a photo of a mural between Four Mile Run, Hazelwood, and Greenfield.
For over six long years, residents of Hazelwood, Four Mile Run, and the surrounding neighborhoods have organized to say that public investment needs to meet public needs.
All of their efforts finally paid off on February 17th. In front of a packed community meeting filled with 100+ residents of Hazelwood and Greenfield, Mayor Ed Gainey announced: “The Mon-Oakland Connector shuttle project will not move forward.”
The crowd erupted in cheers. Since 2015, residents have hosted rallies, circulated petitions, and organized marches to uplift the community-generated mobility plan, “Our Money. Our Solutions.” They have created protest signs, artwork, and videos. They have attended countless meetings, delivered public comments, and researched public documents. They did so to oppose the Mon-Oakland Connector—and to push for reinvestment of its funds in real community needs: affordable housing, accessible transportation, better bus facilities, and safer sidewalks..
Join us now and sign our thank-you card to Mayor Ed Gainey for moving on from the Mon-Oakland Connector.
image description: event promotional image. Includes text “MOBILITY FOR WHO? REBUILDING BRIDGES TO TRANSPORTATION JUSTICE” FEB 2022 REPORT RELEASE” over a map of Pittsburgh and an image of a SPIN scooter laid across the sidewalk
Scooters? Sidewalk Robots? Autonomous Vehicles? New Report and Panel Discussion Examines Who Is Left Behind In City’s Rush to Adopt Micro Mobility & Tech-Centered Development
“Mobility for Who? Rebuilding Bridges to Transportation Justice” is a new report co-authored by Tech4Society and Pittsburghers for Public Transit. The report’s authors and community advocates doing work for disability justice and affordable housing presented the findings at a webinar in mid-February 2022. The event and the report both highlight the critical issues that come from tech-focused transportation policy, and uplift opportunities for the new Mayoral Administration to create access for all – namely through supporting public transit, affordable housing, and accessible pedestrian infrastructure as included in the Pittsburgh 100 Days Transit Platform.
The Mobility for Who? panelists presented on the new report’s findings that examine the previous Mayoral Administration’s decision to pour taxpayer funds and time into private mobility technology while failing to prioritize core infrastructure needs such as sidewalks, bus shelters, and even roads and bridges.
Bonnie Fan, a PhD student at CMU and researcher with CMU’s Tech4Society said, “We found that the rush to embrace the technology sector has driven gentrification of legacy neighborhoods and displacement of residents to transit-poor areas, both exacerbated by an acute lack of affordable housing.”
Transit accessibility is an equity issue. SPIN scooters, autonomous vehicles, sidewalk delivery robots, and other technologies have all been touted by Pittsburgh leaders as increasing mobility access for residents. However, these technologies are often inaccessible to many who need transportation most: senior citizens, the disabled, youth, families, low-income people, and the unbanked.
The report and panel insist that now is the time to ask whose mobility is being prioritized, who is being left behind and how can these investments also prioritize Pittsburgh residents, economic mobility, racial and gender equity, affordable housing, and improved air quality to fight the climate crisis rather than funding interests of large tech companies?
Upgrades to S. Negley Station begin Feb 14th. Port Authority also awarded 3 other grants to improve Wilkinsburg Station, build 4 miles of sidewalks, and improve 8 high-use bus stops throughout the system!
After a years-long planning process, Port Authority will begin construction on Phase 1 upgrades to S. Negley Station on the East Busway on February 14th. (The perfect Valentines Day gift for the East Busway lover).
Phase 1 will include improvements to the accessible ramp from S Negley Ave to the station. Port Authority estimates that construction will take approximately 3-months, during which time riders will need to detour from the S Negley Ave station to Ellsworth Ave, turn left and walk 1 block to Summerlea St, then walk down to the Summerlea St station entrance. The detour will be a pain, for sure, but improvements to the S Negley St entrance will certainly be worth it.
Future phases of the Negley Station Improvement Project will include new shelters at the inbound and outbound platforms, new lighting, a full-coverage waiting area for those being picked up or dropped off, and other upgrades to improve the flow of pedestrians and buses through the station area.
image description: map of temporary pedestrian detour for people to access Negley Station from S Negley Ave. (head from the S. Negley St Station entrance towards Ellsworth, turn left on Ellsworth, walk one block until Summerlea St, turn left and walk to the station.)
New grants to Port Authority will fund much-needed improvements to Wilkinsburg Station, 4-miles of sidewalks leading up to transit stops, and upgrades to 8 high-ridership bus stops!
Also exciting: just this week Port Authority announced that they were awarded three new grants and some County funding to begin upgrades to the Wilkinsburg Busway Station. Riders and residents have long been calling for improvements to Wilkinsburg Station, which offers easier access to those who drive their cars to the station than those residents and workers who need to walk to the stop. This grant will build a new building at the station and may even reorient the station to be more accesible to the Wilkinsburg business district. All of this work will hopefully lay the foundation for major affordable Transit Oriented Development that needs to take place at this station.
In addition to the grant received for Wilkinsburg station, Port Authority received a second grant to build out 4 miles of sidewalks to connect to transit. This is a definite win for riders who have been uplifting safe pedestrian access as a serious barrier to transit. In the past, Port Authority’s response to concerns about safe access has been to eliminate the stop. This cuts people off from transit and is obviously not an approach we want to see.
It is true that sidewalk maintenance is a complicated issue. Municipalities are frequently the ones that own sidewalks, not Port Authority, and oftentimes these municipalities pawn off the responsibility of maintenance to individual property owners who may not be able to foot the bill for repairs (the City of Pittsburgh does this). So we’re glad that Port Authority is proactively finding solutions to the issue. Now we need Municipalities to do the same.
The third and final grant received by PAAC was to upgrade 8 high-use stops throughout the system. Upgrades will center on adding rubber pads at stops to give more room for riders to wait and make it easier/faster for buses to pick up passengers.
We’re here for these upgrades. Now we need to keep pushing for more.
Image Description: Ms. Debra Green holds the microphone at a downtown rally surrounded by people standing and sitting in wheelchairs with signs reading “BRT for the Mon Valley”, “No Cuts to 61A”, “Bus Lines are Lifelines.”
A new $565,500 grant to the Port Authority marks the next phase in residents’ successful campaign to extend the East Busway
Transit riders, residents, businesses, and elected officials in the Mon Valley have been working hard to extend the East Busway’s benefits into their communities. After years of organizing to uplift the demand for better transit, we are celebrating the recent Federal Transportation Administration’s $565,500 planning grant award to Port Authority, to evaluate the local development and transit ridership benefits of a busway extension into the communities of Braddock, North Braddock, and East Pittsburgh. This grant award is timely: the 2021 bipartisan federal infrastructure bill will make funding available to realize capital transportation investments, particularly those that will stimulate and revitalize underinvested communities.
Over the last several years, the boroughs of Braddock, East Pittsburgh, and North Braddock (BEN) collaborated on a shared comprehensive plan which centered the importance of an extended East Busway transit-priority corridor into the Mon Valley. During this planning process, these communities identified opportunities to support higher density, mixed income development, and critical amenities around potential new transit stations, in order to welcome new residents, support local businesses, and grow their municipal tax base. The BEN Communities have continued their collaboration through joint participation in the Allegheny Together Program, funded through Allegheny County to provide planning and technical assistance for greater reinvestment into walkable business districts and corridors.
At the same time, PPT hired 16 community leaders from the Mon Valley to survey nearly 600 residents on our Beyond the East Busway campaign to identify key destinations that should be better served by transit, and to make recommendations about which alignment of an East Busway extension would best meet transit rider needs. PPT organizing fellows surveyed a broad range of people living and working in the Mon Valley, including parents, single mothers, older adults, people with disabilities and students. The Port Authority’s decision to focus on this corridor in their long range NEXTransit Plan (Corridor E) and for this FTA planning grant reflects vocal transit rider advocacy and explicit support by the elected leadership in Rankin, Braddock, and East Pittsburgh in the grant application process.
This investment in planning is long overdue.
There is an extremely high and growing percentage of transit commuters in this region. In fact, four of the municipalities with the highest transit usage in all of Pennsylvania are within these corridors: #3 is Rankin (35.5%), #5 is East Pittsburgh (31.6%), #8 is Swissvale (24.9%), and #10 is Braddock (24.4%). In addition, five of the ten routes with the highest ridership increases for Port Authority from FY2019 to FY2020 were in the Mon Valley and Eastern Suburbs (P68 Braddock Hills Flyer, 52L Homeville Limited, 69 Trafford, P67 Monroeville Flyer and 55 Glassport), demonstrating that even during a pandemic, transit is a critical lifeline for riders of these routes. Despite this, transit access is poor for most of these communities: from Braddock to downtown, a bus trip averages 60 minutes even when using the high speed Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway. Due to cumbersome last-mile challenges, a passenger may spend 20 minutes using the busway, but must travel an additional 40 minutes before they enter the borough. A car trip, by contrast, takes 20 minutes from start to finish.
“With support from Allegheny County Economic Development, efforts are in place to revitalize Braddock Ave’s business district, which has always serviced multiple communities. Coupled with the Mon Metro Chamber of Commerce, this region of the Mon Valley is positioning itself for economic growth. A thoughtfully planned transportation system will function as a conduit to support all of our communities. This is our lifeline to jobs, business creation, and economic development,” says Tina Doose, founder and board chair of the Mon Metro Chamber of Commerce.
The FTA-supported Moving the Mon Valley project will specifically study the positive impacts of two potential busway extension scenarios, to provide a detailed understanding of how improved access to high-quality transit service will help Mon Valley communities achieve their equity, access, and economic development goals. Recognizing, through this study, the transformative potential of public transportation is an important step along the way to building the high quality transit service the Mon Valley deserves. We look forward to supporting the Port Authority’s study by elevating the voices of Mon Valley riders and encouraging strong collaboration with community leaders and transit riders in Swissvale, Rankin, Braddock, North Braddock, East Pittsburgh, and beyond.
Join residents of the Mon Valley and Eastern Suburbs on March 28th, 6-7:30pm to plan the next steps in this campaign to win better service beyond the East Busway
image description: An illustrated portrait of Rosa Parks is at the center of the image with the event name, date (2/4/22, 11:30-12:30) , a Transit Equity Day logo, and a facebook live logo. In the background of the image is
Pittsburghers for Public Transit and our friends are celebrating by holding an 11:30 am broadcast on Facebook Live to highlight how there is no justice without an organized demand.
It's the 110th anniversary of Rosa Parks' Birth! We're celebrating #TransitEquityDay by studying her legacy as a community organizer and discussing how her struggle still lives in the work we do today. Did you that Rosa Parks was a lifelong organizer? Yup! She was a Secretary with the NAACP and was trained at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee! Her action to stay sitting in her seat and the boycott that followed was planned as part of a broad, coordinated strategy that included hundreds of groups across the country.Did you know the Montgomery Boycott lasted 13 months? Yes indeed! The boycott's success took deep organizing. Tens of thousands of people created a network to allow for mutual support. Black ownership of vehicles, property, and gas stations and solidarity across race and class were critical.Bus symbolizes movement and freedom. The essence of the issues that were present in the 1950s and 1960s are still present today. It is only through organizing together that we'll make progress happen. Thanks to all our friends for joining, Casa San José, New Voices Pittsburgh, The EAT Initiative, and everyone else who signed on! Check out PPT's blog for more info on Transit Equity Day and how you can get involved: https://www.pittsburghforpublictransit.org/
Through rider testimony around barriers to transit access and their desired solutions, and through a discussion of the history of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. We will recognize that Rosa Parks was a trained community organizer, and that her refusal to give up her seat was one tactic within a larger strategy of organizing transit riders to participate in a 13-month mass boycott of the transit system until buses were desegregated.
Learning More About the Organizing Legacy of Rosa Parks
Did you know this was part of an organized effort?
Rosa Park was not simply a streamstress who sat down on the bus after a long day of work, or the first person to be arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white rider on a bus. Long before the Montgomery Bus Boycott, she was a skills operator, who was a secretary with the NAACP and was trained at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee.
Rosa Park’s resistance to giving up her seat was an act of defiance in order to preserve dignity. Any act of resistance takes courage at the first step. It is important that we remember Rosa Parks not solely in this moment as a catalyst for change, but to remember and honor that skillful action at the right moments has lasting meaning. Without a strong coalition of commitment, these actions would be lost.
The elements that took a moment of resistance and boosted it into a movement was mutual aid and individuals pooling their resources (cars, bicycle sharing, mechanical expertise, ownership of gas stations, and careful-coordinating planning to raise funds and organize carpools) that kept an initial 1 day boycott of the buses to a 13 month strike. It took Black people from all walks of life to help one another. Without persistence and collective effort, the boycott would quickly dissolved.
Fast forward to the modern era and transit riders continue to build on a core philosophy. Those who refused to take the bus were demanding dignity. The essence of this issue that was present in the 1950s and 1960s, is still present today.
Bus symbolizes access to opportunities. Freedom of movement, the freedom to exist and live. Who has the system prioritized? Today, people in low-income communities, Black communities, and communities of color are unserved and pay a high price for this service.
For years, we have fought for affordable fares for low-income riders to meet their needs. Yet, there are fare-free zones in our system right now. While the Port Authority has zero fare service for routes on the Northside to stadiums on Steelers Sundays, riders on other routes saw a fare increase. These fare free zones are infrequently used compared to routes that service neighborhood-to-neighborhood connections, and are utilized by high-income, white riders. If our transit agency can make the choices on where to make fares relief, if it can make a choice to build rapid transit connections near new constructions, they can make the choice to invest in safe and dignified transit for the riders who have been historically excluded and deserved dignified mobility.
Some More Reading on Rosa and her organizing for justice
Image description: collage of three photos, left is a photo of the bus being lifted by a crane from the collapsed Fern Hollow Bridge. Upper right is a map from WESA that shows the detour for the 61B outbound (Forbes > S. Dallas > Penn > Peebles > Savannah > W. Hutchinson > S. Braddock). Lower right is a photo of red bus lanes on a city street.
Make the Bus Fly! PGH Bridge Collapse Has Severed Communities from a Critical Corridor, But Dedicated Bus Lanes & Green Lights for Buses Can Speed Up Recovery
It is through sheer luck that no one was killed in the collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge. It is through community care that everyone was rescued.
But community safety should not be left to random chance and volunteerism.
The bridge collapse was the result of decades of policy that shifted funding away from community needs and towards projects that benefit the wealthy and powerful. This is true at all levels: local, state, and federal.
The new federal infrastructure mega-bill won’t save us from bridge collapses, climate disaster, nor our worsening economic and racial disparities if its expenditures follow the example of previous decades. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) contains the highest level of funding available for highway expansion in U.S. history. These billions of dollars will only lead to more emissions, congestion, traffic deaths, and urban segregation if we don’t insist on change. Our tax money needs to be used instead for transit-forward projects and the repair or even teardown of our overbuilt highway infrastructure.
We need to shift the paradigm of how and for whom we spend our tax dollars. Infrastructure investment needs to pull people out of poverty. It needs to save us from this climate crisis. It needs to create opportunities that are accessible to all.
We can start this shift as we deal with the immediate aftermath of this bridge collapse.
In the short term, we should look to the example of Boston, Chicago, San Franciso and Washington DC. These cities have implemented pop-up bus-only lanes, transit signal priority, and queue jumps to speed up transit on their streets. We can do the same here. It would ensure that Port Authority buses, paratransit vehicles, and school buses can move quickly through the detour.
The Fern Hollow Bridge must be rebuilt with people riding buses and bikes, pedestrians, and community members at the forefront of planning and design. This needs to be the frame for decision-making about all public infrastructure. Locally, the City of Pittsburgh can do this by adopting the recommendations of the Pittsburgh 100 Days Transit Platform. At the state level, politicians need to stop state police from siphoning billions away from a fund intended for bridge maintenance, and the state needs to pass legislation for expanded, dedicated transit funding. On the federal level, USDOT needs to build policy to ensure that states and localities spend infrastructure money they receive through formula funds on projects that further equity and leverage the funds that it directly controls to do the same.
As organizers for community justice, we can build the movement to make this shift. But it won’t be easy. We need to be like the community members who formed a human chain to rescue all of the victims of the Fern Hollow Bridge collapse and organize together. We can change the narrative: infrastructure spending is not about things, it’s about people.
Bus detour information
While conversations about rebuilding Fern Hollow Bridge continues, the 61A and 61B buses are currently following this detour: Forbes > S. Dallas > Penn > Peebles > Savannah > W. Hutchinson > S. Braddock.
image description: a map made by Katie Blackley via Google Maps that was shared in WESA’s story, “The loss of the Fern Hollow Bridge means a scramble for alternate routes” to show the detour for the 61A&B busses: Forbes > S. Dallas > Penn > Peebles > Savannah > W. Hutchinson > S. Braddock
