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.

Join us in saying thank you Mayor Gainey for putting an end to the Mon Oakland Connector

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. 

Now it is time to invest in Our Money. Our Solutions.

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?

See the discussion of the report with the authors:

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.

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.

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

There is no justice without an organized demand.

Friday February 4th, Rosa Parks’ birthday, is National Transit Equity Day.

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.

Check out the FB Live Broadcast here

Taking Back Our Seat On The Bus: Celebrate Rosa Parks' Organizing Legacy #TransitEquityDay

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/

Posted by Pittsburghers for Public Transit on Thursday, February 3, 2022

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. 

Thanks to New Voices for Reproductive Justice, Casa San Jose, and the E.A.T. Initiative for joining our broadcast to talk about the intersections of our work.

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

A Lifetime of Organizing: What Rosa Parks Can Teach Us

Library of Congress“Beyond the Bus: Rosa Parks’ Lifelong Struggle for Justice”

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. 

Temporary pandemic service changes are being extended. Has the pandemic affected your transit service and access in either a positive or negative way? It’s time to make your voice heard!

Our public transit system has been completely upended by the pandemic. Ridership is in flux: while many workers shifted to work-at-home arrangements, many more continued relying on transit to get to jobs, food, healthcare. Transit workers are strained: although 74% of PAAC employees are vaccinated, hundreds have been unable to work because of quarantine throughout the pandemic, and seven workers have lost their lives to COVID. Budgets are stressed: increased covid precautions, a shifting workforce and unstable state funding all threaten finances at our transit agency. All of these strains leave riders with worse service than we had pre-pandemic.

To deal with these complications, in November 2020 Port Authority made some pretty significant service changes. Some of these changes were good. Namely, Port Authority increased service on some routes that continued to have high levels of riders from essential workers and low-income and minority riders. But many of the changes relied on significant service cuts on other routes. Although Port Authority tried to focus cuts mainly on commuter routes where the shift to remote working brought significant ridership drops, these routes were still essential connections for essential workers to access employment.

Even though these changes have continued for more than a year, Port Authority still maintains that they are “temporary”. We want to ensure that positive changes for riders are made permanent, and that there is a plan for restoration of our critical transit service that has been reduced.

Because these “temporary” changes have persisted for more than a year, Port Authority needs to document whether low-income or minority riders are disproportionately impacted by these changes, and to collect public feedback.

If the service changes you’ve seen have directly impacted you– in good or bad ways– sign up here to make sure Port Authority is hearing your experience:

Want to see specifics about the changes that they implemented?

Port Authority is proposing to continue the “major service changes” that were made to 30 different routes in November 2020. (A “major change” is a change that affects more than 30% of a route’s weekly trips, directional miles, or service hours OR the addition of a service day.) Of these 30 major service changes, 10 routes had added weekend service on a permanent basis (a big victory for riders who were active with numerous PPT campaigns), and 20 are considered temporary pandemic-related service changes.

Here’s a table from Port Authority’s website that summarizes what those 20 temporary COVID-related changes were:

Major Service Change Type	Transit Routes Affected
Addition of all service day trips	1, 12
Addition of weekday trips	59, RED
Route extension	P68
Reduction of weekday trips	38, 58, 65, 19L, G2, G3, G31, O1, O12, P12, P13, P7, P76, Y1, Y45

Because these changes have gone on for more than a year, Port Authority needs to conduct a “Title VI Analysis” to show that the changes do not disproportionately burden or impact minority or low-income riders (Disproportionate burden means low-income riders were disproportionately affected. Disproportionate impact means that minority riders were disproportionately affected). You can see a copy of Port Authority’s Title IV for these service changes here. Below is a screenshot of a table in the report that shows whether the changes have a disproportionate burden and impact:

We want to see service restored on all of these routes as soon as possible, particularly routes where changes disproportionately affect low income and minority riders. For that to happen, we need to hear from Port Authority what is impacting the return of needed service, and what the plan (thresholds for funding, transit worker hiring, COVID case levels?) is for bringing transit service back to pre-pandemic levels.

Here are some questions we’ve brainstormed for folks to raise during the public hearing, but feel free to come up with your own questions! Personal experience is also the most compelling testimony:

• What are the conditions and criteria that determine when or if service is restored to these routes?
• Cuts to the 58 disproportionately burden low-income riders. However Port Authority’s Title IV analysis claims that these cuts were not so harmful because riders within the walkshed of this route have access to other routes. How does the service on these other nearby routes compare to service on the 58? What critical destinations (employment centers, grocery stores, healthcare) are more or less accessible to riders on the adjacent lines?
• It is not clear why Port Authority chose August 2019 and 2021 as the comparison months. Ridership data is showing an uptick from August 2021. Would choosing different pair of months for comparison make the estimates look different?
• Studies show that service cuts lead to decreased ridership. Will continuation of service at reduced frequency lead to further decreases in ridership?
• Port Authority last conducted a (detailed) ridership survey in 2014. A study conducted in Phoenix, AZ showed that Census data might not be very representative of ridership survey data. For the routes facing an extension of service cuts, could there be a substantial difference about ridership demographic impacts if they were to use American Community Survey data instead?

Make sure that Port Authority hears about your experience on transit since the pandemic started.

Riders Show Up to Port Authority’s 837 Corridor Public Engagement Sessions, Help Drive the Rapid Transit Planning Process Forward. 

Years of planning and organizing from Mon Valley riders on our Beyond the East Busway campaign has led to the identification and prioritization of three key corridors for safer, faster, quality transit infrastructure. All three of those corridors were uplifted by riders as top priorities in the Port Authority’s recently- adopted NEXTransit long-range plan. And now, the Port Authority has begun planning for improvements in the 61C corridor from Homestead to McKeesport, along Rt 837 and Lysle Blvd.  

You can see the Port Authority’s interactive map and information about the proposed project here.

“[Route 837 improvements] can be transformational in that corridor,” Ms. Wiens said. “We should make this project as impactful as it can be.” 

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette documents the grassroots organizing that won riders the opportunity to make transit in the Mon Valley safe and comfortable, and for buses to get priority on the streets to ensure that buses are fast and reliable. 

On Dec 7th, more than a dozen PPT members and residents of Homestead, Duquesne and McKeesport joined the Port Authority’s public input session to identify opportunities for infrastructure and bus service improvements. Riders also highlighted concerns, particularly around the proposed removal of every other bus stop along 8th Ave in Homestead without any clear process for evaluating the impact of stop removal. PPT has long called for the Port Authority to assess and publish clear data on the impact of bus stop consolidation on metrics like access to nearby social services, ridership levels, impact on riders with disabilities and other protected classes, and on the safety of riders navigating longer distances with questionable infrastructure to get to their bus stops. 

We applaud the Pittsburgh Post Gazette editorial board’s recent accolades for the Mon Valley project here, which highlights what riders have long been saying about the high need for quality transit in the region. 

You can read more reporting about the public meeting and proposals by the Port Authority to improve the corridor here:

Port Authority presents initial plans to improve service, bus stops between Homestead and McKeesport (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12/7/21, Ed Blazina)

Port Authority wants bus-only lanes and other upgrades for Homestead-McKeesport corridor (Pittsburgh CityPaper, 12/11/21, Ryan Deto)

It’s not too late to weigh in! The Port Authority will continue to collect feedback on this project into the New Year. 

If you want our analysis of what is in the Port Authority’s plan and what opportunities there are for improvement, check out this blog. 

New Port Authority Fare Changes Do Not Remove Fare Cost Burden on Low Income and Minority Riders, and Highlight Need for a Low-Income Fare Program

Effective January 1st, 2022, the Port Authority will be implementing a rolling pass program that “starts” a weekly or monthly bus pass on the first day of its usage, rather than bus passes that follow a calendar schedule. The Port Authority will also be implementing changes for stored value CONNECT card users: a 25 cent increase in per-trip cost coupled with free transfers within a three-hour window. 

While the bus pass changes will likely make bus pass purchases more useful and accessible to some, the stored value CONNECT card changes will not alleviate fare cost burdens on the majority of transit riders, including for low-income riders and riders of color. (Low-income riders in the Port Authority’s Title VI Fare Analysis are identified as those living in households with an annual income of <$25,000. Minority riders are all those who did not exclusively identify themselves as white/Caucasian in Port Authority’s 2014 rider survey.)  In fact, the Port Authority’s Title VI data shows that by a nearly 2:1 ratio, low-income riders and minority riders using the stored value CONNECT cards will see an increase in transit fare costs and will not benefit from free transfers, because they only take single trips within a three hour window. This highlights why it is more urgent than ever that Port Authority implement a low-income fare program such as that called for in the Fair Fares for Full Recovery Campaign.

By a nearly 2:1 ratio, low-income riders and minority riders using the stored value CONNECT cards will see an increase in transit fare costs

Moreover, because these coming fare policies do not propose any changes for riders paying with cash, Port Authority continues to maintain a fare structure in which poor riders pay more money for worse transit service. In fact, more trips made by low income and minority riders are paid for with cash than are paid for with stored value CONNECT Cards. Cash-paying riders currently pay the highest fare for service, at $2.75 for every trip and another $2.75 for each transfer. Routes with high cash usage run through disproportionately low-income and high minority communities, and these routes often require more transfers with more limited and infrequent service to access critical amenities. Moreover, there is low CONNECT card adoption in these communities by design, because access points for charging or purchasing CONNECT Cards like ticket vending machines and Giant Eagle/Goodwill stores are less available. It is therefore imperative that, at a minimum, the Port Authority allow low-income riders paying cash to receive the same free transfer benefit offered to CONNECT card users, by reinstating the Port Authority’s paper transfer tickets as PPT and allies have called for in its #FairFares Platform.

Port Authority continues to maintain a fare structure in which poor riders pay more money for worse transit service.

While PPT supports fare programs that make using the transit system more efficient, it is critical that low-income riders see some relief from the disproportionate burden that transit fares represent. A critical social utility that relies on user fees for revenue is by nature regressive; Port Authority could also begin to shift costs for providing the service to corporations by implementing a bulk discount pass program for corporations, human service organizations and developers to buy into. As an interim solution, the Port Authority should follow through on its goal to create a low-income fare program, as it was named a top priority in their long-range planning effort. Given that these Jan 1’st fare policy changes do not remedy transit fare cost impacts for many and will likely exacerbate costs for some of our region’s most marginalized riders, advocates are calling on the Port Authority to take decisive steps to make fare equity a reality, now.

The time for a low-income fare program at Port Authority is now.