Category Archives: Uncategorized

Transportation is Our Need – and Our Right

photo by Dawn Jackman-Biery

by Mel Packer

Imagine, Dear Rider, that you go to your usual bus or trolley stop and find that it is strangely silent, that others have been standing for quite a while and no bus has been seen. You ask another rider who tells you that the news says that the commuter highways are jammed more than usual. Finally, you and the other regular riders walk another half mile, hoping to find other transportation.
Is it terrorism? Has someone sabotaged the transit system? Is there an unannounced strike? Shivers run through you as you contemplate life without public transit. You wonder how you will get to work and shopping. How your elderly grandmother will get to her medical appointments? How your disabled neighbor will see his friends and remain part of his already limited social circle?
And then, finally, the truth is revealed. The system is broken, the money is gone, the governments that are supposed to help have abandoned us all and said that we must find our own way around and that it’s not their responsibility to subsidize public transit.
They say that if it can’t pay for itself through your ever-increasing fares and forcing the PAT workers to work for lower pay year after year, then you should find your own way to get around in the world.
Your employer, who directly benefits from your ability to get to work using public transportation, has no sympathy and just says, “Get to work on time if you want to keep your job”.
The businesses you travel to on PAT, where you shop and increase their profits, insist that they have no responsibility to help fund public transit. They just assume you’ll find some other way to get to their store and spend your money.
Your medical providers shrug their shoulders and suggest you ask friends or relatives to haul you to your appointments.
Government environmental agencies warn of dramatically increased air pollution with 10,000 more cars stuck in traffic on the parkways and streets, with their engines idling, but say there’s nothing they can do about it.
Clearly, we are heading for disaster unless we start to realize that mass public transit meets vital needs in our society, and that it must be supported and subsidized at a level that will increase its availability and make it cheaper, not more expensive, for people to use.
Almost every time you or I ride mass transit, some corporation or business receives a hidden benefit. Public transit delivers their employees and customers to their door. It reduces traffic congestion so trucks can get through our city and suburban streets to make deliveries. Transit keeps the whole economy of our region moving so companies can do business and make money. Those same companies now need to step up now and support transit financially.
Mass public transit can no longer be viewed as a service that benefits just part of our community. It is an essential part of a healthy, functioning society and it must be improved and expanded make it available to all. Especially in a metropolitan area like Pittsburgh, transit is something we can’t do without. It must be seen as a right, not some sort of privilege that riders must buy with ever-increasing fares.
We need to organize, as riders, as commuters, as citizens, as workers, as people who care about the future of our city and believe meeting human needs should be the first priority.
Pittsburgh has been honored as one of America’s “most liveable cities.” Destroying our transit system will make this city much less liveable. It will cause severe hardship for thousands who can no longer get to their jobs, or get to grocery stores, medical care and other vital services.  For the rest of us, it will mean a city with dirtier air, streets more clogged with traffic, and huge delays and hassles getting to work, to school, or anywhere else.
Pittsburghers love our sports teams, but it takes more than sports championships to attract or even keep residents and employers. We need a good mass public transit system that serves all of the people all of the time.
This is something worth fighting for. Join us, check out our website, contact us, help hand out our literature, talk to your neighbors and fellow riders. Do it now. Don’t wait for “someone else” to do it for you. You are that someone else.
Mel Packer is a physician assistant who rides PAT using his senior bus pass.

Stop the Cuts! 24 Hours of Action!

Stop the Cuts!
Sign-up for 24 Hours of Action to Save
Public Transit in Allegheny County!
Beginning at 11:00 AM on Thursday, March 24 through 11:00 AM Friday, March 25
Culminating in a rally on Friday at 8:30 AM before the Port Authority Board Meeting
At Port Authority Head Quarters, 6th St. and Smithfield Ave. in Pittsburgh
Help pass fliers, gather signatures on post cards and petitions make signs, cheer on speakers and entertainers, record personal testimony from transit riders and workers who will suffer from loss of transit serves, join faith leaders for a sunrise prayer breakfast and raise your voice with hundreds of others as we rally together before the Port Authority Board Meeting.
For more information call Bryon Shane 412.999.9208 or Mike Harms at 412.715.5212

3/19/11 MARCH TO STOP THE CUTS!

VIDEO:
WPXI – http://www.wpxi.com/news/27250940/detail.html
WTAE – http://www.wtae.com/news/27251486/detail.html


Photos by Dawn Jackman-Biery

From the Post-Gazette:

Nancy Downie of Delmont had never participated in a protest in all of her 58 years but Saturday she joined a Squirrel Hill march and rally by an estimated 500 like-minded opponents of impending Port Authority service cuts.
Simply put, she came “to save my bus,” Ms. Downie said as the hourlong peaceful march and rally broke up. “I need to go back and forth to my job in the U.S. Steel Building. I have to get to work. There’s already standing room on it.
“We need our bus.”
That was the rally’s theme as time ticks away to March 27, the date the authority plans to cut service by 15 percent and eliminate 29 routes because of inadequate funding.
The permitted march, sponsored by Pittsburghers for Public Transit and members of Local 85, Amalgamated Transit Union, began at noon at Beacon Street and moved down the center of closed Murray Avenue to the intersection with Forbes Avenue.
About 300 people peacefully marched with another 200 supporters on the periphery, said Pittsburgh police Sgt. Cristyn Zett. Pittsburgh police had prohibited parking on Murray and conducted rolling closures of intersections as the march moved north.
At Forbes, the protesters gathered on the lawn of the Sixth Presbyterian Church as speaker upon speaker used a bullhorn to decry the cuts as anti-union, anti-poor, anti-working class, anti-environment, anti-common sense.
The sunlit protest had a festive flair. There were cheers and chants, smiles and handshakes among the diverse crowd. Teenagers stood next to the elderly, the disenfranchised mixed with the middle class, all facing a common loss, all applauding and voicing their resolve not to accept that fate so loudly they could be heard blocks away.
One blonde girl, about 9 years old, held a bright yellow sign reading, “Steve, Please don’t take my mom’s job,” referring to Port Authority CEO Steve Bland. Among the dozens of handmade signs: “Yinz Need Transit,” and “Power to the People for Public Transit,” and “Tax Cuts for Rich = No Transit.” Across Forbes, a trumpeter serenaded the crowd with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
“What’s disgusting? Union busting!” the group chanted over and over. That gave way to “Fire Steve Bland. Fire Steve Bland.”
And then, at 1 p.m., the crowd broke up quietly after making a promise to continue the protest Friday before the Port Authority’s monthly 9:30 a.m. board meeting at its Downtown headquarters in the Heinz 57 Center on Sixth Avenue.
“It’s our last chance,” one speaker said.
Ms. Downie said she has to work Friday or she would be planning to attend her second-ever protest. But between now and then she will be working the phones, she said, calling Port Authority members to tell them: “We need buses.”
Michael A. Fuoco: mfuoco@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1968.

First published on March 20, 2011 at 12:00 am

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11079/1133335-147.stm#ixzz1HFjNoW2P

MARCH TO STOP THE CUTS! 3/19!
Location & Time
Beacon and Murray to Forbes and Murray in Squirrel Hill at NOON
Created by:
The Port Authority plans to institute an unnecessary and devastating 15 percent service cut on March 27th. Transit riders, workers, and all those concerned about the health of our city must show Port Authority’s management and the politicians that run our county and state that we won’t stand for this attack against our transit system. Wisconsin and Egypt have shown us the way to fight back!

WE DEMAND:

More transit, not less!
…
Stop the March 27th cuts!

Dedicated transit funding now!

No to privatization!

Port Authority’s workers are the heartbeat of our city, not the problem! Defend their livelihoods!

Fund transit instead of bailouts, wars, and tax cuts for the ultra-rich!

Please forward as widely as possible! This issue effects every person living in Allegheny County! The cuts WILL put thousands more cars on the road, so even if you drive, your daily commute will become much longer!

Organized by Pittsburghers for Public Transit and ATU Local 85

www.pittsburgersforpublictransit.org

Questions? Want to help? Contact: SavePGHTransit@Gmail.com

Riders, Workers Take Fight Against Service Cuts To Grant Street

County Council Asks Port Authority To Postpone Bus, Trolley Cuts
From WTAE:

PITTSBURGH — About 75 Port Authority workers and riders gathered early Tuesday evening in front of the Allegheny County Courthouse — where a County Council meeting was taking place — and rallied against proposed cuts to bus and trolley service.

Protesters wanted the council to pass a resolution asking the Port Authority to spend all of its $45 million in emergency state funding by the end of the fiscal year in June, in an effort to avoid transit cuts that are scheduled to take effect March 27.

The resolution passed, but the Port Authority has not said whether it will go along with the request to shelve the cuts.

Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85 President Pat McMahon said that the Port Authority’s budget is balanced, so there is no reason for the cuts to be made.

“It will affect my ability for literally going everywhere,” bus rider Katrina Kilgore said about the cuts. “It will limit my ability for going to doctor’s appointments, for getting to work.”

Signs at the rally included “Save Our Transit,” “We Need The Bus” and “Pretend We’re A Stadium — Fund Us.”

In December, then-Gov. Ed Rendell struck an agreement with the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission to divert $45 million to the Port Authority on an emergency basis to head off a much larger round of service cuts.

The Port Authority has said that a new, smaller round of cuts in March will allow it to stretch the temporary funding over 18 months, rather than spending all of it by June 30.

Also, CEO Steve Bland has called for a larger dedicated source of annual state funding that the authority can count on for its budget each year.

EMERGENCY RALLY – STOP THE MARCH CUTS

Time
March 1st· 4:00 pm

Location
Allegheny County Courthouse,
436 Grant Street
Pittsburgh PA

Tomorrow Tuesday March 1, 2011 at the Allegheny County Council Meeting. Assembly will begin at 4:00 pm in front of the Allegheny County Courthouse, 436 Grant Street. Council Meeting will begin at 5:00 pm on the 4th Floor in the Gold Room. County Councilman Nick Futules from District 7 will be introducing a resolution to stop the closing of the Harmar Garage and the Unnecessary 15% service cuts. County Council has also invited Port Authority Board of Directed President Jack Brooks to testify in front of Council. We need attendance from every available person. Let our voices be heard.

Please Pass this along to your contacts!

Message from the ATU, “Come Out Tomorrow!”


Video by Marvin Bing from today’s union rally downtown in solidarity with Wisconsin workers.
 Pittsburgh Rally and Press Conference for Public Transportation
Time
25 February · 08:30 – 10:00
Location
Mellon Square Park

Mellon Square Park. 6th & Smithfield, Pittsburgh (Downtown), PA 15219
Pittsburgh, PA
Created by:
More info
Enjoy your bus ride while it lasts because on March 27, County Executive Dan Onorato, Chief Executive Officer of the Port Authority, Chief Financial Officer Steve Bland and members of the Port Authority are slashing bus routes all over the county.

This is what the Port Authority audit said in June, 2010:

“At a time when the economic downturn is hurting metropolitan areas and residents across the country, these service reduction …are occurring at the worst possible time. Service cuts, layoffs, and fare increases will result inn significant traffic congestion, adverse economic impacts on businesses across the region and the loss of an essential lifeline to many seniors, youth and the disabled.”

SO HERE ARE THE QUESTIONS FOR COUNTY EXECUTIVE DAN ONORATO, STEVE BLAND, Chief Financial officer of the Port Authority and the board members: CALL OR E-MAIL THE OFFICIALS TODAY

1-Why kill jobs? Why Kill jobs with record high unemployment?

2-Why are you hurting the disabled and students, the middle class, seniors, and workers who depend on transit?

3-Cutting Bus service puts more cars on the street and increases air pollution. Why do that?

4-don’t we have enough traffic congestion already?

There is $21 million available to run the system. There is no need to cut services.

STOP THESE CUTS.

SAVE OUR JOBS.

SAVE OUR NEIGHBORHOODS, SAVE ALLEGENHY COUNTY TRANSIT.
.

CATCH AN EARLIER BUS ON FRIDAY FEB 25TH AND ATTEND OUR RALLY OUTSIDE THE PORT AUTHORITY BUILDING ON 345 6TH AVENUE AT 8:30 am. FREE COFFEE AND DONUTS to all to sign a petition to stop the cuts. WE WILL BE JOINED BY A SPECIAL GUEST!

www.atu.org

Bad deal on bonds costs Port Authority $39.2M

Thursday, February 17, 2011
By Jon Schmitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Port Authority this week paid a bank $39.2 million to escape from a bond deal it entered seven years ago that turned out sour.

The payment to Bank of America Merrill Lynch canceled a complicated and risky transaction called an interest-rate “swaption” that the authority agreed to in 2004, partly to reap a $9.5 million upfront windfall.

The payment was part of a $263.3 million refinancing bond issue that the authority completed on Tuesday.

The cost of the payment will be spread over Port Authority budgets starting next year and continuing to 2029, adding $2.3 million in debt service expense per year, authority officials said.

Because the authority pays debt service from its capital budget, the added cost will not impact operations or require service cuts, spokesman Jim Ritchie said. But it will reduce the amount available for longer-term projects such as bridge, busway and rail reconstruction.

“It’s essentially a refinancing. We’re trying to get out of an arrangement that was putting us in greater financial jeopardy,” he said.

The authority agreed to the swaption deal with Merrill Lynch in 2004, during the administration of CEO Paul Skoutelas. Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch in 2008.

Ellen McLean, the current chief financial officer, who joined the authority last October, said the swaption deal enabled the agency to cash in on anticipated future savings from debt refinancing. But it also exposed the authority to risks based on interest-rate fluctuation.

The collapse of the credit markets in 2008 and 2009 drove down rates and left the authority’s side of the swap at a considerably lower value than what it would be paying out.

It also gave Merrill Lynch the option to convert the authority’s debt to a variable interest rate starting March 1, she said. “What we knew was the volatility in the market would create such a difficulty in budgeting … it was impossible to budget for.

“It made absolutely no sense as a public agency to take on that volatility,” Ms. McLean said.

“We reached a point because of the market downturn where this clearly didn’t turn out the way anybody was predicting,” Mr. Ritchie said. “It does not make sense for us to continue down this path.”

This week’s refinancing extracted the authority from the deal and put all of its bonded debt at an average fixed interest rate of 5.29 percent.

The authority is not alone in being victimized by swap deals. Several Pennsylvania school districts and municipal governments lost big money on interest-rate swaps, deals that produced big upfront windfalls but exposed them to losses when rates fell.

State Auditor General Jack Wagner last year urged school districts to get out of such deals as quickly as possible, saying “interest-rate swaps are tantamount to gambling with taxpayer money.”

Bloomberg News, reporting on the Port Authority bond issue, said it has compiled data showing that borrowers across the U.S. have paid more than $4 billion to get out of swap contracts.

Randy Woolridge, professor of finance at Penn State University, said he was unfamiliar with the circumstances of the Port Authority’s deal. Generally, he said, “a lot of these [swaps] have turned bad because they’re all doing the same thing. They hedged against higher interest rates and the rates went down. As a result, these things are underwater.

“Everyone thinks interest rates and stocks are always going up,” he said.
If there was a bright side to the authority’s action this week, it was that the three big New York agencies raised its credit rating.

Fitch assigned the bonds an AA-minus rating, up from A; Moody’s assigned an A1, up from A2; and Standard & Poors gave them an A-plus, up from A.

 
Jon Schmitz: jschmitz@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1868. Visit “The Roundabout,” the Post-Gazette’s transportation blog, at post-gazette.com. Twitter: @pgtraffic.


First published on February 17, 2011 at 12:00 am