Now its the County's turn to strip PAT (Harrisburg, Republic: house, costs)

[trotter_rej]

Originally Posted by Impala26

I see the whole "can't keep kicking the can down the road" argument from the Onorato base. Now seems as ideal of a time to address pensions and health care.

The thing about it is, it's STILL kicking the can down the road. Either Onorato plan would only keep things running at pre-3/27 levels for a little over a year.

"Mr. Onorato said if the union accepted one of his offers, the county and the Port Authority would pitch in an additional $10 million through increased county aid and another fare increase. That would be enough to keep service at the levels that existed before Sunday, at least through June 2012."[LEFT]
Read more: Onorato: No deal better than bad deal with Port Authority workers
[/LEFT]

[pman]

Originally Posted by trotter_rej

The thing about it is, it's STILL kicking the can down the road. Either Onorato plan would only keep things running at pre-3/27 levels for a little over a year.

"Mr. Onorato said if the union accepted one of his offers, the county and the Port Authority would pitch in an additional $10 million through increased county aid and another fare increase. That would be enough to keep service at the levels that existed before Sunday, at least through June 2012."[LEFT]
Read more: Onorato: No deal better than bad deal with Port Authority workers
[/LEFT]

it sounds as though that's when the next contract expires

Port Authority officials had an additional concern -- the proposal said the concessions would remain in effect "so long as the status quo is maintained until June 30, 2012," which they interpreted as barring any changes to the transit system, small or large.

...so without the concessions, you might be facing the current cut, plus another one in june 2012. I think it's more likely that some money will be available by then versus june 2011. it would also help, imo, to be able to say "we've done our part."

[raubre]

More from Dan the snake...

Onorato Defends Port Authority Cuts « CBS Pittsburgh

[BrianTH]

I agree a lot of people like to use bashing the union as a distraction from other highly relevant things going on.

On the other hand, I have no inherent problem with tough bargaining with the union. That is how it is supposed to work: they can bargain collectively, but then management should try to get the best bargain it can.

Edit: Oh, and the long-term question is whether enough political pressure can be brought on Corbett and his pals to get them to change their policies sometime before mid-2012. I have no idea if that is possible, but anyone who cares about transit should be making it clear to Corbett and his pals that their current policies are unacceptable.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by Aqua Teen Carl

]
But back to my other point, if we are going to have a modern city in a first world nation, public transportation needs to be treated as part of the infrastructure.

No, public transportation needs to be treated as something at least close to self sustaining, which means drastic changes to how PAT operates. They are too used to being bailed out at the last minute over and over and over. A very real threat of not being bailed out may actually get things turned around there

[grimacista]

At the end of the day, Port Authority needs a complete overhaul.

They have been pissing around with route changes/time changes/fare cards/smart cards/express buses for years. Time to get to work. I know Port Authority has done some ridership study when they came up with that cost per trip report last year - but have they ever conclusively determined where their riders come from and at what times of the day in order to maximize route frequency and coverage accordingly?

Port Authority management needs to be thrown out and replaced with professionals who know how to run a large transportation operation and know how to strike a bargain.

Transit workers' union needs to realize that the purpose of the Port Authority is to provide transit - and not to provide jobs with great benefits to as many people as possible.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by grimacista

I know Port Authority has done some ridership study when they came up with that cost per trip report last year - but have they ever conclusively determined where their riders come from and at what times of the day in order to maximize route frequency and coverage accordingly?

Indeed they did. I don't know if they are still available, but back when they were in the midst of forming the TDP and taking public comments, the consultants they hired made available rider studies for each of their existing routes, and they included bar charts showing how many people were boarding and getting off at each point of the route during different times of day (morning and evening). It was quite cool, and the consultants very much used that information to determine how they would reconfigure the system.

I guess all this has disappeared down the memory hole at this point, but the TDP process really was well-done. It is a shame that instead of talking about how to fund that plan to get it done as soon as possible, we are instead dealing with the state trying to defund PAT, and people are talking about just blowing the whole thing up and trying to start over, rather than actually making progress.

Port Authority management needs to be thrown out and replaced with professionals who know how to run a large transportation operation and know how to strike a bargain.

I know this isn't going to be a popular notion, but I sincerely believe the current PAT management--which has only been in place for a few years (Bland was hired in mid-2006)--has been doing a pretty good job. Again, I think people are forgetting what it was like before the state slashed PAT's funding. Before then, PAT had developed the TDP, which really was a revolutionary step in rationalizing PAT's routing, and it also laid out a plan for modernizing fare collection, adding Rapid Bus routes, and so on. As far as labor relations are concerned, in the last contract they did in fact get significant wage concessions and increased contributions for retirement benefits, which saved them a bunch of money.

So PAT was on a very good trajectory. PAT was not perfect, by any means, but it was heading in the right direction with some very good plans for achievable things. Then the state slashed PAT's funding and since then they have been in crisis mode, but I really think it is unfair to blame PAT's management for that. In fact, despite the crisis they are still pushing ahead with the TDP wherever they can.

Transit workers' union needs to realize that the purpose of the Port Authority is to provide transit - and not to provide jobs with great benefits to as many people as possible.

But their role in the process is to negotiate on behalf of their members. The flip side to supporting management being tough negotiators on labor compensation is recognizing that the union has a right, indeed an obligation, to be a tough negotiator as well.

Suppose we were talking about someone entering a contract for diesel with PAT, or a contract to supply buses, or so on. Would they have an obligation to set their price based on what would be best for PAT, or public transit in general? Wouldn't we expect them to instead negotiate the best deal they could get? So why should those supplying labor to PAT be treated as different from those supplying other materials?

Again, that doesn't mean management should do whatever the union wants. But I have no problem with the union trying to get whatever it can for its members--that's it job.

[BrianTH]

Yep, they are still available:

Port Authority of Allegheny County > Customer Info > Route Changes > Route Evaluations

Here is my former route, the 63B (PDF):

http://www.portauthority.org/paac/po...s/Eval/63B.pdf

I somewhat garbled my description of the charts (some of the information I thought was in the charts is in the narrative instead, and there were two charts not one, and so on), but anyway, you can see how much work they did to evaluate each existing route as part of their redesign process: in total you are talking hundreds and hundreds of pages of detailed information and analysis, and those are still just summaries of their evaluations.

[pman]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I guess all this has disappeared down the memory hole at this point, but the TDP process really was well-done. It is a shame that instead of talking about how to fund that plan to get it done as soon as possible, we are instead dealing with the state trying to defund PAT, and people are talking about just blowing the whole thing up and trying to start over, rather than actually making progress...I know this isn't going to be a popular notion, but I sincerely believe the current PAT management--which has only been in place for a few years

the TDP was a good start. I also agree that current management has at least proven itself adequate...it may still need some change but I don't think wholesale change is necessary.

Originally Posted by BrianTH

But their role in the process is to negotiate on behalf of their members. The flip side to supporting management being tough negotiators on labor compensation is recognizing that the union has a right, indeed an obligation, to be a tough negotiator as well.Again, that doesn't mean management should do whatever the union wants. But I have no problem with the union trying to get whatever it can for its members--that's it job.

to a large extent it's management's job to hold out but it would be good for the union cause, IMO, if they were a bit more reasonable about healthcare and retirement...and turning the argument away from themselves. still, like a lot of older companies (private and public) we are now dealing with problems caused by prior management in which union leaders and executives were often complicit. Real concessions would, hopefully, go a long way to sending the right message.
Officials agree to resume talks on Port Authority service cuts

from a political perspective, if the county is going to chip in more money, it should get something in return...in this case, a more "sustainable" labor deal

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by pman

to a large extent it's management's job to hold out but it would be good for the union cause, IMO, if they were a bit more reasonable about healthcare and retirement.... Real concessions would, hopefully, go a long way to sending the right message.

I agree, and hopefully that is where they are heading. No deal at all really helps no one, and some good faith concessions could be very helpful in the political arena.

By the way (and this is not in response to anyone in particular), I'd note again that while the last negotiations were not under such pressing circumstances, the union did in the end agree to meaningful concessions on wages and health care contributions (meaningful in the sense that they significantly improved PAT's budget situation). As always, I think it is important to give them credit for that, because that gives them an incentive to do it again. Similarly, if the union does make significant concessions in this round, that needs to be acknowledged.