Ditch the Port Authority Article (Pittsburgh, Harrisburg: how much, go bankrupt, costs)

[gbpriv]

Forum article from today's PG..

The Next Page: Ditch the Port Authority -- and start over fresh

A great idea, though I don't see something like this happening anytime soon if ever. A bus system like this, maybe not exactly as mapped out, would do wonders in the city. Has anything like this been seriously proposed in Pittsburgh before?

[gg]

I agree with part of that article. The will be no progress with PAT there. It will just go along slowly dying. It does need to be broken up, but I don't know if it will ever happen.

[BrianTH]

This is an ironic article because it fosters the problem it is complaining of. The theme of the article is that people won't vote to fund PAT because people don't trust PAT (of course we actually haven't put that proposition to a test, that if put to a local vote we wouldn't vote to fund public transit, but let's move on).

The article then does everything it can to encourage you not to trust PAT, completely ignoring the fact that PAT's management has changed over time, that many of the problems are legacy problems the current management doesn't have the authority to change, and also ignoring the fact that recently PAT's current management has negotiated to trim labor costs and created the Transit Development Plan, which actually includes many plans along the lines of what the author wants.

By ignoring all this, the author is just providing rhetorical support for those at the state level who want to cut funding for public transit in general--not just for PAT, but across the board--but who have local allies in the region who love to bash PAT as a way of distracting us from what the state is trying to do.

And it is not like eliminating PAT and replacing it with a new transit authority is something we can just do on our own. PAT is a state-created agency, albeit one whose Board is controlled by the County. Somewhat acknowledging this little problem, the article concludes asking:

"Can we ask Harrisburg for a law to let the Port Authority go bankrupt? Can we ask them to let us set up a new public-private structure to run transit?"

Sure, we can ask, and the answers will be No and No (note we might get authorization for more PPPs, but they aren't going to authorize creating a brand new public authority to participate in such PPPs--PAT will have to be the public in these public-private partnerships).

So when those answers come back "No", then what? Are we going to keep mindlessly bashing PAT no matter what improvements they make, coming up with proposals for radical changes that the state won't allow, all while providing rhetorical support for those who don't want to fund public transit under any circumstances?

Or are we going to get serious as a region and start fighting for the state to provide adequate funding and support for public transit? Because that is the real game here: the state is taking a lot of money out of the Pittsburgh Metro and spending it on rural roads, and not giving us our fair share back in terms of transportation spending we need, including public transit. And the people currently in charge of the state want to double-down on that effect by slashing public transit funding. And no matter how much we try to get on their good side by bashing PAT, they aren't going to change what they are trying to do--it will just help them take more from us and give back less.