You think its bad for PAT now, it's about to get A LOT WORSE! (Pittsburgh: land, gas)

[Blackbeauty212]

Originally Posted by UKyank

could there be a more biased sourced?

But his claims are backed up by various sources outside PAT.

[Blackbeauty212]

Originally Posted by 999cm999

Found this:

About 26,931 people in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania use public transportation to commute for work. This represents roughly 20.1% of workers in the area.

Source:
How many people use public transportation to commute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania?

Looks to be just counting the city, not all of Allegheny County.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212

But his claims are backed up by various sources outside PAT.

He also said that the authority needs to show Harrisburg that they can reign in past legacy costs & then ask the state for more revenue. That was said a year ago & they haven't been able to accomplish that but still expect the revenue.

Fix what they themselves say needs fixed & I'm all for increasing funding

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by UKyank

He also said that the authority needs to show Harrisburg that they can reign in past legacy costs & then ask the state for more revenue. That was said a year ago & they haven't been able to accomplish that but still expect the revenue.

If you are referring to what he said in the context of trying to renegotiate the latest CBA with the union, I do not believe those statements could be fairly interpreted as favoring your plan of destroying public transit in Pittsburgh for a few years, or decades, or whatever while we wait for the state to change its laws pertaining to PAT's legacy costs.

But I do expect him to demand more concessions from the union on retirement benefits in the upcoming negotiations. And in fact I expect him to get more concessions. The question then will be whether Corbett, and I suppose folks like yourself, accept that result or decide instead to move the goalposts so that you can finally get around to destroying public transit.

[LIRefugee]

What I don't understand is why anyone, regardless of how much they hate the Port Authority or how much they hate unions, would find the destruction of public transit and the detrimental effect it would have on the community at large to be acceptable collateral damage. Why hold the commuters of metro Pittsburgh hostage? Is this a case of "it won't affect me, therefore I do not care" or something else? It won't affect me either, but I do care.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by LIRefugee

What I don't understand is why anyone, regardless of how much they hate the Port Authority or how much they hate unions, would find the destruction of public transit and the detrimental effect it would have on the community at large to be acceptable collateral damage. Why hold the commuters of metro Pittsburgh hostage?

Welcome to the Culture Wars. Rational discussions of transit policy have disappeared in the face of certain folks consistently making the argument that transit is for NonReal Americans.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

But I do expect him to demand more concessions from the union on retirement benefits in the upcoming negotiations. And in fact I expect him to get more concessions.

I don't - the union cares much more at protecting the benefits of its retirees then it does about the current state of PAT and has shown its selfishness time and time again.

Secondly, those demands should have occurred a long, long time ago. But we are expected to just believe that this time will be different - just give us the funds we want first.

Blame this round of cuts on the union and its insistence of protecting former workers above all else year after year after year after year long after it was obvious that the current pension/benefits to retired workers system was unfeasible.

Fool me once....

It has 0 to do with a culture war and everything to do with a culture of wasting money then expecting more and more and more from the taxpayer pockets. I'd rather see some of the state education funding money restored before another dollar is shuffled off to the PAT black hole until they fix their underlying budget problems (legacy costs) being that the state is not a source of unlimited available funds - promises by PAT now to take a hardline at fixing those legacy problems in the future when history shows otherwise rings as too hollow for me.

[LIRefugee]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Welcome to the Culture Wars. Rational discussions of transit policy have disappeared in the face of certain folks consistently making the argument that transit is for NonReal Americans.

That certainly applies to more things than just transit policy, as sad as that is. I don't know whether it's good or bad that I can't comprehend a Culture War point of view.

[gg]

Originally Posted by UKyank

Fix what they themselves say needs fixed & I'm all for increasing funding

Correct. I mean restaurant and bar owners are already paying for the mess, which is completely unfair. Who are they going to hit up next for more money because they can't fix the mess. I really don't want to see even more new taxes do to total incompetence. So much waste at our expense. Government/PAT/PennDot and the like have so much waste it is killing our whole region. Sure is a shame there is so much corruption. Oddly some people seem to support all this corruption over and over again without question. What rock are people living under? So out of touch. Thanks UK for realizing the problems. I think there are more of us out there these days than the forum indicates. People have had enough of throwing money at scams.

[Mtl-Cns]

I realize PAT has state funding, but I think that this nickel and diming public services- like transit, infrastructure, and education- things that aren't meant to turn a profit (because they can't) is a crime and is a problem nationally. I think it's embarrassing that we have crumbling infrastructure, decaying transit and sharp education funding cuts in what is supposed to be the greatest country in the world, that has somehow at the same time been able to finance 2 large scale wars to the tune of something like $1.3 trillion (!) in the last 10 years! Just to be clear- that's $1,300,000,000,000!!! This mentality of not investing in our own assets, regardless of what city or state they are in, is something that I really think has to change from the top down - on a national level. Corbett obviously has his agenda (at least it seems obvious to me) and unfortunately we are stuck with it for at least the next 2 years, but I really don't think that our public assets should be held hostage to it. I'm not sure how to change that because lord knows if Obama or any other federal legislator advocated strongly for a larger federal investment in public assets they'd be called a socialist-