Light rail vs. Mon Valley Transit

[pman]

Originally Posted by JoshM25

I'm going to be starting a new job downtown next week, and I'm weighing my transportation options. I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts, opinions or experiences they can share.

I live in Bethel Park, and will be working in the US Steel Tower. The T is extremely convenient for me, since I'm within 2 minute walking distance of the Logan stop on the Blue Line. A 40 minute ride gets me to Steel Plaza, which isn't bad at all. A monthly pass will run me $146 under the new fare system.

But just the other day, I started looking into the Mid-Mon Valley Transit Authority. They operate buses along Route 88, which is within a stone's throw of my house. What struck me is that a monthly pass with them is only $80. They stop downtown, but only along Smithfield Street -- which would leave me a short walk to the steel building.

Does anyone have experiences with the Mon Valley Transit service? I know as a bus, it's probably less reliable and more prone to being late. But at nearly half the price, I wonder if it's worth it.

Thoughts welcome!

it says it starts/ends in the greyhound station
MMVTA Bus Schedules

[steindle]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

You could still buy single fares for occasional use. As of now, at least, the bulk-buying offered by PAT isn't very valuable.

I was temporarily blinded by my reflexive bolstering of local transit from remembering the existence of single trips. I'm also surprised to see that the MMVTA or whatever leaves downtown up to 10PM on weekdays -- not too bad. It still hardly comes on weekends (3 roundtrips on Sundays), but that's better than the transit access most surrounding counties get.

[pman]

So what's the t trip like with fewer stops?

[I_Like_Spam]

Mon Valley Transit does use the South Busway and street car tunnel, so it avoids the major traffic jams between Glenbury St. and town. Should go real quick since it doesn't pick up on the busway, and probably rarely if ever makes any stops all the way to town.

Sounds like a pretty viable option really to get to town in decent time.

[pman]

who pays for busway maintenance?

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by pman

who pays for busway maintenance?

I forget the exact terms, but I believe the regional operators pay a fee for using the Busways, and it is loosely intended to pay their share of operating and maintenance, but not capital, costs.

[pman]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I forget the exact terms, but I believe the regional operators pay a fee for using the Busways, and it is loosely intended to pay their share of operating and maintenance, but not capital, costs.

ongoing capital like paving right?

[BrianTH]

I don't know if it was that fine-grained. What I recall is that capital improvements were not covered, nor the costs of originally building the Busways. The fee itself was some per mile thing based on some formula I don't recall. So I don't know if they are using ongoing data about operating and maintenance costs to adjust the fees.