PAT bus stories (school, restaurants, authority)

[ML North]

Originally Posted by EveKendall

I would rather pay for a decent ride than have a free miserable ride. It is nice for the students to ride free though.

Students don't ride "free". They pay a transportation fee each semester.

[EveKendall]

Originally Posted by ML North

Students don't ride "free". They pay a transportation fee each semester.

Interesting. When I was a student at my univeristy we really did ride for free so I assumed it was the same here.
Do you know what they pay? Do faculty and staff all pay this fee as well?

[FreightTrainRunning]

Originally Posted by EveKendall

Interesting. When I was a student at my univeristy we really did ride for free so I assumed it was the same here.
Do you know what they pay? Do faculty and staff all pay this fee as well?

Students at Pitt pay $90 a semester for the transportation fee, CMU's is simlar.

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by EveKendall

I feel that the 61C (Homestead-Sq Hill-Oakland-Downtown) is hell on Earth. Always packed, primarily with oblivious students, women slapping their children, and sex offenders, it stops on every.single.block along Murray Ave until it is crammed so full of people that you cannot move.

It is very full, but it got a little better outbound when they added the extra 61D-No-Waterfront buses (I usually catch a ride inbound so I don't know about that). However, when I ride there are way more post-college adults riding the buses than women with children. If you ride at the right times, it seems that there are more employees of the universities or UPMC than students.

[trotter_rej]

Originally Posted by EveKendall

Interesting. When I was a student at my univeristy we really did ride for free so I assumed it was the same here.
Do you know what they pay? Do faculty and staff all pay this fee as well?

The "security, safety, and transportation" fee for students is $180 per year. It also funds Pitt's own shuttle buses and after hours ride program among other things. Faculty and staff do not pay the fee. I think of it as a fringe benefit.

My experience is also that the routes with more students contain a higher percentage of clueless riders. They are more likely to be oblivious to where their backpacks are swinging and how loud they are talking to their friends right next to them, and less likely to give up their seats to an elderly person or a pregnant woman. It's not every student of course, and it's never been bad enough for me to consider not using the bus. I've never been groped, though.

[BrianTH]

I don't know the exact terms, but I believe the universities are in fact paying PAT for the "free rides". I suspect it works out to less per ride than full fare, but if they had to pay full fare fewer of them might ride, so it could still work out to PAT's net financial benefit.

[PB&J O'Rourke]

Originally Posted by Moby Hick

college kids who don't remove their giant backpacks while they stand on the bus. They block the whole aisle and will totally smack you in the head if you don't watch them.

The dregs of society in my opinion...

[CSD610]

Originally Posted by PB&J O'Rourke

I've been in Pittsburgh nearly a decade now but I've always had at least two or three vehicles. One is in the body shop after a fender bender, one is up on a jack and non-operative, and I needed to get parts for it.

Made the first half of the hike, 4.6 miles. I stopped at Subway for lunch, as good as always, and headed home.

About a mile in to my return trip I realized I was just NOT going to make it if I kept walking, so I pulled out my phone and used Google Maps, directed from the Port Authority website, to look up the bus route nearest to me, took a three mile chunk out of my walk, and walked the last mile home in misery.

I am way too out of shape for walking in a hilly area. I should have just paid the extra dollar for a transfer, as there's a bus stop about a block and a half from my front door.

At any rate, the point of my post is I was expecting a grumpy, less-than-thrilled driver, a smelly bus, and the dregs of society (... okay, the last part was half true) but what I got was a chipper, friendly bus driver who everyone seemed to know and like, the bus was clean and well maintained, and I didn't have to come home and immediately burn everything I was wearing.

Overall a good use of $2.50, and though I'd rather not have to (especially since I don't keep cash on hand and had to raid my coin jar) I'd gladly take one of the city's buses again if I needed.

So that makes one bus, one trip on the T for me.

OMGoodness, NOT ALL public transit takers are less than the cream of the crop of society, that IS a news flash.

[Geeo]

The students do pay a fee to the universities for the transit passes. It's a pro-rated figure that PAT and the colleges negotiated. It brings a chunk of change to PAT and keeps service levels higher in the east end where the students live, so we all kind of benefit.

Except for those huge backpacks they all wear! I can't imagine what they've got crammed in there!

[ML North]

Originally Posted by Geeo

Except for those huge backpacks they all wear! I can't imagine what they've got crammed in there!

$900 worth of books. Or beer.