WELCOME to 2016, PAT!

[Blackbeauty212]

Originally Posted by Geeo

The reason it was always pay exit when leaving downtown town was to get people on and clear the sidewalks as fast as possible, since during rush hour there are tons of people and buses lined up waiting to get to the stop.

It made perfect sense back in the days of Paper, and when Downtown was the Retail/Shopping destination of the entire region, because of people with shopping bag fumbling for their fare.

Neither of these things are a problem today, now we have a problem of buses (61s 71s) being filled to the max and people needing to fight their way to the front to pay.. back in the same era as downtown shopping Colleges didn't have free riders, therefore buses weren't crushed like they are now. It can be 11pm and the 71's are still sardine cans leaving Oakland.

So there is a great need to be able to unload via the back doors outside of Downtown. This is how most other Larger Cities do it anyway.

Originally Posted by Pughnose

Problem with this is that you'd have to buy your pass exactly on the day your previous pass expired, to avoid overlap or a gap in coverage, right? (I am assuming that you can add a May pass before the last day of April, but since my card contains cash not a pass, I'm not sure.)

The way most other cities with Day based passes work. You can store 1 active pass, and 1 Pending pass on your card at a time. So as long as 1 pass is currently active (meaning you currently using it), you can purchase another pass at anytime and it will be the "Pending" pass until the active pass runs out, AND you make your next tap, activating the Pending pass, therefore allowing you to add another Pending Pass whenever you wish.

Day-based passes are so much more convenient over Calendar based passes.

[Pughnose]

Originally Posted by Geeo

It's in the P-G story. They reduced the cost of the Connect Card to $1.

Oh, RTFA, eh? I see how you are. ...thanks! My impression is that's the actual cost, so seems reasonable.

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

I'm guessing they're assuming the vast majority of people will use a ConnectCard, but still as an occasional bus user, I know it's going to be ridiculous and and hold the buses up a bit during rush hour having everyone pay when they're in Downtown.

OH! so PAT will change to pay as you enter in downtown? That would wreak havoc on the rush hour commute. Its already hectic.

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by Pughnose

Problem with this is that you'd have to buy your pass exactly on the day your previous pass expired, to avoid overlap or a gap in coverage, right? (I am assuming that you can add a May pass before the last day of April, but since my card contains cash not a pass, I'm not sure.)

Odd that I can't seem to find an actual announcement or press release online from the PAT committee, maybe it's in the meeting minutes or something. I was wondering if they were still planning to charge $2 for new cards.

I buy my pass on Friday for the following week. I still use the current week through Saturday. I reload my pass at my local Giant Eagle.

[I_Like_Spam]

When PAT was established, there were 15 fare zones, now just one remaining.
http://www.amcap.org/history/alleghe...es/p2zones.jpg

[jay5835]

Does anyone remember whether smoking was ever allowed on the bus, in the '60s and '70s, say?

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by jay5835

Does anyone remember whether smoking was ever allowed on the bus, in the '60s and '70s, say?

You never were allowed to smoke on a PAT bus, at least from 1968.


You were, however, allowed to enjoy a fine cigarette on a Greyhound bus .

[PghYinzer]

Originally Posted by jay5835

Does anyone remember whether smoking was ever allowed on the bus, in the '60s and '70s, say?

By smoking on the bus, do you mean those poor souls who feel as if they might just die if they don’t get that last hit on their cig before tossing it on the street and exhaling while paying with nickels? Or do you mean those who need a smoke so bad they hold it in their hand near the door, and light up as they step off?

[urbanpreppie05]

Originally Posted by 850_branded

Firstly, the transit network. This is a perfect example of what I mean by over-complicating simple things: remember the old radial-spoke setup, wherein they named routes by a number and a letter corresponding to their cardinal direction on the metro map? If one knew that detail, it was relatively easy to figure out what bus went where...single-digit numbers likely ran straight north out of downtown, teens to the north and northwest, 20s over toward the west, 30s and 40s to the southwest and South Hills, 50s straight south, 60s to Oakland/southeasterly, 70s and 80s straight east and northeasterly, so on and so forth, with letters delineating a particular area of that corridor. Simple enough, right? "X" letter delineating "eXpress", "U" for "Universities", the colleges, the three-digit routes being crosstown routes, and of course, the famous "EBA/EBS/EBX" routes. (I did often wonder while living there how come they never labeled the West Busway routes similarly--"WBA", "WBX" and the like...maybe they just didn't roll off the tongue as easily. And I also think a South Busway-specific route would'be been nice, but considering the frequency of the many 40- routes and then the Ts that used that corridor, it probably wasn't really needed.) If I needed to get to the West End, I knew one of the 26 buses would get me there (I think I remember there being four of those). Likewise, if I wanted to get to the South Hills, or at any rate Century III (my God what happened to that place??), I could hop a 46 Anyway, my point in all that is this: how did stuff like "100" and "46D" morph into stuff like "P1" and "Y7"? (I still wanna know a/ who thought that idea up and b/ who signed off on that??) When i went back to visit the Burgh (which i still harbor a lot of love for btw) for the first time a few years back, i went looking for my familar routes--only to find nearlly the whole network had been renamed! Taking a system that had been in place for 30 or 40-some odd years and wholesale changing it. Further confusing folks....over-complicating simple things. If I had a vote, they'd restore the old spoke system and further streamline it for increased efficiency.
"i

Gonna disagree with you there. The Letters in front of each line indicate a color on the map and its respective busway/line- G-Green (west busway), Y-Yellow (south), P-Purple (East Busway), O-Orange (HOV lanes), with the blue line being the library t line and the red line being the beechview line. The number after it then indicates the route. When you're new to PA (like i was when this change was made), this makes so, so much more sense.

[Pughnose]

Originally Posted by wpipkins2

OH! so PAT will change to pay as you enter in downtown? That would wreak havoc on the rush hour commute. Its already hectic.

One plus of paying as you enter -- With my cash-bearing PAT card, more than once I have been within the three-hour transfer period when boarding an outbound homeward bus, only to pay a full fare rather than a dollar transfer when I got off a half hour later. (But I guess that for those who start their day's riding outbound, it'll be a penalty rather than an advantage, as currently the meter doesn't start running until they disembark from their first ride.)