PATs March 27 Bus Changes Posted (Pittsburgh: law, transportation, design)

[Blackbeauty212]

I too think PAT should just kept service levels and used the 45mil as intended, they should've kept this issue in the face of the politicians, buying time only gives time for Corbett and friends to backburner it and say "See Pittsburgh can get by with the reduced Transit"....There need to remain this sense of urgency.

Facing 35% reduction in Transit would have been devistating to Pittsburgh's economy, and No Governor wants that on their resume, and you'd have more Local Politicans and community activist groups up in arms and making so much noise the Governor could not hide from the issue.

I bet if PAT was threatening 35% cuts and signle handly distroying Pittsburgh's economy Corbett would find a solution in a weeks time.

State Rep. Rick Geist, R-Altoona, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, said a comprehensive transportation funding package "could be put together in two hours. It's a matter of having the political will to do something."

Read more: Port Authority CEO: State funds unlikely - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Port Authority CEO: State funds unlikely - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

PEOPLE NEED TO MAKE NOISE!

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by pman

this is a result of past decisions rather than current. rendell failed to bring reliable funding.

The whole state government did. And they could have done something by now if they wanted to--they knew in APRIL that the I-80 toll fell through. They just don't care, and were using the election as one of their excuses for inaction.

additionally pat chose to cut rather than keep all service for one year. it simply isnt reasonable to have expected corbett to have addressed the situation by now. i tend to think pay should have used rendells parting gift as intended.

Corbett is one of the reasons they had no choice. You can imagine a scenario in which the incoming Governor said words to the effect, "Cutting state transit funding is unacceptable. We'll immediately get to work on finding a new source for the funds that we promised." Instead, Corbett has consistently sent the message that he doesn't care and isn't particularly interested in finding a solution. This will undoubtedly continue until the state transportation funding crisis starts hitting road funding and other transit agencies, at which point maybe--maybe--Corbett will be forced to accept a resolution that includes transit.

But that won't be this year. So, they needed to buy more time than just one budget.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212

I bet if PAT was threatening 35% cuts and signle handly distroying Pittsburgh's economy Corbett would find a solution in a weeks time.

Unfortunately, I really doubt that is true. If the whole budget wasn't in crisis and Corbett hadn't made an insane no taxes pledge, maybe. But he will be facing impossible choices as it is, and if pushed I have no doubt he would gladly accept PAT doing massive cuts.

And in fact he would count on people blaming Rendell, Onorato, PAT, the union, and so on, because that has worked so far.

[RedBall]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Except that is exactly wrong when it comes to the actual causes of these cuts. PAT had renegotiated its contracts to cut labor costs and launched the TDP to become more operating efficient in general. All that was more or less on track, and then the state slashed PAT's funding, and the current Governor and his allies in the legislature have been saying "Not our problem".

Pointing the finger at the union is part of the game the relevant politicians play to try to shift blame. But make no mistake: none of these cuts would be happening if the state wasn't slashing its funding to PAT.

Edit: Of course this is self-serving, but it is also a largely accurate summary of how PAT had been cutting its budget and improving revenues in recent years:

Financial Savings

Again, the current crisis is 100% due to the state.

Too little, too late.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by RedBall

Too little, too late.

Again, they would have been fine if the state hadn't slashed its funding contribution. I mean do you remember PAT planning massive service cuts before that? No.

[raubre]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I mean do you remember PAT planning massive service cuts before that? No.

PAT is ALWAYS planning and threatening massive service cuts.

[pman]

corbett didnt make them do anything. thats merely partisan bickering.

[feanix]

Originally Posted by raubre

PAT is ALWAYS planning and threatening massive service cuts.

And they will continue to do so unless the state helps, salaries/benes are cut, or people/services are cut. The state can't balance their own budget and the union is going to protect salaries/benes. The only thing that remains unprotected are the services, which they have and will continue to cut until people stop trying to band-aid the issue. They need state monies dedicated to them and they need to reduce their legacy costs.

[soniqV]

There are two threads on the same topic going on right now but as this one seems to be more active, I'll repeat myself here.

The only way out of this mess is going to be to remove the union's monopoly and open up free competition for contracts. Doesn't matter if it's Republicans or Democrats in control of the state, they've both demonstrated in more words or less that they're NOT going to invest in something they're not confident in. And they are NOT confident in PAT. Unfortunately we bear the curse of being a big city in a state with a bigger city and lots of smaller cities that are all grappling for every dollar they can. The financial crisis has changed things forever, the era of freely flowing state funding is over. The initiative is on us now. And the status quo is not going to suffice.

We can ****** and moan about the state all we want, and say that they're treating us unfairly, and that the union has its hands tied and is doing its best. Which all may well be true. Or we can be proactive and show them that we take controlling costs seriously, by opening up competition and not hiding behind stubborn political allegiances. Like others have said, it's too little to late for that and both sides share the responsibility anyway. Put yourself in the shoes of a state legislator from the outside looking in -- would YOU give money to PAT? Does that look like a positive investment to you?

[lde]

I see lots of verbal descriptions of routes. I see no links to a map (besides the Ts). Is there a site that shows a map of all the PAT routes?