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

[UKyank]

While I am not in anyway against mass transit, I do think a systematic overhaul is in order for pat to be deserving of its funding (yes those legacy costs that are dragging the ship down slowly, year after year). So yes I see the importance of it and those hellbent on doing away with transit for good are misguided.

On the other hand it's very chicken-littleish for those that are saying that if these new cuts happen the apocalypse will decend on Pittsburgh & companies & residents will quickly pack up & leave. Will it be a negative, yes, end of the world - no.
I get it, if you yourself rely on mass transit for your primary transportationthevidea if it not being there is scary but I don't believe the negative effects of this reduction will be the dire picture some paint it to be.

Just speaking for myself, the effects will be 0 on me one way or the other.

Find a way of fixing the legacy cost issue & I'm on 100% for fully funding PAT, until then I just see it as feeding an ever growing problem where more & more funding will continually be needed as those legacy costs continue to eat up an every increasing % of the budget.

[Blackbeauty212]

Originally Posted by UKyank

While I am not in anyway against mass transit, I do think a systematic overhaul is in order for pat to be deserving of its funding (yes those legacy costs that are dragging the ship down slowly, year after year). So yes I see the importance of it and those hellbent on doing away with transit for good are misguided.

On the other hand it's very chicken-littleish for those that are saying that if these new cuts happen the apocalypse will decend on Pittsburgh & companies & residents will quickly pack up & leave. Will it be a negative, yes, end of the world - no.
I get it, if you yourself relies in mass transit for your primary transportationthevidea if it not being there is scary but I don't believe the negative effects of this reduction will be the dire picture some paint it to be.

Just speaking for myself, the effects will be 0 on me one way or the other.

Find a way of fixing the legacy cost issue & I'm on 100% for fully funding PAT, until then I just see it as feeding an ever growing problem where more & more funding will continually be needed as those legacy costs continue to eat up an every increasing % of the budget.

This is part of the problem....people think Pittsburgh new found robustness economy will continue at the pace it does today with continued reductions in transit "It's just not that big of deal" mindset. And its that type of nonchalant way of thinking that is going to cost the region big....I can't believe people who have lived here during the steel collapse and saw what the region went through and the hardship that ensued almost immediately afterwards, can have this type of caviler attitude and risk the same thing happening again.


I'm not saying blindly fund PAT. I understand people hate the way PAT structure is set up currently, and I concur, it awful. But not having a plan to correct it and future proof it, just sit idly by and "Do Nothing" while the ship sinks and take the economy down with it, is what I'm railing against.

[squarian]

Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212

Fitz isn't going to go for anymore County-specific Transit agencies......anything with a new agency will involve a regional transit authority, its cost prohibitive to continue to have independent transit agencies for each county in the region.

The new agency needs to be set up just like SEPTA almost mirror images in the way they're structured.

Yeah, but. We know the state isn't going to bail out PAT, we know the Gen Ass & Gov aren't even likely to change its governing legislation, and we know (or at least, I believe) that after the impending cuts PAT will have been reduced in scale below the point of sustainability and therefore likely continue to wither. We also know (or at least, some of us agree) that the city needs some kind of mass transit system if it's to avoid serious harm.

What we don't know for sure is whether the county council & exec (Rich Fitz) would be open to some kind of outside-the-box solution, even if it's only temporary. So the question, it seems to me, is what can be accomplished locally, what solutions, even half-assed ones, are left. And any kind of solution has to turn on the assumption that local leaders are willing to try, because without that assumption, there can only be one result, which very few of us actually want.

[pman]

Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212

Fitz isn't going to go for anymore County-specific Transit agencies......anything with a new agency will involve a regional transit authority, its cost prohibitive to continue to have independent transit agencies for each county in the region.

The new agency needs to be set up just like SEPTA almost mirror images in the way they're structured.

septa's board members are largely cronies, there needs to be some way to ensure that knowledgable people sit on the board. perhaps one board member must be from the city's transportation dept, one from penndot, one each of the county' transportation dept, with the requirement that all other appointees have a transportation background (not education, per se, but having worked for a transportation company be it freight rail, passenger rail, airlines, bus company, etc. )

[squarian]

Or to put it another way - the musical point I was trying to make several pages back is that, on transit questions as many others, Pgh is a permanent minority in PA.

So as much as possible, the solution probably should stem from shifting the issue to the county level, where the transit interest stands a much better chance of being a majority.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212

I'm not saying blindly fund PAT. I understand people hate the way PAT structure is set up currently, and I concur, it awful. But not having a plan to correct it and future proof it, just sit idly by and "Do Nothing" while the ship sinks and take the economy down with it, is what I'm railing against.

While I may be playing devils advocate & the cuts won't effect me, I'm not completely disagreeing with you - I want a good transit system for the city & see it's importance.
The problem is that you can't just get out from under the aforementioned legacy costs easily & the state funding PATs current budget gap does nothing other then allow current service to continue for a short time until even more $ is needed because those legacy costs are going to do nothing but continuing ballooning larger & larger. This is money that is not helping riders in any way & does nothing but eat away at PATs budget. That needs to be the #1 priority in saving PAT, but neither side is proposing any solution to it.
That whole elephant in the room thing.

[Blackbeauty212]

Originally Posted by pman

septa's board members are largely cronies, there needs to be some way to ensure that knowledgable people sit on the board. perhaps one board member must be from the city's transportation dept, one from penndot, one each of the county' transportation dept, with the requirement that all other appointees have a transportation background (not education, per se, but having worked for a transportation company be it freight rail, passenger rail, airlines, bus company, etc. )

I agree -I would lay it out in a 10 member board...

1 - from Penndot
2 - from the City
2 - from the County (Since they have the largest piece of the service pie)
1 - from Westmorland
1 - from Washington
1 - from Beaver
1 - from Butler
1 - from Lawrence

[squarian]

Originally Posted by UKyank

Find a way of fixing the legacy cost issue & I'm on 100% for fully funding PAT, until then I just see it as feeding an ever growing problem where more & more funding will continually be needed as those legacy costs continue to eat up an every increasing % of the budget.

There is a solution to the legacy-cost problems: death. But unless someone is going to propose hastening that process, we're stuck with PAT's legacy costs. The question then is what to do, in order to provide some kind of transit in this city, despite those costs.

It seems to me that one way forward might be to strip actual operations from PAT (obviously this will require some cooperation from PAT), leaving it essentially a pension and health benefits administrator. Form a new operator, as a "subsidiary" of PAT for reasons of legality, but freed of PAT's negotiating limits.

This kind of successor organization will almost certainly have to be modest - it's a stopgap, after all - and so I'm reluctant to project it as a regional agency, because as a temporary solution it will have to maximize its resources to provide service on only the most viable routes. In better times, perhaps it can expand to the outlying counties - for now, it should focus on Allegheny.

Not an ideal prescription, but better than nothing - which is likely what we get otherwise.

[Blackbeauty212]

Originally Posted by squarian

Or to put it another way - the musical point I was trying to make several pages back is that, on transit questions as many others, Pgh is a permanent minority in PA.

Funny but Allegheny County is the 2 largest contributor to PA's tax base after Montgomery County.

So we're a minority in what state dollars get imported to us, but we're the majority when it comes to state dollars getting exported from us. Gee funny how that works.

[Lobick]

Originally Posted by UKyank

While I may be playing devils advocate & the cuts won't effect me, I'm not completely disagreeing with you - I want a good transit system for the city & see it's importance.

These statements seem to me to be incongruent.

If it's important for the city in which you live, its absence will certainly effect you as a citizen of that city.

The point may seem picayune, but I believe that it is the failure of this connection to be made by the majority of the people of this region (who don't directly use PAT) that allows this issue to be marginalized by the decision-makers in Harrisburg.