Saturday, March 24, 2012
Plan Pgh
MOVEPGH COMMUNITY WORKSHOP #1
We're getting technical with transportation--come and get your hands dirty.
Sent 03/21/2012 @ 2:12 pm
MOVEPGH Community Workshop #1 is focused on transportation issues related to the Northside, Allegheny Riverfront, and West End Valley. The workshop is open to the public – even if you do not live in these areas. Join the MOVEPGH team for an open and interactive discussion about walkability, highways, transit, bicycling, and more.
Workshop #1 Schedule:
Workshop #1 Kick-off Event: Describing the week's activities & preliminary findings
WHEN: Monday, March 26 6:00-7:30PM
WHERE: Allegheny Middle School - Allegheny Center
810 Arch St, Pittsburgh, PA 15212
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Workshop #1 Open House: See the MOVEPGH team at work & provide input
WHEN: Three open sessions--drop in any time
Tuesday, March 27 10:00AM - 5:00PM
Wednesday, March 28 10:00AM - 5:00PM
Thursday, March 29 10:00AM - 3:00PM
WHERE: Sen. John Heinz History Center - Strip District
1212 Smallman St, Pittsburgh, PA 15222
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Workshop #1 Wrap-Up Event: A MOVEPGH team progress report for the week
WHEN: Thursday, March 29 6:00-7:30PM
WHERE: Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School - Allegheny Center
50 Montgomery Pl, Pittsburgh, PA 15212
About the MOVEPGH Design Workshops:
MOVEPGH Workshop #1 is the first of four (4) week-long MOVEPGH public designworkshops to be held around the City over the next six months. Each workshop will highlight different portions of the City of Pittsburgh--Click here to view the map of focus geographies of all four workshops. These “design studio” workshops will be multi-disciplinary, working design sessions where stakeholders, designers, technical experts, and the public will work together to develop, design and plan solutions. TheMOVEPGH team will work all week long in a different location for each of the four Workshops to develop and test various design and planning ideas related to:
transportation solutions for areas of change and redevelopment;
expanding multi-modal choice;
developing street designs and complete streets;
creating interlinked bike, pedestrian, transit, and street networks;
protecting areas of no change;
expanding connectivity;
selectively expanding vehicle capacity
Workshop Format:
Each of the four workshops will follow a similar schedule:
Day 1 – Evening Kick-off meeting
Day 2, 3, & 4 – Daytime Open House work sessions
Day 4 – Evening Wrap-up event
Evening Kick-off Meeting: sets the stage for the coming week, and provides a progress report on work to-date.
Daytime Open Houses: provide great opportunities for community groups, residents, the business community and others to interact with the planning team by expressing their ideas, plans, and concerns. Drop in any time!
Evening Wrap-up Meetings: will summarize all of the input received during the previous four days and offer another opportunity for an interactive discussion with other stakeholders and the MOVEPGH Team. MOVEPGH Project info can be found at www.planpgh.com/movepgh.
More info about Workshops #2, #3, and #4 will be coming soon!
Hope to see you there! Remember to stay current with all of PLANPGH at www.planpgh.com and facebook.com/planpgh!
Friday, March 23, 2012
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Crucial Decision Time for the SPC in Transportation
Policy Brief
An electronic publication of
The Allegheny Institute for Public Policy
December 9, 2010
Crucial Decision Time for the SPC
On December 13th the board of the Southwest Pennsylvania Commission (SPC)—which consists of elected and appointed officials responsible for steering planning and transportation priorities for the ten county region—must decide whether it will once again approve robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The SPC board went on record this past July in a resolution saying they would no longer take money for highways and bridges and shift or “flex” it to the Port Authority (PAT) to cover its recurring budget shortfalls. In two pieces earlier this summer (Policy Brief Volume 10, Numbers 39 and 41) we pointed out the SPC had taken previous flex actions from 2003 through 2007 amounting to a total of $150 million taken from roads to close budget gaps for Allegheny County’s mass transit agency.
In 2005 the SPC noted in a resolution that “in the future our limited highway dollars should first be used to repair our existing roads and bridges, not close holes in the transit budget”. Previous flex actions were taken under the belief that temporary fixes would give officials in Harrisburg time to come up with a fix for mass transit, likely including new fees or taxes. After the Governor raised the possibility of flexing money again this past summer, the SPC took strong and swift action to convey their opinion that enough was enough.
So when the Governor came to Pittsburgh last week announcing that he had found $45 million to close the current operating deficit for PAT and avert service cuts and layoffs and all that was needed was SPC approval, there must have been consternation and disbelief on the part of some board members. To confuse the issue, the Governor has said the money will not come from highway funds, but economic development funding tied to discontinued projects. “We're not asking for dollars to be taken from highways to be paid into mass transit” was what the Governor said, even though newspaper reports have identified the dollars as very closely linked to road projects.
Presumably the idea was that the SPC board could save face by not having to once again dip into the limited pool of money for highways and bridges that are in bad shape but could instead tap this new unencumbered pool of economic development dollars to help PAT. In the July meeting minutes there are quotes from two commissioners that note roads in the region are “…already rated poor by the American Society of Civil Engineers” and that further ignoring roads would entail “scary effects”.
What the SPC board should do is take the Governor up on his offer and accept the money but insist on transferring it to the backlog of road projects where deterioration has occurred because of the money already “flexed” to PAT in an effort to keep the agency from facing its day of reckoning. If there is money at the Governor’s disposal requiring approval of the SPC, the board should make its case for correcting the infrastructure deficiencies that may have been exacerbated by giving money to PAT. The SPC should resist pleas to approve money for PAT that could be directed to highway work.
Perhaps a new Governor will offer the same money for needed road work if it has not been shifted to the PAT money pit.
The SPC has acquiesced to requests for helping out mass transit while the state has done nothing to address PAT’s monopoly or the right of its employees to strike and extract generous wage and benefit packages. Nor has it actively discouraged the addiction to building new projects or its severely out of line operating costs. Note that while PAT was slipping into its financial hole, it worked diligently to acquire money to build the North Shore Connector, which also required the SPC to approve shifting many millions more from its own projects. If ever there was an organization with the right to say it will no longer be an enabler of irresponsible behavior it is the SPC.
Besides, denying this latest effort to find yet another temporary fix will put the issue of the Port Authority front and center of the incoming Governor and General Assembly where they can look for real solutions for mass transit in Allegheny County.
Eric Montarti, Senior Policy Analyst Jake Haulk, Ph.D., President
For updates and commentary on daily issues please visit our blog at alleghenyinstitute.org/blog.
If you have enjoyed reading this Policy Brief and would like to send it to a friend, please feel free to forward it to them.
For more information on this and other topics, please visit our web site: alleghenyinstitute.org
If you wish to support our efforts please consider becoming a donor to the Allegheny Institute. The Allegheny Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and all contributions are tax deductible. Please mail your contribution to:
The Allegheny Institute
305 Mt. Lebanon Boulevard
Suite 208
Pittsburgh, PA 15234
Thank you for your support.
You are receiving this e-mail because of a subscription with the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.
If you no longer wish to receive our e-mails you may unsubscribe by responding to this e-mail and typing unsubscribe in the subject line.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
PAT Bus System Still Very Expensive
Policy Brief
An electronic publication of
The Allegheny Institute for Public Policy
November 16, 2010
There is s lot of hand wringing over the Port Authority’s (PAT) plans to cut bus service dramatically to deal with the agency’s nearly $50 million budget shortfall. While civic leaders, businesses, and riders are very concerned and are imploring the state to come up with more money, they ought to be focused on PAT’s outrageous cost structure and the lack of any real effort to address those costs—leaving major service cuts and layoffs as the only way to lower expenditures.
In a 2008 Policy Brief (Volume 8, Number 35), we looked at a sample of twenty transit systems from around the country using cities of varying sizes, including PAT, and compared their bus operating expenses per passenger trip. 2006 data from the National Transit Database (NTD) showed PAT to have the highest expense per trip at $4.30 and well above the twenty city sample average of $3.22 and much higher than larger cities such as Los Angeles ($2.09) and Chicago ($2.77).
Using recently updated 2009 data from NTD, we look at how PAT has fared relative to other transit agencies three years later. The table below shows the results.
| Transit Agency | 2009 Operating Expense per Trip | Transit Agency | 2009 Operating Expense per Trip | Transit Agency | 2009 Operating Expense per Trip |
| Indianapolis | $5.55 | Kansas City | $4.25 | Philadelphia | $2.95 |
| Dallas | 5.45 | Denver | 4.10 | Baltimore | 2.92 |
| Houston | 4.60 | Cincinnati | 3.66 | Milwaukee | 2.91 |
| Pittsburgh | 4.44 | Minneapolis | 3.58 | Atlanta | 2.84 |
| Miami | 4.43 | Charlotte | 3.53 | Chicago | 2.47 |
| Cleveland | 4.36 | Louisville | 3.46 | Los Angeles | 2.41 |
| Columbus | 4.26 | Nashville | 2.99 | 20 City Average | $3.76 |
PAT’s expense per trip ranking fell from highest to fourth. Almost all bus systems in the sample had increases in expenses per trip. Nashville and Chicago were the only systems with declines. PAT’s rise in per trip expense was just over three percent while others including Cleveland, Dallas, Houston and Indianapolis reported sharp increases. Keep in mind that PAT’s cost of $4.44 per trip is still much higher than the sample average of $3.76.
Chicago was the only transit agency with a decrease in total operating expenses from 2006 to 2009 (nearly five percent). PAT’s total expenditure increase was less than one percent while Indianapolis jumped the most at 32 percent followed by Atlanta and Baltimore at 27 percent each. The twenty city sample average increase was 14 percent. By paring service on routes with low ridership PAT has made some progress in slowing the growth in per passenger costs.
There were nine transit systems with drops in passenger trips during the 2006-09 period. Cleveland had the biggest slide at 34 percent followed by Dallas at 25 percent. Houston and Indianapolis dropped 17 percent each. PAT experienced a smaller decline of 2.5 percent. Of the transit systems with ridership gains, Nashville led with a rise of 33 percent.
Large increases in total operating expenditures (Indianapolis) and/or large decreases in passengers (Dallas, Houston, and Indianapolis) have caused these cities’ per trip expenses to leap over Pittsburgh in the 2009 ranking.
Eliminating the systems with very large drops in passenger service (15 percent or more—Cleveland, Indianapolis, Houston, and Dallas), lowers the sample average cost per passenger trip from $3.76 to $3.45. It also pulls Pittsburgh back to the top of the remaining sixteen city list as shown in the table below.
| City | Operating Expense/Trip | City | Operating Expense/Trip | City | Operating Expense/Trip |
| Pittsburgh | $4.44 | Minneapolis | $3.58 | Milwaukee | 2.91 |
| Miami | 4.43 | Charlotte | 3.53 | Atlanta | 2.84 |
| Columbus | 4.26 | Louisville | 3.46 | Chicago | 2.47 |
| Kansas City | 4.25 | Nashville | 2.99 | Los Angeles | 2.41 |
| Denver | 4.10 | Philadelphia | 2.95 | Average | $3.45 |
| Cincinnati | 3.66 | Baltimore | 2.92 | | |
In short, PAT continues to operate an expensive bus system with per trip costs well above the levels in comparably sized cities such as Cincinnati, Charlotte, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee. Even though PAT has reduced payroll by over 200 positions and cut service by some 15 percent since 2007, which helped hold down the expenditure increase over the last three years, the agency’s employee compensation costs are still up slightly as result of rapidly increasing benefit expenses. The ratio of benefits to wages and salaries in 2010 stands at 91 percent ($128 million for benefits to $141 million in wages and salaries) and will reach 100 percent very soon. PAT’s unfunded liability for health care tops $560 million.
As we have argued in the past, PAT needs to begin a program of outsourcing routes or allowing other carriers to offer service on routes that are being eliminated. Furthermore, the state needs to provide an incentive for management to get concessions from employees by offering to match permanent pay and benefit concessions. The legislature should eliminate PAT’s monopoly status in Allegheny County so other service providers can operate in areas underserved by PAT. Finally, Harrisburg must take away the transit workers’ right to strike. That power is a major cause of the financial mess and will continue to plague the system if not removed.
Frank Gamrat, Ph.D., Sr. Research Assoc. Jake Haulk, Ph.D., President
For updates and commentary on daily issues please visit our blog at alleghenyinstitute.org/blog.
If you have enjoyed reading this Policy Brief and would like to send it to a friend, please feel free to forward it to them.
For more information on this and other topics, please visit our web site: alleghenyinstitute.org
If you wish to support our efforts please consider becoming a donor to the Allegheny Institute. The Allegheny Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and all contributions are tax deductible. Please mail your contribution to:
The Allegheny Institute
305 Mt. Lebanon Boulevard
Suite 208
Pittsburgh, PA 15234
Thank you for your support.
You are receiving this e-mail because of a subscription with the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.
If you no longer wish to receive our e-mails you may unsubscribe by responding to this e-mail and typing unsubscribe in the subject line.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Port Authority in a jam with high-tech fareboxes
Port Authority in a jam with high-tech fareboxes: "The authority contracted with Scheidt & Bachmann USA, based in Burlington, Mass., for the farebox project. The new boxes are part of the authority's adoption of a smart card fare system in which many riders will use plastic cards with an embedded computer chip."
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Gateway Center subway station to be demolished
Gateway Center subway station to be demolished: "Gateway Center subway station to be demolished"
Friday, June 11, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Port Authority to adjust more bus routes in June, 2010
Charges on longer rides are possibleTuesday, April 27, 2010 By Jon Schmitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
As it prepares to change 26 more bus routes in June, Port Authority also is considering charging a premium for service on longer commuter trips.
Authority CEO Steve Bland mentioned the possibility of premium pricing in an interview Monday in which he discussed the financial uncertainty facing the authority and other public transit agencies. He also pronounced the first round of route changes "a rousing success."
"Those longer commuter routes are very expensive," even if the buses are full, he said. "We're looking at it. This budget with the Act 44 stuff is so up in the air that everything's on the table."
He was referring to a $472 million hole in the state's transportation budget that followed the federal government's decision not to allow tolling of Interstate 80, a key component of Act 44, the funding measure approved by the Legislature in 2007.
Without remedial action, all of the state's 36 transit agencies will have their funding slashed July 1.
Mr. Bland did not specify how a premium for commuter buses might be structured or when it would take effect. The most likely time for any fare changes would be in January.
A recent consultant's study placed the cost of express bus service to the suburbs at $5.07 per passenger, compared with $2.81 per passenger on conventional radial routes.
Service on the AVN Allegheny Valley North Flyer, which was discontinued as part of a merger of five routes last month, cost $7.32 per passenger, according to the study. Service on the 28K Moon Express, one of the routes being revised in June, costs $6.39 per rider.
In contrast, service on the heavily traveled 86A East Hills urban route costs $2.16 per passenger.
The current cash fare for outlying areas is $2.75; riders closer to town pay $2.
Mr. Bland was scheduled to be in Harrisburg today to meet with lawmakers about the looming financial crisis, which could leave a $50 million shortfall in the authority's 2010-11 budget and force big fare increases and service cuts.
Gov. Ed Rendell has called a special session of the Legislature starting next Tuesday to tackle the transportation crisis.
"All of the stars are misaligned" for a solution, Mr. Bland said, noting that time is running short and it's an election year for the Legislature.
"I think it's going to be a real challenge. They understand the gravity of the problem, that people will genuinely be hurt if it's not addressed at the state level," he said.
The 26 routes to be changed on June 13 are 6B Spring Hill, 11E Fineview, 13G Thompson Run Express, 13U North Hills-Oakland Express, 16F City View, 28K Moon Express, 41B Bower Hill, 44U Mt. Lebanon-Oakland, 46F Baldwin Highlands, 46G Elizabeth, 51A Arlington Heights and 51C Carrick.
Also 53F Homestead-Lincoln Place, 55M Century III Mall, 56B Hazelwood, 56C McKeesport-Lincoln Place, 67A Monroeville, 67F Trafford, 67H Squirrel Hill, 68D Braddock Hills Express, 79D Mount Carmel, 86A East Hills, 86B Frankstown, E Elizabeth Flyer, HP Holiday Park Flyer and LP Lincoln Park Flyer.
The routes will be renamed, timetables will change and in some cases routes will be shortened or trimmed of their multiple variations.
The 46G, for example, is being renamed Y46 Elizabeth Flyer and all but two of its 36 route variations are being eliminated.
Brief summaries of the June changes will be posted on the authority's website, www.portauthority.org, starting today.
New schedules and route maps will be posted on the site May 5, and paper schedules will be out in mid-May, authority spokesman Jim Ritchie said.
Mr. Bland said the first round of changes, on nearly 60 routes with 79,000 riders, went "remarkably smoothly," with complaints coming from only 10 routes that serve 4,800 riders.
"Obviously there's a few routes that we need to work on," he said, mentioning the West Busway and Allegheny Valley routes that have generated the most complaints.
Among the noteworthy improvements, he said, were the addition of direct service from Downtown to Pittsburgh International Airport on the 28X Airport Flyer (which no longer stops at Robinson Town Centre) and new routes 64 Lawrenceville Waterfront and 75 Ellsworth.
He said about three-quarters of riders will see improvements during the two-year service overhaul. For the rest "it'll either be about the same or not quite as good."
The purpose of the revisions, he said, is to focus the agency's limited resources on places where ridership is highest.
"We never said from the beginning that everyone's going to love it."
Jon Schmitz: jschmitz@post-gazette.com. Visit "The Roundabout," the Post-Gazette's transportation blog, at post-gazette.com.
Read more: http://post-gazette.com/pg/10117/1053583-147.stm#ixzz0mIi9PZBV
As it prepares to change 26 more bus routes in June, Port Authority also is considering charging a premium for service on longer commuter trips.
Authority CEO Steve Bland mentioned the possibility of premium pricing in an interview Monday in which he discussed the financial uncertainty facing the authority and other public transit agencies. He also pronounced the first round of route changes "a rousing success."
"Those longer commuter routes are very expensive," even if the buses are full, he said. "We're looking at it. This budget with the Act 44 stuff is so up in the air that everything's on the table."
He was referring to a $472 million hole in the state's transportation budget that followed the federal government's decision not to allow tolling of Interstate 80, a key component of Act 44, the funding measure approved by the Legislature in 2007.
Without remedial action, all of the state's 36 transit agencies will have their funding slashed July 1.
Mr. Bland did not specify how a premium for commuter buses might be structured or when it would take effect. The most likely time for any fare changes would be in January.
A recent consultant's study placed the cost of express bus service to the suburbs at $5.07 per passenger, compared with $2.81 per passenger on conventional radial routes.
Service on the AVN Allegheny Valley North Flyer, which was discontinued as part of a merger of five routes last month, cost $7.32 per passenger, according to the study. Service on the 28K Moon Express, one of the routes being revised in June, costs $6.39 per rider.
In contrast, service on the heavily traveled 86A East Hills urban route costs $2.16 per passenger.
The current cash fare for outlying areas is $2.75; riders closer to town pay $2.
Mr. Bland was scheduled to be in Harrisburg today to meet with lawmakers about the looming financial crisis, which could leave a $50 million shortfall in the authority's 2010-11 budget and force big fare increases and service cuts.
Gov. Ed Rendell has called a special session of the Legislature starting next Tuesday to tackle the transportation crisis.
"All of the stars are misaligned" for a solution, Mr. Bland said, noting that time is running short and it's an election year for the Legislature.
"I think it's going to be a real challenge. They understand the gravity of the problem, that people will genuinely be hurt if it's not addressed at the state level," he said.
The 26 routes to be changed on June 13 are 6B Spring Hill, 11E Fineview, 13G Thompson Run Express, 13U North Hills-Oakland Express, 16F City View, 28K Moon Express, 41B Bower Hill, 44U Mt. Lebanon-Oakland, 46F Baldwin Highlands, 46G Elizabeth, 51A Arlington Heights and 51C Carrick.
Also 53F Homestead-Lincoln Place, 55M Century III Mall, 56B Hazelwood, 56C McKeesport-Lincoln Place, 67A Monroeville, 67F Trafford, 67H Squirrel Hill, 68D Braddock Hills Express, 79D Mount Carmel, 86A East Hills, 86B Frankstown, E Elizabeth Flyer, HP Holiday Park Flyer and LP Lincoln Park Flyer.
The routes will be renamed, timetables will change and in some cases routes will be shortened or trimmed of their multiple variations.
The 46G, for example, is being renamed Y46 Elizabeth Flyer and all but two of its 36 route variations are being eliminated.
Brief summaries of the June changes will be posted on the authority's website, www.portauthority.org, starting today.
New schedules and route maps will be posted on the site May 5, and paper schedules will be out in mid-May, authority spokesman Jim Ritchie said.
Mr. Bland said the first round of changes, on nearly 60 routes with 79,000 riders, went "remarkably smoothly," with complaints coming from only 10 routes that serve 4,800 riders.
"Obviously there's a few routes that we need to work on," he said, mentioning the West Busway and Allegheny Valley routes that have generated the most complaints.
Among the noteworthy improvements, he said, were the addition of direct service from Downtown to Pittsburgh International Airport on the 28X Airport Flyer (which no longer stops at Robinson Town Centre) and new routes 64 Lawrenceville Waterfront and 75 Ellsworth.
He said about three-quarters of riders will see improvements during the two-year service overhaul. For the rest "it'll either be about the same or not quite as good."
The purpose of the revisions, he said, is to focus the agency's limited resources on places where ridership is highest.
"We never said from the beginning that everyone's going to love it."
Jon Schmitz: jschmitz@post-gazette.com. Visit "The Roundabout," the Post-Gazette's transportation blog, at post-gazette.com.
Read more: http://post-gazette.com/pg/10117/1053583-147.stm#ixzz0mIi9PZBV
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Bell Tolls for PAT: Do They Hear It?
Policy Brief
An electronic publication of
The Allegheny Institute for Public Policy
April 21, 2010
Volume 10, Number 21
Without tolls on Interstate 80 (I-80) to generate funds for roads, bridges, and mass transit, the CEO of Port Authority (PAT) says that what was a $25 million deficit for the coming fiscal year will grow to $50 million.
This is obviously not what was envisioned three years ago when PAT wasted no time in increasing its budget after Act 44—the transportation funding law that contained the I-80 provision, as well as permission for Allegheny County to levy two new taxes on liquor and car rentals for transit funding—was signed into law. That initial increase has been compounded to the point where the operating budget is now 12 percent higher than it was intended to be for 2008. Recall that, as we pointed out in Briefs and Reports, PAT was already far out of line with peer operators on costs and performance indicators.
In June 2007, PAT instituted a 15 percent service reduction and laid off 203 employees. The PAT board passed an FY08 budget of $325.1 million that same month that contained an additional 10 percent service reduction and an additional 174 layoffs that was to go into effect in September of 2007.
The following month Act 44 was passed. The CEO heralded the fact that the law provided PAT with $55 million in new operating funds and $12 million in capital funds for FY08. The following week the Board rescinded the planned 10 percent service reduction, avoided the planned layoffs, and adopted a revised operating budget of $336 million for FY08. On the day the revised budget was passed the CEO stated “…we can begin the process of designing a system that allows us to realize every possible service efficiency and do the most with all available resources”.
Too bad that did not happen. For FY09, the Board passed an operating budget of $350.2 million (up 4% over FY08) that assumed the collective bargaining process with the Amalgamated Transit Union would produce “a minimum of $10 million in cost reductions”. Without that minimum threshold PAT’s CEO noted that “[PAT] will be forced to significantly cut service, raise fares, and layoff employees in 2009 and every year thereafter until transit service eventually becomes insufficient to adequately serve the region’s mobility needs”. Soon after, in July of 2008, the Federal Highway Administration wrote to the PA Turnpike Commission that the I-80 application was rejected. The contract settlement that followed contained virtually no immediate savings.
Last June the Board passed a $362.9 million operating budget, a 3.6 percent boost over FY09 and 12 percent higher than what was originally intended for FY08. The budget had a fare increase and no service cuts, but the CEO felt that the agency was “…taking money from crucial maintenance projects to plug gaps in our operating budget”. By this time the handwriting was on the wall that the I-80 plan was in deep trouble with the Federal government.
When the new presidential administration gave Pennsylvania the same answer on I-80 as the previous administration, here’s how the CEO reacted: “the failure to meet funding commitments under Act 44 would force Port Authority to consider sharp service cuts that could isolate neighborhoods and severely compromise regional mobility in the Pittsburgh region”.
So why is it that with the overhaul of transportation funding, two new locally-generated revenues, and a new collective bargaining agreement that the Authority still finds itself with a budget gap that is made worse by the I-80 rejection? Simply put, there was no real effort to move to smaller buses as a way to improve efficiency, no effort to commit to outsourcing as employees retired or resigned, and the cost savings from the union contract were not immediate enough to make a difference.
As we pointed out in a previous Policy Brief (Volume 7, Number 8) contract language spells out that small buses are limited to 3 percent of the total number of large buses in service and that they be limited to low density areas. There is some service to and from the trolley stops but the union’s preference for operating and maintaining large buses is quite clear. According to the FY10 budget there are 876 buses and 48 small transit vehicles in the fleet, the latter representing 5 percent of all vehicles.
In a subsequent Brief (Volume 8, Number 74) that summarized the 2008 ATU contract settlement, we noted that the language on small buses stayed the same, and the PAT board’s desire for 20 percent of operations to be outsourced was eliminated from the contract. Headcount has remained virtually unchanged since FY08 at approximately 2,750 employees. The agency did not outsource service based on the layoffs in June 2007. The savings that were squeezed out of the contract for post-retirement health care were minimal and long-term: not much was done for the immediate term. Employee benefits as a percentage of salaries and wages have grown to 90 percent, up from 81 percent in FY08. As we just noted earlier this year (Volume 10, Number 12) failure to achieve any meaningful cost reductions “is coming back to haunt [PAT]”.
There will never be enough money for the Port Authority, especially with the trajectory of pensions and health care benefits, the hammerlock the agency has on mass transit service in Allegheny County and the union’s right to strike. It is a combination destined to cripple PAT.
Eric Montarti, Senior Policy Analyst
For updates and commentary on daily issues please visit our blog at alleghenyinstitute.org/blog.
If you have enjoyed reading this Policy Brief and would like to send it to a friend, please feel free to forward it to them.
For more information on this and other topics, please visit our web site: alleghenyinstitute.org
If you wish to support our efforts please consider becoming a donor to the Allegheny Institute. The Allegheny Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and all contributions are tax deductible. Please mail your contribution to:
The Allegheny Institute
305 Mt. Lebanon Boulevard
Suite 208
Pittsburgh, PA 15234
An electronic publication of
The Allegheny Institute for Public Policy
April 21, 2010
Volume 10, Number 21
Without tolls on Interstate 80 (I-80) to generate funds for roads, bridges, and mass transit, the CEO of Port Authority (PAT) says that what was a $25 million deficit for the coming fiscal year will grow to $50 million.
This is obviously not what was envisioned three years ago when PAT wasted no time in increasing its budget after Act 44—the transportation funding law that contained the I-80 provision, as well as permission for Allegheny County to levy two new taxes on liquor and car rentals for transit funding—was signed into law. That initial increase has been compounded to the point where the operating budget is now 12 percent higher than it was intended to be for 2008. Recall that, as we pointed out in Briefs and Reports, PAT was already far out of line with peer operators on costs and performance indicators.
In June 2007, PAT instituted a 15 percent service reduction and laid off 203 employees. The PAT board passed an FY08 budget of $325.1 million that same month that contained an additional 10 percent service reduction and an additional 174 layoffs that was to go into effect in September of 2007.
The following month Act 44 was passed. The CEO heralded the fact that the law provided PAT with $55 million in new operating funds and $12 million in capital funds for FY08. The following week the Board rescinded the planned 10 percent service reduction, avoided the planned layoffs, and adopted a revised operating budget of $336 million for FY08. On the day the revised budget was passed the CEO stated “…we can begin the process of designing a system that allows us to realize every possible service efficiency and do the most with all available resources”.
Too bad that did not happen. For FY09, the Board passed an operating budget of $350.2 million (up 4% over FY08) that assumed the collective bargaining process with the Amalgamated Transit Union would produce “a minimum of $10 million in cost reductions”. Without that minimum threshold PAT’s CEO noted that “[PAT] will be forced to significantly cut service, raise fares, and layoff employees in 2009 and every year thereafter until transit service eventually becomes insufficient to adequately serve the region’s mobility needs”. Soon after, in July of 2008, the Federal Highway Administration wrote to the PA Turnpike Commission that the I-80 application was rejected. The contract settlement that followed contained virtually no immediate savings.
Last June the Board passed a $362.9 million operating budget, a 3.6 percent boost over FY09 and 12 percent higher than what was originally intended for FY08. The budget had a fare increase and no service cuts, but the CEO felt that the agency was “…taking money from crucial maintenance projects to plug gaps in our operating budget”. By this time the handwriting was on the wall that the I-80 plan was in deep trouble with the Federal government.
When the new presidential administration gave Pennsylvania the same answer on I-80 as the previous administration, here’s how the CEO reacted: “the failure to meet funding commitments under Act 44 would force Port Authority to consider sharp service cuts that could isolate neighborhoods and severely compromise regional mobility in the Pittsburgh region”.
So why is it that with the overhaul of transportation funding, two new locally-generated revenues, and a new collective bargaining agreement that the Authority still finds itself with a budget gap that is made worse by the I-80 rejection? Simply put, there was no real effort to move to smaller buses as a way to improve efficiency, no effort to commit to outsourcing as employees retired or resigned, and the cost savings from the union contract were not immediate enough to make a difference.
As we pointed out in a previous Policy Brief (Volume 7, Number 8) contract language spells out that small buses are limited to 3 percent of the total number of large buses in service and that they be limited to low density areas. There is some service to and from the trolley stops but the union’s preference for operating and maintaining large buses is quite clear. According to the FY10 budget there are 876 buses and 48 small transit vehicles in the fleet, the latter representing 5 percent of all vehicles.
In a subsequent Brief (Volume 8, Number 74) that summarized the 2008 ATU contract settlement, we noted that the language on small buses stayed the same, and the PAT board’s desire for 20 percent of operations to be outsourced was eliminated from the contract. Headcount has remained virtually unchanged since FY08 at approximately 2,750 employees. The agency did not outsource service based on the layoffs in June 2007. The savings that were squeezed out of the contract for post-retirement health care were minimal and long-term: not much was done for the immediate term. Employee benefits as a percentage of salaries and wages have grown to 90 percent, up from 81 percent in FY08. As we just noted earlier this year (Volume 10, Number 12) failure to achieve any meaningful cost reductions “is coming back to haunt [PAT]”.
There will never be enough money for the Port Authority, especially with the trajectory of pensions and health care benefits, the hammerlock the agency has on mass transit service in Allegheny County and the union’s right to strike. It is a combination destined to cripple PAT.
Eric Montarti, Senior Policy Analyst
For updates and commentary on daily issues please visit our blog at alleghenyinstitute.org/blog.
If you have enjoyed reading this Policy Brief and would like to send it to a friend, please feel free to forward it to them.
For more information on this and other topics, please visit our web site: alleghenyinstitute.org
If you wish to support our efforts please consider becoming a donor to the Allegheny Institute. The Allegheny Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and all contributions are tax deductible. Please mail your contribution to:
The Allegheny Institute
305 Mt. Lebanon Boulevard
Suite 208
Pittsburgh, PA 15234
Friday, April 16, 2010
North Shore April Fool's Day Field Trip
I had a LTE in my local weekly (Plum) today (4/15/2010) about Pittsburgh's North Shore Connector. We've discussed this disaster in Libertarian Pittsburgh posts long ago, but a local field trip article encouraged me to write. I'm glad they printed it, but I didn't like their editing. Here's the LTE as-submitted with the omitted parts in [bold].
Mark
Plum Advance Leader
Connector a symbol for poor government spending
April 15, 2010
Dear Editor:
While there's merit exposing students to engineering projects ("Plum High School students go underground for a look at Connector", Karen Zapf, 4/1/2010), there's a cruel irony in that [April 1st] piece.
The Connector, an admirable engineering accomplishment, is a classic example of a misguided, wasteful use of public money.
Politicians from Tom Murphy to Rick Santorum to Ed Rendell promoted it. Costs increased from $363 million in 2003 to $552 million today. It consumed limited resources, denying better uses. ["Even Governor Rendell eventually admitted, "I guess you've got to finish it, but it's a tragic mistake."]
Other tragic mistakes -- insane wars, punishing success with taxes, rewarding failure with bailouts, and buying votes with walking-around money, federal earmarks and entitlements -- have far costlier consequences.
State and local governments are $3 trillion in debt. The national debt tops $12 trillion. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' benefits and federal pension obligations exceed $100 trillion. The dollar's value fell 10% in the past 12 months and is going down.
The cruel irony is that when those students stood in that hole beneath the Allegheny River, it was an inescapable metaphor for the hole in which their generation was placed.
Mark Crowley, Plum
Mark
Plum Advance Leader
Connector a symbol for poor government spending
April 15, 2010
Dear Editor:
While there's merit exposing students to engineering projects ("Plum High School students go underground for a look at Connector", Karen Zapf, 4/1/2010), there's a cruel irony in that [April 1st] piece.
The Connector, an admirable engineering accomplishment, is a classic example of a misguided, wasteful use of public money.
Politicians from Tom Murphy to Rick Santorum to Ed Rendell promoted it. Costs increased from $363 million in 2003 to $552 million today. It consumed limited resources, denying better uses. ["Even Governor Rendell eventually admitted, "I guess you've got to finish it, but it's a tragic mistake."]
Other tragic mistakes -- insane wars, punishing success with taxes, rewarding failure with bailouts, and buying votes with walking-around money, federal earmarks and entitlements -- have far costlier consequences.
State and local governments are $3 trillion in debt. The national debt tops $12 trillion. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' benefits and federal pension obligations exceed $100 trillion. The dollar's value fell 10% in the past 12 months and is going down.
The cruel irony is that when those students stood in that hole beneath the Allegheny River, it was an inescapable metaphor for the hole in which their generation was placed.
Mark Crowley, Plum
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
