More than 400 gather for rally against Port Authority service cuts

People from blocks around could hear the shouts and cheers of more than 400 people protesting… People from blocks around could hear the shouts and cheers of more than 400 people protesting Port Authority service cuts in Squirrel Hill Saturday afternoon.

With little more than a week to go before the cuts take effect, protesters sought to change policymakers’ minds about reducing service by 15 percent because of a lack of funding. The impending cuts brought together organizations representing students, community members and transit workers.

Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85, which represents Port Authority bus drivers, helped organize the permitted protest along with Pittsburghers for Public Transit. Pitt senior Andrew Wagner, a history and political science major, helped organize and publicize the protest as a part of Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

Wagner, a member of Pitt’s Students for a Democratic Society group, created the Facebook event for the protest.

“We want to show the policymakers that we are not going to stand for cuts to public transit,” he said. “In fact, we demand that there is an improvement in public transit. We really think that the city depends on it.”

Pitt freshman Cathy Walsh came to the protest after receiving a Facebook invite for Wagner’s event. She and others marched up Murray Avenue to oppose the cuts independent from any of the organizations.

“I’ve never been to something like this,” she said, raising her voice to be heard above the crowd. “I don’t know much about this part of the Pittsburgh economy, but as Pitt students, we’re paying for it.”

Students on Pitt’s Oakland campus receive Port Authority rides as part of their $90-per-semester Safety, Security and Transportation Fee.

Wagner said that, as a Pitt student living in Friendship, he relies a lot on Port Authority service.

“Without the 54C, I’d be late for class a lot,” he said.

Leading up to the start of the march at noon, drivers honked horns and the crowd cheered whenever a passenger exited a Port Authority bus, until police shut down traffic on Murray Avenue and the protesters stepped off the sidewalks at Beacon Street to begin their march northward.

Police prohibited parking on Murray Avenue from noon to 2 p.m. for the protesters, who marched from Beacon Street to the intersection of Forbes and Murray avenues.

The crowd piled onto the lawn and steps of the Sixth Presbyterian Church at Forbes and Murray avenues about 12:30 p.m. for the rally. Some of the crowd spilled onto the sidewalk.-

Speakers decried the Port Authority’s planned March 27 cuts, which would reduce service by 15 percent across the county. It would also eliminate 29 routes entirely and reduce service on a number of others, including the 71A, C and D routes that run through Oakland. At times, the speakers were drowned out by chants of “Stop the cuts” for up to half a minute.

The cuts came after $45 million in federal funds directed by former Gov. Ed Rendell were meant to prevent service cuts of about 30 percent. The Port Authority’s Board of Trustees approved the smaller, 15 percent cuts in January — partially because of a lack of dedicated funding.

The rally on the church lawn petered out after 1 p.m. when speakers turned off the bullhorn after a promise that they would continue protesting at Friday’s Port Authority Board meeting Downtown.

Mark Cheran, a Virginia native, said that he hadn’t heard of the protest before he pulled up in his red SUV to the intersection of Murray Avenue and Bartlett Street just after noon. The Point Park University alumnus said he didn’t like the idea of the cuts — he used the Port Authority often when in college.

However, stuck at the intersection while the protest went by, he had a different problem.

“I was just trying to find a place to park,” he said.