City transit faces funding issues

Though Pitt students can flash an ID and ride the Port Authority buses without paying, it… Though Pitt students can flash an ID and ride the Port Authority buses without paying, it costs a lot of money to keep the wheels on the bus going round.

Students may wonder where the money is coming from, if not from their pockets. The answer is that it’s not coming from anywhere: According to the Post-Gazette, the Authority faces a $31.5 million deficit starting Jan. 1, and it has even developed a scorecard to evaluate which routes to cut in the event that it doesn’t get any more funding.

A lack of funding for transportation is a historic problem, according to Port Authority spokesman Bob Grove.

“It’s not a recent phenomenon. Coming up with dependable, growing resources for transit has been a problem for a decade,” he said.

The problems with transit in Pittsburgh are myriad, according to Grove. One is the topography of the city. The lack of a cohesive, grid-based street plan makes engineering effective routes difficult.

Pittsburgh’s steep terrain, compounded with winter snowfall, also increases wear and tear on vehicles, and the bridges and tunnels that travel over and through these hills create traffic bottlenecks. The “T,” the Authority’s light rail system serving Downtown, Station Square and the South Hills, actually includes in its Allentown route the steepest hill of any light rail system in the country.

These factors all translate to increased operating costs for the Authority’s buses and light rails.

“I don’t think there’s any question that we’re going to go through brake pads quicker than somebody in Arizona might,” Grove said.

In addition to the operating challenges the city itself provides, the system of funding allocation itself also presents difficulty.

Currently, the state budget provides funding for the state’s transit authorities. Seventy percent of that money is given to the Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority in Philadelphia, 24.25 percent goes to the Port Authority and the rest is given to other authorities throughout the state.

Until three years ago, that amount remained flat — it did not increase, even though the price of consumables, such as diesel and tires, did.

“That catches up with you,” Grove said. And although for the past three years it has increased at a rate between 2 and 3 percent, this rate is not at par with the rate of inflation.

According to the Post-Gazette, however, the consequences might be drastic if the deficit is not closed. Consolidation of all fare zones into a single $2.50 zone, reductions in service of up to 24 percent, and job eliminations and layoffs affecting up to 3,000 people are all possibilities.

Currently, the highest fare zone, serving far-flung destinations such as Cranberry and the airport, is $2.25; within the city, fare is $1.75.

Fares, purchased in tokens, for Philadelphia buses are $1.30, according to the city transit authority’s Web site.

One way the Authority stabilizes its funding situation is through contracting with Pitt and Carnegie Mellon. Since 1998, students, faculty and staff of these two institutions have ridden the Authority’s buses, trolleys and inclines fare-free. To grant its affiliates these privileges, the University of Pittsburgh paid the Port Authority nearly $3.38 million in 2006; Carnegie Mellon paid $766,000.

“We know going into the budget year that we have a contract with the University of Pittsburgh and CMU, and we know what that contract means to us financially. There are a lot of unknowns floating around, but these are very predictable,” Grove said.

Considering this spring’s funding stalemate, during which the Port Authority was almost forced to cut service after 9 p.m. until the state came through with emergency funding to compensate for the Authority’s deficit, predictability is certainly an asset.

“We’re doing everything we can to make sure we can operate the kind of system that we want, but we’re going to need some kind of help … I would say that, right now, we are closer, we certainly feel that we are closer to a permanent solution than we have been in a long time.”

The reason for his optimism is the creation of the Transportation Funding and Reform Commission. Formed by the state a year ago, the purpose of the commission is to assess the causes for the financial difficulties experienced by state transit authorities and to suggest solutions.

“Even though this problem has been around for decades, this is the first time that a body like this has been formed and given the job of getting to the bottom of what the transit funding problem is and how we might solve it,” Grove said.

“There’s no escaping the fact that transit is important to people, and it’s important to the state’s economy.”