The Bus Stops Here

I'm trying to get myself into the habit of taking the bus to work. Not because of any great hippie organic environmental save-the-whales vibe --- I do drive two V-8 powered barges, after all --- but because I have to pay to park, and I'm trying to save a couple of bucks here and there. (The rising price of gas to fuel those V-8 powered barges is also a factor in my decision.)

It's a two-bus ride to work; I have to take one of the "suburban" feeder buses for the first ride, and then switch to one of the radial buses that runs directly to Downtown Picksberg. That requires changing buses either at the transit center on Lysle Boulevard in Our Fair City or out somewhere along the side of the road.

Yesterday morning, during the first part of the journey, I had an entire 54-seat coach to myself for most of the 20-minute ride. (The second bus I caught into Pittsburgh was packed to the roof; it lacked only a yak and some chickens to look exactly like a commuter train in New Delhi.)

I can't imagine how it's cost-effective to run a 54-seat bus to pick up two people. Mind you, I appreciate the convenience of being able to walk to the bus stop, and the trip did save me parking fees and gasoline. But even if both I and the high schooler had both paid the full cash fare (I used a pass), we wouldn't have covered even half of the bus driver's wage for that trip, much less wear and tear and fuel on the bus.

Of course, running nearly-empty buses isn't cost-effective. The Port Authority is planning to increase the base fare about 75 cents (from $1.75 to $2.50), eliminate many suburban routes, eliminate weekend and holiday service, and cancel any service after 9 p.m. unless it can get a $30 million subsidy from the state or federal government.

Our Fair City stands to lose out big time. The Mon-Yough area has one of the region's largest concentration of suburban bus routes --- a relic of the old Penn Transit and Ridge Lines days --- and I suspect they would be among the first to get the axe. (Local service around McKeesport was already severely whacked once, several years ago, which left many buses running only from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. --- thus making them nearly useless for commuters.) All of the feeder routes in and around Homestead and Munhall would likely suffer as well.

The issue becomes whether you regard public transportation as a luxury item or a necessity. For someone like me, it's kind of a luxury --- I save wear and tear on my car and parking fees, and get to read the paper. A lot of conservatives argue that public transportation should be privatized for that reason --- they say that only car-hating hippie liberals ride the bus, and that autos help the economy. If public transportation is so necessary, they say, then let the private sector step in and run bus service.

They ignore their history. The private sector used to run bus service in Pittsburgh and nearly every other metropolitan area as recently as the 1960s. They couldn't make a profit at it --- which is how we ended up with Port Authority in the first place. And I don't see a lot of people wearing Birkenstocks and carrying Starbucks coffee on the buses in my neighborhood. I see a lot of single moms, minorities and the elderly, who either don't have cars or can't drive.

For the poor and senior citizens, who make up a large percentage of the Mon-Yough area, public transit is usually the only lifeline to work, the doctor, or the grocery store. (Fester had more to say on that angle a while ago, and he said it better than I can.)

As Jonathan Potts pointed out at The Conversation recently, there's probably some hyperbole in the Port Authority's announcement that's designed to force the state Legislature into helping it out; and there are plenty of places the agency could cut money (not extending Pittsburgh's par three, three-hole miniature subway to the North Shore, for one).

The Gospel According to Matthew says the poor "will always be with us." Conservatives want to get them off of the dole and into the workforce --- which is a good thing.

But if we want them to get to work --- or get to school so they can find something better than a minimum wage job, or get to health care so they're well enough to hold whatever jobs they find --- then we have to support public transit in some way, shape or form.

Which means the taxpayers end up paying one way or another, either directly in the form of food stamps and welfare, or indirectly by supporting public transit. Since public transit enables people to contribute to society, paying for it is probably a better bet than paying people to stay at home.

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It's the stingy man who winds up spending the most: In reality, yesterday's bus ride cost me $12. Since the bus driver and I were basically by ourselves, he struck up a conversation and we wound up shooting the bull during the entire ride.

I was in such a happy mood by the time he let me out that I left my umbrella on the seat and didn't remember it until the bus was out of sight.

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Maybe it's just not a good time to be in the transportation business in Western Pennsylvania. Travel agents are recommending that USAirways not buy any green bananas, according to U.S. News & World Report:

This time, U.S. Airways passengers realize it's not just bankruptcy as usual. Charles Wysor, president of Ambassador Travel in Pittsburgh, has been telling customers they should book flights with another airline if they're planning travel after January 1. Businesses in Pittsburgh, where U.S. Airways is the dominant carrier and offers nonstop service to 91 cities, are still flying the airline, hoping to help keep it afloat. But they're doing contingency planning. "I'm very concerned," says one corporate travel manager. She has analyzed alternative service to the 70 cities where her company typically flies and has come up with a mishmash of bad options that would normally require connections instead of the usual U.S. Airways nonstops. "I can't imagine what we'd do without them," she frets.

You could always take the train, right? Not so fast, says the Pittsburgh Business Times:

(In) November the Three Rivers will cease to exist, and the Pennsylvanian will begin a temporary extension to Chicago. Amtrak had extended the Pennsylvanian to Chicago in 1998 so it could carry mail, but ended that arrangement last year when it changed the train's schedule.

Early in March 2005, Amtrak will end the Pennsylvanian's extension to Chicago. The New York-to-Pittsburgh train's schedule will be adjusted in April. Ending Pittsburgh-to-Chicago service on the Three Rivers and the Pennsylvanian means several towns in Ohio will lose passenger-train service entirely, Amtrak said. ... In Ohio, cities including Youngstown, Akron and Fostoria will no longer have Amtrak service.

Hmm.

Well, as long as we don't live in any of the places where cars and bridges were washed away by flooding, we can drive to where we want to go, right? The BizTimes again:

(Energy) inventories are being strained by one of the worst hurricane seasons to hit the United States since officials began keeping records in 1851. As those storms swept the Gulf of Mexico over the last five weeks, they delayed or stopped oil and gas production and transportation. With high oil prices and cleanup efforts continuing in storm-hit areas, AAA predicted gas prices could continue rising.

Well, then. Who wants to leave Our Fair City, anyway?

Even if they did, who can? Our transportation options are down to Florsheims and Nikes. And, recently, rowboats.

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Tip o' the hard hat to Peter Leo, by the way, from whom I stole the "par three, three-stop" subway bit. He writes much too infrequently these days, but he memorably teed off (or is that "T'd"?) on Port Authority inefficiency twice back in 2002. (Among his radical suggestions for improving PAT: "Require drivers to pick up passengers," and "Provide amenities for riders. For example, seats.")