A box of Valentine's candy gets you only so far.

I was with a baker's dozen of church folk who came to South Hills Village to break bread, or at least ethnic fare, at the food court. They are the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network and, on this cold Wednesday afternoon, they wanted to spend a few dollars conspicuously before quietly filing into the mall manager's office with the candy and a statement.

It was about the transit stops at the mall, located somewhere between insulting and dangerous.

This group is seeking more respect for transit riders and their shopping dollars. As soft-spoken Shirley Atkins, an "advanced senior" and a member of the New Hope United Methodist Church on the North Side, succinctly put it to a mall employee, "Crossing is a grave concern for some of us."

I'm still reasonably spry and can dodge the cars circling the mall like any good Golden Triangle jaywalker, but the bus stops and the T station are about 450 feet from the Macy's door and on the wrong side of the mall's perimeter roadway. That makes it a bear for the elderly and infirm, particularly in the slippy time of year.

Obviously, the T station can't be moved, but the bus stops were moved from a spot near the mall entrance nearly three years ago. Both the T and bus riders exit at a place hundreds of steps from the four-way stoplight where cars enter, and most pedestrians naturally head straight for the mall across traffic.

This group broke with every shopping instinct and walked parallel to the mall in the sub-freezing chill to reach the stoplight and cross legally, but the sidewalks were icy, too. Pedestrians are obviously given the short shovel. The long walk had very much the feel of arriving through the servant's entrance.

Wallace Watson, 72, a retired professor of English at Duquesne University and member of the Friends Meeting House in Oakland, said, "We know a certain linebacker who was exhausted after only 100 yards."

OK, now that the obligatory Super Bowl reference is out of the way, I can tell you that the unannounced entry to the mall manager's office got no further than the young woman at the front desk. She politely told us Manager Linda Accettulla was unavailable, and the visitors, equally polite, said their piece, then a prayer, and left.

I left my card atop the candy, and when I returned to the office after riding the T back, I had phone messages from two public relations people representing the Simon Property Group, which owns the mall. When I told one that these transit advocates also complained about Simon's other malls, Century III and Ross Park, my request for comment was passed up the corporate ladder. Two days later, I got an e-mail.

Robert T. Guerra, portfolio vice president for Simon Management Group, said the safety and opinions of customers "have always been our top priorities." He mentioned the designated crosswalk at the light, and said the bus stops were moved from the mall three years ago "in part as a convenience to commuters who transfer from bus to T."

But buses could stop at the mall, as they once did, and still stop at the T. "It's not one or the other," Port Authority spokeswoman Judi McNeil said. "We put the stop at the garage when the mall kicked us out three years ago."

As for Mr. Guerra's statement that the "distance from the bus stop to [each mall's] entrance is actually less than the interior stretch of the mall," the weather and traffic is a tad more challenging outdoors.

The authority gets fewer complaints from South Hills Village riders than from those trying to get to Ross Park and Century III. The Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network sent more than 30 members to Ross Park in December and plans its third mall crawl at 1 p.m. Feb. 18 at Century III.

Our country is over-retailed for an under-walleted people, but there seems no likely scenario where transit riders are ever more than a trickle within the overall flow at suburban malls. So not much has changed since the summer of 2007, when Simon officials, saying the buses tore up the asphalt, moved the bus stops at Ross Park and Century III to the nether reaches of the asphalt seas.

Most shoppers wouldn't want to force an elderly woman or wheelchair user to travel 150 yards in bad weather, but unless more workers and shoppers care enough to speak up, nothing will change.