Carved into a wooded hillside in Beechview at the bottom of a long set of city steps, the Traymore stop on the Port Authority's Light Rail Transit system seems to attract more graffiti vandals than transit patrons.

According to a Port Authority consultant, an average of one person a day boards inbound trains there, making it the least-used of the 61 stops on the South Hills rail system.

Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates, which has an $880,000 state-funded contract to assist the Port Authority in a planned major overhaul of bus and rail service, is recommending that the authority consider eliminating Traymore and other little-used stops.

Twenty stops on the rail system have fewer than 50 inbound boardings per day, and collectively they generate less than 4 percent of ridership, the consultant determined.

Port Authority CEO Steve Bland said elimination of bus and rail stops is likely as part of the service overhaul that will be presented to the public over the next several months, starting with three "concepts" to be unveiled in the next week or two.

"One of the clear messages we got from the user community was that the system is too slow," Mr. Bland said, referring to an earlier round of public meetings on possible changes.

"Right now, the T is a bus route with steel wheels," with slow operating speeds, frequent stops and high per-passenger costs, he said.

Critics have long complained about the speed of the rail system. In 1987, two years after the system opened, a Model T automobile bested the T in a race from South Hills Village to Downtown.

But previous plans to eliminate stops have met with fierce resistance. More than 400 people jammed a meeting at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Beechview in 1999 to protest plans to eliminate little-used stops in the neighborhood. The Port Authority backed down.

According to Nelson/Nygaard, three of the five least-used stops are in Beechview: Traymore, Dawn, with six daily passengers, and Pennant, with 12. Three other Beechview stops -- Boustead, Palm Garden and Belasco -- have fewer than 50 daily boardings.

The busiest stations, South Hills Village and Steel Plaza, each have about 1,500 boardings on a typical weekday.

Mr. Bland said the authority will consider cutting stops where it results in faster and more efficient service.

"It's not something you do just for the sake of eliminating a stop," he said. "If you're able to save a minute 10 times over a 40-minute trip, that's significant."

Geoff Slater, a principal in Nelson/Nygaard, said the firm's review found the rail system slower, costlier and with more stops than comparable systems. The average speed of a light-rail vehicle is 13.7 mph.

It costs the authority $4.41 per passenger on weekdays to operate the rail system, and $5.43 per passenger overall. That is 40 percent more than the average cost for seven comparable systems in other cities studied by Nelson/Nygaard.

Riders pay a $2 base fare; $2.60 for a two-zone ride.

The Port Authority system has 2.9 stops per mile, 60 percent higher than the average of comparable systems.

Mr. Slater said several changes were suggested to make the rail system simpler, easier to use and more efficient. "This is an asset that should be given more prominence," he said.

The study, which can be viewed along with evaluations of every other Port Authority route at http://tdp.portauthority.org/paac, recommends consolidating the system into three routes and renaming them with colors to distinguish them from numbered bus routes.

A Red Line would go from South Hills Village via Overbrook to Downtown; a Green Line from Library via Overbrook to Downtown; and a Blue Line from Castle Shannon via Beechview to Downtown.

All outbound service on the Beechview line would terminate at Castle Shannon. Riders going farther south would transfer to the Red or Green lines.

The firm also recommended that the authority try faster operating speeds, saying the current limits -- 35 mph on the Overbrook line and 10-15 mph at gated grade crossings -- "are likely slower than required for safe operation."

It recommended routing some bus routes to the T instead of Downtown during off-peak hours; the rail system already operates at nearly full capacity during rush hours.

The bus and rail route overhaul will be the subject of several workshops, hearings and public meetings over the coming months, with board action on a final plan scheduled for late September, Mr. Bland said.

He said comments to date about the consultant's proposals "have been very supportive."

"Everyone in town that I've talked to has said we have way too many stops, too many routes, that the system is too complicated," Mr. Bland said.

Then he added: "I haven't met anybody who said 'Take my stop or take my route.' "