 
|
|||||||||
              
|
Getting Around: Port Authority adds hand-holds to new buses
Sunday, November 28, 1999 By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Let's talk turkey.
If the Port Authority could attach drumsticks left over from Thanksgiving dinner to the ceiling of its new low-floor buses, Florence Litzinger and other riders in her situation would have at least something to hang onto.
In addition to being 76 years old, she is 4 feet, 11 inches tall. There are too few poles, no handles on the aisle seats and no straps to grab when she can't get a seat, which is almost always.
The Shadyside-Oakland buses that Litzinger rides to work at Children's Hospital are as stuffed as holiday turkeys because the buses operate through a busy corridor where regular riders include college students and staff who get special low-fare benefits.
"There's nothing for short people like me to hold onto," she said. "I get squeezed and lost in the crowd. It's dangerous and I'm scared. So are my friends. ... I can name names."
Litzinger noted the aisle is narrower than on the old-style buses and that the new buses "jerk" when operators ease up on the accelerator.
The Port Authority has put 160 of the new low-floor buses into service. In addition to mechanical and style changes, the front doors open and close at curb level, thereby eliminating three cumbersome steps up or down. As a result, the front "wheel wells" not only take up interior space but also force a reconfiguration of things, including wheelchair areas.
While Litzinger turned to "Getting Around" for help getting around, others have complained to the Port Authority.
"We're hearing a lot of things, positive and negative," authority operations boss Don Bell said of the buses, which cost $292,500 apiece.
Design changes will be made when the next group of low-floor buses is ordered. For now, the authority is making minor modifications.
"We're retrofitting," Bell said. "We're adding straps and will use some longer straps to address the concerns that customers have expressed. We're also looking at where we might be able to add a [pole] or two."
The mechanical "jerks" that Litzinger reports are real, the result of first-ever "engine retarders" in authority buses. They employ engine dynamics to slow buses and thereby extend brake life, much like drivers shifting to lower gears in vehicles with manual transmissions.
The human "jerks" are college students who don't relinquish their seats to women who need them.
Despite the shortcomings, the low-floor buses in gold, blue, purple and teal have added a welcome new look to Pittsburgh streets.
Lower McArdle. Kimberly Rodgers of Mt. Lebanon, Sue Hutchins of Mount Washington, Dr. Matthew Siegler of Dormont and other e-mailers and letter writers must think I'm some kind of turkey.
For two months, I've been putting aside their questions about what's up with Lower McArdle Roadway.
Not much -- and that's part of the problem.
The north (downhill) side of the half-mile-long South Side connector is closed from Arlington Avenue to East Carson Street, below the Liberty Tunnels. The south (uphill) side now carries a 3-ton weight limit.
Two bridges on Lower McArdle Roadway have deteriorated so badly that city officials had no choice but to impose restrictions to prevent their collapsing. The good news is that the road is open at all. The bad news is you should be prepared to find another route.
Fred Reginella, director of the city's engineering and construction department, said the city would have to pay 100 percent of the cost of emergency repairs that would probably be short-lived.
"Why make repairs that aren't going to mean much and then have to close the road again?" he said, noting that the federal government pays 80 percent, and the state pays 15 percent, for the permanent repairs that, in this case, will be more than $1 million.
By this time next year, the city hopes to award a contract to eliminate the bridge next to Arlington Avenue. A big retaining wall is to be built, and the bridge will be replaced with a roadway sitting on earthen fill. About two years from now, the city hopes to renovate the bigger bridge behind South Stadium. For about three years, construction will close Lower McArdle to through traffic.
Why not do both projects at once? The city has to maintain access to houses and apartments on Windom Street, which runs off Lower McArdle between the two bridges.
Send your transportation questions, complaints and suggestions to Joe Grata c/o The Post-Gazette, or e-mail him at jgrata@post-gazette.com. Please include your address and phone number.
|
||||||||
