Port Authority OKs comment period on cuts
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Was it an omen when the wheels came off of a Port Authority bus this week?
After years of facing recurring budget crises, fare increases, threats of service cuts and actual cuts, transit riders are facing what might be their bumpiest trip ever this year, as the agency prepares for another fare hike and record-setting service reductions.
As if that wasn't enough, the authority's contract with its biggest union, representing drivers, mechanics and first-level supervisors, expires in June, and pre-bargaining rhetoric is already showing traces of hostility.
The authority board on Friday took the first step toward a 35 percent service reduction scheduled for Sept. 2 and fare increases planned for July 1, approving a legally mandated public comment period and hearing.
Public comment will be accepted from Feb. 5 to March 9, and an all-day public hearing will be held Feb. 29 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
The base fare would rise by 25 cents, to $2.50. A Zone 2 trip would go up 50 cents, to $3.75.
Board members said they are opposed to service cuts but will have no choice unless Gov. Tom Corbett and the Legislature address a statewide transportation funding shortfall that has helped push the transit agency into a $64 million hole.
"This is not the desired direction of this board. But faced with an ongoing shortfall in state funding, we have to plan for the worst. And this is the worst," vice chairman Guy Mattola said.
"Cutting 35 percent of our total service, including nearly half of the routes in our entire system, would be a crushing blow to this region's transportation network. We're not talking anymore about the difference between getting a seat on a bus or standing. We're talking about whether there's a bus to ride at all," he said.
The cuts would eliminate 46 of the agency's remaining 102 routes, the largest reduction in the authority's 48-year history. The authority cut 15 percent of its service in March, stranding thousands of riders and forcing others into overcrowded buses.
Board member Joan Ellenbogen said she is concerned about the state's lack of action since August, when a commission appointed by Mr. Corbett presented "a very solid framework" for fee increases and other revenue measures to provide more funding for the state's crumbling roads and bridges and ailing transit agencies.
Authority CEO Steve Bland said the authority and its customers are eager to hear what the governor says about transportation when he delivers his annual budget address Feb. 7.
"I'd like to emphasize that these cuts can be avoided," he said. "This all can be avoided simply by fixing the way Pennsylvania pays for transportation programs."
After the meeting, he took aim at a recent comment by Mr. Corbett's spokesman that the Port Authority's funding woes were a local, rather than state, problem.
"If this is a local problem, why was there an executive order creating a transportation funding commission?" he said, referring to the panel appointed by the governor last year.
Mr. Bland said he has been encouraged by the response of a variety of local organizations, ranging from neighborhood advocates to business leaders, who have called for a statewide solution that preserves transit.
One civic leader who spoke at Friday's meeting, Chris Sandvig, regional policy manager for the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group, said the proposed cuts would leave the county's economy "stuck on the roadside without even an emergency gas can."
"It shouldn't be this hard. The governor's handpicked panel, created by his executive order, came up with simple recommendations -- ones that will cost drivers about $11 a month. Now I ask the drivers out there: Don't you think that you'll pay well in excess of that sitting in front of tunnels, or for a parking space, provided you can even find one?" Mr. Sandvig asked.
The confluence of state action and Port Authority contract talks might be still another complication. Will lawmakers approve a rescue plan without knowing the extent of contract concessions acceptable to the union? Will the union be willing to ratify a concessionary contract without a guarantee that the service cuts, which would cause up to 600 layoffs, will be averted?
"It becomes a chicken-and-egg thing," Mr. Bland said.
It was probably a good thing there were no eggs in the board room on Friday. Patrick McMahon, the fiery president of Local 85 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, said the union is willing to do its part but said he'll insist on changes to management practices he believes are wasteful. He renewed his criticism of the authority for turning down what he has estimated as $19 million in contract concessions that he offered to try to stop the March service cuts.
Mr. McMahon said the union has agreed to an early start on bargaining. "The men and women of Local 85 have consistently shown our willingness to do our part," he said. "Do not interpret our early return to the bargaining table as a sign of weakness."
When board chairman Jack Brooks made what seemed to be a general remark about wanting to reach a fair agreement, Mr. McMahon flared, asking from his seat in the audience if the chairman was trying to debate him.
As for that 28X Airport Flyer bus that lost its two left rear wheels on the Parkway West on Thursday, the authority was still investigating the cause. Two cars were damaged trying to swerve around the wheels but no one was injured.
First Published January 28, 2012 12:00 am
