PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Good-bye public transit
by stephen donahue Monday, Nov. 29, 2004 at 10:54 AM

PA Legislature adjourns, they tell public transit riders to go to hell.

The PA General Assembly has adjourned. All legislation that would have increased dedicated funding for the public transit and which would have prevented major service cuts and fare hikes has vanished like a puff of smoke. In the face of this Governor Ed Rendell has stated that he will not seek any sort of highway funding flex to band aid public transit along either. And so public transit in PA is near death. Most likely in early March of 2005, but perhaps sooner, the Port Authority of Allegheny County will balance its budget by implementing the following:
• No weekend & holiday service
• No night time service
• 70 routes eliminated
• Increasing the base fare to $2.50
• Laying off 500 workers

Save Our Transit is asking the Port Authority board to not implement these service cuts and the fare hikes. Instead this group of bus and light rail riders is asking the Port Authority to maintain its present service levels and fare schedule until it becomes economically impossible to run the system anymore and then just shut the whole thing down.

Save Our Transit members do not want the Port Authority board to send the message to the state legislators that it is okay for them to cut the throat of dependent public transit riders. By implementing massive service cuts so as to balance its budget the Port Authority will be telling the state that they are willing to play along with getting raped. No, the Port Authority board must stand up to the state law makers and tell them to fund public transit now or risk losing the entire system.

Lost service is rarely ever restored. These proposed service cuts will already spell the end of public transit for many who depend on public transit to get around and these service cuts constitute an attack on the poor and low wage earner in this region. They will be opposed.

The Port Authority board will meet on Thursday, December 16, 2004 sometime that morning most likely. They will vote then on whether to implement these proposed cuts or not. Save Our Transit will be there saying NO SERVICE CUTS & NO FARE HIKES!

In January the State General Assembly will return to Harrisburg to do whatever it is they do there. Starting then Save Our Transit intends to implement a time of direct action for public transit. This might include disruptions and civil disobedience as needed and as the group is able.

Early last summer hopes were high for public transit. Now all hopes are dashed. For many it still seems unreal that a major public transit system sits on the edge of death. But this is no night mare nor is it an accident. The deliberate under funding of public transit by those law makers who represent Pennsylvania’s free marketeers is designed to lead to its collapse and privatization. Also right on queue attacks on the union bus drivers, mechanics and other Port Authority employees are being launched by the right wing Allegheny Institute.

Seeing that this would happen, Save Our Transit adopted a brief but to the point mission statement three years ago – “More public funding for public transit.” Privatization and union busting will not be tolerated. Save Our Transit members are placing their hope with their fellow riders and Allegheny County residents. They hope that in the region that gave birth to the union movement that solidarity is not a forgotten ideal.

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