PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

RENDELL TOSSES PUBLIC TRANSIT SOME CRUMBS
by stephen donahue Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2004 at 8:55 AM

Port Authority to get a $4.7 million band aid

This morning, Tuesday December 21, 2004, Governor Ed Rendell (a.k.a. Fast Eddie) came to Pittsburgh in his 100 mile per hour limo and tossed some crumbs to the dying Port Authority of Allegheny County. By digging into his bag of loot the Gov. was able to announce that he has $18.8 million for public transit state wide. The Port Authority’s share of that will come to $4.7 million. In the face of a budget deficit of over $30 million that ain’t much help. Given this sudden infusion of cash however the Port Authority did announce that it will postpone increasing fares until March 1 instead of February 1 as originally planned. There is no mention of postponing announced service cuts however except perhaps in Rendell’s dreams.

On December 21, 2004, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review wrote the following in an editorial going after the Port Authority: “throwing more money at these agencies with out fundamental operational reform is no fix at all and will only embolden them to continue their inefficient business as usual.”

The writing is on the wall. Public transit in PA will continue to get crumbs from the state, it’s only real funding source. The public will be encouraged by the media and foundation driven transit pimps to engage in feel good tactics like embarrassing the Port Authority management and complaining about the mythical rude and highly paid bus driver. Mean while plans will be made in Harrisburg to put the Port Authority under the same sort of corporate oversight as the City of Pittsburgh has been put under. Look in the very near future for public transit to get funding conditioned on union busting, destroyed pensions and benefits for employees, layoffs, service cuts, increased fares and the eventual privatization of the system.

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