BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

0.5%

Due to mechanical issues with my bike, I decided to take the bus to Oakland yesterday. I should start off by saying that it normally takes me about thirty minutes to get to Oakland by bike. So PAT decided earlier this year that the bus that used to be two blocks from my house is not profitable enough, so now my closest bus is a twenty five minute walk (about a mile) out to Brownsville road. The Carrick bus is scheduled for every ten minutes (Seriously?!). So the bus came within minutes and soon I was in town. Now I need to catch any 61/71 heading outbound. Again my wait was minimal, and I was on my way. So all of the bus trips went about as fast as they probably could have gone and this is a best case scenario. Bottom line – my trip from my house to Oakland took me an hour and fifteen minutes! And don’t forget that I also had to walk about a mile mostly uphill -one set of city stairs has 97 steps! So who would do this on a regular basis? I’m surprised the drop in ridership was only 10%

EDITED, this part:



They compare March (colleges in session,crappy weather) with April/May (colleges out of session for part of that, better weather meaning some people may bike or walk). With no mention of being seasonally adjusted.

I think a year over year comparison might be a better one. (I think as Marko says, it would show an even bigger drop.)



Is wrong as @Steven points out. Ignore me, apparently I can't read.

THIS PART is still valid:

I really wish the Powers-That-Be would see this and realize that the importance of making sure PAT doesn't need to make cuts like this. (However that would happen... like you know amending the state constitution so that road tolls/gas could help pay for it, or something.)

I'd love, LOVE to take the bus on days that I don't ride my bike. But last time I checked, it would take me almost 2 hrs if I didn't get the timing down exactly right.

They're doing a year-to-year comparison, according to the article. They're not comparing March with April/May.

@ Marko - You could probably trim some of the time if you transferred on Carson Street to the 54, 75, 81 or 83 rather than go all the way in to downtown and then all the way back to Oakland.

@ieverhart You could probably trim some of the time if you transferred on Carson Street to the 54, 75, 81 or 83

Only if you ahd the scedule for those buses with you - or else you might double travel time while waiting for one to come by.

Furthermore, for those of us closer to the city whose busses are now running less frequently, missing the bus went from "oh, I'll just wait another ten minutes for the next one" to "I can walk there before the next bus arrives in half an hour!"

Yea, unless I roll the dice and win the "is the bus late or early today?" game, I can just bike just about anywhere faster.

@ieverhart, yea I sometimes take the 54, but that requires coordinating trips, which usually doesn’t work for the time I'm leaving. My point was to show how horrible commuting by bus has become from my hood. I prefer to just bike, and will as soon as I get my bottom bracket fixed (I ordered a threadless BB since Gerry suggested not tapping it).

They cut the 42 and (while I've seen 1 of the regular riders on the 41) the route was Oakland to Mt Lebanon, so, ain't no one going to be just biking that one every day instead.

I'm part of that ridership drop. Not having a job to go to is some of it, but I've been putting some serious miles on the bike on trips to and from town. Yes, the bike is faster than the bus from McCandless -- except for the O12, which is truly an express; I can't easily catch up with one in the car, unlike the old 13A.

Three trips by bike in the past week, both directions, and three more coming before the weekend is out. Twice up Federal Street in a week, and tonight up Rising Main Avenue's 371 steps.

The TDP may have made the system effective, but the 15% cuts made it unusable. Just like I said would happen.

Good riddance to the 42. It tried to hit me on multiple occasions. My favorite is when the driver got out of the bus and called me a word I won't even hint at here. Port Authority is out of control.

First thing I thought of: "They stabbed it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast."

The good news is if they continue to cut service, they won't have to kill it, it will die a natural death of atrophy. So much for Pittsburgh being an actual "City", livable or otherwise.

*REAL* cities have usable mass transit.

Lately I've noticed many drivers pressing the buttons on the panel 4 or 5 times when 1 or 2 people get on. I'm pretty sure that's not correct procedure...

Good riddance? Replacing a bus with a bunch of cars makes things better? I don't buy that.

Whatever problems PAT has, the alternatives are worse. There's no "good news" about what's happening to PAT and in case you missed it, it's not just Pittsburgh where this is happening but other non-"Real Cities" like New York and Chicago.

I'm pretty sure if a car tries to hit me twice I can get a plate number and have a talk with the cops.

When a bus does that I get told by the local cops they can't do anything and told by the Port Authority police "we told the guy not to do that again".

I say dump the whole system - all the people in it from bottom up. Then give the budget and resources to the TransitGuru guy (I forget if that's his real handle) and let him rebuild a system that works with people who will help the system work at its best. He's passionate, he's informed, he seems rather competant and rational, and he has no political ax to grind. Beyond a year or two of growing pains, it couldn't be worse than this slow death by internal hate cancer the system seems to be suffering from.

As of June 1st i quit riding the bus also. I rode to work when i could but would sometimes take the bus when feeling lazy.Or incline when i did in fact ride into downtown.I just moved off of Mt. Washington to Friendship and have been riding my bike to and from work plus some everyday.Glad to not 'need' to ride the bus now.

When I found out that the contract for the drivers is unavailable to the public, I figured we need to kill it.

I still don't understand how that could be.

Be careful what you wish for...

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11167/1154086-147-0.stm

I don't understand how anyone thinks the port authority is any more messed up than the rest of the transportation system - you know, the system where everyone drives cars. Have fun wishing for the demise of the former as long as you understand all its going to lead to is more of the latter. There's not going to be any magical perfect transit system rising like a phoenix from the ashes of PAT.

I know that death urge of mine is not a policy position. Although this business of employees who money, as far as I know, comes from fares and taxes and NOT have their contract public? I don't believe that is even legal.

Time to look for another scapegoat, I guess... http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11168/1154324-147-0.stm

It must be frustrating to have regular bad encounters with a couple or three bus drivers. I guess that's where people are coming from when they start telling me things like maybe bike to work day shouldn't be allowed (or the ever popular "get off the road") based on their interaction with 2-3 cyclists. I say we're not all like that and that a bad cyclist would be no better behind the wheel of a car. For some reason they'd rather get rid of all cyclists just to get shet of the bad ones. Since this would disrupt my life I can't say I agree with their views, even while I don't condone inappropriate actions of others. Draw parallels as needed.

salty - maybe the ridership on the new Lenzner lines would be better if they publicized it. Like this is the first time I'd heard of it.

Lenzner runs the shuttles from Westinghouse Drive in Monroeville to Westinghouse Drive in Cranberry. Monthly passes for Employees only - company subsidizes 2/3 of the fee but employees are still on the hook for $110 of it per month (yup, your math is correct). For people who's alternative option is driving a pickup truck from Greensburg to Cranberry, even unsubsidized makes sense. For me, once I had to pay the subsidized cost, it no longer became worth it.

Sprite - I like your logic. Unfortunately I think the worst bad apples in the bunch are all the ones making decisions for all these years, allowing their corporate culture of self hate to permeate and infect the rest. The only trickle down effect I've personally seen is corporate culture - when the management truly thinks that acting professionally and looking after customers and the public is priority #1, so will the rest of the company. When they think that schedule is king and all others are speedbumps, so the rest follow.