available on its website<\/a>, along with a comment form open until Sept. 30. PRT\u2019s board expects to vote on the changes in November and implement them in the second half of 2027.<\/p>\nIn addition to the in-person hearings, PRT has fielded more than 16,000 online comments regarding the Refresh, but remarked on its project page that \u201cdemand for transit in our region exceeds the funding, staffing, and operational capacity we\u2019re able to provide.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agency narrowly avoided cutting more than 35% of its service last year by plugging its $100 million budget deficit with state capital funds. PRT CEO Katharine Kelleman said at the time that even that drastic measure was only a \u201cband-aid fix.\u201d<\/p>\n
A dozen speakers took to the podium Thursday morning during the first session of the hearing, many pushing the board to modify the service changes like White was able to.<\/p>\n
Uptown resident Alisa Grishman, a wheelchair user, spoke broadly about how PRT\u2019s plan to prioritize shorter routes with more transfers would make it more difficult for her to travel. She said she already regularly deals with inconveniences such as drivers waiting for passengers to board before lowering the ramp for her and some accessible seats not functioning properly.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs bad as it is now, imagine these little delays accumulating and bogging down the entire system once there are twice as many transfers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Commuter Sean Duzek said that Downtown routes were already often late and inconvenient as they stood, and he was considering abandoning the buses altogether for his car if the proposed transfer routes went into effect.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that I can take two hours out of my day just to wait for a transfer if I miss the first one,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s bad enough whenever I\u2019m waiting for one of the high-frequency 61 or 71 buses, and it takes half an hour, even if they\u2019re supposed to be there every 15 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizing for change<\/p>\n
Several of Thursday\u2019s speakers were members of Pittsburghers for Public Transit, a grassroots advocacy group pushing for sustainable transit funding and access.<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s digital organizing director, Dan Yablonsky, led a canvassing session Downtown before the hearings, spreading awareness to riders and encouraging them to testify.<\/p>\n
Yablonsky said PRT\u2019s current refresh plan is a \u201chuge improvement\u201d across the board over previous iterations.<\/p>\n
Pittsburghers for Public Transit\u2019s more than 500 dues-paying members helped lobby for bus frequencies increasing in some areas, restored route connections, and even a simplified naming system that a member who used to work for PRT as a service planner suggested, Yablonsky said.<\/p>\n
But he remained concerned that many communities would be worse off as things stood. The group\u2019s analysis found that places like Reserve Township, Allegheny Commons and Kane Hospital on McKnight Road will lose all access to service, while parts of Manchester and the Hill District were among the neighborhoods losing most of their access.<\/p>\n
Route changes adding transfers in the past have hurt PRT\u2019s ridership, Yablonsky said, adding that the drop-off may continue if the proposed Refresh changes went into effect.<\/p>\n
Yablonsky admitted that trying to explain the massive and constantly evolving list of changes to riders was like asking them to drink from a fire hose. A lack of state funding also hamstrung PRT ability to create an optimal service plan for as many riders as possible, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps the biggest thing that we are harping on right now is that a redesign should not be managing the decline of a transit system,\u201d Yablonsky said. \u201cWhat we need is our politicians to really stand up and pass a dedicated and expanded funding plan for transit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sarah White was worried that her students at La Roche University were about to lose their only bus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-283590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}