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Keystone Crossroads: Rust or Revival? explores the urgent challenges pressing upon Pennsylvania's cities. Four public media newsrooms are collaborating to report in depth on the root causes of our state's urban crisis -- and on possible solutions. Keystone Crossroads offers reports on radio, web, social media, television and newspapers, and through public events.Our partner stations are WHYY in Philadelphia, WPSU in State College and witf in Harrisburg. Read all of the partner stories here.Pittsburgh’s WQED joins the collaboration as an associate partner. Support for this project comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

How The Port Authority Is Trying To Make It Easier To Ride The Bus

Ryan Loew
/
90.5 WESA
A passenger boards a Port Authority of Allegheny County bus in Pittsburgh.

Have you ever tried to take a city bus without planning ahead? We're talking no Google maps, no bus tracker apps, no folded paper timetables. Just you, walking around a neighborhood, trying to catch the bus somewhere.

Probably not. Because in most places, that's not easy to do.

In many Pennsylvania cities, the bus stops are pretty basic: just a route number and maybe a destination. No map or timetable.  

But in Pittsburgh, that's about to change. The regional transit authority has hired a company called CHK America to overhaul its transit mapping system. CHK has designed transit maps for a lot of cities, including London, Nashville, Santa Barbara, and Washington, D.C. 

In Pittsburgh, a big part of the job will be simply putting maps at the system's approximately 7,000 bus stops.

Each bus stop will have a route map, says Heather Pharo, a spokesperson for the Port Authority of Allegheny County.

Read more of this report at the website of our partner Keystone Crossroads.