Among the Pittsburgh Regional Transit service changes that will take effect Oct. 1 are unpopular cuts to highly-traveled routes which once ran all the way into Downtown, but will instead now reverse course in Oakland. Riders who want to continue Downtown along the 61D, 71A, 71C, and 71D routes will instead have to transfer beginning on Sunday.
The route they traveled will become the agency’s bus rapid transit route from Downtown through Uptown to Oakland and beyond. Construction of the BRT began earlier this month.
Transit officials say that the overwhelming majority of those riders have other options that will allow them to take a single bus into the city center. And they say the new routing addresses a longstanding concern: Because nearly every bus route serves Downtown in what is called a “hub and spoke” system, the area is prone to “bus bunching,” in which buses pile up in the Golden Triangle one right after another.
Still, at a rally Friday morning to oppose the changes, Nicole Gallagher told a small crowd that the planned cuts are at odds with the transit agency’s aim to improve service.
The plan is detrimental “for people with disabilities, for older adults, for parents with children, for people just carrying their groceries home,” said Gallagher, a community organizer with Pittsburghers for Public Transit. “We’re here to organize for a better transit system in this city for everybody.”
Gallagher stressed the cuts will reduce direct access to employment centers like Mercy Hospital and Duquesne University, as well as the city’s East End. That swath of the city includes Shadyside — which multiple speakers mentioned for its many grocery stores and the Hillman Cancer Center — as well as Highland Park, Homewood, Larimer, and Wilkinsburg.
The agency is “alienating whole communities by eliminating bus service” just as Allegheny County tries to emerge from the pandemic, said Ross Nicotero. He leads Local 85 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents 2,200 PRT employees.
At a PRT board meeting later Friday morning, nearly 30 people addressed the members about the time and financial costs of requiring people to transfer buses to get to their final destination.
Verna Johnson’s said her journey Downtown will now require three buses, instead of two.
“Does PRT care?” she asked. “You have not proven to us that the benefits of this BRT project outweigh the harm it will create.”
Many speakers said PRT’s service is already late and often overcrowded – but transit agency officials said that was precisely the reason changes are needed.
The “logical answer” to a bus that’s late or so full that a rider can’t get on “would be maybe to shorten that route or put [on] more buses,” said PRT CEO Katharine Kelleman. “You can’t put more buses if you’re not going to find them somewhere.”
Kelleman said that by reducing the number of buses going into and out of Downtown, PRT “has an opportunity to improve the entire network” by saving time and resources that can be redeployed elsewhere.
Roughly 12,300 people ride the 61 and 71 series buses every day. When the planned changes take effect Sunday, just 1 percent of riders will have no choice but to transfer buses, said Amy Silbermann, the agency’s deputy chief planning officer.
“About 98 percent of riders in this corridor will still have a one-seat ride at their same bus stop,” she said. “Ninety-nine percent of riders … will still have access to a one-seat ride within a five-minute walk.”
Both Silbermann and Kelleman acknowledged that transfers can be onerous and no one likes them. But Kelleman said “where you go should be more reliable with this change.”
PRT first presented the plan to end the 61D, 71A, 71C, and 71D in Oakland in 2018. It was dubbed “the frequency preservation plan” because it was a major reversal from initial configurations floated for BRT. An earlier proposal envisioned ending the 61A, 61B, 61C — which connected Downtown rides with the Mon Valley — in Oakland, as well. Under that proposal those riders, along with those on the 71A, 71C, and 71D, would have been required to transfer to the 61D, 71B, and the P3 for the ride into the city center.
Riders, advocates, and groups like Pittsburghers for Public Transit spent a year pointing out that the plan would harm residents most in need of better connections to jobs and services. The agency reversed its decision on the 61 series, a move that was cheered as a major victory at the time. But PRT officials said they found that people along the 71A, 71C, and 71D really did have other options, and has kept the plan to short-route them.
