Jul. 30—Public transit agencies did not receive all the funds Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed in this year's budget address. The General Assembly should create a dedicated stream of funding for Pennsylvania's over-burdened transit systems, because leaving funds for this essential public service dependent on annual, and very political, negotiations will not provide the funds or the stability and predictability transit agencies need to plan for the future.
Pittsburgh Regional Transit is in dire straits. Ridership hasn't come close to rebounding to pre-pandemic levels while operating costs continue rising. The system has massive infrastructure upkeep and pension costs that can't be cut.
Then the PRT must pay for the debt-financed capital expenditures necessary to maintain the system. These essential expenditures include $750 million to replace a decrepit fleet of light rail vehicles and $300 million for a new bus garage. Ongoing construction on the Red Line is costing $150 million. The agency is still paying off debt from building out the North Shore Connector 20 years ago.
Meanwhile, the only way PRT is breaking even during the 2024 fiscal year is nearly $70 million in federal COVID stimulus funds. Once those are gone, deficits will begin to eat away at reserves. Even if the final budget had included the full $39 million boost proposed by Mr. Shapiro, PRT would still have a structural deficit.
Could the agency's resources have been managed better? Certainly. But ultimately this is a structural problem — aging infrastructure in a topographically challenging region with stagnant population and fixed agency pension obligations — that no amount of administrative cleverness can completely fix.
Service has already been dramatically cut back and can't reasonably be cut further. The trains and buses are crucial to Pittsburgh's economy. A significant number of people, particularly the people who make our region work, depend on the system to get to work and everyone depends on them getting there. The economic effect of a failed transit agency will be significant.
PRT will always rely on state funding for mere survival. The question is how much they will be and, at least as importantly, how consistent they will be.
This year, Mr. Shapiro proposed setting aside an additional 1.75% of state sales tax revenues for transit, or about $300 million statewide. The final figure hammered out in budget negotiations was much smaller. The scuttlebutt in Harrisburg is that this diminished boost is meant to be a stopgap until a more permanent solution for transit funding is nailed down in the fall.
That would be the ideal solution: Agencies can't have their ability to plan for the future determined by negotiators horse-trading over exactly how much sales tax to put in the commonwealth's transit trust fund.
From Philadelphia's always needy SEPTA system to PRT and all the smaller transit agencies in between, more generous and consistent state funding is essential to this necessary public service. Harrisburg must deliver — reliably, predictably and without the politics.
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