PA: What possible massive PRT bus cuts could mean for Pittsburghers: 'It would be very difficult'

Pittsburgh Regional Transit's impending service cuts have come as an unwelcome surprise for sanitation worker Kenneth Jones, whose bus route home, the 51 to Carrick, is facing elimination.

Mr. Jones, who helps to clean Downtown as a part of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership's Block by Block initiative, said the closest T stop to his home is too far away to walk and he didn't know what he would do if his route was shut down.

"It would be very difficult for me," he said. "I don't have a car, so I depend on buses."

As PRT plans to drastically reduce its service next February due to a lack of state funding, many Pittsburghers have been left reeling and are searching for a plan B to get where they need to be.

On Thursday, PRT announced that 41 of its 100 bus routes and the Silver Line of the T were facing elimination without a $117 million increase in state funding next year, along with compounding annual increases that would offset its $1.8 billion shortfall over the next decade.

Ninety-eight of the 100 bus routes will have service negatively affected in some way and all services after 11 p.m. will be canceled, said PRT CEO Katharine Kelleman.

Mikhal Hall, 16, of Wilkinsburg, rides the 79 bus every day to his job in Lawrenceville. Although he plans to get a car next year and thought he would largely be spared from the worst of the cuts, he couldn't say the same for his neighborhood.

"Nobody's going to be able to get anywhere," he said. "There's a lot of people on the streets in Wilkinsburg that normally rely on the buses to get Downtown and get to other places, so it's going to be worse for them to travel."

Mary Stefano, 67, of Mt. Lebanon, currently volunteers at Carnegie Science Center on the North Side, which frequently has events that run until late at night. She will be stuck paying for an Uber every time she was there past 11 p.m., she said.

And Ms. Stefano isn't just worried about her transit situation.

"The people that work in the hospitals late, like to [midnight], they're not gonna have a bus to get home," she said.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, responded to the cuts by touting his budget proposal which has passed a vote in the state House of Representatives that would float around $40 million to PRT in 2026. That figure is still well short of the $117 million Ms. Kelleman said her agency needs next year.

Mr. Shapiro placed the blame at the feet of state Senate Republicans, whom he said have "refused to act."

"I've put forth a plan that is paid for — we have the dollars to do it," he said. "We've got to make sure that that mom trying to get home to her kids, the dad trying to get to work, the student trying to get to college who relies on PRT, who relies on mass transit across the state, has the ability to do that," he said.

Ms. Stefano voiced her support for Mr. Shapiro's funding plan but stressed that public transit should be a bipartisan issue since it affects everyone.

"I think he's trying his best, but Republicans don't want to do it," she said.

Downtown resident Ben Dyba lamented that the city had another issue to deal with along with crime, aging housing stock, and the recent downturn of the economy.

"You're going have more people out of work that can't afford cars or anything to get around — they won't have public transportation to use on top of that," he said. "It's just one problem after another."

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