Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Mr. Bland Comes to Pittsburgh
In his first major newspaper profile, new Port Authority chieftain Stephan Bland outlined his vision for the bus and rail system. His quotes on making the system less Downtown oriented and moving away from the “hub and spoke” system and making the authority “less bureaucratic” sound encouraging.
But Mr. Bland’s comments on the biggest landmines facing the transit system right now show that he is flying under the radar and not willing to take on the challenges. For instance, he views the North Shore Connector as a done deal and that fighting it would make the region look bad in the eyes of the Feds, jeopardizing future funding. In other words, he has adopted the party line of “lukewarm enthusiasm”. This raises the question: why would the cancelling the wasting of enormous amounts of money make the region look bad?
Outsourcing and changes to pensions? “Easier said than done”, he says. The unionized employees of the authority? “Very committed to the organization”, which is not hard to imagine considering that labor peace was achieved before his arrival and the union won’t have to face competitive contracting proposals in the near future. Solving long term problems? He looks to the “Transportation Funding and Reform Commission…to go to root causes”, which likely means a new tax or a tax increase.
Perhaps Mr. Bland’s most telling quote was where he said that if nothing happened at the state level, the authority would have to do “some significant things at all levels”, meaning a lot of hardship at the Port Authority. And that would cause the “era of good feelings” at the authority to quickly dissipate.
But Mr. Bland’s comments on the biggest landmines facing the transit system right now show that he is flying under the radar and not willing to take on the challenges. For instance, he views the North Shore Connector as a done deal and that fighting it would make the region look bad in the eyes of the Feds, jeopardizing future funding. In other words, he has adopted the party line of “lukewarm enthusiasm”. This raises the question: why would the cancelling the wasting of enormous amounts of money make the region look bad?
Outsourcing and changes to pensions? “Easier said than done”, he says. The unionized employees of the authority? “Very committed to the organization”, which is not hard to imagine considering that labor peace was achieved before his arrival and the union won’t have to face competitive contracting proposals in the near future. Solving long term problems? He looks to the “Transportation Funding and Reform Commission…to go to root causes”, which likely means a new tax or a tax increase.
Perhaps Mr. Bland’s most telling quote was where he said that if nothing happened at the state level, the authority would have to do “some significant things at all levels”, meaning a lot of hardship at the Port Authority. And that would cause the “era of good feelings” at the authority to quickly dissipate.
