Defending the Pittsburgh area taxpayers and businesses against the burdensome taxation and regulation of Big Government

Summary: On Jan. 12, the controller for Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) – who also serves as the city controller – delivered a presentation to the school board based on a special report released in October. The report highlighted deficiencies in the request-for-proposals (RFP) and competitive bidding procedures in awarding contracts, potentially costing the district millions of dollars. Given the district’s ongoing financial woes, compounded by the board failing to pass a much-needed school consolidation plan in November, any and all avenues to find cost savings must be seriously explored.

Introduction: In 2020 the COVID pandemic caused a major decline in public transportation usage as huge numbers of commuters worked from home instead of commuting to a workplace. The work-from-home culture has persisted for over five years and is still being realized in languishing passenger counts, not only for Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) but for other transit agencies around the country.

This Policy Brief examines five transit agencies to assess the degree of recovery from the huge bus and light rail ridership decline in 2020. Ridership and expenditure data for 2019 and 2024 (the most recent available) were analyzed for PRT and four systems, two with similar service area populations as PRT and two significantly larger. These include Baltimore (Maryland Transit Administration); Boston (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority); Denver (Denver Regional Transportation District) and Houston (Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County).