The Butler County Transit Authority might be running bus service from central Butler County into the North Side in 2014 if all goes according to plan. Because of the passage of the transportation bill in 2013 the Authority wants to have natural gas powered buses (it plans on purchasing six more) and an expanded park and ride lot for commuters. There might then be a route that would run along Route 68 to I-279 to the trolley station near the stadiums.
Of course, due to monopoly rules the Authority won’t open its doors while traversing through Allegheny County—it will just pick up and drop off at the station unless the Port Authority and the Butler Transit Authority come to some kind of agreement. Likely both are waiting to see what will be the end result of the PENNDOT study on what impact consolidation of agencies and/or privatization of service would have on operating costs of transit. The study might find some cost advantage in having the planned Butler route terminate at the County border and passengers given free transfers to PAT buses rather than coming all the way to the stadiums.
When we looked at several of the mass transit providers in southwestern Pennsylvania in 2011 we found that the Butler Authority was already contracting out service and operated less than 1% of the total unlinked bus trips in the region. Butler’s cost per bus trip was about $1 more than PAT, while its driver wage on average was $10 less. The executive director of the Butler Authority was quoted in an article on the PENNDOT study as saying “If they can deliver the same service with substantial savings, how can you argue?…[but] I’m not sure how they’re going to do that.”
