It’s interesting to note that the majority of the customers thus far for Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s (PRT) much ballyhooed “free bulk bus pass” program are – drum roll, please – taxpayer-funded organizations.
As the Post-Gazette reports it, “any organization can buy 31-day passes for $28 and then give them to members at no cost.” The regular cost of the passes is $97.50.
The program is officially known as “PRTner Pass.” And pass holders can use them to go anywhere, not just to their workplace.
The City of Pittsburgh, the largest participant so far (and by far) is spending more than a quarter-million dollars (about $275,000) to give 750 Downtown city employees free bus passes.
Again, public money. Taxpayer dollars.
Allegheny County officials say they are considering joining the program as well.
Again, public money. Taxpayer dollars.
Do recall that these are two government jurisdictions that raised taxes last year, continue to face a variety of very serious financial issues and, in a phrase, are sucking for air to keep their finances and operations afloat.
And do recall that PRT also is no stranger to that great sucking sound. Perhaps it is hoping to gain more in these volume deals in order to juice ridership numbers to convince Harrisburg, if not the feds, that it needs even more taxpayer dollars to serve these new, free, riders?
Things that make you go “Hmmmmm…”
But wait, it gets better:
The Tribune-Review reports that PRT “can offer such a sizable discount [of about 70 percent] because employers participating in the program have to pay for all eligible employees — even those who do not use the passes.”
“Because not everyone will actually use the passes, PRT will ‘at least break even’ on the program,” a PRT spokesman said.
Ah, yes, given the heavy mix of taxpayer-funded organizations now using this program, what a great example this is of one taxpayer-funded group sticking it to another taxpayer-funded group, at taxpayer expense, mind you.
The slicksters are at it again, eh?
The “PRTner Pass” program was championed by the advocacy group Pittsburghers for Public Transit, which contends free public transit is a fundamental “right.”
If not a “public good,” others, including PRT itself, contends.
But as Jake Haulk, president-emeritus of the Allegheny Institute, reminded back in 2022, to claim PRT is a “public good” is “buncombe.”
PRT “is a government-operated monopoly, not a public good,” the Ph.D. economist admonished then, noting, too, that transportation services can and have been provided by the private sector.
Additionally, such a free pass program totally ignores PRT’s long running history of extraordinarily high cost and inefficient operations when compared to not only peer organizations but those much larger.
As we’ve often stressed, throwing good money after bad won’t solve that problem. It only condones it. And likely deepens it.
And given PRT’s continuing problems, it amounts to “damage control passing itself off as good government,” Haulk concludes in assessing “PRTner Pass.”
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
