A local newspaper editorial shills for a proposal from the budget introduced by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to boost funding for public transit.
It offers all the usual, dubious and Political-Union Complex rationales in imploring the state Senate to pass the measure that would increase funding for Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) by about $40 million a year.
“Robust public transit isn’t a business or a luxury: It’s an essential government service that contributes to social vibrancy and economic competitiveness,” the editorial offers. “Senate Republicans should join with House Democrats and Mr. Shapiro in treating it that way.”
And, of course, the editorial blames the pandemic for PRT’s continuing woes.
But what the editorial ignores in toto are PRT’s long-running failings. To wit, costs long have been out of whack with peer transit agencies. And in some metrics, PRT’s costs rival those of much larger mass transit providers.
Additionally, allowing transit workers to strike has given PRT an oversized cudgel that has kept personnel costs higher than they should be.
As Eric Montarti, research director at the Allegheny Institute, noted last month, “If cost-saving measures had been taken long ago, expenses would not be where they are now.”
Expenses that indeed point to decades of mismanagement. Calling out that behavior is most reasonable as legislators in Harrisburg consider boosting PRT funding. And, indeed, it is the “bailout” that the editorial insists it is not.
Previous Allegheny Institute research “has shown repeatedly, year-after-year, that PRT’s costs on a revenue-hour basis are higher than most transit agencies across the nation, especially when adjustments are made for cost-of-living differences,” the think-tank scholar notes.
Throwing more money at the bloated agency should be a nonstarter until it gets its fiscal house in order.
Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s primary problem is that it has not been run like a business but as a government agency that treats the public money that sustains it as a bottomless pit.
Noted Steven Greenhut, writing in Reason magazine a year ago on California’s mass-transit mess (but quite applicable to mass transit in general):
“Instead of thinking like business people who need to meet the needs of customers … transit officials act like government bureaucrats who are married to high-cost government and union solutions, and mainly want to impose their preferences on us—rather than lure us into transit by offering high-quality transportation alternatives.
“Until they change their thinking, [the public] will continue to vote with their gas pedals.”
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
