I recently attended a Penguins game last week and realized why I’m not able to go more often.  The extra costs you incur on top of your ticket can really lighten your wallet.  Between some food, a drink, and a t-shirt, my financial situation wasn’t looking too good.  Although they were much too overpriced, they didn’t stick out to me as much as the cost of parking around the stadium.  Some lots were upwards of $25 for event parking.  This is far too much money to just have the convenience of taking your own car.  A great way to avoid this extraordinary cost would be to park at a trolley or bus stop and take one of them to the game.  Even if you don’t live by a public transportation stop, it still is sometimes better to just go to one and leave your car there.  Many trolley stops have free parking lots to leave your car in while you are at the game. 

Every stadium has many public transit stops in its vicinity.  Mellon arena is not even two blocks away from the trolley stop “Steel Plaza.”  This is much like the “Wood Street” trolley stop, merely a block away from Clemente bridge, which goes to PNC Park.  This is also the stop closest to Heinz Field.  This is not a secret to many sports fans, so space on these trolleys can sometimes be limited.  Usually there are multiple cars running to and from the games, transporting loads of black and gold attire in and out of the city.  You can find times on PORT Authority’s website http://www.portauthority.org/PAAC/Schedules/HandSchedules/tabid/330/Default.aspx.  If you aren’t able to take a trolley into town, you could always take a bus as well.  There are many places that buses drive inbound from.  From there you can ride the trolley downtown only for free, if that bus doesn’t go directly to the game itself.  Overall, if you are tired of paying ridiculous prices just to drive to your favorite stadium, try finding a public transit stop near you. 

Pittsburgh has been known for its incline since 1877.  It has been a tourist attraction and a great advantage to have in our city.  It scales the hill from Mt. Washington to just near Station Square, another great nightlife attraction.  The incline moves 400 feet in inclination, but the track is 800 feet long.  It is open every day of the week, even on holidays from 5:30 am to 12:45 am Monday through Saturday, and 7 am to 12:45 pm on Sundays and holidays.  Aside from the incline itself, the surrounding area has improved.  There was a lookout for the city installed in 1994.  It was a $650,000 project which some was used to move the employee booth to another spot to make room for the new lookout.  This new addition isn’t only to see the city below, it was also installed as a way riders would be able to see the workings of the incline.  It still has mostly original equipment, so it is interesting to see how it all works.  With this new platform, it was even named the second most beautiful view by USA Weekend Magazine.

The most admirable part of the incline is that it never has received government subsidies or any kind of financial support from anyone else.  It has been running for 131 years on only the fares it collects from riders and any money made through the gift shop inside.  The only other payment it receives is money from PAT Transit as a refund for any transfers or passes used.  There is free parking on the bottom side of the incline, so riders are able to only have to pay the incline fare to eat in Mt. Washington.  The incline has been helping out Pittsburgh for many years and is a great attribute to our public transportation.  If you haven’t ridden the incline before, I would advise you to give it a try. 

On July 26, 2008 the Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act was passed by the US Senate. It was a much needed answer to the raising price of energy. This act brought $1.7 billion to the many transit agencies across the country to expand their services and reduce fares. This was to help promote taking public transportation so everyone lowers their energy consumption. Since this time, gas levels have decreased somewhat, so the act did improve the economy. Another reason for the act was to help provide different modes of transportation other than individual cars, and help the public transportation keep up with the increased rider ship. Since gas prices have been at all time highs in the past few months, people have been relying more on buses. This has increased the congestion on the bus lines, making it less desirable to ride on. This increase in the investment in public transportation will allow for more buses on the roads, expansion of territory covered by public transportation, and to allow for cut downs in the fares. All of these put together should help to promote riding, pumping more money into public transportation, and therefore allowing for even more advancements. Some spend upwards of $100-$200 a week on gasoline, and from the beginning of the year until the Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act, that spending had increased over 40%. This made buying gasoline the second highest expense for the typical family, beating out food, clothing, and healthcare. With all of these in minds, people have been riding public transportation more than ever before in America. Now having this act, there is no telling what advancements can be made to the public transportation we know today. It is hopeful that the $1.7 billion will bring even more money into the system, and make it even more economical to ride public transportation.

Imagine sitting in a car on your way home from work, but not driving.  You are inching up to a light, only moving once every couple minutes, only to get stopped again by a red light.  Sound familiar?  This is an issue many people have every day; it’s traffic.  This is due to the increase of the people using private vehicles.  The increase in the amount of jobs and population feul the congestion fire plaguing your commute to and from work.  The population in the Unites States has gone up 30% from 1980 through 2005, along with an increase in the purchase in motor vehicles has increased 60%, and miles traveled grew 95%.  These are outrageous numbers, proving the mass amounts of cars we have driving on our roads every day.  A great solution to the great congestion problems we have today would be to invest heavier in public transit, and build up the transportation systems navigating our cities and surrounding areas.  By neglecting to do so, we have greatly increased costs of travel such as feul and time.  Already, statistics show that if public transportation didn’t already exhist, traffic would increase by over 27%.  This is just showing how for how many people riding buses and trolleys now, it makes that much of a difference.  This number could be much greater if more people were to realize how much it helps and start to utilize it as well.  To look at this from another angle, we will see this traffic problem from the shoes of a business owner.  Increased competition has led to battle of “fresher” products, congestion costs are increasing the time it takes to deliver these goods.  Since 75% of goods delivered to communities are by truck, the traffic has increased business costs.  More than just frustration comes with the long waits we experience at red lights.  Turns out it is driving our goods we purchase at the stores are getting more expensive.  The congestion problem can be solved by more people riding public transportation as much as possible, sometimes it’s just worth it.

Everyone around Pittsburgh has either heard about or ridden the trolley system running to many of the cities around downtown Pittsburgh.  It was established in 1985, and spans over 25 miles with 4 different lines running out to South Hills, Allentown, Overlook and Library.  It is a better alternative to driving to work or school, cutting costs on everything from gas, car upkeep, and parking.  It runs every day from 5 am to 1 am, spanning any time commuting may happen.  Fares are kindly priced daily, or for even more savings a weekly or monthly pass may be purchased. 

In 1985, the trolley system that Pittsburgh knows today was formed.  It was made to replace the old street car system running in the city, and Pittsburgh’s only light rail system.  This ran strong for a while, until about 14 years later there was a decision to make the trolley paths larger.  In 1999 The city develops its first plans to extend the T to the North Shore area, which called for two new stations in the North Side.    One being called the North Shore Station and the other the Allegheny Station.  Now approaching a decade later, more revisions are starting to rise.  More is supposed to be done around 2011 with the completion of the North Shore Extension project.  It will connect the light rail system to the North Shore with a station near the Carnegie Science Center.  This will be a great advancement because it will bring more stations to other places in the city.  This is not the only thing on people’s minds.  On the other hand, there are asperations of connecting the T to Oakland and the Pittsburgh International Airport.   This would be a great advantage for the many college students at the colleges surrounding Oakland.  The airport is another expansion which will help the business trips and vacations people need to fly to.  All of these expansions, if completed, will sure bring new numbers of travelers using public transportation.  Funding of these types of things is sometimes an issue, so we can only hope these do follow through.

Some people in the Pennsylvania Transportation Funding and Reform Commission have agreed that the Allegheny County public transportation needed work around 2 years ago.  Since this time, Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato has made that recommendation a condition of releasing more than $27 million a year in local funding.  A consultant was brought in to explain some of the different ways in which this local funding would be able to help.  He listed a few areas needing improvement.  To start us off, some of the buses run somewhat complicated schedules.  Some of the pickup times vary throughout the day differ from day to day, and some people are unable to keep up with the times.  Another improvement would be too long of bus routes.  It is reported that some of the bus routes go into places riders are very few and far between and could cut a lot of costs by taking it out of the route.  This would go along with their idea of making the other stops further apart.  The average distance betwenn stops is about 300 feet, making the bus stop far more times than needed, slowing your time of travel.  The last on the list is inefficient coordination of buses.  Many buses have been seen running back to back with the same destinations.  If there was a way to cut down on this it could save a lot of money throughout the year.  Many of these issues are being considered but many will not be implemented until later next year.  When they do come into play, it will hopefully stimulate public transportation earnings and profits, and in-turn improve the public transportation we know today.

Many people claim that they spend sometimes upwards of $200 a month on just gas. This could be compared to about $90 a month for a bus pass. In the long run, this savings is $110 month, coming to $1,320 a year. This is a very significant amount of money for just giving up your car to get to work and taking the bus. On the other hand, many people are not aware of the prices of bus passes, or just don’t know about them in the first place. The site for all of this information is at http://www.portauthority.org/PAAC/FaresPasses/Fares/tabid/122/Default.aspx. This is the website for the Port Authority of Allegheny County. Getting a pass is very simple, you can order them online on Port Authorities website, and can be shipped in about 2 business days.

To look at this in another way, public transportation, in many cases, can also take the place of having an extra car. This would be because maybe someone would be taking the bus to work, or just for general purposes. If this were to be true, this would save a family approximately $6,251 annually, depending on the type of car you are doing without. This would include all of the upkeep of an additional car, gas, and insurance. Having an extra car is a convenience that is very easily done without. Using public transportation saves money for you no matter how you look at it. If everyone were to use public transportation, it could save more money than people think. In fact, Americans living in areas served by public transportation save $18 billion annually in congestion costs. If more people were to ride public transportation, it would bring more capital into Port Authority’s budget, and more places could be served with buses. This would create even greater savings because more people would be in areas served by public transportation. So to break in down farther, the more people riding public transportation, the more everyone is going to save!

With the new craze about going green sweeping the country, people have been thinking of new and better ways to improve the environment. This blog addresses one of the best ways to help preserve the environment, taking the bus. For every passenger mile traveled, using public transportation is twice as fuel efficient as private automobiles. I am a student at the University of Pittsburgh so like all my classmates I get to utilize most public transportation for free. This has saved me bundles of money (although college tuition more than makes up for it), and helped to lessen the amount of gas I use. In fact, according to the American Public Transporation Association, per year, public transportation saves more than 855 million gallons of gasoline, or 45 million barrels of oil. This is equal to about one month of oil imports from Saudi Arabia; three months of the energy that Americans use to heat, cool and operate their homes; or half the energy used to manufacture all computers and electronic equipment in America. With more people riding public transportation, these shocking numbers could greatly increase. Another hot topic in society right now is global warming. A great contributor is CO2 emissions from cars. Using public transportation already cuts down on emissions by over 7.4 million tons a year. My goal in bringing to light these figures is to show people what a difference just taking the bus to work could make. These other points aside, using public transportation cuts down on the amount of traffic on the roads. Not only this, but people taking buses typically walk to the bus stops. With not much time to get exercise into people’s lives, this would be an opportunity to at least get some physical activity. Safety is something else that can come into play. Buses are one of the safest modes of transportation in the United States. Lastly, public transportation is a great way to meet some new people and connect to others. I have been able to talk to some pretty interesting people on the bus, and learn about new things. Looking at public transportation on a social platform is not something people typically do, but in some other countries it is not out of the ordinary to just walk up to people on the bus and start talking to them.

There are many reasons that public transportation can be beneficial to society, and my hopes upon bringing up this issue is to raise awareness of all the good things that come along with it.