Port Authority and many of its bus riders know the problem all too well: Thousands of times a year, buses are crowded to the point where some riders have to stand, sometimes causing drivers to completely pass stops because they can’t fit any more passengers.
Solving the situation isn’t as easy as buying more buses, not only because of the cost but also because the agency doesn’t have garage space for more than the 720 vehicles it has now.
But Port Authority is taking steps such as reviewing scheduling and testing a time limit on how many people get on at any one stop in an effort to keep the system moving and assure that more riders can get a seat.
The agency’s annual service report, released last week, highlighted the problem. The report showed that the number of trips when the bus was filled beyond seating capacity increased from 6% of trips in 2017 to 6.5% last year, an increase of about 9%.
Under the authority’s standards, the agency should consider additional service when a bus averages 20% above a full load during rush hours or averages a full load during all other hours. Last year, the agency’s busiest route, the P1 on the Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway between Swissvale and Downtown Pittsburgh, made more than 9,000 trips above seating capacity, more than half of those at more than 20% above.
Chief Development Officer David Huffaker said the agency is reviewing results of a test program in April where authority staff members were stationed at the major stop at Smithfield Street and Sixth Avenue.
Staff allowed riders to board the P1 for two minutes, then sent the bus on its way to avoid a crowded load and allow it to pick up passengers at other Downtown stops. The test also was designed to avoid queuing, where other buses were held up while the P1 was loading, and having the next P1 a minute or two behind having few riders because so many got on the first bus.
The authority also is reviewing whether it can assign more articulated buses that can hold more passengers to its busiest routes.
Mr. Huffaker said the agency also expects the proposed Bus Rapid Transit system between Downtown and Oakland to help ease crowded conditions by allowing buses to use exclusive lanes and have priority to proceed first through traffic lights. That $195.5 million system, which could begin in 2021, should allow buses to keep on schedule and smooth out passenger demand.
Seven of the agency’s routes with the most crowded trips will be in the BRT corridor.
In a related matter, the agency has delayed its annual review of requests for increased service until later in the year.
For the past three years, the agency has taken requests for extensions to existing routes through November, put them through an extensive review and ranked them according to importance and ability to provide them. Then, as part of the annual budget process every spring, staff recommended to the authority board whether the agency had funds available to approve any service extensions.
Under the state’s transportation funding act, the agency isn’t allowed to establish completely new routes.
Mr. Huffaker, who joined the agency last fall, said the authority is using a different review process and will keep a list from year to year and update it with new requests every year. It intends to announce any service changes by the end of fall.
Pittsburghers for Public Transit, which often lobbies for changes on behalf of neighborhoods, is satisfied with the new process, said Executive Director Laura Wiens.
“We realize there are likely changes necessary to that process,” she said. “The key question is, ‘How can we get the funding to provide service to people who need it.’
“It doesn’t benefit a lot of people if they approve one of 150 requests.”
Ed Blazina: eblazina@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1470 or on Twitter @EdBlazina.
First Published: June 23, 2019, 5:47 p.m.
Updated: June 23, 2019, 5:55 p.m.
