Pittsburgh PA - The head of the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) showed the total disregard for the ridership PAT has when he made a comment in the PAT's finance committee meeting.
"Right now, if I lived in Troy Hill, I'd be buying a pair of good walking shoes," quipped PAT's CEO, Steve Bland.
Troy Hill residents are outraged over the comment as well they should be. The comment takes a slap at the residents complaints over PAT's route cut plan that left the heavily transit dependent Pittsburgh community virtually isolated from service.
Bland's comments also show the total disregard that PAT management has for providing transit service. PAT management has always had somewhat of an attitude that came off as uncaring but over the past 10 years, this attitude has gone from one of indifference to outright contempt for the ridership.
It reminds me of comedian Lily Tomlin's Ernestine character which lampooned the telephone company arrogance of the time. "We don't have to care, we're the Port Authority *snort*" could easily come from Ernestine's lips these days.
Dan Onorato, the transit loving Democrat and Allegheny County Chief Executive who pushed hard for the cuts and wants to get out of paying the County share of financing for PAT, demands Bland apologize for the Troy Hill comment. While Bland should apologize for the comment, the hypocritical Onorato should apologize as well for demanding the residents of Troy Hill be isolated by insisting on the original hack and slash route cut plan.
Steve Bland, you've earned a Lance but you do show that you fit right into PAT's management structure. The complete arrogance of the comment as well as the total lack of understanding of how the route cuts will effect communities completes your assimilation into the PAT culture.
"Right now, if I lived in Troy Hill, I'd be buying a pair of good walking shoes," quipped PAT's CEO, Steve Bland.
Troy Hill residents are outraged over the comment as well they should be. The comment takes a slap at the residents complaints over PAT's route cut plan that left the heavily transit dependent Pittsburgh community virtually isolated from service.
Bland's comments also show the total disregard that PAT management has for providing transit service. PAT management has always had somewhat of an attitude that came off as uncaring but over the past 10 years, this attitude has gone from one of indifference to outright contempt for the ridership.
It reminds me of comedian Lily Tomlin's Ernestine character which lampooned the telephone company arrogance of the time. "We don't have to care, we're the Port Authority *snort*" could easily come from Ernestine's lips these days.
Dan Onorato, the transit loving Democrat and Allegheny County Chief Executive who pushed hard for the cuts and wants to get out of paying the County share of financing for PAT, demands Bland apologize for the Troy Hill comment. While Bland should apologize for the comment, the hypocritical Onorato should apologize as well for demanding the residents of Troy Hill be isolated by insisting on the original hack and slash route cut plan.
Steve Bland, you've earned a Lance but you do show that you fit right into PAT's management structure. The complete arrogance of the comment as well as the total lack of understanding of how the route cuts will effect communities completes your assimilation into the PAT culture.
2 comments:
It's the same in almost every city, where most transit customers are "transit dependent", but most transit decisionmakers are not.
That's very true however, various systems I've encountered over the years still have not reached the pinnacle of arrogance that PAT has over the past decade.
I'll grant you that since PAT is my local system I tend to be more critical of them since I'm exposed to them daily. The difference I've seen between PAT and other systems goes beyond just being more in tune with my local operation.
I'm closely observing the differences in handling the Pennsylvania funding crisis between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Philadelphia is taking a much more methodical approach to any cuts they will have to make. The are at least attempting to reduce the impact of the cuts through still having some form of service in most areas. PAT, on the other hand, quickly whipped out a hack and slash route cut plan which literally isolated entire communities and told the public that the changes were going through regardless of what happened in the public hearings.
For all the problems SEPTA has, they at least are much more frugal with money than PAT has been and come through audits without many problems. Then there's PAT who had millions in pure administrative waste which was spun to the public by the former head of PAT as indicating PAT was a "lean, mean fighting machine" and the management spending had been cut to the bare bones. At the same time he was attempting to defend why PAT is wasting money renting office space in the high rent district of town while the office building it owns, built in 1973, sat vacant.
I won't even get into the toilet paper incident at PAT which wasted hundreds of dollars in labor costs simply because of management vanity...
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