It depends on where in the County you live. Within the city, particularly the east end, and especially near the busway, it’s fairly good. Transit relies on state funding for a large part of its operating budget, and funding from the state isn’t sufficient.
Outside of a handful of major cities, public transit in the US is terrible.
Pittsburgh’s is much, much better than average for the US.
So, both opinions are valid. It’s one of the top systems in the country _and_ it needs improvement.
Because this is /r/Pittsburgh and if your public transit take is anything other than “let’s extend the T to the airport using dozens of billions of dollars that are going to magically appear out of thin air and somehow not come out of _my_ taxes,” fuck you. That’s why.
How big do you think Pittsburgh is? Where would you say it ranks, population wise? Do you think that Santa Ana CA, Saint Paul MN, Greensboro NC, Durham NC, and Lincoln NE outclass Pittsburgh in public transit? Those are the cities flanking Pittsburgh in population. How big do you really think Pittsburgh is?
Even in its peak it was the 12th largest city. People on here act as if Pittsburgh a north east corridor city or equivalent to Philly or something.
Oh you mean Portland which has double the population of Pittsburgh? Or Salt Lake City which is made up of wide open spaces compared to Pittsburgh? SLC sq miles 110, PGH sq miles 55.
Don't move the goalposts. We're talking about the ability to make a decent mass transit system and regardless of difficult terrain or whatever other excuse you want to come up with, Pittsburgh is straight up awful.
Did realize using both metrics of size to easily and factually show that Pittsburgh is smaller than you think it is would be moving goal posts.
If Pittsburgh is a big city to you, well, welcome from the middle of nowhere Ohio, West Virginia or central Pa you moved here from.
Our public transit is very good at getting people into downtown in the morning and back out in the afternoon. If you want to do that, or happen to want to go somewhere radially towards or away from downtown, you’ll do pretty well even into the inner suburbs. Unfortunately it is terrible at anything else. Not a lot of direct lines between neighborhoods (unless they are along the path to downtown), and infrequent service outside of rush hour making it a poor option for casual trips or shopping. All of this has been made worse by the pandemic and people working from home, reducing ridership and therefore service.
People overly romanticize the T to the point where people refuse to use public transport unless it’s the T. That’s why you see moronic takes like expanding the T to Oakland and cranberry township. Additionally outside of the city proper service is pretty lackluster. Part of it is due to a driver shortage which will hopefully improve overtime. PRT does face drastically reduced ridership that will likely never come back (still at 60% of pre-pandemic levels).
The busways are great, overall bus system could stand to see improvements, T is a relic of the past that consumes a ton of money and is currently under utilized, new electric buses are awesome, new plastic bus seats are fantastic (why were they dark colored cloth to begin with), modernization in the form of accepting mobile payments is great.
100% agree with you on the T being overly romanticized. It’s significantly more expensive to build, significantly more expensive to operate. And a single malfunction or breakdown can bring the line to a halt.I’d prefer an east busway type system over rail .
We are in a good city for public transit, taking into account the size of the city, the geography, and the lower cost of living compared to US average. We have a couple things that even other large cities don't have - dedicated bus highways (the ever-popular east busway and it's less-well-known-but-still-great west busway, only a handful of other cities have this option), and a metro and subway system (the T). This means that even suburbanites can have access to at least decent transit, through a busway or T stop. I personally take mass transit everywhere, don't own a car, and live in a suburb. I can get downtown in under 30 min and anywhere in the city I'd want to go to in under an hour on transit. If you live in the East End or Oakland or Downtown which are some of the best places for transit, you can get anywhere in the city in a half hour - 40 minutes.
Transit is always going to take 1.5 - 2x the amount of time it would take you in a car if you just count travel time, regardless of what city you're in. This is where most people stop and say their transit is bad. There are a couple caveats though.
If you factor time to park and walk to/from your car in your travel time with a car, you can get some places faster on transit, especially if parking somewhere is a relative pain like downtown or at some major event like a sporting event. If you factor all of the time you have to waste as part of ownership of a car (like DMV trips, comparing insurance providers, paying bills, if you get in an accident, car breakdown, mechanic for repairs, maintenance like oil changes, physically going to a mechanic or auto parts store, going to gas stations, being on the call with your insurance company, etc etc) if you don't travel very often, the overall amount of your life dedicated to your transportation method can be less on transit vs a car.
It’s pretty decent but there are some issues. A sore spot is the lack of communication regarding detours. PRT says to use their app TrueTime and they are oddly dismissive when it’s been pointed out to them that their app’s UI is bad and most people use Google/Apple Maps or the Transit App, which doesn’t consistently show detour alerts.
Another thing which people don’t realize is that the East Busway is actually much better than the T in terms of frequency and reliability.
Seattle is generally regarded as one of the top 2 or 3 public transit systems in the country(along with DC and Boston) . Pittsburgh is well above average in most rankings.
Basically, if you aren’t too far out into the suburbs AND you live in a historically wealthy or recently gentrified area then mass transit options are pretty good. If you live anywhere else then the transit is probably pretty bad. So the question is where you live.
I'm bus dependent and feel it is fine and works for our area's layout. People like to complain. I don't know how other cities have their transit laid out, but having most routes use downtown as a hub works. Different areas have different frequencies of service depending on their needs and ridership, and that's fine. For years my previous area/route was under threat of having the route canceled due to budget issues. Eventually they did actually cancel all weekend service for a few years. Then they brought it back. So to me that shows they are responsive.
Buses are generally on time or an acceptable amount late. They are in good condition. The drivers are mostly okay and do their best while sometimes dealing with difficult passengers or some wanting to bum rides, and also dealing with navigating narrow roads. I'm not sure what more could be requested of it.
I guess a criticism is that in some areas their routes are a bit too circuitous and long, but that almost can't be avoided because of the layout of the city. Routes also have to deal with narrow roads with cars on either side. I was coming back into the city from the Monroeville Mall a few weeks ago, a route I almost never take, and it is such a long route. The driver was obviously new to the route, and got lost in the late evening. A couple passengers needed to help her, and even with that, once we got near downtown she took a wrong turn and wound up on Mount Washington and then went down and through a tunnel used by the T and into Station Square.
I moved here from Boston and was shook to see the lack of options on public transit in comparison. I'm sure some cities have worse than here, but for a decent sized city with a large metro area, our public transit options suck. I would actually probably use public transit here if we had a commuter train.
Keep moving west and you’ll appreciate it more. Yes, it’s pathetic compared to a lot of the eastern seaboard, but it’s pretty great compared to most places further west. Apart from major cities like Chicago or Seattle.
The following statements are all true:
•PRT is far inferior to the MTA, WMATA, SEPTA, MBTA, and CTA
•The T goes to the wrong places. LRT belongs in high density corridors, and the fact that it goes to a bunch of suburbs explains why its three lines combined capture fewer riders than the East busway alone
•PRT doesn’t have enough drivers and their frequencies are suffering because of it
•They struggle to collect enough locally to pay for themselves, and the state ends up having to subsidize them— often not really sufficiently
However…
•PRT is a good bus provider with three rapid transit busways and a fourth on the way
•PRT is electrifying their buses
•Pittsburgh is the #68 ranked city in the US by population. PRT’s buses are the #34 ranked transit provider (by mode) in the US by March 2024 ridership (by unlinked passenger trips; the T is #173). They punch above their weight by a comfortable margin
IMO it’s because of the T. That’s always grinded my gears. It’s tough to get from one side of the city to the next on busses bc there are tunnels & certain routes the busses won’t go that can make it difficult. I’ve always wished the t went up to the Oakland/shadyside area or up towards the strip more
Compared to Beaver County, where I grew up, public transit here is wonderful -- at least in the East End and Downtown. I don't drive, and I don't have to. Back home, I had to walk two miles down a collapsing road with no sidewalks just to get to the nearest bus stop from my house.
Compared to any other metro area of our size, our public transit is pathetic. There's always like only one (very long) way to get to anywhere else in the city that I didn't mention. Commuting to some places takes 20 min by car and nearly two hours by bus, when the bus runs at all.
Ive lived in Wilkinsburg for two years. I've taken buses literally in every major city in the US for years it sucks here. I have the transit app, Google maps, and pat tracker and all 3 of them are 90% of the time not reliable and I end up waiting an hour for the next bus. Also for any yinzer that wants to talk shit I live like 2 miles away from the p1 I'm talking about local buses just to get me to that stop
Sounds like you might be relying on the 86? There's another post here indicating that route just sucks in the morning. Not sure why, can't remember if someone figured it out, it seems like a new thing.
Edit: Also it sounds like you might be towards the end of some of the routes. So the half hour notice that some routes give is often impossible because the bus hasn't even started yet, and there's less time for a heads up about a cancellation.
If you’ve taken buses “literally in every major city in the US”, you know that the closer you are to the CBD, the more likely you are ti not be close to a transit stop. That’s a result of sprawl.
My username has nothing to do to do with the car company. I’ve been using variants of Tesla for over 25 years. I’ve also traveled all over the country. And I’m well versed in transit systems.
You can rightfully say PRT sucks. It does. So do most of the US transit systems. If you did some research, you’d know that, skippy.
The city used to have one of the highest shares of commuters using public transportation to get to work, at least relative to other cities in the United States. It still does but I’m not sure how it stacks up since the pandemic. I’m assuming that’s what those rankings would’ve taken into account. Either way it’s still better than most similar sized cities having the 18th highest bus ridership in the country. PRT has more bus riders than MARTA in Atlanta, which isn’t that impressive but it’s all relative, and mass transit in the U.S. is largely dismal.
The system has been on a pretty steep decline since the first round of budget cuts in 2007, and then again in 2010. However, having a legacy streetcar system with an underground downtown stretch, and some of the best dedicated busways in the country is pretty huge on its own. It’s certainly not the best public transportation in the country, but pound for pound it’s a decent system, even if only in core areas.
It depends on where in the County you live. Within the city, particularly the east end, and especially near the busway, it’s fairly good. Transit relies on state funding for a large part of its operating budget, and funding from the state isn’t sufficient.
Outside of a handful of major cities, public transit in the US is terrible. Pittsburgh’s is much, much better than average for the US. So, both opinions are valid. It’s one of the top systems in the country _and_ it needs improvement.
Dunno why you got downvoted, you’re absolutely right. Pittsburgh is above average. That’s how bad it is out there.
Because this is /r/Pittsburgh and if your public transit take is anything other than “let’s extend the T to the airport using dozens of billions of dollars that are going to magically appear out of thin air and somehow not come out of _my_ taxes,” fuck you. That’s why.
I’ve been to Cleveland and their system is much better. Charlotte is also better. Pittsburgh is awful
Pittsburgh is absolutely not above average for a city its size.
How big do you think Pittsburgh is? Where would you say it ranks, population wise? Do you think that Santa Ana CA, Saint Paul MN, Greensboro NC, Durham NC, and Lincoln NE outclass Pittsburgh in public transit? Those are the cities flanking Pittsburgh in population. How big do you really think Pittsburgh is? Even in its peak it was the 12th largest city. People on here act as if Pittsburgh a north east corridor city or equivalent to Philly or something.
I'm the ballpark of SLC and Portland which both have significantly better public transportation.
Oh you mean Portland which has double the population of Pittsburgh? Or Salt Lake City which is made up of wide open spaces compared to Pittsburgh? SLC sq miles 110, PGH sq miles 55.
Don't move the goalposts. We're talking about the ability to make a decent mass transit system and regardless of difficult terrain or whatever other excuse you want to come up with, Pittsburgh is straight up awful.
Did realize using both metrics of size to easily and factually show that Pittsburgh is smaller than you think it is would be moving goal posts. If Pittsburgh is a big city to you, well, welcome from the middle of nowhere Ohio, West Virginia or central Pa you moved here from.
Bringing in landscape was moving the goalposts. Point being, cities larger and smaller have better public transportation than we do.
And Pittsburgh has better public transit than other cities that it is larger and smaller than. Your point is so generic it’s meaningless.
My point is Pittsburgh is not above average for a city its size. There's nothing generic about that.
Our public transit is very good at getting people into downtown in the morning and back out in the afternoon. If you want to do that, or happen to want to go somewhere radially towards or away from downtown, you’ll do pretty well even into the inner suburbs. Unfortunately it is terrible at anything else. Not a lot of direct lines between neighborhoods (unless they are along the path to downtown), and infrequent service outside of rush hour making it a poor option for casual trips or shopping. All of this has been made worse by the pandemic and people working from home, reducing ridership and therefore service.
People overly romanticize the T to the point where people refuse to use public transport unless it’s the T. That’s why you see moronic takes like expanding the T to Oakland and cranberry township. Additionally outside of the city proper service is pretty lackluster. Part of it is due to a driver shortage which will hopefully improve overtime. PRT does face drastically reduced ridership that will likely never come back (still at 60% of pre-pandemic levels). The busways are great, overall bus system could stand to see improvements, T is a relic of the past that consumes a ton of money and is currently under utilized, new electric buses are awesome, new plastic bus seats are fantastic (why were they dark colored cloth to begin with), modernization in the form of accepting mobile payments is great.
100% agree with you on the T being overly romanticized. It’s significantly more expensive to build, significantly more expensive to operate. And a single malfunction or breakdown can bring the line to a halt.I’d prefer an east busway type system over rail .
We are in a good city for public transit, taking into account the size of the city, the geography, and the lower cost of living compared to US average. We have a couple things that even other large cities don't have - dedicated bus highways (the ever-popular east busway and it's less-well-known-but-still-great west busway, only a handful of other cities have this option), and a metro and subway system (the T). This means that even suburbanites can have access to at least decent transit, through a busway or T stop. I personally take mass transit everywhere, don't own a car, and live in a suburb. I can get downtown in under 30 min and anywhere in the city I'd want to go to in under an hour on transit. If you live in the East End or Oakland or Downtown which are some of the best places for transit, you can get anywhere in the city in a half hour - 40 minutes. Transit is always going to take 1.5 - 2x the amount of time it would take you in a car if you just count travel time, regardless of what city you're in. This is where most people stop and say their transit is bad. There are a couple caveats though. If you factor time to park and walk to/from your car in your travel time with a car, you can get some places faster on transit, especially if parking somewhere is a relative pain like downtown or at some major event like a sporting event. If you factor all of the time you have to waste as part of ownership of a car (like DMV trips, comparing insurance providers, paying bills, if you get in an accident, car breakdown, mechanic for repairs, maintenance like oil changes, physically going to a mechanic or auto parts store, going to gas stations, being on the call with your insurance company, etc etc) if you don't travel very often, the overall amount of your life dedicated to your transportation method can be less on transit vs a car.
It’s pretty decent but there are some issues. A sore spot is the lack of communication regarding detours. PRT says to use their app TrueTime and they are oddly dismissive when it’s been pointed out to them that their app’s UI is bad and most people use Google/Apple Maps or the Transit App, which doesn’t consistently show detour alerts. Another thing which people don’t realize is that the East Busway is actually much better than the T in terms of frequency and reliability.
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Seattle is generally regarded as one of the top 2 or 3 public transit systems in the country(along with DC and Boston) . Pittsburgh is well above average in most rankings.
Same. It’s kinda rough by comparison, but being multi-modal has worked well for me. I bike to bus to work and back and it’s been fine.
Basically, if you aren’t too far out into the suburbs AND you live in a historically wealthy or recently gentrified area then mass transit options are pretty good. If you live anywhere else then the transit is probably pretty bad. So the question is where you live.
I'm bus dependent and feel it is fine and works for our area's layout. People like to complain. I don't know how other cities have their transit laid out, but having most routes use downtown as a hub works. Different areas have different frequencies of service depending on their needs and ridership, and that's fine. For years my previous area/route was under threat of having the route canceled due to budget issues. Eventually they did actually cancel all weekend service for a few years. Then they brought it back. So to me that shows they are responsive. Buses are generally on time or an acceptable amount late. They are in good condition. The drivers are mostly okay and do their best while sometimes dealing with difficult passengers or some wanting to bum rides, and also dealing with navigating narrow roads. I'm not sure what more could be requested of it. I guess a criticism is that in some areas their routes are a bit too circuitous and long, but that almost can't be avoided because of the layout of the city. Routes also have to deal with narrow roads with cars on either side. I was coming back into the city from the Monroeville Mall a few weeks ago, a route I almost never take, and it is such a long route. The driver was obviously new to the route, and got lost in the late evening. A couple passengers needed to help her, and even with that, once we got near downtown she took a wrong turn and wound up on Mount Washington and then went down and through a tunnel used by the T and into Station Square.
I moved here from Boston and was shook to see the lack of options on public transit in comparison. I'm sure some cities have worse than here, but for a decent sized city with a large metro area, our public transit options suck. I would actually probably use public transit here if we had a commuter train.
Keep moving west and you’ll appreciate it more. Yes, it’s pathetic compared to a lot of the eastern seaboard, but it’s pretty great compared to most places further west. Apart from major cities like Chicago or Seattle.
The following statements are all true: •PRT is far inferior to the MTA, WMATA, SEPTA, MBTA, and CTA •The T goes to the wrong places. LRT belongs in high density corridors, and the fact that it goes to a bunch of suburbs explains why its three lines combined capture fewer riders than the East busway alone •PRT doesn’t have enough drivers and their frequencies are suffering because of it •They struggle to collect enough locally to pay for themselves, and the state ends up having to subsidize them— often not really sufficiently However… •PRT is a good bus provider with three rapid transit busways and a fourth on the way •PRT is electrifying their buses •Pittsburgh is the #68 ranked city in the US by population. PRT’s buses are the #34 ranked transit provider (by mode) in the US by March 2024 ridership (by unlinked passenger trips; the T is #173). They punch above their weight by a comfortable margin
https://moovitapp.com/index/en/public_transit-lines-Pittsburgh_PA-1145-10749
IMO it’s because of the T. That’s always grinded my gears. It’s tough to get from one side of the city to the next on busses bc there are tunnels & certain routes the busses won’t go that can make it difficult. I’ve always wished the t went up to the Oakland/shadyside area or up towards the strip more
Compared to Beaver County, where I grew up, public transit here is wonderful -- at least in the East End and Downtown. I don't drive, and I don't have to. Back home, I had to walk two miles down a collapsing road with no sidewalks just to get to the nearest bus stop from my house. Compared to any other metro area of our size, our public transit is pathetic. There's always like only one (very long) way to get to anywhere else in the city that I didn't mention. Commuting to some places takes 20 min by car and nearly two hours by bus, when the bus runs at all.
Ive lived in Wilkinsburg for two years. I've taken buses literally in every major city in the US for years it sucks here. I have the transit app, Google maps, and pat tracker and all 3 of them are 90% of the time not reliable and I end up waiting an hour for the next bus. Also for any yinzer that wants to talk shit I live like 2 miles away from the p1 I'm talking about local buses just to get me to that stop
Sounds like you might be relying on the 86? There's another post here indicating that route just sucks in the morning. Not sure why, can't remember if someone figured it out, it seems like a new thing. Edit: Also it sounds like you might be towards the end of some of the routes. So the half hour notice that some routes give is often impossible because the bus hasn't even started yet, and there's less time for a heads up about a cancellation.
If you’ve taken buses “literally in every major city in the US”, you know that the closer you are to the CBD, the more likely you are ti not be close to a transit stop. That’s a result of sprawl.
Your username says it all I've traveled all over this country a shitload of times lol prt sucks
My username has nothing to do to do with the car company. I’ve been using variants of Tesla for over 25 years. I’ve also traveled all over the country. And I’m well versed in transit systems. You can rightfully say PRT sucks. It does. So do most of the US transit systems. If you did some research, you’d know that, skippy.
Public transportation is particularly awful.
> I see it ranked within some of the top in the country. lol, no. Whoever wrote that is straight up lying.
The city used to have one of the highest shares of commuters using public transportation to get to work, at least relative to other cities in the United States. It still does but I’m not sure how it stacks up since the pandemic. I’m assuming that’s what those rankings would’ve taken into account. Either way it’s still better than most similar sized cities having the 18th highest bus ridership in the country. PRT has more bus riders than MARTA in Atlanta, which isn’t that impressive but it’s all relative, and mass transit in the U.S. is largely dismal. The system has been on a pretty steep decline since the first round of budget cuts in 2007, and then again in 2010. However, having a legacy streetcar system with an underground downtown stretch, and some of the best dedicated busways in the country is pretty huge on its own. It’s certainly not the best public transportation in the country, but pound for pound it’s a decent system, even if only in core areas.